Episode 50, Part 1: Doug's in the Money

This episode begins with Doug lamenting his current financial troubles. He's broke, and his only option is to cash in his pennies. I guess it's nice that he's not the type of dick to pay for things with pennies. He wraps them up and takes them to the bank.

Inside the bank, the security guard jokes with Doug, making him uncomfortable. He calls Doug by his middle name and makes a joke about Doug robbing the place. Doug tries to play along, but he easily recognizes the security guard as a desperate loser starving for attention and quickly moves on.

When he gets up to the counter, he has to wait for the teller to finish dealing with an old woman. The old woman drops a pen and Doug hands it back to her.

She thanks him and says she'd lose her head if it wasn't bolted to her neck. After she leaves, Doug puts his penny rolls onto the counter and greets the teller by name. I guess Doug does this a lot. The teller makes a joke about Doug buying out the bank and he says no. He's just cashing in his pennies. She counts the rolls and gives Doug $5.50. He turns to Porkchop and suggests they go to the Honkerburger for milkshakes. That $5.50 is not going to last.

Outside, a car drives by and splashes water all over Doug and Porkchop. This is one of the most dick moves you can pull. As a driver, it's easy to see if you're going to splash someone, and it's typically pretty easy to avoid. This car was the only car on the road and made no effort to avoid splashing Doug. It didn't slow down, or move towards the other lane to avoid the puddle. The driver went right through a huge puddle and sped away. The shock of this causes Doug to drop his money, and that is how he finds the envelope full of cash.

Doug checks the envelope, saying, "whose do you think it is?" The ink on the outside is unreadable because of the rain, so Porkchop barks twice. Doug replies, "I know. Finders keepers, losers weepers." Porkchop is just thinking about all the umbrellas and dog-sized raincoats he could buy, clearly.

Doug fantasizes about who might have lost the money. What if they really need it.

Doug imagines this homeless child is talking to her pink dog about all the money they saved for the winter and asking what they are going to do now. The dog shivers in response to her question, and then Porkchop literally pops the fantasy with a needle. Like a balloon.

Because that just wasn't crazy enough already, Porkchop also replaces Doug's fantasy by blowing up a different scenario. Like a balloon.

In this fantasy, the homeless girl and dog are fairies, I guess, and the girl actually decides to put the money in the puddle for Doug to find. It is more than troubling that Porkchop has the ability to replace Doug's fantasies.

Doug immediately decides to do the right thing, so he goes to the police station to turn in the money. Everyone in the station is highly amused.

Doug says they made him feel like a freak in a sideshow. Naturally, he imagines what this would be like. An old school freak show announcer tells everyone to step right up and see Otis the Frog Boy, the Volcano Girl, and their feature attraction, Doug! The Amazing Honest Boy!

"He found a fortune and gave it away!" The crowd laughs.

The next day at school, everyone knows what Doug did. Roger is giving him shit about it and calling him a weirdo.

Why does anyone know? If the police made Doug feel like a freak for turning in the money, why did he then go blab about it to his classmates? Middle school kids will make you feel like a freak for far less. They don't even need a reason to make you feel like a freak. Just turn in the money and move on. There's no use in letting more people make you feel regret for doing what you immediately knew was right. After Roger leaves, Doug asks the rest of the table if he's the only one that would've done what he did. They all speak at once, muttering things that you can't distinguish, and get up to leave all at once. They all leave their leftover lunch trays and apple cores. There are too many apple cores sitting on the table. They've made a horrible mess and just left it there for some unappreciated cafeteria worker. Middle school kids suck.

Doug then asks Skeeter if he thinks he's a weirdo. Skeeter says, "sure," and jams straws into his nostrils. "Who says there's anything wrong with being a weirdo?"

At home, Doug still feels shitty and tells his family that he just thought it was the right thing to do.

Judy scoffs and claims that right and wrong are bourgeois concepts. According to her, finding that money was Doug's destiny. I don't know how right and wrong are bourgeois but destiny isn't, but there you have it. Doug gets angry at her and Theda finally tells him she's proud of him and she thinks he did the right thing. Doug says, "thanks, mom," in that way that really says, "of course you'd say that. I could murder someone and make a pillow out of their skin and you'd fawn over the great job I did of sewing the damn thing together." Phil only wants to know how much money Doug found. Doug finally imagines the possibility that he did a stupid thing. He thinks it might have been the chance of a lifetime. This of course means Doug is Mr. Roarke. Roger is Tattoo.

Tattoo-Roger shouts for ze plane and the Funnie family steps off the plane with Pattie and Skeeter. Doug welcomes them to Funnie Island, "where all your fantasies come true." He tells Tattoo-Roger to show them to their rooms, but Pattie stops to say, "oh Doug, you're my fantasy." I particularly like the fact that on an island where all your fantasies come true, Roger is a dwarf that works for Doug. Just how much money did he find? I doubt it was that much.

So after a while, Doug has forgotten about the whole thing until the cops call him and ask him to come to the station. At the station they reveal that the money is now legally Doug's, as it has been 30 days since he turned it in and no one claimed it.

Doug runs from the police station shouting about how rich he is until he blindly bumps into Roger and falls on his ass.

Rickets? Roger makes a joke about Doug rolling pennies, but Doug shuts him up by showing him the cash. Roger quickly changes his attitude and helps Doug up off the ground. It's true. People without money suck and deserve to be mocked, while those with money must be treated as better. Doug shows off the cash to more people and starts to strut down the street, followed by a crowd of pathetic individuals. Shop owners run outside to offer their services to Doug.

Strangely, Doug says he doesn't feel like a weirdo anymore. He feels rich. He is completely backwards. Being happy about having strangers kiss your ass and follow you should make you feel like a weirdo at the very least.

At home, Doug begins gleefully counting the money. For some reason, Porkchop is thoroughly annoyed with Doug. I guess he's supposed to hate the annoying shit Doug is saying about nice guys finishing last, and how it pays to be honest, but it just comes across as petty jealousy. 30 days ago he wanted Doug to keep the money outright. Now that he's come by it honestly, Porkchop is not happy. Not a good sign.

As Doug is nearing the end of the stack, Porkchop turns on the tv. In a magic moment that could only happen in a tv show, Doug and a woman on the tv say, "14,447 dollars" at the same time. Doug hears it and pauses. He turns to see a news story where a woman is crying about how she got the money from the bank, went to get into her car, and realized the money was gone. She says she'd lose her head if it wasn't bolted to her neck.

This woman sucks. She is a total moron. She lost an envelope with $14,447 in the short walk from the bank to her car, didn't go back to look for it, and didn't report it missing for a month? Did she park at such a distance from the bank that it maybe took a month for her to walk back to her car? What could she possible need that much money in cash for? I bet she's a gambler. Or her son is.

Anyway, Doug feels like shit. Upstairs, he's moaning in his room about the situation when Judy bursts in to tell him how great the whole thing is. She says it's Shakespearean. He's got all that money that is now legally his, but now he knows who it used to belong to. "To keep, or to weep? That is the question!" Doug dismisses her whole speech and says he's going to keep it, guilt free. That lady had 30 days to claim it. It's his. Then he has a fantasy.

The bank foreclosed on her house and repossessed everything. Yes, even her clothes. You may take her clothes, bank, but you'll never take her barrel. She again says she'd lose her head if it wasn't bolted to her neck, to which the repo guy says they had to take the bolts too.

The next day Doug takes the envelope and marches through town. There's a crowd following and Roger stops him to ask how he is. He shoves Roger out of the way and keeps walking. Roger says he's gone eccentric. Doug marches right up to the old woman's house and rings the doorbell. She answers the door and Doug gives her the money.

Everyone is shocked. Roger faints. The old woman wonders how she could ever repay Doug, then starts digging in her purse. Roger says, "looks like you're gonna get some cash outta this after all, Funnie!" The old woman finds what she's looking for and says, "I hope you like spearmint."

Doug just payed $14,447 for a pack of gum. Roger mocks him and Doug gets in his face about it before walking off. Judy stops him pretty quickly though.

She saw what he did and invites him to the Honkerburger for a shake. Her treat. Doug says getting a free shake out of Judy almost makes the whole thing worth it.

So yeah, Doug did the right thing. If there's one thing Phil and Theda have done right, it's teaching Doug and Judy right and wrong. At least as far as this episode is concerned. He's still crazy as shit. He knew what he was doing was right all along, but he let people make him feel weird about it. If anything, he should make them feel weird about wanting to keep the money. He didn't even have to tell them about it. He went seeking validation and found mostly criticism. What little validation he received, from his parents, didn't matter.

And then there are the fantasies. I think the one that gets replaced by Porkchop is among the craziest he's had, obviously not so much for the content as for the fact that Porkchop replaced his fantasy. The Fantasy Island fantasy is nice, especially since, even if he didn't yet know how much money it was, he still thought he'd be able to buy an island and pay a surgeon to remove most of Roger's legs. It was a small envelope. If film and television have taught me anything, it's that you need at least a briefcase full of cash to buy islands and radical surgery.

The best thing about this episode? Parked outside the old woman's house is the car that splashed water on Doug, causing him to drop his money in the first place.