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"Sauce Side Story" is the twentieth episode in Season 12, being the two-hundred-and-thirty-sixth episode overall.
Plot[]
When Louise, Gene and Tina try to track down a lost family recipe for a Mother's Day gift for Linda, first they have to navigate an old family feud.
Full story[]
Mother’s Day morning at the Belcher’s, Bob is frantically trying to whip cream for waffles for Linda’s special breakfast while the kids sit not helping, instead checking on the card Tina made. Unfortunately the “you dropped a mom on us” theme was used two years earlier, but before they can come up with another, Linda walks in with a box of old family stuff she found after thinking of her mother and grandmother. She finds a picture of her grandmother Claudia, and an old family tree paper. However, Louise notes that a whole section is crossed out, which Linda says is because of the feud. Linda tells them the story:
Linda’s great-grandmother Maria had four children, Tony, Joey, Paulina and Claudia. As they didn’t have much money, Tony worked down at the docks and saved up in order to buy his dream house on Staten Island. But Joey, the youngest of the kids, married into a rich family and bought the house before Tony could. Later Joey invited the family over to his new home for dinner, with Maria bringing over her famous Bolognese sauce. At the dinner, as Joey reached for more Parmesan cheese, Tony reached with his fork for more spaghetti and accidentally forked Joey in the hand. Joey and Paulina thought Tony forked him on purpose in retaliation for buying the dream house, while Tony and Linda’s grandmother Claudia swore it was an accident. A huge argument erupts, and Joey threw Tony out of the house, with Claudia and her husband Burt following (albeit reluctantly on Burt’s part).
Linda’s family after that day was divided by “Team Tony” or ‘Team Joey”, with Linda saying they support Tony and they haven’t talked to anyone on Joey’s side for years due to hating them. She also laments that after her great-grandmother Maria passed away, Joey, his wife Daniela and their kid went to her house and stole the only written-down copy of Maria’s Bolognese sauce recipe, which Claudia remembered and made for Linda but never wrote down, which feeds Linda’s hatred of them.
Later in the restaurant, Teddy talks about how he booked his mother an appointment at a tattoo removal place for the day due to her having a tattoo she wants removed, but was not aware of how expensive and long the progress of tattoo removal was, but she really wants it removed. He explains that it is a bunch of layer-out playing cards, as she was in a gin rummy group that got the same tattoo, but she was kicked out for being too angry. Linda suggests it might be cheaper to make the tattoo into another figure and erases the chalkboard to begin to brainstorming, to Bob’s lament.
The kids try to think of a new plan for the day, and after another of Tina’s card ideas is shot down, Louise explains her idea: they are going to find that old family meat sauce recipe and cook it for their mom for dinner that night. She’s used the laptop to track down where Lorraine Parcone, Joey’s daughter, lives, using the crossed-out family tree and betting that with Joey dead, the recipe went to her. Lorraine now lives in Bottom Hook, which is 8 miles north of where they live, although they have no idea who to get there when Bob approaches. They get him off their case about not working by bringing up how they found the recipe and will bring it back. Bob says it is a sweet idea, but they cannot leave Linda alone in the restaurant, especially on Mother’s Day, but they refuse to save it for next year. Louise says they can find someone they know at the least who can drive them.
Later on the highway, Gayle, having had her license un-suspended, drives them to Bottom Hook. She is not happy to be going to Lorraine’s house, which Louise notes that it sounds Like she and Linda still get worked up about the forking, but Gayle says the bad blood has been passed down generation to generation with different moments fueling it. She tells them about “the wedding incident”:
It was Al and Gloria, her parent’s wedding, and her grandmother Claudia made them invite everyone in the family to make peace. Which didn’t got well, as Lorraine wore a full white wedding dress, which shocked everyone in attendance, and Gloria decided to retaliate by first pouring fruit punch down Lorraine’s back to ruin the dress, then punched Lorraine in the back, before being held back from fighting by Al while Lorraine was held back as well. This caused everyone there to argue, ruining the peace plans.
Louise tells Gayle that as much as she loves feuds, today the plan is to put that all aside and then can go back to normal tomorrow for Linda for Mother’s Day.
At the restaurant, Teddy has rejected several of Linda’s ideas for redrawing the tattoo, when Bob comes out and has an idea to redraw it as an accordion with a lady on it, which Teddy also rejects.
At Lorraines’ house, the kids and Gayle walk up to the door, with Louise having to remind Gayle they’re not to hurt Lorraine before knocking on the door. The door is answered by a man around Gayle’s age, Lorraine’s son Nico. Lorraine isn’t home, and Louise introduces themselves as his cousins, while Nico mistakes Gayle for their mother. Gayle goes along with it while saying she is Linda “the homelier one”, and Nico lets them in. Lorraine will be back from grocery shopping, and Nico asks them why they are there, which makes them nervous. But he likes having cousins, not caring like his mother would if they were from Tony’s side of the family. Nico leaves to get some photo albums at Louise’s request, and she quietly reminds them that they have to get the recipe before Lorraine comes back.
At the restaurant, Teddy draws out a “lady with long hair driving a race car” which Linda mistakes for a bathtub, and Teddy says in frustration that there could just be no tattoo there, which was his original present. Linda notes that the kids have been gone a while and Bob refuses to tell her where they and Gayle went to get her gift (except that it’s not a blanket from Vermont, to her disappointment) while Teddy draws it into a bathtub with wheels.
Nico is showing old photos, but Louise is in a hurry and asks about any written stuff like ingredients, but Nico walks out of the kitchen to get more photos. While he is gone, Louise climbs a chair to the top of the fridge to find a recipe box, but is not able to find the bolognese recipe before Nico returns with another photo album and Lorraine returns with groceries. She is irritated that someone is parked in her spot, and asks who the Belchers and Gayle are. She is surprised to find out they are their cousins, and the four try to make a hasty exit before Lorraine realizes Gayle said her name was Linda, Gloria’s daughter, and gets mad at Nico for letting “the blood of Tony” into their house, and does not believe them when they say they came in peace, given that’s what happened at the forking incident and how Gloria punched her at the wedding. Louise, to the other’s shock, makes up a story that they think the Joey side is right in the feud, and their side of the family is bad. The others reluctantly play along, and Lorraine understands, and offers them lunch with rotisserie chicken 9to Nico’s disappointment since he loves chicken).
At the restaurant, Teddy gets a text from his mother, who saw photos of the chalkboard drawings and liked the bathtub lady, but wants to ‘see it on skin” and cannot draw it on her thigh since she is rollerblading from an estate sale, and Teddy doesn’t want to draw on his thigh as it is hairier than hers. Linda suggests drawing it on his back and he takes his shirt off as Bob tries to reassure a customer eating hat Teddy will have his shirt back on.
At Lorraine’s house, lunch has gone okay albeit with lukewarm chicken and Sprite. Louise urges everyone to leave, which they try, but Lorraine asks them to stay in order to hear them say bad stuff about their grandparents, and they sit back down. Lorraine says that she didn’t have another dress for the wedding and so wore her own wedding dress, incredulous that she is seen as the bad guy, with Gayle holding in her anger and refusing chicken, especially as Lorraine insults her family’s side voices. Nico, who wants more chicken and fails in getting any asking, reaching for it himself. However, at that second, Gayle gets frustrated and stabs into the chicken, but accidentally stabs Nico’s hand. Louise and the others try to leave, but when Gayle reaches down to pick up the fork she dropped when she realized she stabbed Nico, her fanny pack is open and the recipe box, which she had stuffed in there, falls out and spills the recipe cards, to Lorraine’s shock. Lorraine becomes angry at the ‘Tony’s” coming into her home, forking her son and stealing her recipes, which Louise admits they did despite telling Gayle to be cool (who says the forking was an “accident, sort of”).
Louise explains that they wanted to get Maria’s bolognese recipe for their mother on Mother’s Day, and also that Gayle is their aunt not their mother. Lorraine however, is surprised at they would think that she has the recipe, as she thinks that one of Tony’s descendants has it from going through Maria’s basement after she died and would not share it with them. Tina s insists that it’s the truth that they don’t have it, and Louise says about how Linda was thinking of Claudia and wanted to taste the sauce again. Lorraine notes the irony that for the years, Joey’s side thought Tony’s side had the recipe, and Tony’s side thought Joey’s side had it, and everyone thought others had the recipe because they never talked to each other, with Louise pointing out that no one thought to look for the recipe in the other’s possession. Lorraine laments that the rest of Maria’s stuff went to Goodwill, so it’s likely some stranger found the recipe in her stuff. Gene also note that now Tina has to make another card, to her annoyance.
At the restaurant, Teddy has the bathtub-race-car-lady tattoo crudely sketched on his back in pen by Linda, but gets a text from his mother saying that on second thought she does not think it works, and Teddy thinks of how he will pay for the tattoo removal by selling his truck, when Linda points out how crazy it is since his mother loves gin rummy enough to get a tattoo, and suggests she calls her gin rummy group to apologize and make up with them. (Bob points out that Linda is saying that coming from a family feud that is three generations long, which she dismisses as “it’s Mothers’ Day.”) Teddy calls his mother and leaves since he cannot hear when Gayle and the kids return.
Louise admits that they failed in getting her great-grandmother Maria’s bolognese sauce recipe, which makes Linda cry a little at how sweet the gesture was, and asks how they would get it, which they explain was by going to her cousin Lorraine’s house. Bob thinks Lorraine wouldn’t give them the recipe, but Tina explains that Lorraine never had the recipe, and no one had it. Linda is a bit taken aback that the Joey side of the faulty were not recipe stealers, and the recipe is just lost. Louise outright says that the feud is dumb and based on petty incidents like buying a house and someone being forked, and everyone should get over it, even saying they’re to be the idiot kids but have to tel the adults this. Linda doesn’t like the smart-mouth attitude but thinks maybe they are right and it’s’ time to start putting feuds behind them (which Bob points out was what he was saying first). Teddy comes back; his mother is not going to apologize just yet but will cool off and wants Teddy to just take her someplace nice for a baked potato for dinner. Louise apologizes for not getting the recipe while Tina gives her a card they drew in the car. Linda hugs them, loving them so much for trying to get the recipe and end the feud. Tina suggests having Lorraine and Nico over for dinner some time, as they owe Nico some chicken, which Linda agrees to but only if she can prank them, with Gayle suggesting she can hide a fork in her sock to fork both fo them.
Videos[]
External links[]
- "Sauce Side Story" on IMDb
- "Sauce Side Story" press release via The Futon Critic
- "Sauce Side Story" script via Springfield! Springfield!