Frasier – The Fix Is In

By: Atiya Irvin-Mitchell

We open the episode with Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott) on a date with a woman named Nicole (Amber Stevens West). When she sees the super nice apartment, she doesn’t understand how a fireman affords such a lavish place. At first, Freddy is pretty vague about it, but then he admits he lives with his father. However, Nicole doesn’t seem impressed by that, he pretends that Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) is living with him because he’s unwell. Freddy tells Nicole that Frasier suffers from delusions so when Frasier tells her he’s a Harvard professor, she doesn’t believe him. Frasier notices that Nicole is speaking loudly and talking to him the way one would talk to a child, so he asks what’s going on. Freddy takes Frasier into another room and tells him, which makes Fraiser angry.

When the two men return, Fraiser appears to be playing along, but then embarrasses Freddy by saying he needs Freddy’s help to take a bath. This all makes Nicole pretty uncomfortable, so she leaves. Then, Freddy asks Fraiser why he did that. Frasier wants to know why Freddy said he was senile. Freddy explains that he doesn’t know what it’s like to have to explain living with his father to dates. Frasier says he understands, but Freddy shares that when his grandfather lived with him Frasier was doing him a favor. This time around Freddy doesn’t feel like he is being allowed to contribute anything to the household. Frasier says they can fix that. It seems Fraiser could use his help around the apartment. Also, Eve’s (Jess Salgueiro) package was stolen and Fraiser pays for it.

At the university we learn that Corny (Nicholas Lyndhurst) has a lot of trouble keeping a teaching assistant. Olivia (Toks Olagundoye) says he has managed to drive all the graduate students who worked for him away, but there’s one student still willing to try – David (Anders Keith). David, of course, is an undergrad but after making other TAs clean his attic, it’s David or nothing. David tries to hit the ground running by cleaning up Corny’s office in ways he doesn’t want. He got rid of Corny’s scotch and gave Corny office hours when he didn’t like interacting with students. Olivia thinks this is hilarious, but Corny doesn’t.

Later, Freddy has decided to get to work on fixing up the apartment which Fraiser isn’t thrilled about. To stop a leak Freddy put a hole in the wall, which Frasier freaks out about. Eve sees and tells Fraiser not to worry. She says that Freddy is very thorough, so he’ll take months and things will be a mess for a while. However, eventually, he’ll get the job done. Frasier isn’t wild about that idea, so he calls a plumber named Roland (Andy Daly). Roland says a good chunk of his job is helping wives get something done without bruising their husbands’ egos. Frasier says in this case his son is his husband. Roland finds the comment weird but gets to work on the leak.

Unfortunately for Frasier, it was a short workday for Freddy because he couldn’t stop thinking about the leak and came home. Fraiser doesn’t want Freddy to know about Roland, so when distracting him doesn’t work he pretends Roland is a fellow professor. Roland plays along by pretending to be a psychology professor. He pretends very well by saying his work uniform is due to an experiment about confirmation bias. He keeps his cover until Freddy mentions he plans to do something that could lead to the pipes exploding. With that Fraiser is exposed and Freddy is angry that Fraiser is treating him like a child.

When Freddy goes to his room Frasier pleads his case to Roland. He says he doesn’t understand why Freddy can’t understand that he doesn’t want him wasting his time. Fraiser also doesn’t understand why everyone thinks he is helpless and fragile. He pretends to be a helpless old man and falls down which hurts his knee. When Freddy returns and notices he offers to get his father an ice pack, but Freddy rejects the offer. He yells that he is fine and Freddy leaves. Once he departs Fraiser calls Corny and asks him for help. Also, Corny is forcing David to screen his calls.

Freddy goes to vent to Eve about his situation with his father. Freddy says he doesn’t understand why he won’t just let him help. Eve points out that Freddy can be a little insufferable when he’s right. It makes it hard to ask for things, she says. In the best of circumstances, Eve says, dealing with the smugness makes it impossible. Freddy reluctantly realizes that Eve may be right about him.

At Corny’s request, David goes over to Frasier’s apartment to help Frasier. David mentions the host of chores that Corny has had him doing. They’re things like laundry and cooking for him. Later Corny comes and asks David to do other meaningless tasks for him. When Frasier points out that Corny of taking advantage of him, David says he knows. Still, David says he doesn’t mind because he was always sheltered. He likes that Corny trusts him to do things, even if what he asks of him is often pretty silly. This gives Frasier some insight on Freddy’s need to feel useful.

With that in mind, when Freddy comes home Frasier feels a little more willing to accept his help. Although, he still feels bad about it. The deeper reason is that when Martin, Frasier’s father, lived with him it was after years of Martin always being there for him. Frasier doesn’t think he was as good a father to Freddy as Martin was to him. He then apologizes to Freddy for making him feel like he wasn’t needed.

Frasier and Freddy have a nice moment together and then Nicole swings by. She apologizes for leaving so abruptly, but she worried Freddy was lying to her about his father. So, Frasier pretends to be senile which sways her opinion of him.