By: Atiya Irvin-Mitchell
Isabella (Belissa Escobedo) is moving around chairs and pillows in the speakeasy. She asks Bobbie (Reba McEntire) if the placement says cool, fun speakeasy, but Bobbie points out that, by virtue of being inanimate objects, neither the chairs nor the pillows should be saying anything. But she acknowledges that Isabella has worked very hard on the speakeasy, and she says she is proud of her. Plus, as a surprise, she got the lights installed over the weekend. Isabella thanks her, and the sisters hug until Gabby (Melissa Peterman) comes in and says the police are here. This startles both Isabella and Bobbie; luckily, Gabby was just using a little speakeasy humor because speakeasies were active during the prohibition era. The cops aren’t there, but Gabby shares that the health department is. This shocks both Bobbie and Isabella because the health department isn’t scheduled to visit until Wednesday.
Enter Monica Ulrich (Cheri Oteri), a very stern health inspector. When Isabella and Bobbie gently ask why she’s there so early, Monica takes her badge off, perks up, and says that she feels that during the last visit, they really bonded and she wanted to let them know that she is looking forward to spending more time with them. The girls agree, and she’s thrilled that the feelings of friendship weren’t one-sided. With that in mind, she puts the badge back on, becomes all business again, and says she’ll see them on Wednesday. Once Monica is gone, Isabella says she has no idea what that badge does to people, but she knows she never wants one.
At the bar, two tickets for Mamma Mia arrive, and Steve (Pablo Castelblanco) is really excited because he loves musicals. But the tickets aren’t for Steve, they’re for Emmett (Rex Linn). He takes the tickets from Steve and explained that he ordered the tickets months ago when he and Bobbie were still together. Now, plans have likely changed, but he says Steve can’t have the tickets. When Emmett is gone, Steve wonders if Emmett is angry with him because he’s going to musicals without him. Gabby says if Emmett is mad, it’s probably because Steve blabbed his secret and Bobbie dumped him. Steve points out that technically, he didn’t blab; Takoda (Tokala Black Elk) blabbed, so he should get all of Emmett’s ire. Gabby is just glad to remind everyone that no one is upset with her.
In Bobbie’s office, Bobbie isn’t upset with Gabby, but she is pretty upset and processing her feelings by shredding a lot of paper. Gabby guesses that Monica is the problem, but Bobbie doesn’t want her to be the problem. She broke up with Emmett, so logically she knows she doesn’t have a right to be bothered, but she still really doesn’t want him getting together with Monica. Isabella comes in, takes in the scenes, and tells Bobbie that it makes sense that Bobbie doesn’t want to see Monica with Emmett. At first, Bobbie doesn’t think there’s much that can be done about it if Emmett and Monica decide to be together. But, Isabella comes up with a plan, Emmett goes fishing on Wednesdays and doesn’t come back until noon. So, if they get Monica in and out before Emmett returns, he won’t have a chance to connect with Monica. Bobbie likes the idea in theory, but doesn’t see it working. Why? Gabby likes to gab, and Isabella loves bragging about all things speakeasy. Both things, Bobbie says, will make it hard to hustle Monica out of the tavern before Emmett returns. If they want to make it the fastest health inspection ever, they both need to zip it, but even then, Steve and his endless selfies could be an issue. But Gabby promises she’ll handle Steve.
When she does go to talk to Steve, she tells him that Emmett is really upset with him. She says she heard Emmett telling Isabella that he’ll never be able to trust him again. Steve says that Takoda is the one who should never be trusted, and Takoda says he should watch it because he’s apparently running low on friends. Gabby makes a suggestion: Talk to Emmett. But, not at Happy’s Place, she convinces Takoda and Steve to go to Emmett’s happy place, which is the fishing shack. At first, Steve isn’t so keen on the idea, but Gabby says that if there’s one thing she has learned over the years, it’s that if you want a man to open up to you, you need to trap him. Steve isn’t thrilled with the idea, but he reluctantly agrees.
When Wednesday arrives, Monica is inspecting the speakeasy, and Gabby and Isabella are trying their best not to talk Monica’s ear off. Bobbie tries to hurry things along, but Monica says she’ll finish when she finishes. She has questions for Isabella, and Isabella tries and mostly fails not to brag about her architecture choices. Monica checks the last item off the list and tells the group that they have passed. Everyone is thrilled, and Monica thanks them for keeping the chatter to a minimum while she worked. Bobbie says they were just trying to be respectful of her time.
Then, Monica takes off her badge, perks up again, and says she wanted to hurry things along so that the group could transition into “gal time.” She doesn’t want to be seen as a health inspector when her badge is off; she’d like them to transition into being friends.
Elsewhere, Takoda and Steve surprise Emmett, who isn’t happy to see them. He asks them what they’re doing at the fishing shack. Takoda says they want to apologize for blowing his secret. But, Emmett says he’s not angry; in fact, he feels bad for putting them in an impossible position similar to the one Happy put him in all those years ago. Also, he comes to the fishing shack for quiet so he asks both Steve and Takoda to zip it.
Back at the tavern, Monica is telling Gabby, Bobbie, and Isabella about all of her health inspector stories, and they’re giving her nothing in return. She asks for any funny stories about working at Happy’s Place, and they collectively try to usher her out the door. This bothers her, and she says she has a funny story about how she doesn’t have any friends and thought she’d find friendship with them, but she was wrong. Monica starts to leave, but Bobbie stops her and says her father always used to say that no one should ever feel out of place at Happy’s Place. Happy, Bobbie says, wanted the tavern to be a place where everyone knows your name, so she tells Monica to stay.
At the fishing shack, Steve is being quiet, but annoying Emmett by organizing the shack. Takoda and Steve believe that Emmett isn’t upset with them, but they’ve realized that Emmett is upset. They press him about why and encourage him to talk to them. Emmett says that talking has caused him enough problems. Happy talked to him about Isabella, and then he died. He was honest with Bobbie, and then she broke up with him. Steve and Takoda thought he’d made his peace with that, but Emmett says getting the Mamma Mia tickets made him realize that he and Bobbie won’t be getting back together. Steve gently tells him that talking isn’t the problem; he just unfortunately lost two people he was very close to. But he can move forward with his life even though it hurts.
At the tavern Monica is laughing with the girls, and she thanks them for letting her stay. Monica admits that when she’s not in health inspector mode, she can be very insecure and start spinning out. Bobbie says it sounds like she’s borrowing trouble, which she knows a lot about herself. Isabella agrees and admits that she keeps worrying about all the ways things could go wrong with the speakeasy. Monica asks how she can keep from borrowing trouble, because once she starts spiraling, it’s difficult to stop. Bobbie says that Gabby and Isabella helped her when she was worried about everything, and now they’ll have Monica’s back. Just then, Emmett walks in, and Monica asks him to have coffee. Bobbie encourages him to go because Monica is a lot of fun. When Monica leaves, Isabella asks how Bobbie is doing, and she insists that she’s fine.