Life in Pieces – Sleepover Dream Light Haze

By: Julie Mante

Story One: Sleepover

As Sophia (Giselle Eisenberg) is preparing to go to her first sleepover, her parents are conflicted about this milestone in their daughter’s life. Her mother Heather (Betsy Brandt) feels Sophia is not ready to handle it while her father Tim (Dan Bakkedahl) fears that if Sophia decides not to go that she will miss a memorable moment that she will never be able to recover from. This stems from his childhood. He missed going to a friend’s sleepover and missed the opportunity to see his friend’s mom accidentally flash the young boys. Heather agrees to let Sophia attend the sleepover but tells Tim that he is in charge of helping their daughter if there is trouble. Back at home, Heather gets a call about Sophia climbing out the window of her friend’s house, Tim rushes to go calm his daughter down. When Tim arrives, he tells Sophia that while she is scared that she should give the sleepover a chance. He reiterates to her that he does not want her fear to stop her from experiencing things. To relieve her fears, Tim volunteers to stay at the sleepover until Sophia falls asleep. However, Tim quickly falls asleep. The young girls surround him and Sophia tries to wake him up. When he makes a loud noise in his sleep, the harsh noise scares the girls. When he wakes up, Sophia tells him that they should go home. As Tim continues to make his case that he will stay for as long as she needs, Sophia falls asleep. It may be decades later than he expected but Tim was finally flashed. When the grandma of Sophia’s friend is walking topless in the kitchen, Tim sees her bare chest and is delighted that he no longer has bad memories of missing his friend’s sleepover.

Story Two: Jen Had a Dream

When Jen (Zoe Lister-Jones) wakes up, her husband Greg (Colin Hanks) tells her that he heard her moaning in her sleep. He asks her if he was her co-star in her dirty dream and she admits that it was not him. He wants to know who it is but Jen does not want to tell him. When Greg tells her that they have to get ready for Sunday brunch, Jen tells him that she would prefer to skip it this week. Greg realizes that the reason Jen does not want to go to brunch is to avoid the person she dreamed about last night. Jen’s grimace confirms his suspicion. At brunch, Greg is convinced that his wife was dreaming about his older brother Matt (Thomas Sadoski). To get back at his brother, Greg decides to flirt with Matt’s fiancee Colleen (Angelique Cabral) in the hopes that she will have a sexy dream about him. His lame flirting attempt did not work and Colleen figures out what he is trying to do. She tries to calm him down but when she mentions red hair, Greg becomes convinced that his nephew Tyler (Niall Cunningham) is the person that his wife was dreaming about. He tries to embarrass Tyler in front of his wife Clementine (Hunter King) by saying Tyler pooped his pants when he was four. Tyler is confused why his uncle is picking on him. Joan (Dianne Wiest) sees that Greg is upset so she tries to assure him that he blowing this whole thing out of proportion. As the family are arguing about the sex dream, Tim asks Jen who dreamed about when she enters the living room. She reveals that she did not dream about Tyler or Tim. She tells everyone that she dreamed about John’s (James Brolin) creepy puppet Cheeto. When Greg asks why she did not want to tell him the truth, she tells him that the dream was very sensual and it made her uncomfortable. Greg decides not to press for more details. Joan wonders if Jen dreamed about her and Jen confirms that she dreamed about her mother-in-law, not Cheeto.

Story Three: Sensor and Sensibility

Joan complains to John that he ditched the neighborhood watch meeting and did not tell her. He tells her that he did text her that he could not come today. Turns out that he accidentally texted Greg and not Joan. Before she was banned from attending the meeting, Joan learned that there has been an increase in break-ins in their neighborhood so she bought a motion sensor light. It blinds the intruder and disorients them. At night, Joan sees the sensor light is on and tells John to investigate. Holding his gun, John goes outside to investigate and the light turns off and he hits his trash can. When the lights turn on, he is irritated and he is no longer holding his gun. For some reason, this does not bother him and he goes back inside. John tells Joan that he did not see anything wrong. When Joan sees the light on, John goes back to check. As he looks for anything out of place, he hears a gunshot. He had accidentally stepped on his gun and it fired. Luckily no one was hurt. Once back inside, he tells Joan that nothing is wrong. When the doorbell rings, John goes downstairs to see who it is. It is their neighbor Darryl (J.B. Smoove). Darryl complains to John that the light from their sensor is disturbing his bedroom activities with his wife. John tries to explain that he installed the light to calm down Joan’s fears of someone breaking into their house. As Darryl continues to complain about the light, John says that he will unscrew the bulb. John has to go check for intruders again after Joan complains about the light being off. When John goes outside, he sees Darryl using his prosthetic leg to push something in John trash can. Darryl reveals that he is has been setting off his neighbors’ light sensor. His wife is not a fan of Darryl eating junk food so he eats it at night while his wife is asleep and throws the trash in John’s and Joan’s trash bin. Inspired by Darryl, John decides to fake an excuse to go outside so he can eat junk food with Darryl without their wives knowing about it.

Story Four: Full Moon Madness

While Matt is enjoying a yummy breakfast, Colleen is doing a juice cleanse so she can be fit for the wedding. Colleen is feeling stressed because they have so many things to plan now that they are not eloping. Colleen’s roommate Dougie (Fortune Feimster) is not happy when she sees that someone ate her pot roast. Colleen assures her that she has not eaten solid food in two weeks. Matt says he did not touch Dougie’s food either. Dougie does not believe them. Colleen throws herself in wedding plans while Matt could care less. When a chocolate fountain is delivered to their apartment, Colleen tells Matt she does not remember ordering it. Colleen and Matt confront Dougie about the purchase and she tells them that she did not order the chocolate fountain because she already has one. When Colleen calls the company, they inform her that she did buy the fountain. When Matt points out that she probably did not remember eating the pot roast, Colleen tells him that the last thing she remembers is taking a sleeping pill. Colleen decides to throw the pills in the trash. Later that night, Colleen has trouble sleeping. Frustrated, Colleen tries to dig the pills out of the trash so she can cure her insomnia. Dougie sees Colleen digging in the trash and Colleen asks her if she can make sure that Colleen will not do anything crazy after she takes the pills. When Colleen wakes up, she sees the apartment is a mess and she is worried that she did something crazy. Dougie assures Colleen that she slept peacefully all night and the mess was all Dougie. Matt asks Colleen why she emailed everyone to track her menstrual cycle. Dougie admits that part is true and Colleen is mortified. Colleen admits that she is so stressed about the wedding that it is affecting her sleep. Finally, Matt realizes that he has been absent and left Colleen in charge of everything. He tells her that he is ready to help take some of the burden off of her and is eager to help with the wedding. Colleen is quick to give him work to do. While Matt is restless, Colleen is sound asleep. Matt takes Colleen’s sleeping pills and finds himself eating junk food near his parents’ trash bin.