Life In Pieces – Tailgate Spiral Souvenir Seating

The Short Family is watching the Los Angeles Rams play live and Colleen (Angelique Cabral) is nervous. Her fiance Matt (Thomas Sadoski) tries to calm her down, but fails. She and Matt are in charge of hosting the tailgate party and she is worried that it will be bad. She points out that his parents host the weekly Sunday brunch, Greg (Colin Hanks) and Jen (Zoe Lister-Jones) are in charge of New Year’s and Heather (Betsy Brandt) and Tim (Dan Bakkedahl) host a party for anything related to their kids so there is a lot of pressure for this day to go well. When Joan (Dianne Wiest) and John (James Brolin) arrive, they are surprised to see that Colleen and Matt did not prepare the usual snacks for the tailgate. When the rest of the members arrive, they try to be positive about the veggie snacks and the off-brand sodas that Colleen brought to the tailgate. Colleen pulls Matt aside to say to tell him that he was right. It was a huge mistake for them to attempt to host something for the family at this stage in their relationship. Matt assures her that he can fix this so he goes looking for food and sees football legend Kurt Warner who guest stars in this episode. He asks Kurt if he could come over to his tailgate and meet his family and Kurt agrees. When Matt shows up with Kurt Warner, everyone is excited. However, Kurt is more excited about Samantha (Holly J. Barrett)’s misting fan. Stunned, she offers her fan to him and he accepts. Colleen is overjoyed that now this day will not be about her terrible tailgate, but about meeting Kurt Warner. After getting the fan, Kurt moves on to taking Sophia (Giselle Eisenberg)’s bear. Soon the family is turned off by Kurt’s behavior, but no one will feels brave enough to tell him to leave. Colleen does not mind because now Kurt has ruined the tailgate and not them. When Kurt is finally ready to leave after he took everything he wanted, Greg chases after him because Kurt still has his cell phone.

After the tailgate, the family goes through security so they can watch the game. As Greg checks in, he is picked to participate in halftime fan challenge. When Greg learns that he has to throw a football, he gets worried. Greg confides in his sister Heather that he is already lost the competition because he does not know how to throw a spiral. When Heather hears that their brother Matt taught Greg had to do a spiral, she goes to find him. Matt rushes to find Greg after he talks to Heather. Greg is practicing his spiral and it is rough. Matt admits to Greg that he did not teach Greg how to throw a football correctly when they were younger. Greg is furious and blames his brother that he did not have any friends growing up because of him. Matt felt that Greg was better than him in so many ways so he taught his younger brother things incorrectly to even the score. Matt reveals more things he told Greg that were untrue and tells Greg that he is ready to make things right by teaching him how to correctly throw a football. When it is time for the challenge, Greg is nervous but is ready. He throws the ball and the spiral is perfect. It goes into the hole and the two men hug each other and celebrate. The problem is that they did not listen to the directions. The winner is not the person who throws the ball perfectly, but the person with who threw the most balls into the target. The two brothers blame each other for not listening to the directions. Greg believes that Matt lied to him so he would not win the challenge and the two brothers end up fighting.

During the game, Sophia tells her father that she needs to use the restroom. Tim asks her to hold it until her mother gets back. Besides, he is desperate. His two other kids have no interests in sports and Sophia is his last shot of having a “sports buddy.” Sophia is persistent so Tim has to follow her to the bathroom. After they leave the restroom, Tim is eager to go back to the game, but Sophia is not in a rush. When Tim checks on Sophia, he cannot find her so he starts calling her name. He finds her in the gift shop. She wants a souvenir so she can remember her first game. Tim does not pay attention to her choices, but wants her to hurry so they can return to the game. After they leave the gift shop, Sophia sees the mascot, Rampage the Ram, and wants to get a picture with him. Reluctantly, Tim follows his daughter. When the mascot goes through a restricted area, Tim is secretly relieved that they can go back to the game. The problem is father and daughter are locked out of the main area. Resigned, Tim apologizes to Sophia that her first football game has been ruined. Sophia does not mind. Besides, she does not even understand the game anyway. Tim decides to use their time together to explain the game to Sophia. When the mascot comes out, he sees Tim and Sophia and they return back to the game. Heather is impressed that Tim has taught Sophia the rules of football.

John apologizes to his wife Joan for the cheap seats. He accidentally bought thirty cheap ones instead of twelve expensive ones. Jen notices empty seats below and says they should go sit there. Joan says that it is not right to sit there because they did not pay for those seats. Jen lies to Joan and says that her boss paid for the seats so it is okay for them to sit there. When Jen tells Joan the truth, she wants to go back to their seats yet Jen says that everything will be fine. When two men approach them and tell the two women they are in their seats, Joan is ready to surrender, but Jen is not. She ask to see their tickets and they refuse. Jen says they can call ushers to check out their tickets to see who is telling the truth. Surprisingly, the guys back down and leave. Joan is impressed with Jen’s skills for lying. Joan still wants to leave and Jen wants to know why she is so uncomfortable. Joan reveals that when she was ten years old she went to the circus. A mime had put a rag on her seat and when she sat down and he pulled the rag out and it looked like she had pooped the rag. The experience was embarrassing for her because everyone was laughing. As they continue watching the game, Joan becomes comfortable and is enjoying herself when Rampage the Ram approaches them. Joan is freaked out when he touches her and Jen tells her that he is pretending that Joan is in his seat. Joan wants him to go away. Jen advises her to play along because she’s on the Jumbotron. Joan is having flashbacks to her circus incident so she is eager to flee. The only way she can get the mascot to leave is if she beats him in a dance off, but Joan does not want to. Frustrated, Joan pushes the mascot away and he falls down on other fans. Joan takes off back to her cheap seats. Jen follows her.