Man With A Plan – Cabin Fever

By starrymag | April 28, 2019

By: Ujjyani Banerjee

 

 

Adam (Matt LeBlanc), Don (Kevin Nealon) and Joe (Stacy Keach) meet up to discuss their annual only-men cabin trip, a Burn’s legacy that goes back to 15 years. Joe wants to pick a new trip captain. Both sons anticipate it’ll be Don, but to their surprise it’s Adam. He is ecstatic as he wears the prestigious captain cap and asks their dad to capture the moment while Don holds his “Are you kidding me?” look on his own happy face. Don feels him being the elder sibling should’ve gotten him to be the captain. He wants to lodge a complaint. Joe directs him to Adam as it’ to be filed with the trip captain who denies it immediately.

 

In their next meeting Adam introduces his secret weapon that’ll alleviate their trip to the next level. The weapon is none other than Lowell (Matt Cook). Seeing Joe confused, he elaborates that Lowell’s a great cook who’s also agreed to read Lonesome Dove to Bev (Swoosie Kurtz) while they’re away. It’s not good enough for Joe who says no to new members. In his defense, Lowell has brought a sample of his culinary magic- six different homemade sausages. That does it for Joe who welcomes their fourth member whilst appreciating Adam’s captaincy.

 

Lowell is thrilled. The rest three give him an induction training: (1) During unfortunate events of bear attack members will be escaping on seniority basis, so he’ll be last, (2) No wives. Lowell feels lucky about his singleton tag now and if the Burns ladies ask he’ll just say it’s a guy’s-only trip. Adam interrupts and asks him to never mention “guy’s trip” to the ladies as it’ll make them want to come. Lowell changes it to “regular trip that’ll be fun.” Adam asks to delete the word fun and lectures on wife management or in Don’s words “lying.”

 

Apparently Adam has presented it to be so boring to Andi (Liza Snyder) over the years by cringing about all the endless fishing and applying sunscreen on Don who only fishes topless that she doesn’t even think about coming in spite of being invited by Adam. Instead, she pities him and makes him lasagna.

 

At home Adam, who’s begun packing stuff, looks for their foldable bed. He asks Andi if she’s seen it. She hasn’t and asks who is it for. Adam discloses them taking Lowell along this time. Andi feels it’ll be fun now that Lowell’s on board. He repeats the boredom involved and invites her as usual but to his utter surprise Andi agrees to join and already starts suggesting board games, hikes and songs around the piano. Adam is stupefied.

 

The men meet urgently and decide to uninvite Lowell- the cause of Andi’s inspiration behind inviting herself. Lowell is adamant that he’ll not back down and the captain’s got to find a plan B. Adam decides to give Andi a crash course on bear attacks, common around their campsite. Given she hates bears she’ll back down.

 

He goes to Andi and asks her to pack bear spray for sure. He also gives a tip that if one chases her that she should head for the lake and then all she’d have to worry about would be leeches. Andi feels uneasy and tells how her looking up the weather around the lake got her to find a hotel online which also has a piano for singalongs. They could stay there! Adam is at a loss. He asks her to not reveal any of this to his mom or Marcy (Kali Rocha) as he needs to check with the guys if they’re okay with their wives tagging along. As it turns out, he’s too late. Marcy and Bev are packing as they speak.

 

The guys are furious and they brainstorm to find a way out. Don thinks of uninviting all the wives by each husband blaming the other two guys. Adam isn’t sure about it given how much the wives talk to each other. They’d guess their lies in no time. Don; however, feels they won’t talk as they’d feel bad for the other two for having such crappy husbands. Joe digs this plan.

 

Adam goes to Andi and fills her ears as planned. He also gives her a bracelet to balance out the bad news. It works and she pities the other ladies whilst not being mad at her innocent husband.

 

Adam goes over to check if Don and Joe have cleared the female invasions at their end but he’s shook to see Bev and Marcy all ready instead. Don and Joe apologetically tell Adam that they decided to not tells their wives and only let him be the bad guy so that they’d be safe. Adam is pissed and storms out to spill everything to Andi.

 

She’s shocked that he’s been lying to her for 15 years but feels sorry when he discloses that this time it was Don’s wife management plan and the pressure of captaincy that bowled him over. Andi recollects where she’d heard the management phrase before.  It turns out the ladies had their own “husband management” in place. Andi had concretely searched for a hotel to stay instead of the dirty old cabin but she made it look like a serendipitous find while casually looking up the lake weather. She smiles as she remembers their plan but remains mum. Meanwhile, Don and Joe come to apologize. Joe feels his tendency to foster competitive spirit among the brothers took a different turn this time. Adam shouldn’t suffer for their screw up. They decide to cancel the trip all together. Seeing them depressed, Andi decides to turn the frown upside down.

 

She goes to the ladies and spills out everything. They are mad. She immediately suggests what if they went to their own little outing while the guys revel in the wilderness, say Vegas? Bev and Marcy are hyperventilating in excitement. The guys now look ticked as their cabin fever is no match to Sin City’s craze.

 

A few days later both parties come back from their trips. Both sides had a great time out and all enjoyed heartily. Well, except Lowell. Poor guy misunderstood the usage of bear spray and sprayed it all over himself instead. Now he has a bad reaction. In hindsight, amongst all the management lessons a chapter of bear management wouldn’t have been the worst decision after all, would it?