Mom – Beef Baloney Dan and the Hot Zone

By: Gladys Luna

We open with a quick recap of Chef Rudy (French Stewart) and Tammy’s (Kristen Johnston) disastrous attempt of a relationship. Quickly we move forward to a car scene where Bonnie (Allison Janney) and Adam (William Fichtner) are on their way to attend both of their meetings; the woman speaks about how happy she feels that they are in such a healthy relationship and wants to know Adam’s thoughts about it. She also wants to know if he ever mentions her at his meetings and he says that he has done it before, but Bonnie doesn’t seem quite convinced by his response. When they arrive to the place where Adam’s meeting is taking place, he greets a couple of people from afar and Bonnie is curious to know their identity. That is when Adam confirms her that the woman he greeted was his sponsor Sam (Courtney Thorne-Smith), something that doesn’t suit so well for Bonnie since she has been thinking all along that his sponsor was a man.

In the meantime, Christy (Anna Faris) has to deal with a nostalgic Chef Rudy who went to the walk-in looking for onions and was caught up there for over twenty minutes reminiscing of his brief relationship with Tammy. Christy tells him that he needs to go back to his duties immediately since the customers have started to cook their orders themselves, but he doesn’t seem to care at all. All he wants to know is if Tammy ever mentions him or if she even remembers him, making Christy uncomfortable with the subject. He asks for her help and tells her to speak to Tammy for him. She sends her a text saying hi in his behalf and now she has him behind her back asking every single second if her friend has replied.

On their way back from their meeting Adam and Bonnie find themselves still discussing about why her husband hasn’t told her that his sponsor was a woman. He says that he didn’t even think about it first and then by the time he realized he hadn’t told her, he felt it was too late to speak about it. Bonnie is not happy with his explanation. He tries to soothe the situation by making some jokes about it, but Bonnie is having none of it.

Later that night Bonnie is pacing from corner to corner in her living room repeating the speech she would tell Adam to let him know that she is still not okay with the fact that he lied to her about Sam. Christy walks right in and sees her mother ranting to herself while imitating Sam and her way of smoking. Christy believes that they are allowed to smoke again and is asking for her permission to go back to the gas station and get a couple of cigarette packs. Bonnie explains about what happened with Adam and believes that the reason he didn’t tell her about Sam was because he has feelings for her and that he would leave her soon. Christy doesn’t see the situation as a big deal, but her mother has already made her mind about it. She asks Christy to go to sleep and tells her that if she gets divorced by the weekend they will go back to smoking so Christy says that she will keep her hopes up.

At the bistro Christy is taking some pictures of Tammy as a request from Chef Rudy. She says that he has promised to give her bonus points if she gets some pictures of her friend with her mouth open. She has decided to help him because she feels sorry for him and his hopeless love for her friend. Tammy confesses that she is just playing with him because, after all, love is a game. Just not so long ago she decided that she will get him mad by playing some tricks like pretending she was taking a bubble bath and having fun without him. Christy tells her that she doesn’t like to play any games and if she ever feels something for a man she goes straight and tells him the truth, something that the other women don’t agree on. Jill (Jaime Pressly) says that she doesn’t have to give away the mystery so easily, but then Christy says that she became a stripper when she was sixteen so keeping the mystery wasn’t exactly her thing. Right that moment Christy sees Chef Rudy walking into the bistro pretending that he doesn’t know they were gathered in there and warns Tammy about it. He walks around the place and then pretends to be surprised to see Tammy there as well and greets her. He sits on a table nearby and the woman takes advantage of the situation to practically screaming that she had met a couple of guys named Ricardo and Brad and that they both are so great that she doesn’t know who to pick. This is making Chef Rudy suffer by her confession.

The next day the women meet before their AA meeting starts and Jill is surprised to see Christy putting some make up on; she soon realizes that she is trying to impress the man standing behind her to whom she refers as Owen (Cole Gerdes) and who apparently has hit bottom on Mountain Dew and vodka. Jill is interested in knowing how she plans to blow his mind and Christy just tells her to “watch and learn,” but her friend does not have much faith in her. Christy goes to where Owen is and when he asks her if she is looking for a seat. He says no and walks back to Jill as a way to pretend that he is not interested. Later that day Christy is standing by the coffee machine and when she turns around she stumbles with Owen and yells that “no means no” to him, taking him by surprise. Jill and Bonnie are watching her from afar and when Jill asks Bonnie how is that Christy got married her mother says that there were drugs involved.

Adam and Sam are at his bar discussing about how Bonnie was whisper fighting with him from the living room. When the woman asks him why he didn’t just go and apologize to her he says that he had better chances at winning if he wasn’t there. Sam helps him practice what to tell her by imitating Bonnie’s reaction. Sam tells him that he needs to be louder, scarier and to remind him of something that he did wrong years ago in order to feel like he is actually speaking with her. Later that day Adam meets with Bonnie at their room and is surprised to see Gus there laying on his side of the bed. The woman says that she has decided to trade up. Adam starts to apologize saying that he should have told her that Sam was a woman and that his intentions were never to hide it. Bonnie accepts the apology and asks Gus to leave the bed. However, when Adam starts saying that Sam helped him to find a way to apologize to her when she stopped by the bar earlier that day Bonnie gets all defensive asking how often the woman stops by the bar and they go back into fighting again. Adam says that he knew that Bonnie had a male therapist and he never said anything so he doesn’t understand why she cannot be the same with him. Bonnie asserts that she doesn’t trust his sponsor at all. The fight goes on, ending with Bonnie asking Gus to go back to bed.

Back at the restaurant Chef Rudy is so sad and disappointed that he asks Paul (Reggie De Leon) if he thinks that by putting his head inside the pot with boiling water will end his pain. Right that moment Christy walks in saying that the customer at table four wants to congratulate him for his delicious meal. Although Chef Rudy is not in the mood for it, he agrees to go and meet with the customer who turns out to be Tammy. He is surprised to see her there given that she has been ignoring him, but she confesses that she was just playing the game of love and trying to make it fun for them. Chef Rudy does not see anything fun in it. He expresses that it was a torture for him to be ignored by her and that he has feelings that she did not take in account. He also tells her that he wanted a real relationship and now he is not so sure anymore. He goes back to the kitchen where Christy and Paul have been eavesdropping. Christy says that she is sorry it didn’t go well, but then Chef Rudy says that she is wrong because the game has just begun revealing his intentions of playing Tammy as well.

Tammy is at the bar with Adam and tells him that she is worried that Chef Rudy hasn’t answered any of her texts and she’s tired of looking nonstop at the screen. She asks him to take her phone and not to give it to her even if she begs for it. He agrees and takes the woman’s phone. She then immediately asks for it and he gives it to her without blinking. Sam arrives to the bar and asks Adam about his situation with Bonnie. He tells her that everything was working well until he told her that she had helped him to build his apology and then everything went down the hill again. The woman tells him that he should never veer from the script and he should have done it as they planned it. Then, she takes his hand tenderly making him realize that Bonnie was right all along. Adam returns home and sees Bonnie seating on the couch with her back to the main door. He tells her that she was right about Sam and then she turns to him revealing the face mask she is wearing. She explains that she wanted to look better when that moment would come making Adam to leave the room and hold the apology for another day.

The following day Tammy is with Christy at the bistro feeling sorry for herself since Chef Rudy hasn’t replied to any of her texts yet. Christy helps her realize that he has been playing her all along making her feel better about herself. She also tells her that Owen has been fooling her as well by kissing another woman but deep inside she knows that he cares for her. Right that moment Owen walks in holding the hand of his date (Lisa Mason Lee). Tammy just laughs at Christy’s innocence.