The Goldbergs – Mom Trumps Willow

By: Ariba Bhuvad

It’s Smother’s Day, er sorry, Mother’s Day on this week’s episode of The Goldbergs and Beverly (Wendi McLendon-Covey) is eager to celebrate her favorite day of the year. Adam (Sean Giambrone), Erica (Hayley Orrantia) and Barry (Troy Gentile); however, are trying to find ways to get out of celebrating with their smother, who makes them take awkward professional pictures every year.

To deflect from spending the entire day with her, Barry goes out of the way to make her a lavish breakfast. Meanwhile, Erica’s plan of weeks finally unfolds as she reveals she’s feeling pretty sick. She was preparing to go MIA for Mother’s Day for quite a while and started planting the seed ahead of time. Unaware of his siblings’ diabolical plans, Adam goes into the situation blind. He didn’t plan anything elaborate for his mom and was actually heading out to watch Willow with Dave Kim (Kenny Ridwan) instead. He promises to spend the morning with her but watching this movie is a must–something he simply can’t miss out on.

As expected, Beverly and Adam head to the photo studio to take all kinds of pictures with awkward poses printed on everything from t-shirts to mugs. After finishing the photo shoot Adam thinks he is scot-free, but Beverly has other plans. She wants to go to brunch, the spa and learn some Flamenco dancing. Annoyed at the change of plans, Adam says he is going to watch Willow and that’s that. When Beverly resists and says he’s never allowed to watch it she hears the three words that she never wanted to from Adam, “I hate you.” Not a good way to celebrate Mother’s Day, is it?

Barry gets some exciting news in this week’s episode when he learns that he got into Penn. Just as he’s about to celebrate and share the news with Murray (Jeff Garlin), Erica finds out she got into Penn as well. Murray and Barry are shocked to learn this because they didn’t even know she was applying, but she explains that Geoff (Sam Lerner) helped her out with everything once she decided it was what she wanted to do. While Murray is over the moon Barry is frustrated that Erica is stealing the spotlight once again and his achievements are being overshadowed. He’s determined to make sure Erica doesn’t go to Penn with him.

Adam realizes that Willow wasn’t worth hurting his mother’s feelings over on Mother’s Day. When he and Dave Kim walk out of the movie, they can’t seem to say anything positive about it except for the fact that Val Kilmer was in it. Adam confesses to Dave Kim about what he said to Beverly and even Dave Kim is shocked that Adam would say such a thing on Mother’s Day of all days. To make up for what he did, Adam tries to get Pops (George Segal) help and ultimately decides to go repeat one of his most awkward pictures for Beverly. He chooses to do this after he asks her what he can do to make up for his mistake and she tells him to go back in time. All Adam wanted to prove was that he’s still that young boy Beverly misses so much. The grand gesture didn’t mean as much as Beverly’s desire to have her kids do the small things for her. The whole experience reminds Adam how much he loves his smother mother.

Meanwhile, Barry and Erica fight it out over the Penn situation with Barry still adamant about not letting Erica go. He refuses to see why it would be good for her and is instead caught up on the middle child syndrome. Things get worse when they attend an orientation event for the college together and start asking odd questions specific to their situation. Can’t they just get along and go to college together? Feeling frustrated, Erica tells Barry she gives up and that he can have Penn, which makes him finally realize he’s not doing the right thing. Penn, watch out! Here come Erica and Barry Goldberg!