Life in Pieces – Window Vanity Dress Grace

Jen (Zoe Lister-Jones) and Greg (Colin Hanks) arrive home tipsy. While Greg leaves to change into some comfy clothes, Jen talks to babysitter Amanda (Lilly Singh). When Greg comes to find Jen, he sees that Jen and Amanda are sitting comfortably on the couch talking and laughing. Disappointed that he will not be having sex tonight, he goes to bed. The next day, Greg complains about what happened the night before with his brother-in-law Tim (Dan Bakkedahl) and Tim tells him that his sex window closed. A sex window is the short amount of time a couple can have sex once they become parents. It is usually after the kids go to bed but before the couple will be too tired. Tim suggests that his daughter Sam (Holly J. Barrett) babysit Greg’s daughter Lark so that when Greg and Jen come home, she will not stay to chat. Tim’s reasoning is that teenagers do not like talking to adults. Greg agrees.

When Greg and Jen come home from the holiday ugly sweater party, they find Sam on her phone and Tim totally wasted. Greg wants them to leave so he and Jen can have some alone time. Tim tells Greg that he came to pick up Sam, but the couple was forty-five minutes late. Because he was bored he started drinking while they waited for them to come home. Now, he is too drunk to drive. Frustrated, Greg races to take them both home. He runs over Tim’s bike twice. When he comes home, he finds Jen asleep. He wakes her up to start something, but now he is tired. The couple decide to set an early alarm to try again in the morning.

When the alarm rings in the morning, they would rather sleep than get it on.

Sophia (Giselle Eisenberg) is excited about her new vanity mirror. She hopes her grandfather John (James Brolin) and Uncle Matt (Thomas Sadoski) can fix it so she can use it for makeovers for her party. The men have different ideas on approaching the task. Matt asks his dad about the instructions. Confused by them, John decides to rip them up. When looking at the picture yields no results, the men decide to find an instruction video on the internet. They fail victim to watching unrelated stuff and start tearing up about kids being reunited with dads home from war or a police dog suffering from cancer saying goodbye to his unit. Sophia’s mother Heather (Betsy Brandt) sees them not working and tells them to start working on the mirror. After they finish, Sophia tests it out and it falls apart. They start blaming each other for why it did not work. In frustration, Matt asks his dad why he asked him for help. John reveals that he has missed Matt since he moved out of his garage to live with his fiancée. After the sweet father-son moment, their backup plan is to use the vanity pieces as wood and have a campfire outside. It is a hit with Sophia’s friends.

Joan (Dianne Wiest), Heather, Colleen (Angelique Cabral) and Jen are at a bridal store looking for the perfect wedding dress for Colleen. Joan is excited because she was never able to do this for her daughter Heather because she was pregnant and Jen decided to buy her wedding dress at a thrift store. As the champagne pours, Colleen tries on many dresses, but Joan keeps saying how ugly they all are. Colleen keeps trying dress after dress to find the perfect one. As the hours go by, the women get tired of looking at dresses. They also are fed up by the eager and annoying store employee Chris. Jen tells Joan to stop telling Colleen that her choices are ugly and just tell her that she likes whatever dress she is wearing. When Colleen come out again in an ugly dress, Joan is unable to lie. Jen decides to talk to Colleen and discovers that Colleen already has a dress, but went shopping anyway to give Joan the day she never had with Heather. While Jen thinks the gesture is sweet, she is annoyed that the day was wasted for nothing and tells her never to do that again.

Tim is upset that people have been eating the food he has hidden in the cupboards. His wife Heather points out to him that there are more people living in their house so it is bound to happen. His daughter-in-law Clementine (Hunter King) overhears him complaining and worried that he does not like her staying with them. Her husband Tyler (Niall Cunningham) suggests that she should try being extra nice to his father.

The next day as Tim is washing his car, Clementine shows up and offers do it. Tim is confused but he lets her. Another day, he comes home from work and calls out to wife. Clementine tells him that everyone is out and they are the only two home. She offers to “put on a show” for him and he takes it the wrong way and runs out the door. It turns out she just meant put on one of his favorite shows, When Sharks Attack.

At the family Christmas dinner, Tim tells Heather that Clementine has been hitting on him, but she does not believe him. When he tells his brothers-in law, Matt and Greg, they laugh at him. The only reason he can come up with is that Clementine is attracted to his “dad bod” which is a man “shaped like a sturdy sack of flour.” When Clementine approaches him with a bowl of guacamole, Tim declines. Clementine encourages him to have some, but he refuses. Frustrated, she walks away. Seeing her licking her lips at Tim and her behavior, Matt and Greg believe Tim and are convinced that “dad bod is real.” Tim tries to find a seat away from Clementine at the table, but he has no luck. She takes his hand and tells him that she got permission from Heather to do it. Tim freaks out and says it is not right. Clementine is confused and she asks him why she cannot say grace. Relieved, Tim is happy that she is not coming on to him. Tyler confronts his dad and asks why he has not been nice to wife. He tells him that Clementine has been trying to be extra nice so it will be okay for the couple to continue staying at Tim’s and Heather’s house. Heather suggests Tim tell Clementine what he has been thinking. Instead he starts singing to change the subject. Clementine suggests they move out and Tyler agrees.