Single Parents - They Call Me DOCTOR Biscuits! - Review: Hyper-Banquetitis-Phrenia

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

Apologies for not getting a review up last week, I was out of town and by the time everything settled down a new episode was airing so I figured I'd just miss a week and jump back in fresh! Though trust me I definitely enjoyed seeing Hannah Simone pop in and I'm hoping she'll be sticking around for a little while.

Also I definitely squealed last week when we got that admission from Douglas about his crush on Poppy! How cute.

WILL'S SECRET LOVER

Will needs more time with the new woman in his life, Doctor Monica Dewan (New Girl's Hannah Simone) so he lies to Douglas, who is in over his head in the aftermath of an aquarium trip with all the kids, about needing to water his plants. Which Sophie can't be a part of! Apparently, Will has not told Sophie about Monica yet so Douglas will have to forgo his usual plan of dropping the kids off in alphabetical order so Will can figure out what to do.

I'm really glad Douglas actually asked Sophie if it was hard for her to water plants. Given everything we know about the Coopers, if there are actually plants, I wouldn't be surprised if Sophie was the one to water them anyways. Obviously, Will's lying and Sophie's up next on the drop-off list!

In a moment of surprising solidarity, Douglas spots Will and Monica kissing in the front yard and after an awkward moment of elongated eye contact, he decides he'll drop the kids off in order of projected career earnings to give Will more time.

At the parent's table in the morning Will discusses his fears of revealing his relationship with Monica to Sophie. He's used to always telling her everything and feels uncomfortable keeping it from her. Douglas recommends lying, of course. (I wonder if the twins still think they have an Aunt Gail?) Poppy and Angie share some of their own close call stories, but Will is still conflicted in how to proceed.

He doesn't get much time to figure it out as Sophie finds one of Monica's horrifying snake earrings on the ground and Will has to come up with an excuse as to why her doctor was visiting. Sophie won the Healthiest Kid in America award! Suck it Gwen! Gwen is a girl in school who is obsessed with vitamins, they're starting off young these days I guess. Maybe if I was more like Gwen I wouldn't have a Vitamin D deficiency at 25.

A red flag for Will should have been when Douglas was approving of his plan. His motto for lying is when you start to get caught lying to your kids... you keep on lying! I really need to see how this guy would handle being caught about the tooth fairy or Santa Claus (NOTE: Two little birdies suggested to me we may be getting a holiday episode of Single Parents and suddenly I'm feeling super festive.)

Sophie is too smart for both Will and Douglas. Even Monica, who gets roped into the scheme, isn't able to keep up with all her questions about the authenticity of this "Healthiest Child in America" awards banquet. Which is good because Hyper-banquetitis-phrenia Type B sounded serious.

He tells her the truth about he and Monica seeing each other and that he was scared to tell her the truth. Will eventually apologizes to Sophie about it and opens the doors for her to ask him anything she wants but sometimes he won't tell her things for her own good, like what they were doing that resulted in Monica's earring getting smashed into the carpet in the first place.

Sophie assures her dad that's okay, she doesn't always tell him everything either! Cue a panic-stricken Will realizing what that could mean now and in the future, ha.

GREASE LIGHTENING

Looks like the school is going to be putting on a production of Grease, which I'm definitely wondering if that's really an elementary school appropriate play for kids but I digress. Poppy and Angie share compliments on their kid's performances from last year's Sound of Music where Rory played Captain Von Trapp and Graham played Nazi 12 AND Nun 13, a real talent.

In charge of creating the iconic "grease lightening" vehicle is the terrible twos, Emma and Amy. But they quickly tire of the shoddy paper-made crafts and look for something more realistic. Cue Miggy's beat-up junk car pulling into the lot. He puts it best when he asks whether or not he should be worried about the twins measuring his car to which Douglas replies with love and fear: "Yes. With those two? Always yes."

Later on, Miggy finds the twins working under his car, "They're 7!" is all he can think to exclaim as they work on upgrading his vehicle into a car worthy of the Grease Lightening moniker, grease stains and all.

Afterwards we're treated to an adorable rendition of the titular song, and it sounds like Rory singing though I could be wrong. Dr. Biscuits edits the script, Emma and Amy hit the tools to the beat of the song, Rory works on learning his lines, Will and Douglas continue working on creating a more intricate lie, everyone's plans are in full swing.

DANNY ZUKO VS. VINCE FONTAINE

Shocks are in store for the casting though! Rory gets to play the part of Vince Fontaine, "a B-list celeb" who judges dance contests and Graham somehow lands the lead part of Danny Zuko! Uh-oh, seeing a rivalry on the horizon. Neither Rory or Graham are excited about this. Rory is disappointed and Graham is vomiting mid-hand jive out of nerves.

Poppy arrives at the D'Amato household not long after to discuss talking to the drama teacher about this "casting boo-boo". Angie is on the same page but she says they can't meddle in this. An aside: but I want to see the scene of Poppy convincing the principal to let her first-grade son edit the school yearbook because he has a vision. They're going to have to let their kids play these parts and see how the cookie crumbles.

I give both of them about five minutes before their resolve breaks.

And as expected, Poppy wastes no time in getting some face time in with the school's theater director, Dr. Biscuits (Rhys Darby). She proposes expanding the role of Vince Fontaine.

Angie is on to Poppy the moment she notices Vince Fontaine suddenly stopping a dance contest to sing "Grease Lightnin'" and then also shows up to the girl's sleepover in the play. But what if their meddling could be holding Graham back? Maybe he's supposed to be a lead in the play for a reason. At least that is her argument until Graham runs onstage screaming about the grease in his hair attracting bees.

This results in a pretty loud outburst from Poppy about how Biscuits was the one who rewrote Grease, she just meddled from the shadows. To which Angie responds: "Who the hell is Biscuits!?"

"I the hell am Biscuits!" Doctor Biscuits replies in a hilarious bit. Once Angie understands who the kooky new drama teacher is things start to make a little more sense.

Biscuits essentially coaxes Angie and Poppy into a heart-to-heart onstage, complete with a smoking pipe for Angie and a crutch for Poppy so they can really get into character. Angie helps Poppy accept that sometimes her kid will fail and that's okay. She watches Graham fail all the time and she's gotten used to it by now. But their punishment for disrupting rehearsal is banishment from the theater forever.

Just kidding. Only this play, which will be regular Grease after all. Still, damn Biscuits that's harsh.

In order to still see their kid's perform despite their temporary banishment, they have Graham and Rory due an impromptu, two-man, unauthorized retelling of the play, which, since they're missing everyone else, is basically just Graham talking to himself for over an hour.

But hey, at least Douglas's lying gift hasn't gone anywhere as he assures them both it was the finest play anyone has ever seen and they should perform it again right away!

He lies, then doubles down, remember?

EXTRAS

PARENT OF THE WEEK: Will, his heart-to-heart with Sophie at the end was precious and watching him struggle to keep up with all of his lies was a joy to watch.

KID OF THE WEEK: Sophie is just so utterly adorable. I loved watching her square off with Douglas in particular.

FAVORITE JOKE: "She's learned a lot from watching The Good Wife."

BEST SCENE: Angie and Poppy's stage performance. I loved Poppy asking if she could "take it again" while hobbling around with the crutch.

SINGLE PARENTS WILL RETURN WITH A NEW EPISODE ON NOVEMBER 28TH @ 9:31/8:31c ON ABC.