Recap / Married With Children S 10 E 8 Blond And Blonder

"Blond And Blonder" is an episode in the tenth season of Married... with Children.

Kelly meets with her group of girls from their high school days, and they, with Bud in tow, visit the high school on the day of five-year anniversary for their class. There, they encounter a former high school nerd who's now a millionaire (played by Casper Van Dien), who helps Bud exact revenge on the respective girl who had wronged them. Meanwhile, Al, Peg, Marcy, and Jefferson look for toys to donate to charity and end up playing Twister.

Tropes include:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Mindy (Kelly's braces-wearing friend) repeatedly hits on Bud, much to his annoyance.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Peg can't help but smile after hearing Al take a jab at Jefferson (and Marcy to a lesser extent) when Marcy looks inside the box of toys Al and Peg are planning on giving away.
  Marcy: What's Mr. Potato Head doing here?
  Al: Well, I don't know; you married him!
  Marcy: Not that Mr. Potato Head! The one that's actually worth something!
• All Cloth Unravels: This happens after Mindy dances with a guy, with her braces getting caught in the guy's suit, resulting in a short trail of thread from her braces as he walks away and her running after him to prevent further damage to his suit.
• Answer Cut:
  • As the result of Eric managing to No-Sell Kelly's and Ashley's Supermodel Strut, the girls decide to ask for advice from someone who's had plenty of experience getting turned down and wonder who would fit the qualification. The scene shifts to Bud asking another girl for a dance, only to receive a slap in return.
  • After Bud's Bed Trick against the girl he targets is revealed late in the episode, Bud and Eric have a cordial conversation about their successful revenge against the girls in question before Bud, not knowing what kind of revenge Eric has in mind for Kelly, asks him what the note he has Bud give to Kelly is about. Cut to Kelly waiting alone for Eric while being Exposed to the Elements on the school roof.
• Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?: Ashley, one of the girls Kelly arrives to the school with, has this conversation with Kelly before the topic focuses on Eric.
  Ashley: Kelly, are you thinking what I'm thinking?
  Kelly: Why don't things fall up?
  Ashley: No.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Eric's revenge on Kelly involves him sending her a note (through Bud) that suggests for her to meet him on the roof of the school building, only to stand her up and leave her Exposed to the Elements all night — precisely the prank she played on him during their high school years that resulted in him having a toe amputated.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: After Eric manages to No-Sell the Supermodel Strut Kelly and Ashley do in their attempt to seduce him, they enlist Bud's help on how to win Eric over, and Bud advises them to wait for him while he talks to Eric. Too bad for Kelly and Ashley that they're NOT Easily Forgiven by Bud and Eric for their mistreatment to the guys in the past, making them easy targets for Bud and Eric's schemes of revenge against them in return.
• Bed Trick: Bud's revenge on his targeted girl in a gist. He has Eric pretend to invite her to meet him under the bleachers. She does, not realizing due to the darkness of the place that it's Bud waiting for her.
• Best Served Cold: Neither Kelly nor the girl Bud targets for revenge expected the boy each of them treated badly in the past to exact payback on them later in life.
• Black Comedy Rape: Bud is on the giving and receiving end of this.
  • Bud gives one via his Bed Trick against the girl who treated him poorly and shows no remorse for it.
  • He's then on the receiving end of it, as the result of Mindy cornering him under the bleachers for sex as he's about to leave after he's already spent following the Bed Trick. The episode ends with him uttering Little "No" before letting out a terrified scream as Mindy drags him back.
    Mindy: Hey, Bud... it's hickey-time.
• Braces of Orthodontic Overkill: Bud's Abhorrent Admirer in this episode has braces.
• Brick Joke: Early in the episode, Jefferson recounts for the time when he, as a Frat Bro, had a blast with his college buddies launching Mr. Potato Head that turned it, in his words, "into hash browns". When Marcy looks for the Mr. Potato Head she intends to donate to charity but can't find late in the selfsame episode, she knows what's about to happen to it upon Peg informing her that Jefferson had taken it out to the backyard.
  Marcy: Uh-oh.
• Class Reunion: The old high school hosts the five-year reunion for Kelly and others in her year.
• Hide and No Seek: Peg suggests that they play Twister while the kids are away. Al suggests a game of hide-and-go-seek instead, with Peg and Marcy doing the hiding. Al and Jefferson turn on the TV the moment they are sure Peg and Marcy are out of the room.^note  It doesn't last, because their next scene has them playing Twister.
• Hypocritical Humor: Al and Peg remark dismissively about people playing with toy guns, right before they take the toy guns out of the box of toys and play against each other, to the delight of both, stopping only when Marcy and Jefferson enter the Bundy house with a box of toys of their own.
  Marcy: What are you guys doing here?
  Al: Foreplay.
  Peg: Oh, Al, it can't be foreplay. I'm enjoying it!
  Al: And I'm in the room!
• Ignore the Fanservice: Eric reacts to the Supermodel Strut Ashley and Kelly perform with a yawn each while they try to seduce him.
• Ironic Echo: Early on in the episode, Ashley puts up a pretense of feeling remorse for mistreating Bud and liking him before rejecting him and calling him "nerd boy" (and that's after Bud reminds her that she had mistreated him in the past, too). After the Bed Trick is revealed via Bud showing himself under the bleachers, he mutters privately "nerd girl" while watching Ashley, who knows nothing of the truth, walking away.
• Jaw Drop: Once Eric introduces himself to the girls in his fancy and handsome appearance, which serves as a stark contrast to his nerdy image back in the high school years, and especially after revealing to them that he's now a millionaire, all the girls have this kind of reaction, with Kelly's being the most prominent.
• Prank Date: The "deliberate no-show" variant.
  • Kelly recounts of the time she pulled one such stunt to Eric during their high school years, resulting in him having waited for her all night fruitlessly while being Exposed to the Elements, getting a toe of his amputated, and gaining the "Nine Toes" nickname as the result.
  • In the present time, Eric, with Bud's help, turns the table on Kelly and have her stood up on the school roof for A Taste of Their Own Medicine as his revenge of choice on Kelly, which she's starting to catch up on near the end of the episode.
    Kelly: Welp... I've got a feeling that Eric is not gonna show up, and Bud's gonna pay for this.
• Really Gets Around: Fawn already has this reputation (along with other girls in the group), but she really kicks it up a notch in one statement.
  To think I slept with every guy in this room. What was I thinking that night?
• Reunion Revenge: Bud and Eric get to have one each against Kelly and Ashley (Bud to Ashley and Eric to Kelly) for the mistreatment each of them suffered from the girl in question at the Class Reunion.
• Revenge of the Nerd: Bud and Eric are the "nerd" in question in this episode, and they help each other exact a Reunion Revenge against the girl mistreating the guy in question at the Class Reunion. It helps that Eric is now a handsome millionaire, a far cry from his nerdy image in high school for which Kelly and others remembered him, making it easy for the girls he and Bud target to fall for the revenge plots.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: "He" in this case. Kelly's description of Eric, whom she played a mean prank on him that resulted in him having a toe amputated during their high school years, early in the episode is that "even his glasses had acne". Come the night of the class reunion, he looks absolutely handsome, fancy, and without glasses, much to the shock of Kelly (and the other girls to a lesser extent).
  Kelly: Eric Waters? Y-You look different.
  Eric: It's amazing how your looks can improve with nice clothes, contact lenses, and 10 million dollars. [walks away]
  Kelly: *goes back to her group of girls* Ten million dollars? Oh my God, he's the ex-husband of my dreams.
• Shout-Out: To Superman, due to the line Kelly states upon seeing a Mr. Potato Head being blasted into the sky while she waits — fruitlessly — for Eric on the school roof.
  Kelly: It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... Mr. Potato Head?
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Early on in the episode, Kelly shows a stack of enveloped letters she intends to give to Ashley and scoffs at Bud's suggestion of mailing them to her. Once Ashley arrives, she presents her stack of enveloped letters to Kelly, and Kelly and Ashley have their letter-exchange transaction, much to the bewilderment of Bud, who can only roll his eyes at their stunt.
• Supermodel Strut: Known as "the walk" as one of the methods girls in the group utilize to seduce men. Kelly does it in practice early in the episode and succeeds in getting a male firefighter who happens to see her while passing by to stop over and invite her to "ride in his truck". She and Ashley both do it later in the episode to try to seduce Eric after seeing his now fancy and handsome look and especially learning that he's a millionaire, but, unfortunately for them, Eric reacts with a yawn to both of them, much to the shock and disbelief of the girls, prompting both Kelly and Ashley to ask Bud for advice on how to win Eric over.^note  It ends up coming back to bite both girls in the backside because Bud and Eric scheme for their revenge against them for their bad treatment of the guys years ago.
  Mindy: Did you see that? He ignored both of their moves.
  Fawn: Yeah, it's like he's deaf or something.
• Tastes Like Chicken: More like "smells like chicken". This is referenced in a dialogue at the start of the episode between Peg and her mother when Peg holds a box of toys.
  Grandmother Wanker: What are you taking, Margaret? Is it food?
  Peg: No, mom. I'm taking a box of toys to the shelter.
  Grandmother Wanker: Don't lie to your mother! I smell chicken!
  Peg: It's just Al's socks!
  • It gets referenced once more when Al enters the house.
    Al: Hey, Peg. *sniffs* Do I smell chicken?
    Peg: No, Al.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Marcy has this feeling after Peg tells her that Jefferson had taken the Mr. Potato Head that was intended to be donated to charity out into the backyard.^note  It also counts as a Brick Joke, as Jefferson had confided with them about him blasting a Mr. Potato Head off to space for fun, back when he was a Frat Bro in his college years.
  Marcy: Uh-oh.
• Tuckerization: At the school, there are election posters for Richard Gurman and Kim Weiskopf, so named after two of the show's producers. Gurman in particular co-wrote this episode.
• Your Other Left: As Kelly and her friends discuss the guys at the reunion, Ashley notices a winner (Eric) and tells them to check out 4 o'clock. Kelly and the other girls all look in different directions, with none of them being where Ashley is looking.

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