Grandma's Last Wish
The Rollins (Kate-McGregor Stewart, Paul Avery, and Kelly Wolf) are a self-centered suburban family who are tired of having to accommodate their senile and doddering Grandma (Jane Connell). When she trips and almost breaks something, the family plan to throw poor Grandma in the Tranquil Gardens Retirement Home against her will. The week before she's set to leave, the family invites Grandma to make a wish, and they promise to do whatever they can to make it come true. Grandma's wish does indeed come true, and her family begins, in the literal sense, to understand the hardships that come with growing old.
Tropes:
- Ambiguously Human: Grandma may be more than just an old lady, if the way she gets back at her family is any indication.
- Asshole Victim: May, Frank, and Greta, who treat Grandma like a burden, are reduced to oldies who become even more senile than her.
- Became Their Own Antithesis: The Rollins treat Grandma as an underfoot burden instead of a member of the family that deserves proper accommodation. By the end of the episode, thanks to her wish, Grandma becomes a gracefully aging woman while her family becomes even more old and senile than she ever was.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Inverted, as the Rollins are the ones who should've been more careful offering a wish to Grandma, who they treated as a piece of garbage and were about to stuff in a nursing home.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Even if she's not all there at times, Grandma tries her hardest to fit in with her hectic loudmouthed family, showing kindness whenever she can. That soon changes after they get to talking about Tranquil Gardens.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Rollins. Aside from Grandma, they're all self-centered jackasses who communicate almost exclusively by yelling and only care about themselves and their social lives.
- Body Horror: Throughout the episode, the Rollins gradually start growing as old and senile as Grandma, aging prematurely from the inside out.
- Bookends: The ragtime music that plays on Grandma's radio in the intro plays again at the end.
- Brick Joke: The beginning of the episode has May infuriating Greta by hogging the phone while she's expecting a call from her boyfriend Buzz. Halfway through the episode, after May sprains her ankle and gains a limp, Greta gets to repay the favor.
- Butterfly of Doom: Grandma trips over May's briefcase, which she plops right in her path. Had May put the briefcase under the kitchen table instead, she and her family may not have grown senile thanks to promising to throw Grandma in Tranquil Gardens.
- Card-Carrying Brat: Greta, an aspiring gymnast who doesn't care about being "sweet" and would much rather act "interesting".
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: In this case "Deceased Husbands are the Best". According to Grandma, her late husband Harry's greatest gift was that he always believed in her. Compared to her son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter, it's little wonder she misses Harry.
- The Dog Bites Back: After spending years being treated as a doormat by her unsympathetic family, Grandma gets back at them by wishing for them to become older and more senile than she is.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Grandma's true name is never mentioned.
- Evil Old Folks: Grandma gradually becomes more of an anti-hero as her family grows old. On one hand, making her family prematurely age into elders is rather cruel. But on the other hand, her family was highly deserving of such treatment to begin with.
- It's All About Me: The entirety of the Rollins, since they're more preoccupied with their own wants and concerns than each other. They also hardly do anything to accommodate the enfeebled and forgetful Grandma, often ignoring her suggestions to do so and barely treating her with any respect. When she nearly slips and falls one time, they promptly make the decision to throw her into a retirement home (albeit a nice one) in a week's time.
- Not even Grandma herself is exempt from this, as she's far too busy being pleased that her wish is coming true to care that her relatives are being injured and brain-damaged.
- I Was Quite a Looker: The photo of her as a swinger we see in the beginning shows that Grandma used to be a very lovely young woman.
- Laser-Guided Karma: For trying to put the nice (if clumsy and forgetful) Grandma in a nursing home, the whole Rollins family now suffer the same frailties of old age as she does.
- Lighter and Softer: The episode is a comedy that centers on a somewhat senile old lady who wishes for her outrageously dysfunctional family to be elderly, so that they know what it's like to be her. The antics of the family themselves make the episode teeter into Denser and Wackier territory.
- Never Mess with Granny: The Rollins learn this the hard way, as Grandma turns them even older and more senile than she ever was.
- No Indoor Voice: To show how unsympathetic they are, the Rollins communicate exclusively by yelling. And they NEVER SHUT UP.
- No Sense of Personal Space: Frank and May keep moving closer and closer to Grandma to tell her about their plans to invite the representative of Tranquil Gardens to the house.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Normally, wishing your family to become as old and physically/mentally enfeebled as you would count as cruel and undeserving. But Grandma's family is so selfish and toxic, it's little wonder she makes the titular wish.
- Rapid Aging: The Rollins get hit with this at the end, thanks to Grandma's wish.
- Scatterbrained Senior: Grandma, with this being one of the reasons her family is getting tired of her. Towards the end, thanks to her wish, she gets better while the rest of her family become even more senile than her.
- Shout-Out: In her youth, Grandma used to be a dancer, having performed in the Ziegfeld Follies. A senile Frank recalls how he snuck backstage to see her as a boy, claiming that she was prettier than Greta Garbo.
- Taking You with Me: In a non-lethal case, Grandma claims that her now-elderly family is going to be joining her at Tranquil Gardens.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Grandma happens to enjoy olives, often having a small cup of them for breakfast, along with a glass of tomato juice.
- Verbal Backpedaling: The Tranquil Gardens representative claims that the plumbing will cost money. The Rollins (minus Grandma) immediately give him strange/dirty looks before he says he's joking.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Their decision to throw Grandma in a home may be heartless, but the Rollins genuinely think she'll be safe and happy there. To be fair to them, the slides of Tranquil Gardens indicate that the place does its best to ensure that its residents are comfortable and have plenty of recreational activities to do.
- World of Ham: The Rollins. Need we say more?
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Though they believe it's the best possible thing for her at this point, the Rollins agree unanimously to throw Grandma in a home after she slips and nearly falls one time.
