The Bitterest Pill
Screenplay By: Michael P. Kube McDowell & Julie Selbo
Story By: Frederik Pohl
Directed By: Bryan Michael Stoller
The Benders, Harlan, Margery, and their son Johnathan (Joe Carafello, Catherine Battistone, and Jason Horst), are a dysfunctional suburban family who win the state's "Big Four" $10,000,000 lottery by sheer chance on an ordinary day. After giving their home a makeover, the family is visited by Winston "Tinker" McGee (Mark Blankfield), an eccentric scientist friend who evidently has an "attachment" to Margery. He shows the family pills he's invented which are able to increase a person's memory and brainpower to the point of total recall, hoping to use some of their new finances for testing and marketing of the prototype. The family member who takes the strongest interest in the pill is Johnathan, whose parents have abused, stifled, and called stupid to his face, and he aches to gain super intelligence so he can put his folks in their place.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Jonathan's parents (Harlan, especially) constantly call him stupid and forbid him from doing anything that resembles fun.
- Acting Your Intellectual Age: Any childlike behavior previously Jonathan exhibited throughout the episode is completely eradicated once he becomes a genius.
- Aside Glance: The final shot has Margery and Harlan sharing one to each other as they stare at their now-genius son's autobiography.
- Asshole Victim: Johnathan's parents are abusive to him, and his father often forces him to do the housework instead of doing it himself. The tables turn near the end of the episode, where Harlan and Margery are taken down several notches and become timid and docile shells of their old selves thanks to their now genius-son, who becomes their legal guardian via court order.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Benders as a whole are incredibly dysfunctional, as the parents are lazy, flirtatious, and abusive bums, the son shows chronic misbehavior, and their scientist friend is borderline certifiable.
- Bottle Episode: The bulk of the episode is set in the Benders' living room.
- Breather Episode: The previous two episodes were respectively more horrific and greatly upsetting than usual, so this episode brings the series back to the realm of comedy so the viewers can laugh again.
- Catchphrase:
- Harlan's repeated declarations of "Stupid kid!" to his own son.
- Tinker's repeated declarations of how his pills can help Harlan and his family conquer/be given "the world!".
- Child Prodigy: Johnathan becomes a genius who whips his parents into shape when he ingests Tinker's pills.
- Deadpan Snarker: Harlan and Margery in response to Tinker's ludicrous ramblings about being a super-genius.
- Denser and Wackier: A rambunctious and dysfunctional family wins the lottery by sheer, unrelenting chance, and the outrageously nutty scientist friend of theirs tries to bilk some of their lottery money out of them for his experiments.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Harlan is a fan of punishing his "stupid kid" Johnathan for rather petty things, such as telling him to go to his room when he wants to read the newspaper's sports section instead of the national news.
- The Dog Bites Back:
- Johnathan is abused and essentially made to play butler to his incredibly lazy parents, so he cuts them down to size when he ingests Tinker's pill and becomes a genius, as well as their legal guardian.
- Kopec, the security guard who Harlan also abuses, sides with Johnathan when he gains his intelligence boost.
- Dragon-in-Chief: Kopec, the Benders' new security guard, joins the newly-intelligent Johnathan when he lives his own life, as Harlan similarly abused him like he did the kid.
- Establishing Character Moment: Johnathan is introduced tossing his basketball in the house instead of taking out the garbage like his father asks him to. This is followed by his ball knocking over Harlan's beer and landing in his chip bowl, to which the angered father grouses "Stupid kid!"
- A Family Affair: Given that family friend Tinker has a habit of calling Margery "Cuddles", how Harlan reacts with errant hostility when told he's coming to the house, and how the pair flirtatiously compliment each other when Harlan steps out of the room, it's strongly implied that the pair have feelings for one another. Harlan even reminds Margery that Tinker tried to cuckold him on his wedding night, all-but-confirming the implications are true.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- Tinker's mind apparently overloads from the pills he invented, as Johnathan speculates that the drug isn't fatal on a younger, still-developing brain like his.
- Harlan slaps Tinker's jar of pills out of his hand and onto the floor, and Margery forces Johnathan to clean them up instead of doing so herself. This gives the boy the chance to ingest them, turning him into a genius who browbeats his parents into being just as childish and timid as he once was.
- Furthermore, they're too distracted on rebuilding their relationship after Tinker's visit to pay attention to Johnathan swallowing one of Tinker's pills, far too late to stop him.
- Ironic Echo: Discontent with every single thing Jonathan wants to do, his parents decline every activity he suggests and insisting that he read a book. He does the same to them when he becomes emancipated, even shoving his autobiography in their faces for their first reading.
- It Began with a Twist of Fate: Mr. and Mrs. Bender end up under the thumb of their now-genius son, just because Margery bought the lottery's winning ticket by sheer chance. Similarly, if Johnathan didn't pick up the national section in the newspaper, his parents would've never known they won and could've avoided becoming just like the son they abused.
- Large Ham: The Benders are notably over-the-top, but Tinker spends the whole episode acting like Jim Carrey on speed, even shrieking the rough-necked grouse's mating call during one of his rambling monologues to Harlan, and doing an impression of an agitated monkey when he gets one of his spikes of headache pain.
- Lazy Bum: Margery and Harlan expect Johnathan to do everything around the house, on top of stifling his desire to have fun and calling him stupid.
- Mad Scientist: Tinker invents miraculous intelligence-boosting pills, but he's more "mad" in the "straitjacket and padded cell" sense than the "discredited doctor performing depraved experiments" sense.
- Meaningful Name: Winston, who calls himself "Tinker", is an eccentric scientist who invents pills capable of bestowing incredible intelligence to anyone who consumes one.
- Motor Mouth: Tinker hardly ever stops talking when spouting his scientific drivel, likely a side effect of his intelligence pills.
- My Skull Runneth Over: Tinker suffers from constant headaches due to the amount of information his mind absorbed after ingesting his pills. This eventually results in his death.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Kopec, the security guard that the Benders hire after winning the lottery, is likely based on Henry Winkler, given that he randomly speaks in the voice of Winkler's most famous character.
- Nouveau Riche: Jonathan's family, who win the lottery by random chance and are approached by Tinker for extra funds for his research.
- Phlebotinum Pills: The pills that grants the user the ability to recall anything.
- Pretty in Mink: Margery dreamily tells her husband, after learning that her lottery ticket was the lucky winner, that she wants a fur coat to wear when she goes shopping for frozen foods, which Harlan refuses to buy her.
- Running Gag:
- After winning the lottery, Harlan and Margery end up getting hassled by salesmen trying to sell them things over the phone, which they leave off the hook and hide in the couch cushions.
- After Johnathan is sent to his room in the first act, he spends the rest of that act, as well as a good chunk of the second, asking over the new intercom if he can come back down, to which his parents scream "No!".
- Scream Discretion Shot: An exterior view of the Bender house is shown over Tinker screeching like a grouse, showing that he can be heard up and down the street.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Tinker frequently uses complex words in his scientific ramblings.
- Shout-Out: Kopec, for whatever reason, talks like Fonzie whenever he says a line.
- Stock Sound Effects: Electronic beeping is heard as Tinker expounds about maximizing the potential of "the human computer", before he gives more obscure facts to Harlan.
- Super-Intelligence: The pills Tinker invents grant immense brain power and memory on anyone who swallows them.
- Time Skip:
- After the opening act, the episode shows that the Benders have cashed in Margery's winning ticket and spruced up the house, even hiring a security guard to keep their mooching neighbors away from their door.
- The ending of the episode takes place sometime after Johnathan started treating his now meek and docile parents how they treated him, where we learn that Tinker died from his pill-induced knowledge overload and that the boy's become a celebrity with his own autobiography.
- Title Drop: The newly-super intelligent Johnathan gives his parents his autobiography, which bears the same title of the episode, as reading material in the final scene.
- World of Ham: Everyone in the episode goes nuts with chewing on the scenery, as the Benders have no indoor voices, Kopec inexplicably talks like Fonzie, and Tinker delivers monologues at lightning speed like a drugged-up Jim Carrey.
