Recap / Married With Children S 4 E 1 Hot Off The Grill

"Hot Off The Grill" is the fourth season premier episode of Married... with Children.

Al decides to have a family barbecue on Labor Day, and he invites the Rhoades over, who are upset over the death of Marcy's aunt, whom Marcy loves and Steve hates. After Peg accidentally knocks Al's grill over and loses his ashes in the grill, Kelly and Bud are tasked with combing through the neighborhood to procure replacement ashes for the grill, with hilariously disastrous results.

Tropes in this episode include:

• Ashes to Crashes: Played for comedy and drama, as the ashes in question are the cremated remains of Marcy's aunt, and Kelly, not knowing the truth, adds said ashes into the grill when she and Bud look for replacement ashes to put inside Al's grill. Kelly, Bud, and Peg are not happy once they find out the truth.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • The reason Peg is scrubbing and cleaning the picnic table instead of Al doing so is due to a promise Al made the previous spring to have sex with her on Labor Day. Unfortunately for her, the menial labor she has to do in preparation for the family barbecue (namely, scrubbing and cleaning the picnic table) has taken all the excitement for sex out of her.^note  It gets worse for her once Al gets aroused watching her do menial work and wants sex with her right then and there and won't take "no" for an answer.
  • Exploited by Steve, he tries to warn Marcy what happened to the burgers, but Marcy, having dealt with his insensitivity all day, tells him to shut up before he could get a word in edge-wise. Steve, absolutely chipper, obliges.
• Black Comedy Rape: Peg gets dragged into having sex with Al multiple times against her will in this episode, as the result of Al being aroused at the sight of Peg doing menial labor.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick:
  Peg: I hate barbecues! I hate Labor Day! I hate watching buzzards circle while I'm having sex.
• Brick Joke: As Al is about to start the grill, Steve hands some fish for Al to cook. Al agrees, only to toss the fish away when no one is looking, claiming "no fish is touching my grill". When Al hands Steve his burger, Steve asks what happened to the fish, with Al claiming "it fell to the floor" but hiding the fact that he was the reason the fish fell to the floor. Steve, however, doesn't press the subject further.
• Dramatic Pause:
  • When Peg reenters the backyard after another session of Speed Sex right as Kelly and Bud return with their bag of replacement ashes, Peg states, rather feebly: "I hate Labor Day... so much."
  • After Al finally ends his lengthy speech about what Labor Day means to him, Steve presents his question this way.^note  Too bad for everyone except Al, Al is not done with his pre-BBQ rituals yet, at least not until Peg finishes singing the National Anthem.
    Steve: May we eat... now?
• Dumbass Has a Point: Though it's obvious to Peg and Bud that the neighbor Kelly is talking about is a cross-dresser, her assumption that the clothes belong to the women he sleeps with is a perfectly reasonable one.
  Bud: (to Peg) Pretty fancy thinking for a dullard, eh, Mom?
• Everyone Has Standards: The Bundys may be amoral, disgusting, and starving, but even they're repulsed by the fact they just ate burgers contaminated with a dead woman's ashes.
• Exact Words:
  • Peg tells Al "Don't just sit there. Do something!" when she's getting exhausted from scrubbing the picnic table. Unfortunately for her, Al decides to "do something"... by dragging her off for another Speed Sex without her consent.
  • When Al gives Steve his share of the burger, Steve asks what happened to the fish he gave to Al and requested for him to cook, with Al responding that "it fell to the floor". What Al doesn't tell Steve, however, is that the fish fell to the floor because Al tossed it away when no one was looking.
• Funny Background Event: Once Kelly realizes that she accidentally put the ashes of Marcy's dead aunt in Al's BBQ grill and informs Bud, Peg, and Steve, their actions become this while Al and Marcy, oblivious to the truth and subsequent events taking place, chat between themselves and continue to consume the "Bundy burgers" (Peg, infuriated, chases and tries to strangle Kelly for her blunder, whereas Bud and Steve are scooping up the ashes off the grill to be re-deposited into Marcy's urn later).
• He-Man Woman Hater: In Al's Labor Day speech:
  While the cavewoman sat around, getting fat, smoking cigarettes, and watching The Phil Javaman Show...
  • And it later culminated in him saying the non-sequitor, "And the women still did nothing!"
• I Ate WHAT?!: Kelly, Bud, and Peg's disgusted reactions to learning where the ashes in the grill used to cook their burger really came from.
• Nap-Inducing Speak: Al's lengthy speech about what Labor Day means to him is so boring that Kelly is plopping down asleep before the end of the speech and everyone else is either close to falling asleep or at least acting bored out of their mind.
• Nausea Dissonance: Upon learning the truth that the ashes in Marcy's urn that Kelly adds into the grill belong to Marcy's deceased aunt, Kelly, Bud, and Peg all react with disgust (Kelly rinses her mouth with water while Bud and Peg both eject the mouthful of burger out of their mouths)... but not Steve, who, due to his hatred towards Marcy's aunt, takes one look at the burger in his hand before letting loose a toothy smile and eating his burger with even greater enthusiasm.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Peg has this reaction in two premises: The first happens — several times — when Al beckons/drags her for some Speed Sex without her consent, especially as she's already tired from scrubbing and cleaning the picnic table. The other takes place after she accidentally knocks Al's grill over and loses the ashes in the process.
    Peg: He's gonna kill me!
  • Kelly gets this treatment, first when she realizes that the ashes she took from the urn and added into the grill belonged to Marcy's dead aunt, and then after Peg, upon learning the truth about the ashes, gives her a Death Glare.
• Pet the Dog: Both Al and Marcy are considerably nicer to each other in this episode; whereas Marcy earnestly compliments him on his burgers (in spite of both of them not knowing that her late Aunt's ashes are in the burger), Al consoles her over losing said Aunt, even putting his arm around her in genuine camaraderie.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Steve takes a huge bite of the burger after learning it was contaminated with Marcy's aunt's ashes, tries to warn Marcy, and then helps Bud refill the urn with the ashes.
• Real Men Eat Meat: Al tosses a salmon that Steve asks him to cook away the second his back is turned, declaring, "No fish will ever touch my grill!"
• Serious Business: Grilling burger patties on Labor Day definitely counts as this for Al, given the many rituals that he wants done before the burgers are finally served.^note  The whole series involve him donning the outfit, apron and mitten included, followed by rambling about what Labor Day means to him, which includes some U.S. history recap, and having Peg sing the National Anthem, all before he finally starts cooking the meat. That's without mentioning him having Peg scrub and clean the picnic table and its attached benches before any of the aforementioned procedures took place.
• Stink Snub: Peg subjects Al to one soon after the latter enters the house.
  Al: Guess where I have been?
  *Lifts up his arms to reveal huge sweat stains underneath each of them*
  Peg: Locked in the trunk of a car with a dead cat?
  Al: And people wonder why I scream on my way home every day.
• Tempting Fate:
  • As Peg is getting exhausted from scrubbing the picnic table while Al watches, she tells Al "Don't just sit there. Do something!". Al does just that... by dragging her into another Speed Sex without her consent.
  • Peg is at her wit's end at one point over what a miserable time she's been having on Labor Day and proclaims: "I can't stand this anymore!", only for Al to make sure her day will go From Bad to Worse by beckoning her with: "I can. Come to daddy!" Cue Peg going back inside the house for yet more Speed Sex that she'd rather not have, whimpering as she goes.
  • Upon seeing Al entering the backyard, all geared up for the BBQ, Steve says "Finally, we can eat", only for Peg to respond with "not quite yet". Peg is right, as Al begins his long speech about what Labor Day means to him.
  • After Al's long speech about what Labor Day means to him finally ends, Steve asks whether it's finally time to eat yet, only for Al to say there's one more thing left before the cooking time starts. Marcy asks Steve: "What other torture can he possibly inflict on us?" Cut to Peg singing the National Anthem.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Things go pretty well for Al, all things considered (Marcy's dead aunt's ashes in his grill notwithstanding, though Al — and Marcy — remain oblivious right up to the end of the episode), though at Peg's expense.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: One man whose house Kelly broke into in her search for ashes turns out to be this, as Kelly discovers clothes for men and for women in his house despite him being single, though Kelly's conclusion about him is that he must be a stud, as she assumes that the women's clothes belong to the ladies he charms.
  Bud: (to Peg) Pretty fancy thinking for a dullard, eh, Mom?
• Your Television Hates You: The episode starts with a reporter on TV in Fort Lauderdale on the day before Labor Day claiming that only "a real no-life" would be stuck at home at such a time. The scene pans to Peg, Kelly, and Bud watching TV before Peg turns it off out of sheer annoyance.