Charlie nearly drowns while trying to pretend he knows how to surf to impress a woman. During his near-death experience, he sees his father, who tells him to "take care of your mother". Unsettled and confused, Charlie nevertheless feels compelled to start treating Evelyn better, which she quickly starts taking advantage of.
Tropes
- Ambiguous Syntax: Charlie can't imagine why his dead father would want him to "take care" of Evelyn, knowing that Evelyn was an awful wife to him, and asks for some sort of clarification or explanation. Immediately after, he goes to tend to Evelyn, who is watching a gangster movie, and a scene where two gangsters discuss "taking care" of a woman who knows about their illegal activities plays. Charlie immediately gets it.
- Dead Person Conversation: Charlie's long-dead father tells Charlie to "take care of your mother". Initially, Charlie believes he means to be kinder and more attentive to her in her old age. However, he later realizes he meant to kill her.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's never made clear if Charlie really did meet with his dead father while unconscious or if he simply hallucinated it. Charlie never once questions that it was real, and after an initial bit of skepticism from Alan he too seems to buy into it completely. Although it is worth noting that once Charlie realizes his father actually wanted him to kill Evelyn, he doesn't actually do it. It wouldn't be the first time the series alluded to a magical or supernatural occurrence and then left it ambiguous on whether or not it was real, since we never got clarity on if Isabella really had satanic powers.
- Near-Death Experience: Charlie nearly drowns when trying to surf, trying to act as if he's an expert to impress a woman he's attempting to bed. While unconscious, he claims to have seen his dead father.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Charlie gives Evelyn a call just to see how she's doing, then takes her out for lunch. Evelyn knows something has to be going on, as Charlie always does everything he can to ignore her, and manages to get the truth out of Alan.
- Plastic Bitch: Certainly not Evelyn's first cosmetic procedure, but she gets some fat from her rear end sucked out and re-inserted into her lips, temporarily making her mouth badly swollen.
- Redemption Quest: Charlie knows he was a terrible son for his long-deceased father, and now feels like fulfilling his wish to 'take care' of Evelyn is a way to finally make up for all the rotten things he did. He quickly abandons the quest when he realizes that his father actually meant to kill Evelyn (although he doesn't do that either).
