Source: ABC Family

I seriously think ABC Family needs to change their name to something less misleading. I don’t have any kids whom I can forbid to watch this channel, but I can say that I would have felt super uncomfortable watching this episode with my parents. We open yet another night with a friend of Mel’s whom we’ve never heard of before. What a popular gal. Jackie, who I liken to Rashida Jones with a Real Housewife makover, has realized her biological clock is ticking, and she’s not willing to wait for the right man to get what she wants. Wow, now I’m the one making the jokes. Let me clarify. She wants a baby, and Mel’s giving her advice about which donor to choose. They name the two donors Lars and Vincenzo after reading their bios, the latter being the ideal mystery mate. He attended an Ivy League school, is fluent in Japanese, and a great cook whose specialty happens to be the same dish Joe cooks for dinner that night.

Mel confronts Joe about trading his mateys for moolah, and discovers that he was in a tough spot financially after Scanlon International went down. They agree that Mel has to convince Jackie to pick Lars, even if she has to tell her that the jar of Vincenzo is really “Liquid Longo.” Yep, that was my favorite sick joke of the night.

In the land of the young, Lennox and her boyfriend, whose ridiculous name I couldn’t remember at first, come home from a garage sale with a first edition copy of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” for which they paid fifty bucks. What kind of garage sale in Ohio has the audacity to charge that much for anything? For that price, it better come with a vial of C.S. Lewis’ swimmers too. When they tell Ryder about the book and how much sentimental value it holds to them as a couple, he looks it up on eBay and tells them there are first editions going for a couple grand. Haskell (ridiculous, right?) gets really excited and accidentally lets it slip that he neither has read the book nor does he know the gender of the author.

When Mel finds Jackie, she tries her darnedest to tip the scales in Lars’ favor, but the spinster already has her heart set on having a child that’s half Italian Stallion. When Mel tells Jackie that she’s about to bear children with “[her] Joe,” she gets even more excited and races to the clinic. Do they inseminate them in the same building? Like in the same rooms where they drop off their…contributions to society?

Mel comes home to bear the bad news to Joe, who tells her that he only wants a baby with an anonymous mother. Yeah, that’s what they all say. Mel’s only bright idea is for Joe to go down to the sperm bank and demand to purchase all of his supply. Moments later, Mel reads a tweet from Jackie telling the world that she’s about to shoot herself up with Joe’s juice. When Mel gets to the Daddy Store, a nurse tells Jackie that they’re all out of Vincenzo. Sure, like they would share that information right there in the waiting room.

As soon as Mel gets home again, she rushes into the kitchen and solemnly pours two glasses of wine for her and Joe. Joe waits with bated breath to hear the news that Jackie wasn’t able to buy any of his sperm. They toast one another and joke about the situation, which ends in Mel using a can of cheese whiz to imitate Joe’s “donation.”

Later that night, Jackie shows up at the house to proposition Joe, dressed in a trench coat. With a body like that, there’s no reason why she can’t just hit up her local martini bar whenever she’s ovulating and chat up some stock broker until he takes her home. It would be a lot cheaper than buying it, she wouldn’t even have to pay for her own drinks. Joe insists he can’t help her, but she seduces him upstairs “to talk.”

Source: ABC Family

Meanwhile, Lennox lures Haskell into the garage, where she goes all “Judgement of Solomon” on him and threatens to chop the book in half as a compromise. He stops her before she can go through with it, and she claims that she wasn’t testing him, but she’s happy about his decision. Later, she brags to Ryder that Haskell “passed the test,” and really only risked cutting a copy of “La Hermandad de los Pantalones Itinerantes.” If you didn’t actually watch the episode, look it up. Then tell my why you’re bothering to read this post. I’m really curious.

Mel then enters with a celebratory purchase (it’s shoes, get your mind out of the gutter), and reads another tweet from Jackie that she’s gonna try to get pregnant by natural means. How many times is Mel gonna leave and come home in one night, and how do you get a notification every time your best friend tweets? Seriously, tell me, mine is really funny.

Source: ABC Family

After noticing Jackie’s belongings scattered around the living room, she races upstairs to find “[her] Joe” about to kiss her BFF. I use the quote again, because Mel manages to convince Jackie that she has some sort of claim on having Joe as her baby daddy. She plays it off as a joke, but we’ve all seen Who’s the Boss? and know how that ends.

Just make it happen already, you sick showrunners! How long do you think it’ll take for Mel and Joe to get together?