In last week’s Samantha Who?, our leading lady was forced to choose between her ex (Todd) and her brand new beau (Owen). And because this ain’t real life and you’ve got to mess things up eight times sideways on television, she chose Owen. Which is good and all, it just lead us to this week’s awkward encounter between the three in (where else?) the kitchen. In the morning. In their PJs. Nice.
In a rather funny opening bit (then again, maybe we’re just grasping for straws at this point), Sam learns something she never knew about Todd: he’s Canadian. Which, of course, leads to a string of “well I’m just surprised we never talked aboot it,” “you want me to move ooot?” and the ol’ standby “don’t worry, I’ll just go stay at my parents hoose.”
In order to give Todd and his visiting mother some room, Sam and Owen go to stay at her parents house. And though mean BFF Andrea tried everything in her power to convince Sam to keep those parts of her life separate (sweetheart Dena, who is feeling low priority in her own relationship, is all for it) she goes through with it anyways. After briefing her parents with note cards of what not to talk about, of course. Back at the house, Todd’s mom has cancelled her plans to come into town but before he can call Sam and tell her she can head home, the hilarious building doorman Frank convinces him to hold off the call and enjoy the empty place to himself. Himself and his new Madden football game, that is.
Dinner turns out worse than Sam imagined when Regina (her mom) thinks that chicken salad is a vegetarian dish (“But it’s salad!”) and then her dad gets offended that Owen chose his lifestyle based on problems within the farming industry. The same industry he has built his life working for. The difference in opinion sets off an argument between the two and Owen eventually decides to leave. Sam’s dad warns that if she leaves with him, she shouldn’t make plans to come back. She hesitates but after a final jab from her father to Owen (“You can’t leave! We’re having panda for desert!”), she walks out with her man. And then walks right back in after realizing that Owen rode his bike over.
“The lesson we can all take from this is…I was right,” Andrea tells Sam the next day over coffee. And in the context of this situation, maybe she was. But in reality we know that it is impossible to keep your worlds separate, and Sam quickly goes to visit her dad to smooth things over. She takes a tour of the chicken farm to make him happy but leaves so scared she can barely speak. Her dad mistakes her zombie-like composure for happiness and goes ahead and tells her that he left the farm to her in his will and that she should probably just start coming into the office now to get prepared. She lets him believe that she is into it for awhile but eventually is forced (not by Owen, but because Owen is in the room) to admit that she can’t take over his company. He believes at first that it’s solely because of her new boyfriend, but she eventually convinces him that she just doesn’t have the guts to do what he does. Way to kill him with kindness, girl!
After the father-daughter moment, Sam and Owen try the dinner thing again, this time to greater success. It’d be a pretty cheesy way to end the episode, if we didn’t first get a glimpse of Todd and Frank taking a break from Madden video games to catch a showing of Australia.