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Original Air Date: February 19, 2008
The guys are in the car with AUBREY driving, DOUGIE in the passenger seat, and GRACEN and LAIRD in the backseat. Aubrey’s grooving and singing along to a tape of his 12-year-old daughter SHAWNA (Guest Star Jay Jay Ellis) playing the piano version of a song called “Milkshake.” Dougie likes the tune, too; but in back, Gracen and Laird are grimacing. When Aubrey reveals Shawna has a recital on Sunday, Dougie volunteers that all of the carpoolers will come, despite the pinches from the backseat to shut him up.
Later, Laird meets Dougie in his office for a dentist-chair chat — he straps Dougie into the chair so he can’t escape — to explain to him what’s so great about their carpooling group: it provides the intimacy of family without the responsibility. In other words, there’s no hanging out together outside of the car rides because that might lead to expectations about other things, such as babysitting pets.
Dougie doesn’t get it, but Laird’s threats of bodily harm convince him to fake a call during the next ride allegedly informing him that he must attend someone’s funeral at the same time as Shawna’s recital. When Aubrey asks who died, Dougie lies again, claiming it was his, Gracen, and Laird’s barber. When Aubrey asks why he’s never heard about their barber before, Dougie adds that they never mentioned him because he was racist.
When Aubrey gets understandably irked that the others would rather go to a racist’s funeral than his daughter’s recital, Laird finally tells the truth. Aubrey is cool with them not wanting to go on any carpool outings or to his daughter’s recital, but Laird will have to break the news to his daughter himself.
He then calls her and hands the phone to Laird, after telling Shawna the tall hunky white guy she calls Uncle Laird has something to say. Of course, Laird can’t tell the little girl he’s not coming now. Cut to the recital and Shawna playing “Milkshake” onstage. In the audience, Aubrey and Dougie enjoy the performance, while Gracen and Laird look like they’re being tortured.
It seems that Laird is right, however, because when the carpool stops at Dougie’s house one day following the recital, Aubrey surprises Dougie’s wife Cindy with the news that all of the guys would love to come to her son Reggie’s half birthday party. As Cindy, Dougie, and Aubrey get all into the festivities with the kids in attendance, Gracen and Laird once again look like they’re being tortured. Laird becomes particularly annoyed when Aubrey works the kids up into a fervor about Laird’s chicken dance, which the dentist is forced to perform when the children swarm him.
Laird then has a dentist-chair chat with Aubrey about how fortunate their carpool group is that they’ve been riding together for over four years when most groups don’t last more than eighteen months. Aubrey counters that the reason for this success isn’t because they avoid interacting outside of the car, but because they’ve all become friends.
So, to get revenge on his friend, Laird lures Aubrey to his house one night with the claim of a life-and-death situation. When Aubrey arrives, he learns that Laird only wants him to entertain an elderly woman for two hours — the length of Shawna’s recital — while the dentist stays at home and has sex with her granddaughter.
While the guys have been dealing with whether or not they should mingle outside of the car, Gracen has also been preparing for a forthcoming 10k charity race. He and LEILA run it every year, and every year they compete against one another to win, although they pretend they’re not keeping track of each others’ performance.
Leila comes up with an ingenious plan to best Gracen during this year’s race. She has MARMADUKE read a book about visualization and then persuades him to train his father on the technique without revealing her involvement. Gracen is a good sport for his son, but one night Marmaduke spills the beans when he catches his father about to go on a run. The training had focused on Gracen imagining himself running and winning in his mind in place of actually running to train and improve his time.
Gracen attempts to get revenge on Leila by stealing one of her running shoes an hour before the race. But, a call from the guys requesting his mediating services interrupts the fight he has with his wife when she learns what he’s up to. At Dougie’s house, things go from bad to worse when Gracen’s sports watch indicates he has an abnormally high heart rate after he listens to the guys argue about the current state of their carpooling group.
The men panic over Gracen’s well-being as an ambulance arrives and takes him to the hospital. Luckily, the incident is just a panic attack, not a heart attack. Another good part is that the trip to the hospital helps the carpoolers realize that they are in fact friends who care enough about each other to spend their Saturday at the hospital when something goes wrong with one of them.
During the next trip to work, Gracen announces that he will not mediate anymore disputes between members. Laird claims intervention won’t be necessary anyway as long as they establish lines that can’t be crossed.
Of course, the men have a hard time agreeing on what they will and won’t do for each other. And, when Laird suggests listening to a tape of Shawna’s recital as punishment for offenses, Aubrey goes ballistic and tries to strangle the dentist. That wouldn’t be such a big deal if Laird weren’t sitting in the backseat and Aubrey weren’t supposed to be driving.
MY TAKE: Carpoolers is funny, plain and simple — very, very funny. The show deserves a larger audience, despite a slow start that had more to do with the public’s preoccupation with the novelty of its original companion, Cavemen, than Carpoolers‘ quality. I hope ABC renews it for a second season, no matter how unlikely that outcome is.
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