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Original Air Date: March 2, 2008
Welcome back to the tube, Chris and family!
As CHRIS reminisces about how much he likes going Down South, his dad JULIUS walks into the apartment with his younger brother UNCLE LOUIS (Guest Star Wayne Brady), who informs everyone that their Uncle Morris recently died. Although the deceased was only the second husband of Julius’ mother’s sister, ROCHELLE and Uncle Louis agree family is family. To Chris’ delight and DREW‘s dismay, that means the entire clan will take a trip to Greenville, South Carolina, to attend the funeral.
Forever-cheap Julius doesn’t even want to go on a trip, let alone pay for expensive plane tickets. As a result, he buys seats on the cheapest Greyhound bus available, which makes about a dozen stops all across America — including Boston! — before arriving at its destination. There’s a more convenient bus scheduled, but it costs $200 more.
After Rochelle convinces Louis to fly alone instead — Julius doesn’t like having his carefree slacker sibling around — the family heads to the only place in New York scarier than their Brooklyn neighborhood, the Port Authority bus terminal. Rochelle is convinced that just like Washington, D.C., the Port Authority is full of hustlers looking to prey on innocent people. That’s why she separates the family’s money into three parts, leaving some with herself, Julius, and Chris. If one of them gets pickpocketed, at least two other family members will still have some cash.
Unfortunately, a three-card Monte scammer sets up shop near Chris when he’s alone guarding the bags. Chris becomes eager to win the $200 needed for the more expensive bus tickets. Yet, fooled by the con’s seeming simplicity, he eventually ends up losing all the money he has on him, to the tune of $80.
In the meantime, Louis arrives at the station after his plane is canceled due to bad weather. He agrees to watch the family’s bags while Chris, scared to tell his parents the truth, tries to earn the money back in other ways, such as warming gloves by blowing into them and break dancing.
Eventually, Chris has to confess to his father, however, when he bumps into his dad on the ticket line, where he’s been waiting an hour. Julius has no luck with the ticket agent, who first insists she must see his kids in order to sell him cheaper children’s tickets and then refuses to give him the lower special price of $120 when Julius responds to her difficult attitude by threatening to hang around when she gets off from work.
Short on money to buy the higher-priced $180 tickets, Julius immediately becomes determined to win Chris’ money back when his son reveals he was taken. Instead, the dealer scams Julius out of $100, too, after Chris chooses the wrong card again. As Chris remarks, the experience does bring father and soon closer … closer to death from Rochelle’s inevitable anger.
Sure enough, Rochelle returns to the waiting area with TONYA and Drew soon, and she immediately knows something’s wrong from Chris, Julius, and Louis’ suspicious demeanors. Lucky for them that her father GENE (Guest Star Jimmie Walker) taught her about all of the common scams when she was a little girl because he used to run them himself.
After explaining what shills are — people who act like strangers but actually conspire with the card dealer to lure suckers to place increasingly larger bets — she returns to where the scammer is set up to win back her family’s money with the emergency funds she secretly brought along with her. This time, Chris picks the right card, and Rochelle gets the men’s money back in one quick play. For good measure, she also forces the scammer to give up his cards, too, leaving the swindler with nothing but his makeshift cardboard “table.”
That’s the good news. The bad news is that by the time all of this is over, the bus to South Carolina has already left. Uncle Louis treats the family back in Brooklyn by cooking a full Southern-style meal, complete with homemade pecan pie that Rochelle won’t let Chris eat unless he can pick the correct Jack not from just three cards but a full deck.
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