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Original Air Date: February 4, 2008
After the opening vignette with JOAN having a steamy little daydream about the electronics installer, his nine-inch cable, and where he can put it, we move to MAYA‘s house. Her new neighbor, a white woman married to a white man, stops by with an adopted black son named Aiden to ask who tends to Maya’s lawn. That would be Maya’s sixteen-year-old son Jabari, whom Maya is all too pleased to source out for hire after she learns the woman has adopted an American child, not one all the way from Africa, like entertainers Madonna and Angelina Jolie.
Meanwhile, Joan has called WILLIAM over to deal with the contractor finishing Aaron’s “man room” because she’s uncomfortable doing it herself. When William asks if the worker is putting the moves on her, Joan confesses she’s the one who’s putting the moves on the worker — in her fantasies. In fact, she’s been fantasizing about many men and even her toothbrush lately. So, William suggests she scratch her own itch, which he thinks is empowering, just like women’s magazines do. But, Joan doesn’t want to scratch herself because she associates self-scratching with being a loser.
Over at the Wilkes’ house, Maya brings up the subject of the white couple with the adopted black child, and she asks DARNELL how he feels about it. He thinks it’s always a good thing when people welcome a child into their home and give them the love they need, although Maya doesn’t pass up the opportunity to cite LYNN and how she turned out after being adopted by white people.
Meeting the neighbor earlier caused Maya to think about all of the black children out there and the lack of black people volunteering to adopt them, and now she’s wondering if maybe she and Darnell should go that route. Darnell is initially concerned they might not love an adopted child as much as a biological one. Yet, Maya counters with the example of Jabari, whom they love but hate every other day, too.
Joan and Lynn meet later, and Lynn immediately starts trying to give Joan some tips on how to scratch herself. It’s hard convincing her, though, because Joan feels self-scratching is a step backwards, especially now that she’s engaged and even if her fiancé is serving in Iraq. Lynn advises her that if she doesn’t take care of her itch, something crazy might happen, which causes Joan to have another fantasy right on cue of her and Lynn about to have a girl-on-girl moment.
Thankfully for Joan, Maya rushes in at that moment excited about her and Darnell’s decision to adopt. They’ve already gone through all of the preliminary hoops and are readier than ever, despite their son Jabari, as Lynn puts it.
The situation changes, however, when Maya and Darnell attend a gathering of adoptive parents at their neighbor’s house later and another attendee receives a call from her social worker. There’s a six-month-old healthy black baby girl ready for immediate adoption, preferably by an African-American couple with one stay-at-home parent, because her own parents’ rights have been terminated. The Wilkes hesitate when faced with such a sudden availability, but the other adoptive parents egg them on eagerly.
Maya and Darnell end up not taking the baby, but Maya has second thoughts when she later hears the girl is still in a foster home. Lynn helps the couple realize that maybe it’s not that they’re unfit to adopt, but that now isn’t the right time for them to make that move.
Joan, on the other hand, isn’t doing so well with her own problem. Unable to get in the mood to scratch herself, even after Lynn lends her a custom-made DVD for the occasion, she gives up. When she returns home one day afterwards, though, she finds William on her living room couch doing just fine scratching himself while watching the DVD. Joan had asked him over to make sure the contractor had set up the entertainment system properly, and when the DVD started playing, William just couldn’t say no to himself.
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