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OVERALL IMPRESSIONS: The post-"Hurry Hard" roll continues as this episode, which was broadcast the week after "An American in Saskatchewan," makes me start to realize that the English language doesn't have enough superlatives in it. If taking a bad episode is all that's required to see two or three killer episodes of this caliber follow it, I'll gladly take one bad episode a month.
The concept of the main storyline is absolutely brilliant - Lacey turns Oscar and Emma on to expensive wine and ruins their favorite cheap brand for them - and when Oscar and Emma try to exact "revenge," it backfires badly. Lacey even turns Brent on to expensive marmalade when he doesn't actually like marmalade. In the side plots - which aren't quite as good but are still superb nonetheless - Hank wins a pittance in the lottery and acts as if it's an actual windfall, and Davis tries to get used to new shoes.
MEMORABLE MOMENT: When Emma, seeing her plans come up empty, angrily says "Lacey screwed us again." This scene perfectly summarizes the episode as a whole - Lacey has done nothing at all to deserve the scorn she's getting, but it keeps piling up anyway.
MEMORABLE LINE: Because I've actually heard this one before in the same sarcastic sense in which it was delivered here, from a personal standpoint I have to pick Lacey's "I guess I underestimated your skill at random chance" to Hank. This was a perfect follow-up to her earlier shot at Hank in response to his lottery question ("what if I don't win?"): "NOT win the lottery - oh, I don't know, Hank. It could happen."
However, this episode has more memorable lines than most Corner Gas episodes. Here are some other ones that probably stuck with well over a million Canadian viewers:
From Oscar: "Change is bad."
From Davis: "Flesh grows back."
From Brent: "Oh, so it's a revenge brunch. You've combined breakfast, lunch and revenge. Very efficient."
From Brent: "Brunch is a very powerful tool. I won't see it used for evil."
From Lacey: "I love brunch, Brent, that is my favorite meal! Well, it's my favorite playful compound word combining the names of two meals."
From Oscar: "A pen in the hand is mightier than the bush."
KUDOS TO GABRIELLE: Lacey is usually one of the brighter people in Dog River, so to see her portrayed as being this oblivious to the malevolent intentions towards her (especially when Emma flings meatloaf at her and says "heat it yourself") was hilarious. I have no idea how Gabrielle managed to even do this episode while keeping a straight face, but she sure did a hell of a job at it.
FUNNIEST LINE IN THIS EPISODE: Brent's "Wow, marmalade! They take the part of the orange that's normally thrown in the garbage and make it spreadable!" had me laughing so hard I had to pause the episode. A close second is Oscar's "I hate having my eyes open."
FUNNIEST SCENES IN THIS EPISODE:
1.) The look on Brent's face and the tone of his voice during his remarks to Karen about "The Whirlwind."
2.) Hank confusing the weather report for the lottery numbers ("fourteen, twenty-one, minus five").
3.) Davis hassling the little kids near the police car and the little girl blaming it on Karen talking him into getting new shoes.
4.) After trying and liking Lacey's $13 marmalade, Brent and invites an unsuspecting Lacey to brunch.
5.) When Lacey is the only one who appreciates the gift she got during Hank's largesse spree and talks about what a great week she's had.
TRIVIA: I have no idea what Gabrielle was eating when Lacey was shown wolfing down the discount meatloaf, but in real life she's a vegetarian. If what she was eating was anything similar to the vegetarian meatloaf I've tried in my life, I hope she was paid at least double her usual salary for this episode.
BLOOPERS:
1.) In the opening pre-credit scene, among the products you can see in Emma's grocery basket is a white box with some sort of cookie on the cover' the product name appears to be "Chewy." Brent puts the box in a grocery bag at twice within two seconds starting at 00:17 (I first thought that there could be two boxes in the basket, but I zoomed in on the basket as soon as it became visible - judging by the size of the box, there's only one).
2.) At 6:30, Brent has just run Hank's lottery ticket through the machine and has turned to face Hank. The camera angle switches to face Hank and shows Brent from the back, where he's holding both tickets (actually, Hank's ticket and a stub showing the number of winners for that draw) side-by-side. In that instant, the angle switches to face Brent, and now he's holding one ticket on top of the other in such a way that at first glance it appears that he's only holding one.
3.) At 7:08, the camera is focusing on Hank as he tells Lacey exactly how much he won in the lottery. His arms are folded in front of him on the lunch counter. The angle switches to show Hank, Lacey and Wanda, but now his left hand is up near his chin.
4.) Starting at 7:58, Oscar and Emma are sitting in their house trying to stomach their old standby wine brand the day after Lacey bumped them up into a new wine bracket. The first scene shows Oscar holding the glass in a way that mask its contents, but when the camera angle switches to show him alone, he's now holding the glass by its stem.
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