♪♪
Morning.
You still mad at me for putting you back in public school?
I'd love to talk,
but my bullies don't like to be kept waiting.
They get cranky when they have to rush through their insults
to get to the hitting.
Oh, there's a child who still loves me.
You still love me, right?
[ Whispers ] I do for a dollar.
Uh, you're teaching her to exchange love for money?
You know, that ends with her hanging out at a truck stop,
and not because she's driving.
I have to go potty.
Okay. Now, remember how much toilet paper we use?
This much.
That much.
So, being back in public school isn't going so great?
On the contrary.
It's a real treat being the kid
who left to go to magnet school
and then had to come crawling back.
In hindsight, maybe my last morning announcement
on the PA system shouldn't have been,
"It's Taco Tuesday with a side of kiss my ass, losers!"
Man, you're a sitting duck in gym class.
Especially dodgeball.
I loved that game.
We had one kid, we used to bean him so much,
he had a bald spot on the back of his head from running away.
And the shame of that has never left me.
You know, the best part is,
I'm back in a school with an 80% less chance
of me getting a scholarship.
There's gotta be another way.
You should just drop out and do homeschooling.
Then you won't be forced
to have all those life‐saving vaccines
and you can make up your own scientific theories
like your favorite athletes.
Let me guess, since I'm home anyway,
I can watch your kid while you're in class?
Well, there's a happy accident!
I thought Emilio watched Beverly Rose
while you were in class.
His girlfriend's father is in the hospital,
so he went with her to be supportive.
I should have had a baby with an inconsiderate jerk.
You know, like Darlene did.
Can you watch Beverly Rose?
In the hardware store?
We had a broken bag of bird seed,
and the rats were running around like it's a Vegas buffet.
I could give her a mallet. She could play whack‐a‐mole.
Jackie? No, I don't know.
There's gonna be a mob at The Lunch Box.
It's the day we give 10% off to the seniors.
That won't work.
Beverly Rose is in that phase
where she's telling everybody how they smell.
And it's very hurtful.
Come on, Darlene.
I watched your kids.
They only got away from me once at the mall,
and then I found them right away in the park.
How they crossed that busy highway, I have no idea.
I can't.
I'm taking my last personal day to look for a new place.
So you're actually moving out?
She wants to be independent from men.
And as a man with an overcrowded house,
I say, "Yaas, queen!"
Can't you just miss one day of class?
I already missed two,
and if I miss another one, I get an Incomplete.
I guess I'll just have to bring her to class.
Here's what you do ‐‐ and I've seen this work ‐‐
you find two more kids, you stack them on each other.
You stick Beverly Rose on top of them
with a floor‐length trench coat and a hat,
stick a mustache on her.
You saw that in "The Little Rascals" movie.
And it worked! Cop ran right by 'em!
♪♪
Now, remember, Mommy is in class,
so you have to be very quiet and watch your video, okay?
Okay, today we're gonna talk about
the real reason you all took Abnormal Psych ‐‐
serial killers.
Now, odds are, there's probably one in this very classroom.
I know who my money's on.
Beverly Rose: ♪ Old MacDonald had a farm ♪
♪ E‐I‐E‐I‐O ♪
♪ And on his farm, he had a cow ♪
♪ E‐I‐E‐I‐O ♪
Sorry, I was just thinking about that serial killer farmer
who made a wheelbarrow out of a fat guy.
Looks like we have a new student here.
I am so sorry.
All my childcare fell through.
I didn't know what else to do.
It's okay. She's probably the only one who did the reading.
Well, hello, Beverly Rose.
My name's Professor Glen.
You mom's told me how smart you are.
Would you like to help me teach the class?
Yes.
Is that okay, Becky?
Okay by me if it's okay with you.
It'll be fun.
She can help me with an experiment.
You think she'd mind a mild electric shock?
What?
Kidding.
We can't do that in the US anymore,
but thank God for science, there's international waters.
[ Chuckles ]
Okay, you ready?
Here we go. Oh.
Everybody, please say hello to my new TA, Beverly Rose.
‐Hi. ‐Hi, Beverly Rose.
Okay, now.
Can you draw a triangle?
I don't know.
Let's try it.
All you got to do is connect the dots, okay?
There you go.
Yep.
Ohp. [ Laughs ]
Yep. Yep.
There you go.
Now, as Beverly Rose has clearly illustrated,
psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism
are the three personality traits that make up the dark triad.
And give it up for Beverly Rose! Come on!
So let's get back to Old MacDonald.
Can anybody here think of any other children's songs
that might apply to abnormal psych?
Uh...
Becky?
Well, it's not a song,
but, uh, Humpty Dumpty clearly suffered from suicidal ideation.
I mean, he was an egg up on a wall.
Obviously, he was a jumper.
[ Chuckles ]
If you found Humpty with a half a fifth of Scotch
and an empty bottle of pills, you wouldn't call
all the king's horses and all the king's men.
You'd hit him up with some NARCAN,
put him back in the carton,
and wait till the ambulance got there.
[ Laughs ]
♪♪
Hey, you here to get the rest of your stuff
to take to Aldo's?
Yep.
Well, I'll say it so that you don't have to.
"I've missed you every day, Mom.
Not just your wisdom or your reassuring presence,
but the warmth that radiates from you
like a second sun."
[ Laughs ]
Thought you'd enjoy that.
So I heard you pulled Mark out of the magnet school.
What'd the little prince do?
Shank a stupid kid with his National Honor Society pin?
No, he was taking Logan's ADHD medication.
Whoa, t‐that's terrible.
We should check his room to see if he's hiding any.
Don't bother. He gave it all to me.
If they were mine, you would have never found them.
Yeah, well, he just used them to study.
If I knew you were gonna do that,
I would have sprinkled them on your cereal.
I'm gonna have to blame that on you.
Whoa.
This is $500.
Oh, my God! That's where I put it!
Where did Mark get this kind of money?
Oh, looks like your perfect little boy
graduated from drug user to drug dealer.
He said he'd do anything to get money for college,
but I can't believe he's doing this.
[ Zips bag ] Yeah, and it doesn't make any sense.
If you're already making money selling drugs to kids,
why would you go to college?
You've already got a career.
Come on, Darlene.
Mark's not the kind of kid who deals drugs.
What else is he doing to make that kind of money?
You gotta talk to him.
I'm going to, but he lied about taking the pills.
He's gonna lie about this,
and if I accuse him and I'm wrong,
then it's just gonna split us even further apart.
Oh, back in my cop days,
we had one guaranteed way to get the truth.
It ‐‐ Well, but it's a whole ‐‐
You gotta get a pit bull and a blindfold.
Geez.
Jackie, Mark is your great‐nephew who you love.
Okay, no blindfold.
It's actually more effective
when you see the pit bull coming.
You're off the case.
Damn it.
Have either of you seen anything suspicious?
Okay, maybe this is nothing, but now that I think about it,
the last couple of weeks while you were at work,
there's been kids I've never seen before coming by.
Oh, man.
When I drove Mark home from school today,
there was an older kid waiting for him.
Wait, so the kid that I just
confiscated a bunch of pills from
now has a waiting line of randos dropping by,
and neither of you thought just to, oh, mention it?
Hey, you're the one raising the little Scarface.
Don't blame it on us.
I gotta go.
Jackie: See?
This is why I quit the force.
I couldn't handle watching promising young people
go down the wrong path.
You shot yourself in the leg with your own gun
and fell down a flight of stairs.
In despair over the young people.
God.
[ Sighs ]
♪♪
My professor is this brilliant guy
with this dark sense of humor, so I was surprised to see
how sweet he was with Beverly Rose today. Hmm.
The only way I could get her to leave the classroom
was by promising her we'd see a horse.
There aren't any horses in Lanford.
That's why I drove really fast by that chunky golden retriever
and yelled "Pony!"
Yeah, part of it is that Glen's single
and he doesn't have any kids.
He'd probably make a great dad.
Don't you do it. Do what?
Don't be hot for teacher. We've all been there.
My training officer, Hank the Tank,
he was teaching me how to drive in a high‐speed pursuit
and we started going at it like two cats in heat.
Next thing you know,
we're in our underwear on the hood of the car.
Put on quite a show for the dash cam.
Uh, you forgot to put one on my head.
Oh, yeah. Sorry.
But my point is,
he got demoted for abuse of rank
and I got a bad rep for sleeping my way to the middle.
You're way ahead of me.
Yeah, okay, I like him, but I don't know if he likes me.
I mean, we laugh in our advisor meetings.
We have these amazing, deep talks
that I can't have with anybody else.
Has he given you any obvious clues?
Just little comments he makes on my papers.
Like what?
Uh, "Great job." "You're a star."
That's nice. That doesn't mean anything.
True, I am a star.
One day, I turned a paper in late
because I missed class, and he wrote he missed me.
"Missed" could be platonic.
I mean, I miss Kenny Rogers Roasters,
but I wouldn't date him.
What else you got?
Uh...how about this?
"I love the way your brain works."
He used the word "love"?
Good God! Hot pants! Get out of that class!
You actually think he's into me?
You have deep talks. You laugh together.
He writes flirty little notes on your papers.
Hot pants!
Okay.
Now it's real.
That's exciting,
but it also sucks, because you're right.
It could ruin his career, and how could you resist this?
What are you gonna do?
I have to drop his class and find another advisor
before something gets out of hand.
Yeah, that's the smart move.
That's what I was gonna do with Hank the Tank,
but then he got caught stealing money from the mob
and he hit the road...
when they threw him off an overpass.
♪♪
Mark: Did you bring the money?
Do I have to pay you up front?
That's the way it works.
You sure your essay's gonna get me into the college I want?
Trust me, I've been preparing for this all my life.
Admissions people love pain and suffering.
They want to hear about your heroic struggle
to overcome all your heartbreaking problems.
Dyslexia, broken home, dead parents, all that crap.
So what do you got?
Uh... I'm lactose intolerant.
That's it?
Okay, um...
I'm hearing the tragic tale
of a desperately lonely young man
whose diseased gut clenched with fear
every time he heard the bells of an ice cream truck.
Did you have to go through any painful medical procedures?
Uh, no.
I just take a lactase chewable before I eat dairy.
No, no, you don't.
You suffer the social anxiety
of being different than everybody else
and battle loneliness and isolation as a result,
but you persevered to become...
the treasurer of the origami club?
You're killing me here.
Okay, well, I'll call you when I have something.
Go fold yourself a swan.
Hi, I'm Mark's mom. Who are you?
I'm Tyler.
Oh, nice to meet you, Tyler.
You want to give me the pills, or should I call the police?
What?
I know you've got pills in your pocket.
Give them to me. Now!
But I ‐‐ I need these.
No, you don't. You just think you do.
No, I really do.
You don't want to know what happens if I don't.
Ask my brother. He shares a room with me.
Listen to yourself.
You are whacked out of your mind.
Go home, tell your parents you have a problem,
and get some help.
You can beat this, Tyler. Come on.
I just met Tyler. What the hell are you thinking?
I told you. I'm gonna do whatever it takes.
I need money for college.
Oh, and that makes it okay to sell drugs?
What are you talking about? I'm not selling drugs.
Oh, really? What are these?
Pills for lactose intolerance. Tyler can't eat dairy.
Whoops.
But ‐‐ Look, if you're not dealing drugs,
then how did you make this?
You searched my room?
No, I was putting away laundry in your room,
and then Harris came in and broke your picture frame.
I made that money writing college admission essays
for kids from my old magnet school
who are too stupid to write their own.
That's why Tyler was here.
Well, that's wrong, too. It's unethical.
Yeah, but it's not illegal.
Tutors help kids with their essays all the time.
They don't write them.
Because of what you're doing,
rich magnet school kids are getting into colleges
while some more deserving kids aren't.
Yeah, I'm one of those more deserving kids,
and I'm going to keep taking advantage of these idiots
until I have enough money to go to one of these colleges, too.
And your snooping is forcing me to do something
that no Conner has ever done.
I'm gonna go open a savings account.
[ Door closes ]
♪♪
Hey.
This is a nice surprise.
Were we supposed to meet today?
No, but I need to talk to you.
I'm all ears. Get 'em from my father.
Better than my mother. She was all nose.
So, uh...what's up?
I need to transfer out of your class
and take it with another professor.
Well, there's two problems with that.
One, this course is a requirement
and I'm the only one who teaches it.
And two, you're doing great in this class.
Why would you want to transfer?
Because I have feelings for you,
and if I'm reading my graded papers correctly,
I think you might have feelings for me, too,
unless I've misread this whole thing,
in which case, I hope you have a very tiny stroke
that just kills this memory.
It took a lot of courage to tell me that.
I'll try to be just as brave.
Don't tell anyone, 'cause I'll deny it if you do ‐‐
I have feelings for you, too.
But you didn't hear it from me.
I knew you liked me!
Shh, shh. Maybe we keep our voices down
to a non‐career‐ending level.
Sorry. I just really enjoy being right.
I know you can get fired for dating me.
And I'm worried about what this could do to you, too.
I mean, the students would hate you
for getting their favorite professor fired.
[ Chuckles ]
So what do we do?
Easy. The only thing we can do.
I marry you immediately and we grow old doing psych research.
We'll shock babies together off the coast.
Why don't we talk about this over dinner?
We just gotta find a place to meet
that's so horrible, nobody but us would ever go there.
[ Chuckles ]
Uh, you know that tire fire
that's been burning for years out by the landfill?
Good start. [ Chuckles ]
There's a really nice, little Peruvian jazz place
right next door.
I know it. I thought they closed that place down.
Oh, no.
It reopens every day the wind is blowing from the east.
♪♪
[ Knock on door ]
Can I help you?
Are you Mark Healy?
I am.
I'm Will Deetler.
You wrote an essay for my daughter.
Oh, hi. I'm Mark's mother.
I already talked to him and told him what he did was wrong,
and we're so sorry about that.
That's not the problem.
The essay Mark wrote was exactly the same
as an essay he wrote for another kid
who was also going to submit it to Northwestern.
Thank God the two kids talked and caught it.
That was pretty stupid, man.
Hey, I do have a kid you can call stupid, but not this one.
He'll pay your daughter back her money.
She didn't pay for it. I did.
She wrote an essay about an eyebrow threading gone wrong.
When I told her it was terrible, she looked sad
or angry.
Her eyebrows are so screwed up, I couldn't tell.
This was your idea?
Oh, my God.
You've got no moral ground to complain about anything.
I don't need moral ground. I need a new essay.
Well, no!
You're done taking advantage of my kid.
Look, the application deadline is next week.
Don't make me go to Mark's principal and get him expelled.
Oh, you do that and I'll go to the magnet school and get...
What's your idiot kid's name?
Skyler. Oh, of course it is.
I'll get Skyler expelled from there.
We built the new cafeteria at the magnet school,
so take your best shot.
How about I tell every school she applies to
that she does not write her own essays?
Then she'll be blacklisted
from getting into any school anywhere.
Take a look at our furniture, cafeteria man.
We got nothing to lose!
That was great!
I can't believe you stuck up for me like that.
That is what parents do,
but they don't do it twice, so listen up.
If both of those essays would have gone to Northwestern,
you know those kids would have turned you in,
and you would have been blacklisted along with them,
then you can forget about going to college anywhere.
Then what am I supposed to do?
I don't know how else to pay for college.
I may have found a way, but it's gonna take awhile.
What?
Okay, I've been up every night looking for scholarships,
and one way that you can get colleges to give you one
is to have a unique skill
like playing an instrument in their orchestra
that no one else wants to play.
Like what, a tuba?
No, way more embarrassing than that.
It's something that nobody wants to learn.
The contrabassoon.
Oh, my God. It's giant.
Uh, this is what it sounds like if you do it well.
[ Contrabassoon playing ]
That should take you about two years to get to that.
Alright, let's get one.
And I think I might be able to get
a great college essay out of this.
"I'm a gay contrabassoonist
from the wrong side of the tracks."
Buckle in. Why?
'Cause you are on a rocket sled to Harvard.
So, now that Mark's gone sideways,
you're my only hope.
And since you're kind of a blank slate,
I want to get you going in the right direction.
Now, the Chinese culture has it right ‐‐
the way to happiness is to honor your oldest relative
by letting them live with you
and taking care of them their whole life, okay, sweet pea?
Okay. Okay.
Mm.
Oh, you're gonna be a whole different kind of special.