.
- Hey, Julia.
I just got a text from the camp.
The bus is gonna drop Grace off at 5:00.
I am at The Nest recording one last goldfish video.
I'm going to screen them for her tonight.
They are hilarious, by the way.
So I will see you at 5:00.
Hey, Jimmy, I'm back. Still alive?
- Still alive, Dad!
- Good job.
OK.
All right, Gracie, it's your dear old dad,
recording the final installment of Diary of a Teenage Goldfish,
or What Googles the Goldfish Did
While Grace Kearney Was at Sleepaway Camp.
Now, as you've seen in my prior compelling installments,
Googles misses you terribly.
But he has also taken advantage of your absence
by staying up way past his bedtime,
gorging himself on junk food, and refusing to do his chores.
Hey, Googles, better clean up that bowl
are you gonna be in big trouble when Gracie gets home.
You and your pal, Mr. Old Timey Diver Guy better snap to it.
Make that bed. Do the dishes.
Fire up that vacuum cleaner.
No, no, no. Googles.
Oh.
Ow. Ooh.
Googles, don't you dare die on me.
Oh.
Oh!
Breathe. Breathe.
Grace is so excited about seeing you.
[inhales]
Ooh.
- * It's genius *
* The marriage that we once had now is through *
* And now we're doing all that we can do *
* To keep us all together as a crew *
* Trust, do as we say, not as we do *
* We really thought that we were done *
* But we've just begun *
- Hi. My name is Jim.
I'm a dad who recently killed my daughter's pet goldfish.
- Hi. I'm Julia.
I'm a mom who's sitting next to this dear man
who recently killed our daughter's pet goldfish.
- Not deliberately. - Yet decisively.
- Indisputably conclusively.
- [chuckles] Jim and I were married
17 years ago last June.
- Yet, the happiest day of our lives
was when we got divorced last July.
- [laughs]
When I asked Jim for a divorce, he said--
- Please, pretty please, with sugar on top.
- We had a good run, but it was time to--
- Run away.
- Some people wonder why. - We don't.
- Let's just say that the physical-intimacy component
of the marriage had--
- Ground to a halt, which can be an indication
that a relationship is-- - Over.
- But just because that part's over
doesn't mean the affection and appreciation for one another
had totally vanished. - Far from it.
- We just began to realize that our marriage was
in the way of us getting along.
- Divorce can be a good thing. - A source of ceaseless joy.
- As long as you stay on the same page.
- Which is easy on paper.
- Less easy in real life.
- Jim, what's wrong?
- Dad, Gracie's goldfish just died on my watch.
- Which watch? Don't say the Rolex.
Sorry. You teed that one up.
To carry on without a retort
would have weakened my wisecracking muscles.
- Yeah. I just got to figure out how to tell Gracie.
- It's easy. Lie to her.
- Yes, that was my first thought.
- Let it be your last.
Lying's the proper thing here, Jim.
- Hey, I'm not arguing.
I'm just afraid Grace is going to see right through it.
- No chance.
- Kids are smart.
- Everyone says that, but it's not true.
Kids are stupid.
- Not in my experience.
- I lied to you when Rusty the cat died.
- Rusty the cat died saving a family from a house fire.
- In my lie, yes. In truth, nah.
- Wait. You told me that Rusty the cat meowed really loudly
to rouse the family awake.
- Jim, 40 years later, I'm coming clean.
Rusty the cat was run over by a street sweeper.
- Dad, please tell me it was sudden.
- I can't.
Street sweepers aren't known for their horsepower.
- But once he was hit, did Rusty die quickly?
- Sure.
- How did I not notice how bad a liar you were back then?
- You were a stupid kid.
- Ah, poor Rusty.
- See how hurt you are right now?
- Yeah. - We need to protect Grace
from the pain you're feeling.
And, yes, it took a moment or two
to extract Rusty from the rolling bristle things.
- You're a monster.
- Sometimes being a monster is what fatherhood requires.
Now it's your turn, Frankenstein.
- Yeah, I see that.
All right. Thanks, Dad.
I got to find Julia.
- Smart.
Julia's a great liar.
She spent 17 years pretending she liked me.
Where's Jimmy?
- He's in his room playing video games.
- Nice.
I do my best grandparenting when I'm ignored.
Text me on the way back, so I can split
before Julia has to struggle through her obligatory,
"Good to see you, Bobby."
- Before we go further,
we want to make sure you get how happy we are.
For most people, divorce has a negative connotation.
- We wanted to reframe divorce as an opportunity
for growth, not despair.
- Jubilation, not devastation.
- We considered ourselves trailblazers
for transforming a negative thing into a positive thing.
- So, for our divorce, we decided
to go back to the church where we were married.
- To host what we called the very first
reverse wedding ceremony.
- So we gathered friends and family.
- I slipped into my old wedding dress.
- I stepped into a cheap suit and an even cheaper wig,
to resemble how I looked that day.
- We stood at the altar.
- Took rings off of fingers.
[organ music playing]
- I'm gonna pawn these.
[laughter]
- Pawn this, too.
- We lowered veils.
- And ripped up our vows.
If we were Jewish,
we would have glued a glass back together.
- And then I backed out of that marriage
like it never happened.
* *
[Donna Summer's "Last Dance" playing]
- * Last dance, last dance, last dance *
- We showed everyone how to end things on a high note.
- Everyone, that is, but our daughter, Grace.
- * Last dance *
- So we bought her a goldfish to cheer her up.
.
[upbeat music]
- Julia, hey.
- Jim.
Are you here for Sunday brunch?
- No, I'm here to see you.
- What? How did you know I was here?
- What do you mean, how? Duh.
- Duh, what? What am I looking at?
- Oh, family sharing.
That blinking green dot, that's you.
- You're tracking me?
- No. No, I don't have to track you.
You're sharing your location with me.
I just have to look at my phone.
Again, the blinking green dot--
- I know what the blinking dot is, Jim.
- OK. - But tracking me
is not the intended use of that application.
- It's entirely the intended use of that application.
You share your location with your family
so your family knows your location.
- You and I are now ex-family.
- Tell that to your phone.
You're the one who opted into the sharing.
- When we were married.
- And just like we opted out of that,
you got to opt out of this, but that's not important.
- Yes, it is.
As of this moment, I am opting out of the family tracking.
I am opting. I am scrolling.
I am searching. I am--
God, where the hell is it? - Go to Settings.
- I'm under Settings. - OK.
Take a deep breath. - Don't tell me how to breathe.
There. [chuckles]
I am no longer sharing my location.
I am no longer a blinking dot.
I am a no dot. I have disappeared.
- I can still see you.
- You can't just track me down in person anymore, Jim.
We got to reboot our boundaries conversation.
- OK. I am sorry that I used the quite common, quite useful
family-sharing feature that was invented
so that when people are kidnapped,
they can be rescued.
But I guess you would rather don
some magical cloak of invisibility
so that you can vanish without a trace
whenever somebody close to you needs you.
Noted.
- Has someone I know been kidnapped?
- No. - Does someone I know
need rescuing? - No.
- Is someone I know unexpectedly dead?
- Go to your meeting. - Oh, my God, Jim.
Is someone dead? - Someone, no.
Something, yes.
- You mother effer.
You killed my orchid!
I told you--I asked you,
please don't kill any more of my plants, Jim.
- Your orchid is very much alive.
- Hey, hon. - Oh.
Hey, baby. - How's it going?
Hey, Jim. - Trey.
Here for the "Miami Vice" convention?
- So, plot twist-- I fell in love with someone
after the divorce.
- Why don't you just say met? You had to meet first.
- And, oh, what a meeting it was.
[both chuckle]
How you doing?
I'm Trey Taylor, owner of the Boston Celtics.
- Mm, you don't need to say that.
- What, my name?
- Is your name "Owner of the Boston Celtics"?
- Julia asked me to introduce myself.
- I didn't say Jim Kearney, owner of a 2004 Honda Accord.
Oh, hey, Trey, why don't you say why you met Julia?
- I don't think that's relevant.
- It's all relevant.
Say how you insulted half your fan base,
so you needed Julia, a professional crisis manager,
to swoop down and save your butt.
- You swooped down, all right.
[laughter] Boy, did you swoop down.
[laughter] - Ew. Ew.
Ew. Ew. - OK.
- OK. All right. Fine.
After a night out in Boston, I was ambushed by paparazzi.
And I made a comment that some people took--
- Exactly how you intended.
- The Celtics are playing like crap.
And if we don't fix it, we're gonna be
the redheaded stepchild of the NBA,
but redder and steppier than the reddest,
headiest, steppiest child ever.
You know what I'm saying?
- It was an innocuous comment.
- Oh, no, it wasn't. It was very offensive.
Very, very offensive. Peak offensive.
Trey, uh, tell everyone how you got schooled on exactly
how offensive the term "redheaded stepchild" is.
- Celtic means Celt, which means Irish, Ireland,
lot of redheads, lot of Catholics,
not a lot of birth control,
therefore, a fair amount of stepchildren.
I not only offended half of the Celtic fan base,
but I offended an entire country.
- It blew up.
There were threats of protests, boycotts.
People were pissed.
- What does this have to do with the fish?
- Anyway, Kevin Kelly, the GM of the Celtics,
got in touch with me and introduced me to Trey
to help him manage the-- - Public-relations disaster
that Trey's ignorance had ignited.
- Look, Trey, this is all gonna be fine.
We just have to fix the perception
before we fix the problem.
So your first task is to walk out there,
look 'em in the eye,
and read the statement I wrote for you.
- All right, cool. Cool. What's the goal?
- To say something that means nothing but still
makes this all go away. - Love that.
- Read this, please.
- "I am committed to a new path of understanding.
"And I ask you to help me usher in a new era of shared
"creative pragmatism that warrants deep introspection
from us all."
What does that mean exactly?
- It's subtly reminding people that forgiveness is a virtue.
And shame on them if they haven't cultivated that virtue
in their own lives and find themselves unable
to furnish mercy and compassion for those of us
who are courageous enough to admit our faults.
Shame on them. Shame. It's unforgivable.
- You're good. She's good.
- Perfect.
Bunch of words adding up to nothing,
but sure as hell sounding like they add up to something.
- And despite all of that great advice,
I still had to take responsibility
for my ignorance.
So I apologized sincerely.
- And it worked. - And I fell in love with her.
- And I fell in love with him-- his values, his mind, quickly.
- Quickly. - Quickly.
- Very quickly. - Yes.
- [laughs] - Very quickly.
[laughs]
Who would have thought that putting my foot
in my mouth would lead to the hottest woman I know
putting her foot in my mouth?
- OK. Yabba-dabba-doo.
Nobody cares about this, especially me.
- You killed Googles? - No.
But having not killed him doesn't mean he's not dead.
- How the hell does a fish just die?
- Well, the toxicology report comes back--
How the hell should I know?
These things only live, like, six months, anyway.
- Actually, the life expectancy could be up to 15 years
if properly cared for.
- How do you know that? - Class I took at MIT.
- College is such a racket.
- Go buy a lookalike fish, now.
- And do what with it?
- Try to keep it alive till I get there.
[upbeat music]
- [whistling] - Hey, Grandpa.
Can I have a Popsicle? - Sure.
- Is this Grace's goldfish?
- That is he, Jimmy.
- Why is he in the freezer?
- I don't know.
Your father thought it was more dignified
than flushing him down the toilet.
- Does Grace know he's dead?
- She does not.
Can I make you a fluffernutter?
- Can I still have the Popsicle?
- You can have both. I'm in charge.
I say they go great together.
- So we focused on the crisis at hand
and got a lookalike goldfish.
What? Just say it.
- Babe, I didn't say anything.
- You dipped your head.
I mean, your head dip said quite a bit.
- I did not share Jim and Julia's bulletproof confidence
in the lookalike-fish strategy.
* *
- Perfect.
- Welcome to The Nest, Googles 2.0.
Now, keep your fish gills glued.
- Boom. Crisis averted, crisis manager.
- Yeah. [chuckles]
[clears throat] Uh, Jim. - Mm-hmm.
- I want you to know that I was at the hotel
to meet with a wedding planner.
- Oh. Who's getting married? - We are.
- Oh. [chuckles]
Fantastic. Congratulations.
- You're happy for me?
- I'm happy for me.
Finally, some other schmuck is gonna know
what it's like to be married to you.
- Who you calling schmuck?
- You. [chuckles]
Ah, I'm just joking. I'm joking.
I'm happy for you both. - Well, thank you, Jim.
That's magnanimous. - Congrats, Trey.
- Oh, wow. I really appreciate that, Jim.
- Feel free to show your appreciation
with floor tickets to a Celtics game.
- Looks like we both met the man of our dreams.
- [chuckles]
- And together, we solved the nightmare of the dead fish.
And when Grace arrives, she'll never know the difference.
- Eh...
- What?
- Forgive me. I'm not in favor of lying.
- Why not? - "Why not"?
- Lying is what parents need to do sometimes to build trust.
- I think she can handle the truth.
- Well, she's not your kid.
- I'm about to be her stepfather.
- Good thing she's not a redhead.
- I addressed that issue publicly.
- And Jim is the only one who still brings it up.
- Funnier every time.
- I respect the way you raised her.
Clearly, it worked.
But the Grace I know is really smart,
and she pays attention to detail.
- Dude, that's why we're lying to her.
- Look, Trey, you're sweet, OK?
And I agree with everything that you said about Grace.
My philosophy is, you should never lie
unless you can get away with it.
And I think we can here.
- That is the Julia I fell in love with--
shifty, flawed, devious.
We must all swear to bury this secret
along with the original fish.
- I don't think we can get away with it,
and I don't think we should try.
- So what's your solution? - Tell her the truth.
[both laugh]
- Oh, oh, oh, he's serious. - Oh, OK. Yeah.
- She's 13 years old.
Don't insult her intelligence by lying to her.
She'll get it. It's nobody's fault.
- Well, I think we all agree it's Jim's fault.
- Hey, I fed this fish five meals a day,
and then ten meals on Friday to get through the weekend.
- Oh, God, no. - You are such a jackass!
- You killed that fish. You killed that fish.
[phone chimes]
- [gasps] Grace is in the elevator.
- How do you know? - Duh, I'm tracking her.
- Uh, y'all better hide that body.
[door closes] - Hey, everybody.
- Hi, Gracie.
- Mom. - Welcome home.
- Hi. - Welcome home.
Oh, sweetie. - Oh, there's my girl.
Hey.
- Trey, this is a surprise. What are you doing here?
- I came to welcome you home from camp.
How was it? - It was fine.
I missed my family and my favorite fish, Googles.
How you doing, bud?
- Hey, Grace. Welcome home.
- Hey, Jimmy.
- Oh, I see you got a new goldfish.
- What do you mean new?
- Isn't this dead one the old one?
- Trey killed Googles.
And then he asked us to lie about it.
- Why would you do that? - Grace, Trey didn't do--
- Because I was ashamed.
- Trey. - Let him speak.
- Your mom was stuck in a meeting,
and your dad and brother weren't here.
And I was tasked to watch the goldfish,
and I failed miserably.
I am so sorry.
- Trey, who killed Googles? Mom or Dad?
.
- I'm sorry, Grace. I know I was supposed to care of your fish,
and I blew it.
You blew up our family.
- Wait, what?
- Both of you. I don't care about the fish.
I mean, of course I loved Googles, but it was a fish.
You thought I couldn't handle the death of a little fish
when I handled the death of the only family
that I've ever known?
Don't you realize how grown I am?
I'm 13 1/2.
- Yes.
Mustn't forget about the half.
- What I loved was our family intact--
the fabulous foursome.
But now I'm just a lost soul from a broken family.
- No, you're not.
- I am. Before you know it,
I'm gonna have a tongue ring, start vaping.
I'm gonna need to talk to a counselor.
Unlock the liquor cabinet and cut up the cocaine.
- Grace, I can see that you're upset.
- Oh, my God.
Mom, you're using mirroring language.
I can see that you're not upset.
Me, I'm jubilant.
Divorce is fun.
I'm a pioneer at reframing
how my parents have destroyed my family.
Bust out the champagne.
- Come on, Grace, that's not fair.
- Fair?
You always tell us that family is the most important thing.
We became a family
because you two decided to make a family.
And then you unmade it without asking us.
That's not fair.
- Jimmy, are you doing OK?
- Yeah. I just scored my high score.
Is Grace addicted to blow?
- Not yet.
- I'm sorry, Grace.
I shouldn't have lied about Googles.
- I'm sorry, Grace. I shouldn't have let Trey lie.
- I'm sorry Trey lied to you, Grace...
and that your mom didn't stop him.
I'm joking. I'm joking.
- I'm going to my room.
- Grace. Grace, you're right.
We've done you a terrible disservice,
unfairly, as you said,
by being so determined to make this divorce non-disruptive
that we bypassed your feelings.
- Mom, I'm your daughter,
not a crisis that you need to manage.
Before I could even be sad about your divorce,
you were so caught up in telling me
and the rest of the world how great it was.
- We didn't mean to rush you through this.
- Or skip past it. But we did.
- And we're ready to talk about it in depth
as much as you want.
- Or if this little chat was sufficient...
uh, we can move on with our lives
and celebrate that your mother and Trey
are engaged to be married. - What?
- [yelps]
- And that's how we got Googles 3.0.
- So we're here, warts and all,
making mistakes in our lives for your benefit.
- So you can see what to do and maybe not to do in a divorce.
- And in a marriage. That's where you come in, Trey.
- I have no clue what I'm getting into.
- A great family, that's what you're getting into.
Fluffernutters for everybody.
- Good to see you, Bobby.
- Good to see you, Julia.
* *
- * I'm getting swag in the suite *
* I'm getting swag in the luxury suite *
* I'm getting swag in the suite *
* I'm getting swag in the luxury suite *
- What are you doing with that lamp?
- I'm taking it to my apartment.
- Why?
- I need a lamp.
- Did you ask Trey if you could take a lamp out of his suite?
- He said, help yourself to anything you want.
So I'm helping myself to something I want.
- He meant food and drinks, not appliances and hardware.
- Hoo-hoo!
How about them Boston Celtics?
You guys are good luck. We're playing well.
Mwah. - [chuckles]
- Thanks for all the cotton candy, Trey.
- How many of those have you had?
- I don't know.
Maybe six.
- Jimmy, quit that. - Yeah, Jimmy.
Quit it like our parents quit their marriage.
both: Whoa!
- Grace, chip off the old block.
- Jim, put the lamp back.
- Trey, did you or did you not say help yourself?
- Enjoy the lamp, Jim.
- Thank you.
I'm gonna put this in the car.
* *