Season 11 Episode 12: Grime and Punishment

January 20, 1997

Published 01/20/97

Al starts charging Bud rent for the basement, which transforms the arrangement in a way he has not thought through: Bud is now a tenant, and tenants have rights. The demands start reasonably and escalate, Al refuses all of them, and Bud’s response is to call the city. A health inspector arrives, declares Al a slumlord, and the episode’s premise locks into place when she fits him with a restraint collar and confines him to the basement until the repairs are made, which means Al is now living in the conditions he refused to fix.

The arrangement produces the episode’s best and most alarming scene. Peggy comes downstairs to announce that it is time for his conjugal visit, Al attempts to flee, the collar electrocutes him, and she takes him to the floor informing him whose property he now is. It is a reversal the series had been building toward for eleven years and it plays as genuine horror on Al’s part, which is exactly why it works.

Kelly’s subplot is the funnier half and one of her best showcases. She has enrolled in an improvisation class, she calls it “improve”, and needs situations to work with, so she asks her father for one. His first offer is that he is watching baseball. Her performance of that, slumped on the couch with one hand down her trousers, is accurate enough that Al upgrades her to mowing the lawn, and she leaves the scene muttering about the lawn, the kid and the wife before informing Peggy there will be no sex tonight. Al rates it the best money he ever spent.