Episode #102 "A Thanksgiving Episode"

When Butch finds out that everyone has separate plans for Thanksgiving, he tries to persuade Pamela to have a traditional dinner and invite the whole family. Pamela can't imagine why Butch would want to sit around while their parents rag on them, but she reluctantly agrees. While he's watching a football game with Charlie, he invites him, along with Elizabeth and Danny, for Thanksgiving. Elizabeth prefers to celebrate quietly and sanely at home, but Danny's tired of cooking and thinks a big family dinner would make it seem more like a holiday. Mostly for Danny's sake, Elizabeth agrees to spend Thanksgiving with her gay ex-husband and her creepy ex-in-laws. Pamela has enlisted the kids help in cooking dinner, and Butch has also agreed to help, but Charlie arrives with two tickets to a Cardinals game. Promising to back in time for dinner, Butch and Charlie take off. The family is assembled minus Butch and Charlie, and it's as horrifying as Pamela predicted with Bill and Joan picking on everyone. At the game, Butch and Charlie are already late when they encounter a disgruntled fan who's jeering and shouting homophobic insults at the team. Charlie finds him particularly annoying and asks him to keep it down. The man responds by calling Charlie a homo. He isn't, says Charlie, but his father is. Butch drags Charlie out to get a hotdog. At home, Pamela is determined not to start dinner until Butch and Charlie get there. Clenched jaws and awkward silences set the tone for the day. Joan accuses Elizabeth of turning Butch gay. Bill chimes in that having a little sister that made him play with dolls didn't help. Pamela says it's idiotic that he's blaming her for Butch being gay, and a shouting match begins. Butch takes Charlie aside to cool down. Charlie can't understand this, because he was just sticking up for his dad. Butch tells him that the guy wasn't talking about him, he just liked hearing the sound of his own voice. Charlie disagrees and won't go back to see the rest of the game; he's leaving. Butch gets home and everyone's gone. They didn't eat without him, Pamela says; they just left. She's clearly very angry, and when Butch finds a couple of broken beer bottles, he observes that something must have gone terribly wrong. Pamela starts to cry. She worked so hard to make a nice dinner even though it was Butch who wanted to have a family celebration. Even she was beginning to think they could have a happy Thanksgiving too. Butch is determined that the day is not going to end this way. They'll round up the family, and there will, in fact, be a Thanksgiving dinner. They pack up the food, pick up Bill and Joan and take them, along with Pamela's blind date George, to Charlie's house for dinner. Danny's baffled when the family arrives bearing yams and other dinner items. Elizabeth just wants to know what all these people are doing in her house. Maybe Butch wants togetherness, she adds, but nobody else does. Butch just thinks that maybe they can all sit down at the table and reach some sort of understanding, some sort of bonding. Some sort of fantasy, says Elizabeth. Butch tells Charlie that he can't let ignorant jerks bother him, but Charlie responds that having a gay dad isn't easy. It took him three years to admit to anyone that his dad is gay. Before that he said Butch was a spy. And the family manages to all sit down at the table together and eat Thanksgiving dinner.