Hot in Cleveland: Selfless Victoria, Bye to Alec, Emmet Gets a Year

note: some Recaps and Remarks are going up later than usual due to Comic-Con and TCA.

Can we talk about how Joy's son wasn't really present for Wilbur's first birthday? It was one heck of a party, but without the birthday child's parents present, it was a bit odd. And the last thing I was expecting to hear was that Melanie and Alec were considering parenthood! Of course, when she promptly rushes off the the gyno in the next episode, I was fully expecting her to be surprisingly pregnant, but I guess that was taking the joke a little too far. But that's good... I don't think this series needs a full-time baby for whom to care. I forget about Wilbur enough as it is. Plus, more characters just takes time away from Betty White, and we all know that she's the star of this "ensemble" comedy...

facebook.com/hotincleveland

Also, in case you were wondering, the ladies' home is apparently found at 68 Cedar Cliff Road. That address is not actually in Cleveland, but does appear in Dayton, Ohio, 200 miles away.  

Hot in Cleveland "Pony Up" (S04E16): Victoria is grieving, so the girls encourage her to do something good for someone. She gets involved in supporting kidney donation but winds up having to agree to get tested to donate, and she's a match for a little girl. She tries to get out of it, and she lucks out when the hospital finds a better match. [I laughed pretty hard at the idea that she'd steal a kidney to give to this kid.] However, when the little girl comes to thank Victoria for doing the program that found her match, Victoria winds up being a superior match after all and undergoes the procedure. [as nice as it was to see Victoria being selfless for once, it was also unbelievable. plus, I would have allocated the timeline a little differently to see more of Victoria at the hospital.]

Joy has her first case, and she's supposed to see if she can get a cheater to kiss her. She runs into Sean, the Brony, and they rekindle their relationship. [if we're going to bring back old characters, how about John Mahoney as a waiter?] Her boss invites himself along for dinner, and the guys bond. When Joy can't get to hang out with Sean alone, she asks Bob to stop seeing him, but that's soon the end of the whole thing.

Hot in Cleveland "No Glove, No Love" (S04E17): Victoria and Joy get Wilbur a marionette theater for his first birthday, but the directions are in French. [what a neat present, though!] They spend a lot of time trying to put it together but it doesn't work out, so they get a local toy to put together, which isn't much easier.

The more dramatic plot is that Melanie and Alec think about their own potential family, but after both visualizing that life, they are on different pages. He imagines it ideally, and she envisions a dystopic life, forcing her to realize that she's really in a grandmother phase. [I'm amused that Alec doesn't envision any downside.] Alec agrees with her, but he's also not 100% sure he doesn't want children, so she ends the relationship so he doesn't regret being childfree. [haha, loved Elka picturing the girls as her children.]

Hot in Cleveland "The Fixer" (S04E18): Melanie hasn't been able to cry since the end of her relationship with Alec, so the girls try to make her feel worse to force a leak to spring. [how horrific! I can't say I've ever had that problem, though. I generally cry with little provocation.] An empty peanut shell is the last straw, and Melanie winds up going home with a guy from the bar, Danny Doyle. The next morning, it is revealed that he is the same person that Victoria has hired to bribe the judge for Emmet's case, and he and Melanie play dumb at knowing one another. [...there are specific people you pay to do the bribing??] Rather than cash, however, Danny wants a date with Melanie as his fee, so Victoria promises to make it happen.

Meanwhile, Melanie decides to date her gynecologist, so Victoria pitches Danny as a "practice date" for the following evening. [I thought the idea was humorous.] However, when Dr. Aaron unexpectedly shows up at the same time as Danny, Victoria tries to placate Danny while Joy and Melanie explain things to the doctor. Of course, it all falls apart, but she is about to make up with Aaron. [she can get a gyno appt the same day??] And, the judge can't be bribed so Emmet takes a plea bargain and will only be locked up for a year. [that's still an eternity!]

In a smaller storyline, Elka and Joy are taking a film class, and they work together on one another's documentaries. Elka does a Godzilla homage to Joy's "man hands" and gets the best grade in class. [Joy's film about Elka's life during WWII was just weird.]