Kathryn shows up unannounced, much to the dismay of Katie and Greg. Things get even worse when Kathryn tells Taylor not to go to college, while Katie and Greg are trying to force her to go. It's also Katie's first day off in weeks, and Oliver is ruining that. Katie gets called to the school to talk to the principal about Oliver, and is told that Oliver cheated on his shop assignment. He gets suspended for an entire week, but Oliver reminds Katie that she always says that cheating is okay. This causes her to hide the suspension from Greg, wanting to avoid another lecture. Katie leaves Oliver with Doris as his punishment, and I think Oliver is really regretting cheating. So he sells out Katie to Greg, and Greg forces him to build a birdhouse.
Oliver builds what I guess you can call a birdhouse, but the principal still won't lift the suspension. Kathryn finally tells the Ottos why she's staying with them: she's renting out her apartment because she's dead broke. Katie calls her a bad influence, but everyone points out how similar Katie is to Kathryn. This makes Katie sick, literally. Kathryn tries to make everything right though, and she tells Taylor to go to college. Taylor starts studying and seems to be learning things, which is the real shock of this episode. Kathryn gets Oliver's suspension wiped from his record using... ways, but he still gets punished: he has to tutor Taylor. Ultimately, he gets out of that punishment by going back to Doris's.
Wrap-Up:
I loved that Kathryn returned tonight, and while she didn't really add that much to the episode, she was still very funny. I hope she'll be around on a more frequent basis this season because I really enjoy the interactions between her and Katie, and would like to see them together more than once every season. Katie getting physically ill because she was compared to Kathryn was by far the episode's funniest moment.
The plot this week felt a bit thin, and I don't think the Oliver cheating storyline and the storyline about Taylor not wanting to go to college were enough to really fill an entire episode. This episode relied more on the actors' great chemistry with one another and sharp one-liners to make it a solid entry, rather than a memorable plot. While that's fine, it does mean that, while still a really funny episode, this was the weakest episode of the season. But I am grateful for the image of Oliver being attacked by Doris's dogs.
Score: 8/10
Grade: B
