_
Okay, before she gets on, what do we think about Annie
moving back to Orlando to live with her parents?
I know. It's crazy, I don't like it.
Superior orange juice.
Wait, Annie's moving back home?
Yeah, she told the Gossip Girls last night.
Honorary member.
- Also founding member. - And then Michelle told me
right after Annie told you guys.
- Couples confidentiality clause. - Rufus, how'd you know?
How did I know? How d... how didn't I know.
- Orlando? Like, Florida? - No, Orlando like Bloom, Ben.
Gosh, first the NBA, now Annie.
Oh, my God. Do I want to move to Florida?
Why, so you can see
your Clippers lose to the Lakers again?
Dang, Garret, Kawhi you gotta be so rude?
They're just acclimating to life in the bubble.
They haven't seen their families for months.
Oh, can I be a basketball person?
But Annie can't go.
I mean, she's our family.
Well, technically, she's her family's family.
Maybe she misses them.
She's just going stir crazy.
What Annie needs is some local, COVID-approved,
quarantine bae
- for some quarantine "Hey." - Ooh!
You speak as if from experience.
Well, I can neither confirm nor deny that I may or may not
be getting some regularly scheduled maintenance.
What? Good for you.
Well, you know maybe Annie is one of those people
That has trouble divorcing sex and feelings,
Which I've heard is a thing.
I'll tell you what Annie
won't have trouble with...
Aah! All them gentlemen callers
- in them central Florida suburbs. - Mm-hmm,
just fields of former high school flames
Turned husband material
with real estate licenses
just awaiting Miss Annie's return.
You do know that Florida
isn't the Deep South, right?
Well, where is it then? The Lower East?
Hey, y'all. Sorry I'm late.
I was talking to this guy who might sublet my apartment.
- So this move is for real? - Yeah.
You think my downstairs neighbors will mind
He's an online Muay Thai instructor?
Why, because of the noise,
or because of a potentially asymptomatic virus carrier
penetrating their bubble of safety?
This whole thing is madness.
No, you know what's madness?
I haven't left my apartment in five months.
My parents' house has a pool,
my mom makes the best ropa vieja,
and the humidity sucks, but it's great for my skin.
Yeah, 'cause your skin is hideous here.
I'm paying a ton of money in LA rent and for what?
I can't see the city or my friends,
And it's not like I have a boyfriend
- to you know, you know... - Have sex with?
Use to drive in the HOV lane?
Oh, tap dance with at
the Griffith Park Observatory?
We'll still be able to chat
on video like we do now.
Question: does your mom
make the ropa vieja
- with her own sofrito? - Absolutely.
Follow-up question:
can I move in with your parents too?
No. No one is moving.
Life, relationships, friendships are tenuous.
We must stay close. We must.
- Was that a haiku? - I think so. We'll be right back.
- Synced and corrected by ChrisKe - -- for www.addic7ed.com --
Uh, where did everyone go?
This is my Scheme Team breakout room.
Ugh, no. No, Rufus, no more schemes.
I almost lost a kidney last time.
Every Thelma needs a Louise.
Do you know how that movie ends? No.
Why do you always pick me for these things?
Because you're easily swayed,
and this is a scheme to keep Annie in Los Angeles.
All right, I guess I'll hear you out.
One person moves away,
and the entire friend group chemistry is disrupted
Like an atom losing an electron.
Next thing you know, it's just you, your tears,
and the artisanal IPA you brew in your bathtub.
I didn't know we meant that much to you,
Or that that was how you were making that beer!
When we were working retail together,
and you, Annie, and Ellis accidentally invited me
to dinner at Michelle and Garret's,
It gave me that warm, fuzzy feeling you get
when you see Colin Firth in a romantic comedy.
I do not get the appeal of that dude.
If Annie leaves, I know where this goes:
back to loneliness.
Where I thrive, but still.
All right.
- What's the plan? - Simple.
We keep the electron from gravitating
towards a higher affinity atom.
We stop Annie from leaving,
- starting with a little blackmail. - Wait, we're blackmailing her?
- I'll explain everything in the group. - Why can't you tell me right here?
Where did you guys go?
- Hand sanitizer. - Uh, yeah...
We're launching a whole new product line.
Guys, it's August.
No one cares about hand sanitizer anymore.
We've all just given up.
Annie Diaz,
would you describe your relationship with your mother,
Marta Alejandra Diaz,
as being congruent, politically speaking?
- Why do you know my mom's full name? - Great question.
May I present to you my deposition.
Exhibit A: a post from Annie's
social media reading,
"Defund the Police."
Yeah, that's not how depositions work...
Exactly. Exhibit B.
An email from Marta
reading, "Refund the Police."
- _ - What? My mom said that?
A house in suburban Florida divided. The defense rests.
That's still not a deposition, bro.
You know, my dad sends me daily email forwards
About how Bill Gates is trying
to kill us with a vaccine.
What Bill Gates ever do to anyone?
Windows 95, Clippy,
Minesweeper...
Wait, why is my mom sending you emails?
Parents love me.
I've been told it's my childlike sense of wonder.
Annie, if you're gonna have drama with your parents,
You know, I mean, maybe you shouldn't move back home.
Oh, it's fine. I just need to school my mom on the state of our country.
Thankfully, I do my homework.
Your social media activism has been on point.
You didn't even fall for the black square.
I don't know, Annie.
The brain loses elasticity as we age
Making it very hard to change.
Our parents minds
are like a pair of suede pants.
Hey, that's not always true.
My mom and I had a huge falling out
when I decided to have my gender confirmation surgery,
and it took a lot of time,
and energy, but now Janice
and I are stronger than ever.
We owe it to our parents to give them the chance
- to grow as people. - Exactly.
My mom's a good person.
She just doesn't have all the right info.
Luckily, I've got killer rhetoric-al skills.
- You mean "rhetorical"? - No, not like a rhetorical question.
Rhetoric-al, as in rhetoric
but the adjective of it.
Yeah, this is maybe not gonna go as smooth as you think.
- Annie. - Annabelle!
- Dimelo. - Why are you in different rooms?
Because your mom doesn't understand the perfect AC temperature
is 67 degrees.
For the walk-in refrigerator at Costco.
- Okay, Mo... - Oh, and speaking of Costco...
She emptied out the store for you.
What about you, Señor Samples?
- They're free. - Ay, Annie, I got you
those carbonated waters that you like that smell like ChapStick.
Also this hair towel
because you never dry your hair after the shower,
and it's bad for your sinuses.
- Mom, I'm not a kid anymore! - You are my youngest.
You will always be my baby.
Actually, I wanted to talk to you about...
Ooh, I almost forgot the travel suit!
I saw it on QVC.
Let me send it to you.
Mom, that looks insane.
It's already on the way.
No, you have to talk to me about these things!
You can't just assume that I'm gonna...
Ooh, you're gonna be here in time
For Mileidys's baby shower! Oy.
You know, she had a very hard time
Getting pregnant, pobresita.
She tried everything.
She even wore the evil eye
on her wrists and her ankles.
Nothing. They had to mortgage the house
In order to pay for the fertility treatment.
Dios mío, qué cosa!
That "Refund the Police"
email was clutch!
Both: Scheme Team!
All right, now for phase two.
I'm hacking into Annie's newsfeeds
and flooding them with targeted ads
To remind her of how much Florida sucks.
Check it out.
- _ - Alligator insurance,
- _ - local congressmen,
- and this gross dating website I found. - Wow. - _
Hey, are we doing the right thing?
Last thing I wanna do is hurt Annie.
Ben, a Scheme Team requires full transparency.
Is there something else going on between you two?
With me and Annie? No, no, we're just friends.
I mean, there was this one intense moment in Chicago
where I thought there may have been a vibe,
But... she told me a story
about how she could never date a friend,
which definitely killed the vibe.
Mmm, vibes are a fragile wavelength.
Like friend groups, they need to be lovingly maintained.
Now, can we please manipulate our good pal
- into staying in LA with us? - Let's do it.
Pero how do you know the police have too much money?
I think the police don't have enough money.
Mom, they're like the Kardashian-Jenners.
They have so much they're being irresponsible with it.
Stormi did not need her own
theme park for her birthday.
- That was too much for Stormi. - No. That is true.
50% of most city budgets go to the police.
That's way too much.
How do you know it's too much?
Are you city planner, hmm?
You could've been a city planner.
You used to do that afterschool program.
What was it called?
- Youth in Congress. - Yes.
You learned so much from that.
Too bad you ruined your life by becoming a writer.
Mom, it's okay for people in my generation
to pursue their passions.
Passions do not pay the bills, mija.
I'm in construction, and I have a passion for it.
- Ramón, please! - Agh.
Look, this issue is bigger than police funding.
It's a systemic racial issue.
Did you know 35% of African American men
are incarcerated while only 50% aren't?
What about the other 15%?
- What? - 35 plus 50 is 85.
No, Ramón?
Oh, I can talk now?
Entonces? Where's the other 15%?
Um...
Well, I know it's a real thing.
I shared an article on, um...
Hold on, let me just... Mmm...
Maybe they didn't fill out the survey
About... if they were incarcerated maybe?
That's the thing about surveys. Not everyone fills them out
sometimes, so...
Mija, you can't trust
everything you read
on the internet.
Do you get Fox News in LA?
It was so embarrassing!
My mom ran circles around me in a political argument! My mom.
Up until about a month ago, she though RBG was a clothing designer.
So does this mean you're not moving home?
Well, I wasn't going to,
but then I started seeing all these ads for Florida,
- and it made me nostalgic. - Both: Nostalgic?
Yeah, I forgot how cute alligators are.
You hear that, Rufus? She's feeling nostalgic!
Also my ex-boyfriend from high school who used to be in a one-man
Kid Rock cover band...
So a Kid Rock impersonator, because that's what that is.
He got his real estate license, and he's super rich now.
He has the huge house next to Joey Fatone.
We're just friends, but he said if things with my parents get weird,
I can stay with him. Although I prefer not to
because he's always tries to make me sing the Sheryl Crow part
of the song "Picture."
Well, if it isn't Mr. Husband Material
Here to sweep you away to his most certainly
tacky McMansion.
Oh, Mr. Former Kid Rock,
- I do accept this rock on my finger. - Okay, guys.
Florida is not the South.
Oh, well, look at its location on a map.
Ben, Rufus, what's with the phone pinging?
You guys still talking about hand sanitizer?
- 100%, yes. - 100%, big time, big time.
Yeah, what is going on with you two?
Yeah, I know Ben is easily swayed,
but this level of interest in a Rufus-driven business
is entirely suspect.
I am not easily swayed!
- Oh, come on. - Oh, you totally are.
- Okay, fine. - Guys, can we focus?
I know defunding the police is the right thing to do,
I just don't know how to get my parents to know that.
They do not play fair. They use Jedi mind tricks.
My mom won an argument with me once
by staring at me without blinking.
I'm still working on a rebuttal.
Well, take it from a three-time Mountain State regional debate champ,
You gotta get inside the competition's head.
And what's inside your mom's head
is a deep and unquestioning love of the cops
because that's exactly what
American TV and film has put there.
I guess if people haven't had a negative experience personally,
like, say, every black person in America,
It's hard for them to see the cops
- as anything but the good guys. - Yeah, meanwhile,
I was in my twenties when I realized that the "bad boys"
in the theme song from "Cops" weren't the cops.
They have too much money.
In LA we give them $2 billion a year.
If only we could spend a little bit of that on public education,
then Richie and I wouldn't have to take out a loan
to pay 28 grand to pay
for virtual private school,
which is just Big Bird on an iPad!
Wait, 28...
You are sending me the 20 bucks
you owe me from poker now.
I said we needed a loan!
Yeah, people don't realize that "defund the police"
- just means fund other departments. - Like social workers, you know,
so a man with a gun and 16 weeks of training
- doesn't answer mental health calls. - I wish I could just
bring you guys with me
to talk to my parents.
You can't bring us,
but we can help you prepare.
Ooh.
- Ooh, a project, a project! - Debate team!
I love a good mise-en-place!
Also you can bring Ben.
- You can? - Oh, okay.
Thanks, Ben.
Rufus, these schemes aren't working, bruh.
Look, if Annie wants to move home,
- I think we just gotta let her go. - You can't! She likes you.
What?
Annie likes you, and I think you like her too.
I think that's why you agreed to this scheme In the first place.
You've been Colin Firth the whole time.
No, no, no, she told me in Chicago she could never date a friend.
You know what's great about this country?
People are allowed to change their minds.
They're even allowed to admit that they were wrong.
Wait...
Is that why you wanted me on your Scheme Team?
Am I your emergency backup plan?
- How do you mean? - How do I know you're not
lying to get me to help you save your friend group molecule.
What? I never lie!
You're lying to Annie right now!
Okay, Annie I am lying to.
Yes, but do you really wanna
lose her to a fake Kid Rock
that lives next door to a real Joey Fatone!?
Okay, what? Now I gotta help her get along with her parents?
That's what she'll think,
but actually you'll be feeding her
the exact wrong things to say.
It's Scheme Team phase three,
- a Reverse-Cyrano. - A reverse-what?
Scheme Team!
_
Hey, you ready?
Yeah, I think so. I got my talking points, my non-talking points,
- My turtle neck, my cotton balls. - You got this.
"You're gonna eat lightning and crap thunder."
It's from "Rocky."
Just remember, I'll be hiding as a non-video participant.
Your parents will not notice that, but I'll be with you the whole time.
Why are you so great?
That's what friends are for.
Thanks, Ben. It means a lot having you in my corner.
Okay.
Here goes nothing.
- Hey. - Hi, mija.
Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. Gimme one second.
_
Okay, I understand political conversations
can be tricky, so I wanted to ease into it
and talk about...
"Personal finances"?
Ay, now she's finally ready to hear my YouTube
- on how to balance a checkbook? - You need some money, mija?
Sorry, actually
let's discuss...
All the TV remotes?
- We have asked your brother - There's a remote for the TV,
- so many times for this one thing. - a remote for the speakers,
A remote for the cable box,
a remote for the streaming box...
- It doesn't make sense! - And he refuses! - _
After everything I did.
Marta, relax.
Te va a dar algo!
You know what? Let's forget the icebreakers.
Mom, I wanted to talk about
your refund the police email.
Annabelle, please, you wanna give your mom a heart attack?
We already know she's gonna be talking about those remotes
- until next week! - Just hear me out.
I realize I feel passionately about a lot of issues,
But I also recognize
I take in a lot of my news from TikTok.
All I know is, it seems as if the system is broken.
Maybe if we had better healthcare,
Mileidys wouldn't have to mortgage her house
to pay for fertility treatments.
I mean, what if I have fertility issues?
Por Dios, no! My grandkids, no!
Not that I'm planning to have kids anytime soon,
but, my friend Pradeep is about to pay $28,000
in private school because public schools are inadequate.
Remember Youth in Congress,
the program in high school you thought could change my life?
It's lost its funding.
- Oh, qué lástima. - No.
The funding for so many things
that could change people's lives
is just disappearing or never
been there in the first place.
It just feels as if we're spending the wealth of this country
in ways that don't benefit the people that live in it.
Defunding the police is not
about removing the police,
the police will still be here.
It won't make us any less safe.
It'll just make us more whole.
Mom?
- You're frozen. - No, I'm thinking.
- We get to keep the police? - Yes, we just take
some of their money and spend it in better ways.
All this defund talk is scary with all these protests.
But maybe
you're right...
It does feel like things need to change.
America is always trying to make itself better.
That's why we came here,
but it takes work.
Annie, I'm proud you're out there trying.
The younger generation,
we make fun of you and your TikyTok,
but we are inspired by you.
You give us hope.
Thanks, Dad.
I can't wait for you to come home.
Me too. I love you guys.
We love you, baby.
Send me a picture when you try on the hazmat suit.
Hmm?
Where'd you go?
I thought you were gonna help me pee lightning
And pass hail stones or whatever.
I know. I just felt like you didn't need me.
You know, maybe you do better on your own.
Ben, I'm always gonna need you.
Who's gonna make fun of my horrible impressions?
I mean, they are horrible.
Impressions aren't even cool to begin with,
So when you do them badly, it's just very confusing.
Why are you smiling?
I don't know. I... watching you with your parents, it was just...
It's like seeing you on a whole other level.
Yeah, I have no memory of what I said.
Well, it was pretty amazing.
You really moving back home?
I don't know.
You think I should?
- No. - No?
No. I'd miss you.
- You would? - Yes. I would.
Look, you gotta make your own decision,
and I know we're just talking through screens right now,
but, the thought of you moving to another screen
in a different time zone, 2,500 miles away,
yeah, you can put me down for a no on that one.
Okay.
I'll take it under advisement.
Hey, how did you know?
Know... I don't know. Know what?
That Orlando was 2,500 miles away?
Aw, yeah, I just... I just guessed.
- Why? Is it? - Yeah, 2,500 miles.
I looked it up.
- Good night, Ben. - Good night, Annie.
_
- Synced and corrected by ChrisKe - -- for www.addic7ed.com --