- Emerson's mom comes to town just in time to help the team investigate the murder of an employee at a professional friendship service business. Chuck and Olive move in together after Olive comes back, but how long will it last?
- The narrator takes us back to Emerson's childhood, when his mother, a PI, taught him the ways of the profession. She dangled him off buildings to snap photos of adulterers and they promised not to keep secrets. His childhood adventures were the basis for "Lil' Gum Shoe," which present day Emerson (Chi McBride) still can't get published.
At the Pie Hole, a surly woman sits in a fedora and talks like a hard boiled detective. In comes Emerson, similarly surly, saying hello his best friend and mother. Guffaws and hugs ensue. Meet Calista Cod (Debra Mooney).
Later, Chuck (Anna Friel) processes the fact Lily (Swoosie Kurtz) is her mom while spending all her time with her new roommate Olive (Kristin Chenoweth) as Ned (Lee Pace) stews.
Olive suggested the cohabitation because the poor had all her furniture. They agree not to hold grudges, Olive for not understanding why Chuck faked her own death and Chuck for not understanding why Olive didn't tell her Lily was her mom.
Emerson and his mother hang out. Mom doesn't know he has a daughter somewhere. He resolves to tell her when a Veronica De La Nueva (Alexandra Baneto) comes in to the PI office, wanting them to find out who killed her best friend Joe (Joshua LeBar). Emerson remembers a dentist, Eugene Halifax (Phil Abrams) came to see him that morning also wanting him to find his who killed best friend Joe. With De La Nueva, Joe's a cosmo-drinking shopaholic, which mom finds "queer." "You bet it's odd," says Emerson.
Off to the morgue, where after a Ned poke Joe starts spewing liquid. Formaldehyde. He thinks his best friend might have done it. He doesn't say which one.
The Cods meet with both best friends for a double grilling. They confess. He was a "frescort," a friend for hire. Hottie Veronica needed a fake friend because women were jealous of her hotness. And the dentist is just a dork.
Olive and Chuck prepare to go into Best Friends Inc. as friends-for-hire. Emerson and Ned talk to a boss, Buddy (Hayes McArthur), a reformed jock just trying to find people friends. He says Joe wasn't seeing anyone the night he died.
Emerson snoops while Ned gets a squeeze from a hug machine. Emerson finds Joe's address.
Olive and Chuck pass the initial screening by perky Barb (Dana Davis) at the front desk.
Emerson and Ned go to Joe's. Emerson feels bad his mom doesn't know about his daughter while Ned feels lonely some more. As Emerson jimmies the door, he resolves to sit his mom down and look her straight in the -- he opens the door and is facing an eyeball.
It's on a stick being held by a Randy Mann (David Arquette), Joe's roommate. He says he's using the eye for a sculpture. He plucks a golden retriever hair of Ned while Ned over-discloses about his personal situation.
Randy Mann won't let Emerson see Joe's room and they leave.
At the Pie Hole, they compare notes and Randy Mann drops by with offal for meat pies. Emerson wants to talk to mama, but she has to get back to her case. He goes to toss Randy Mann's apartment on his own. He finds overdue invoices for Randy Mann from Best Friends Inc. Then he finds a backroom full of taxidermied animals posed in dioramas and a jar with something icky in it marked "Joe."
At the Pie Hole, Randy Mann devours his meat pie while Ned watches. Randy says he has loose ligaments as a kid, he always fell down and bumped into stuff. They bond over being childhood rejects and Randy feels comfortable enough to share his hobby. He presents his stuffed Golden Retriever to Ned, who finds it less-than-charming. Emerson busts in, and Randy confesses he used to be Joe's friend client but made him a deal to stay there rent free. The jar is Joe's appendix. Randy says Joe gave it to him as a thank you after Randy took him to the hospital when it nearly burst. He suggests they talk to Joe's girlfriend, someone from work nicknamed "Downy."
At BFI, Olive and Chuck confer when Barb comes in, only doing the downs in the crossword puzzle. She's "Downy." While Olive and Chuck dig for a tissue for her tears, she shoves them both into a locker and takes off.
Emerson returns to his office and interrupts a spry and surprisingly strong masked burglar who, when they get him around the neck and he rips off the mask, turns out to be his mother.
She pulls out his "Lil' Gum Shoe" book. A very complicated backstory shows a publisher's secretary accidentally sent the rejection letter to his mom instead of him. She assumed it was a tell-all about what a bad mother she was. But she hasn't read it. "What's with the main character being a girl, are you saying I turned you gay?" mom says. Emerson defends himself by confessing he has a daughter. Then he asks what kind of mother spies on her own son. Ned comes in and tells the Cods the girls haven't checked in.
Squeezed into their locker and immobilized, the truth starts pouring out. Chuck's hair detangler doesn't smell good and Olive's capris don't make her look taller. Also, Olive lied and Chuck is needy and selfish. Then it turns to Olive's undying love for Ned and what it's like for Chuck to watch her moon and then Olive thinking it's weird they don't touch. Emerson undoes the locker and saves them from themselves just in time.
Chuck goes to the boss' office to find Downy's address but instead finds Downy dead, over-hugged by the hug machine. A Ned poke and she starts talking about her love for Joe and says he was moonlighting with his standing sports date the night he was killed. A man missing a jock gene, a bleacher leecher. She says the Spartan killed her. "There ain't no Spartan, this isn't Thermopylae High." No, but the boss Buddy did go to Spartan High.
Ned has a hunch it was Randy Mann, the old mascot from Buddy's high school. Buddy comes in. After they share the hunch, his solution: "Someone call the police, there's a vindictive person with low self esteem on the loose."
Chuck looks through their old high school yearbook for Randy, but bumps into Ned and, while trying to get away from him to avoid the death touch, knocks over a glass case with a football player uniform inside. It appears to be on a mannequin, but when Ned touches it it comes to life, taxidermied.
It can't talk so charades ensues. He was the quarterback. He points to his picture in the yearbook. Buddy said he was the QB, but Buddy, the mummy points out, was the mascot.
Buddy killed him, too. When Chuck wonders aloud what kind of person keeps a dead body around, Buddy pops up behind her with the answer and a sword to her neck (dressed as a Spartan, for flair).
The facts were these: Buddy thought he was friends with the QB but no one noticed him until the state championship when he accidentally interfered with a pass and faced the wrath of the team. Years of dermatology and steroid abuse turned him into the Buddy of today, who couldn't handle the abandonment of his new friend Joe. He killed him and then Barb.
He starts to come at Ned but Emerson picks up a baseball bat and out-jocks him, knocking him cold. With the frescort killer caught, Ned revisits Randy Mann, bearing meat pies and bringing Digby and an apology. Randy tells him there's nothing wrong with being alone; you have to be OK with yourself before you can be OK with anyone else.
Ned gets an idea to bring lonely people together and invites the frescort clients to the Pie Hole where, after some initial awkwardness, they hit it off.
In the back, Chuck announces she's moving back in with Ned. He says he misses her, but no. He has to work on some alonetime and she needs to work on things with Olive.
Chuck brings a pie of friendship home and she and Olive clear the air.
Emerson chats with his mom, who decides to start acting like his mom instead of his best friend. She wants him to be able to tell her things. She has notes on the book, too. She tells him to write about the grown-up Emerson and how great he'd be as a daddy, that'll bring his daughter home.
At home, Ned eats solitary pizza until Chuck knocks on the door, wrapped in a blanket. She drops it to reveal nothing else. (But there's not much Ned can do with that.)
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