Today, Tim Taylor is going to soup up his riding mower. He's planning on installing a motorcycle engine on that bad boy. Why? Well, why not? Mark watches him, astonished. Hoping to one day grow up and be a gearhead just like his old man. Meanwhile, Jill is trying to organize a rummage sale, but Brad and Randy are constantly under foot. She gets them to behave by threatening to make liver for dinner. Odd considering everything she cooks tastes like liver. While Tim tries to work, Jill comes out looking for duct tape, pronounced DUCT tape. Then he points out how she never returns tools after she borrows them, and if she does, she doesn't put them in the right place. The two argue about tools, their proper place and their proper usage. So while he chases her out of the garage, Mark starts playing around with Tim's torque wrench, one that's been in his family for generations, a very valuable heirloom...which he left lying around for some reason. Long story short, he breaks it. Quickly, he hides it in the dryer where nobody will ever think of looking...except on laundry day. So, after another day of tinkering, Tim finally has his Harley Davidson lawnmower. It can mow a football field in 1.5 minutes, ugh ugh ugh! However, it's about this time that Tim notices his torque wrench is missing, and he loudly swears that if he finds out who took it, he's gonna beat them with it. Naw, only kidding, but they will be in big, big trouble. Mark overhears this and now feels even worse.
Jill thinks it's all a big funny joke, but Tim isn't laughing, and when he doesn't laugh, it's REALLY not funny. That's when she discovers the torque wrench in the dryer, all busted up. Mark hides, but is eventually spotted by Brad and Randy. He tells them about breaking the wrench when they "promise" not to rat him out. To add insult to injury, they imply that they had another younger brother before Mark was born, named Peter. One day he broke Tim's flashlight and they traded him in, for Mark. Those little buggers. So Tim sits them down and demands to know who broke his torque wrench. They let it slip that Mark did it, and that he's hiding the backyard. Tim finds him hiding up in a tree. He talks to him, calmly, letting him know what he did was wrong. He also assures him that there never was a Peter, and that he would never trade him for anything. So Mark climbs down, and even tells his father that Brad and Randy broke the tape measure he can never find. After that, it's time to test drive the mower. Had he remembered to take it out of reverse, it might have gone more smoothly...and less painfully. Since Tim has to act like a responsible role-model at home (hey, he tries), he gets to be a jerk on Tool Time. He does this today by intentionally hiding a blowtorch from Al to prove a point. The point being that you should always know where your tools are. Al was not impressed.
The second episode of Home Improvement. If you remember in the pilot, they established Tim's fascination with souping up appliances, well here we see his fascination with tweaking other machines. It's also the first time Brad and Randy play a mean trick on Mark, and it won't be the last time, I assure you. This episode was done very well, the jokes were funny, the story and plot were decent, and the acting was above average. This group seems like an actual family. All in all, I'd say Home Improvement is off to a good start. Check out Mow Better Blues.
0 out of 0 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
