When all of the Lanes return from their far-flung residences, all hell breaks loose at the Lane household. First, Vincent shows up, home from his Celtic rock formation photographing trip. Then, Wind, estranged from his most recent wife, Katie, and kicked off their houseboat, comes back. Next, Penny hails from Costa Rica, where her craft stand has just been destroyed by a volcano, and two of Summer’s kids, Adrian and Courtney, arrive after having runaway once more. Finally, Summer returns home, having tracked down her kids, and puts the entire family of dysfunction (minus her other two children) under one roof.
Meanwhile, Jane and Trent are going insane, as Vincent is developing pictures in all of the toilets, Amanda is exclaiming her inspirational sayings, Wind is crying and watching marriage therapy TV on Jane’s set, Penny is clogging the phone lines with long-distance calls to Senor Finance Minister, Adrian and Courtney are running wild, and Summer is failing to control them.
Finally, Jane, and then Trent, move into the Morgendorffers’ house. Daria, of course, is completely nervous and distracted while Trent is there, but she manages to have a very profound conversation with him about Huckleberry Hound Dog when Jane is spirited away by Quinn to select her eyeliner, as she is, after all, an artist.
The next night, Trent goes out on a date with Monique, and Daria is obviously distressed. So Quinn tells her to just fantasize how great it would be if they were together. In Daria’s fantasy, she, a successful but apparently underpaid gene splicer, comes home to where Trent, her husband (complete with a huge beer belly), is permanently flopped on the couch, watching TV, eating junk food, and (still) waiting for Mystik Spiral to finally get a gig. They talk about their money shortage, and Daria assures Trent that he’s done the right thing to wait it out, despite the fact that she’ll now have to work a double shift in order to pay for Trent Jr.’s new glasses. Then, we learn that the couple really never did get married, for Trent slept through the wedding (imagine that).
Fortunately, Daria snaps back to reality. She then decides that her crush on Trent is now officially over.
The next morning, Trent gets grounded by Helen for staying out too late, as he took four hours to break up with Monique. Jane says that they just aren’t right for each other, and then Amanda, having finally noticed the absence of her two youngest children, comes over to collect them.
Just as Trent walks out the door, he says that it’s too bad Daria isn’t older, because then he could date her (then nearly coughs up a lung on her). This prompts her to have a violently stupid fantasy in which they are rich and live a life of luxury. And so it turns out that the crush is back on (Darn. And this ep had so much potential.)
There was also a rather humorous little sub-plot with Helen and Jake pestering Jane and trying to find out more about their daughter that Larissa the Shipper totally forgot in all the excitement.
~Larissa (oh, and Robin might have added a few remarks here and there)
