‘The Kids Are Alright’ Season 1, Episode 2 ‘Timmy’s Poem’ Recap: Plagiarism Duo

The Clearys continue to amaze me. In true 70’s fashion, this bunch of thrift-store loving, Jesus-faithful, crazy family managed to keep things as interesting as they can within their American dream home. This week’s episode of The Kids Are Alright, titled “Timmy’s Poem,” shows us that family conflict can lead to amenable resolutions—even if it involves plagiarism and blatant disregard of worker rights and strikes. I know, it sounds a little bit convoluted if you ask me, but tonight’s episode did a damn good job of keeping me locked on for 30 minutes (about as long as I can muster for a comedy show like this).

The Poem

“Timmy’s Poem” opens with Peggy (Mary McCormack) shoving her kids out of their entertainment stupor. It’s summer, and the last thing she wants to see is her boys lounging around doing nothing. They all need to look for a summer job. Timmy (Jack Gore), being a self-proclaimed creative, decides to dabble in ventriloquism to earn some money. Unfortunately, a mysterious basement fire destroys half his dummy’s face, making kids in parties scream in horror.

Timmy struggles to look for ways to fix his dummy. It would cost him a whopping $20, and he doubts his mom would even give him that much money in the first place. That morning, their dad, Mike, arrives and honks his horn for his kids to file out and take all the grocery items in the house. The last one to help or appear gets a small amount of food from those bags. Timmy reads Mike’s newspaper and sees an opening for a children’s poetry contest. The cash prize—25 bucks.

That night, Timmy struggles to write his poem. Peggy tries to help him out by giving Timmy a rhyme book. As Timmy flips through it, Peggy’s old poem from high school falls out. Desperate for an idea, Timmy decides to copy and submit Peggy’s poem.

Mail arrives after a few days, informing Timmy that he won the contest and is invited to bring his family for the awarding ceremony. He’ll also need to read out the poem. Distraught, Timmy asks for the resident troublemaker, Joey (Christopher Paul Richards) for help. Joey suggests changing the time on the reminder that Peggy wrote so she won’t be able to come. The awards ceremony begins, and things go well for Timmy. His “poem” moves the audience, and he gets his cash prize. However, Peggy was able to come, after all, thanks to Frank’s (Sawyer Barth) snitching. Peggy congratulates Timmy, who’s visibly shaken and is scared that his mom might know that it’s her poem.

ABC/Richard Cartwright)

Since Timmy won, Peggy has been treating him well, to the point that it doesn’t even feel comfortable for Timmy anymore. Peggy’s obviously playing the guilt trip game. Timmy once again asks help from Joey, who tells him to ride along just as he did after he “accidentally” caused the basement fire. During lunch, Peggy even bakes Timmy a chocolate cake while guilt tripping Joey for burning the basement. Joey, on the other hand, remains unmoved and free from guilt. When Timmy couldn’t take it anymore, he asks Joey for help again. But Frank barges in and tells Timmy that he found out that he stole the poem from a 1914 piece by David Langford Wallace. This gives Timmy the leverage against his mom.

He goes to Peggy to tell her that he’s joining the Reader’s Digest poem contest using his “poem.” As Peggy tries to guilt trip Timmy more, he pulls out his card—Peggy also stole the poem and submitted it to her teacher. Timmy has Peggy sign the waiver, and they mail it together. “My mom and I were more alike than I ever thought,” a grown-up Timmy narrates. “Both sharing the same self-destructive, stubborn streak. And I suddenly felt very close with her.”

ABC/Richard Cartwright)

Over time, Timmy was able to fix his dummy and was able to get back to the party circuit. The mail from Reader’s Digest arrived, which strangely disappointed both Timmy and Peggy. They didn’t win the contest. This was what they wanted to happen in the first place, but the thought of losing with such a beautifully written—er, plagiarized—poem sucked. Frank tries to rat Timmy out, but with Peggy and Timmy’s newfound tandem, they shut him down together. But hey, they had a consolation prize in the end—a letter of encouragement from poet Ron McKuen.

The Bickering

Elsewhere in the episode, Lawrence (Sam Straley) and Mike (Michael Cudlitz) continue their father-son spat. When Mike brought home the groceries, Lawrence complained about having less produce in their diet. He’s being an entitled dick about it, but Mike decides to give Lawrence what he wanted. So he buys two bags of cheap, fresh produce, but Lawrence has none of it. His reason being the fruits and vegetables were harvested by people of color who are being treated unfairly.

By patronizing these products while the workers are on strike, this makes them racists and ignorant of proper labor practices. Lawrence storms out and calls his dad a racist. Things get even more offensive for Lawrence when Peggy made the vegetable and fruits into a salad and everyone’s eating it. Mike also forbade everyone to eat the processed food until they all finish the large bowl of salad. Lawrence walks out in haste.

That night, Mike clears the air out by explaining himself to Lawrence. He only wanted to provide for them fully, that’s why he bought the produce for Lawrence. It’s not about racism or being unsupportive of social causes. Mike only wants everyone to have what they need and for him to fulfill his responsibility of giving them food and shelter. They make up by eating the bowl of leftover salad.

‘The Kids Are Alright: Timmy’s Poem’ Overall Verdict

“Timmy’s Poem” sums up what life as a struggling pre-teen and a socially-aware young adult had in the 70’s. I like the way the show subtly tackled major concepts like plagiarism and social causes and wove it into family issues and drama. I know there are infinite ways one can do this, but squeezing in something like this into a fun, family comedy show makes it all the more meaningful—what with a touch of reverence thrown in the mix too.

The Kids Are Alright continues next Tuesday, October 30, with “Microwave” at 8:30/7:30c on ABC.