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Man Up

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"Man Up" is the second segment of the twelfth episode (and the twenty-third story overall) of Close Enough.

Synopsis[]

After Josh abandons his family in the face of danger, he asks Pearle to train him to be brave.

Plot[]

At the First Bank of Hollywood Josh and Emily have brought Candice so she could open a savings account when, suddenly, an alien spacecraft breaks through the front wall and its green inhabitant begins blasting at the bank tellers. Instinctively, Josh's gut compels him to run out of the bank, abandoning his family in the process. But, the alien is revealed to actually be another bank worker in disguise and that the whole break-in was just a Hollywood movie inspired publicity stunt. As Josh comes back into the bank he sheepishly tries brushing the incident aside, prompting an angry Emily and Candice to walk off on him for having left them behind earlier.

Josh is next seen sitting on the front steps of his home, 8306 Berendo Street, next to Alex, Randy and Pearle, sulking over his cowardly nature. Pearle sympathizes with Josh and explains how being afraid is natural and that during her police academy days the new recruits were always jumpy and anxious at first. After hearing this Josh asks Pearle to train him in self-defense and how to be brave so as not to let his family down again. In a montage sequence she puts Josh through a series of tests in an urban environment set, teaching him how to turn household items into weapons, camouflage and dodging attacks. And although he does manage to ace her course Pearle leaves Josh with the warning that his final test will come in the real word, when he least expects it.

At FoodCorp Mr. Salt is hosting a Christmas party where he unveils his company's latest product, a genetically modified new food, a cucumber that tastes like fried pork do to gene splicing, which is aptly named the Barbecucumber. At the party Josh is showing of his self defense lessons to Emily, Candice and Bridgette, who are left unimpressed after Josh gets startled by the sound of a champagne bottle's cap getting popped and gets food over his shirt and slip on shoes. While Josh is trying to get his clothes cleaned in a restroom a gang of armed thugs break into FoodCorp, hold the staff and the party goers hostage. Their leader, Jan, reveals their intention to steal the genetic sequence of the Barbecucumber so that they can sell it for a exorbitant amount of money. But Josh interprets the hostage situation as being Pearle's final test, to see if he can handle himself in a real world situation. As such, Josh blithely ambushes and disarms the assailants one-by-one until he reaches Mr. Salt's office, wherein Jan is holding Emily and Candice at gunpoint while Mr. Salt is opening the safe holding the Barbecucumber. Despite Emily and Jan telling him that the attack on the building is real Josh only realizes this after picking up a grenade launcher and shooting one of the thugs, Karl, with it. Jan retaliates by firing a bullet at Josh. Josh's gut once again tells him to run, but this time his brain overpowers the situation, compelling Josh to run towards the attacker. Despite getting shot in the groin he ignores the pain and rushes Jan, slamming him against a window which breaks, resulting in Jan falling from the high floor and onto a giant GMO corn cob. The cob explodes, likely killing Jan, and resulting in a mock snow fall made out of popcorn.

Emily and Candice tend to Josh, who is revealed to have not been shot since the bullet was stopped by a coin purse in his pants' pocket, the same purse which he had received from Bank of Hollywood Pitchman earlier. With all said and done his family is glad to see him alive and with a new boost of confidence. Emily now sees him in a new light, having referred to him him as a sexy-brave-hero-type while being held hostage. And Candice is excited by the ordeal, wondering what will happen for New Years. Josh, however, is left wondering what Pearle's actual final stage for him is considering that the attack on FoodCorp was real. Meanwhile, back at his home Pearle is hiding alongside Alex and Randy behind a couch with a rubber bat tied to a stick with a string, with the intention of scarring Josh so hard with it.

Characters[]

Trivia[]

  • This episode takes place during the Christmas Holiday.
  • The Barbecucumber makes a reappearance in the Season 3 episode "Halloween Enough".

Pop Culture References[]

  • The episode's main plot parodies that of the 1988 movie Die Hard.
    • Josh, however, fails to draw an exact parallel, and likens his situation to "Die Hard 2, except in a building."
    • In both stories the main characters are trying to win back the respect and trust of their respective families, and subsequently win them over by the closing act.
    • The thugs led by Jan are visually based off of the criminals from Die Hard, with Jan clearly being a visual stand-in for Hans Grubber.
    • Alex compares Josh's desire to be brave to John McClane, the hero of the Die Hard franchise.
    • Josh wears a white tank top and goes barefoot like John McClane during the whole excursion, due to his shirt and shoes get blood on them from giving himself a nosebleed and he leaves them in the bathroom when the thugs break into the building.
    • Candice reuses Argyle's final line from the movie "If this is what they do for Christmas I gotta be here for New Year's!"
    • Both plots of Die Hard and Man Up use a random household item as a Chekhov's Gun to save the day. Josh is saved from being shot by Jan's thanks to the coin purse he was given earlier in the episode, much like how John McClane saved Holly from Hans Grubber by unclasping her wristwatch that Hans was held onto.
  • Similarly to Hans Grubber, Hans litters his speech with the occasional American pop culture reference, albeit Grubber did this to mock the American schlock mentality, while Hans is very likely something of a hipster.
    • Hans kills the security guard at the entrance to FoodCorp with Chandler Bing's sarcastic remark "Could (I)(you)(that) be anymore (insert line)?!"
    • Before meeting him Hans refers to Josh as "this Green Day American Idiot", after the American punk rock band's single from the album of the same name.
    • Hans calls Josh a "George W. Cowboy" as he is holding Emily at gunpoint, in reference to former United States president George Walker Bush as well as the cowboy stock characters from Western movies. it should be noted that, while born in Eastern state of Connecticut, Bush was raised and got his early education in the state of Texas which is an often used setting for cowboy fiction.
  • Pearle jokingly calls Josh by the name Vin Diesel, after the famed action star.
  • The Bank of Hollywood Pitchman ends the episode's cold opening by giving Josh a business card with a secondary elongated inner-mouth, similarly to the Xenomorphs's mouths from the Alien franchise.
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