01x21 - Operation False Freedom

[bunniefuu]

So to wrap up our
end-of-the-year conference,

I'll just say Emme's a joy
to have in my classroom.

Aside from the Leo incident,
she's had an excellent year.

Great, let's go.

Wait, w-what incident? Who's Leo?

Oh, who's anybody really? (laughs)

Let's get some ice cream, huh?

Hey, wait, wait, wait, wait.

I need to know why
Leo makes you so happy

and you so nervous.

(sighs) Okay, last month,

Emme told me that there
was this older kid,

Leo, who was making fun of her.

So, I told her the only
way to deal with bullies

is to give as good as you get.

You told her to make fun of another kid?

Don't get upset yet, there's more.

(chuckles) Emme?

I called Leo "lazy bones"

'cause he's always sitting in his chair.

Oh, well, that's not so bad.

Then he just rolled away.

He was in a wheelchair?

Because he has a broken leg.
A broken leg, that's all.

Okay, no ice cream for you.

Well... Come on.

Enjoy the ride home, Mr. Burns.

Hey, what I heard your teacher saying

is that you are making good progress.

So we're oh for two on
the teacher conferences.

Oh, wait, there's the library.

Didn't Kate say

she'd be in there studying with Mandy?

Yeah, she said she was gonna
get a ride home with her.

But it says it's closed.

It's locked.

So, where is she?

I mean, she knows she's
supposed to let us know

if her plans change. Well, text her.

Oh, I'm gonna text the heck out of her.

"Where are you?"

(phone chimes)

Adam, she's not answering.

Well, it's only been two seconds.

How can you be so calm?

She-she could be in a ditch somewhere.

Because she's not in a ditch.

They filled all those in years ago.

- Oh, she's answering.
- Oh, thank God.

I made that thing up about ditches.

There's ditches everywhere.

(phone chimes)

"At the library, almost
finished with homework."

(gasps) Adam, she lied.

Straight to my phone!

You know, this isn't the first time

she said she was at the library.

How many of those other times were lies?

Who knows? Probably a lot.

I mean, it's right there
in the name: lie-brary.

What are we gonna do?

Well, she's gonna come home sometime.

And when she does...

ADAM and ANDI: Oh, ho, ho, ho.

That's gonna be fun.

Oh, you are gonna see a show.

ANDI: Katie's gonna be

coming through that door any
minute, and when she does,

- busted.
- ADAM: Okay, wait.

Who's gonna say, "How was the library?"

'Cause whoever says it has to be cool.

Okay?

You can't say,

(sarcastically): "How was the library?"

She'll know something's up.

Well, who would say it like that?

You get excited.

Okay, you ask her.

But then, when she lies,
I'm lowering the boom.

I don't have to be
cool to lower the boom.

Oh, that boom is getting lowered.

(Adam and Andi laugh maniacally)

Yeah.

Ooh, here she comes! Teddy, be cool!

Hey, guys.

Oh, hey, Katie.

Hey, so, I don't know, like, uh...

how was the library?

Great. I got a lot of homework done.

No, you didn't because it was closed!

Boom lowered!

That's right.

We went to the library to look for you,

but you weren't there.

Wait, you guys are checking up on me?

I'm 14, I don't need you guys

looking over my shoulder all the time.

Oh, yes, you do.

As someone who was 14 once,

I can tell you from experience
that you are not smart.

I mean, it's not your fault.

Your brain's just not fully formed yet.

It's like Jell-O

before you put it in the fridge.

ADAM: Yeah.

Yeah, you open a 14-year-old brain,

it's just a clown in
there pulling levers.

So just do yourself a favor
and tell the truth, all right?

Because you weren't
at the school library.

Yeah, because I was at the
public library down the street.

BOTH: Oh.

Okay, well, what would
you say if I told you

we went and looked for you there, too?

Did you look for me on the
first floor or the second floor?

Both.

(laughs) There is no second floor.

(scoffs) If you don't believe
me, you can call Mandy.

Oh, no, we're good.

All right, you just think about

what almost happened here, young lady.

And what we almost did about it.

Was that the show?

Synced and corrected by Octavia
- www.addic7ed.com -

There's no way Katie was
at the public library.

Yeah, well, she knows we can't prove it

because clearly we have
never been to the library.

I mean, I guess we could
call her friend, Mandy,

and check her story.

Oh, I don't want to talk to Mandy.

Yeah. Mandy's the worst.

(whines): "I went to San
Francisco last summer."

Yeah.

"And my hair was, like,
(scoffs) I can't even."

You know what, she's just gonna
back up Katie's story anyway.

So, how do we find out
where she really was?

Easy. We look at her phone.
You want to know the truth?

It's in there between, uh,
Snapgrams and the Facechats.

A teenager's phone is
like their diary, right?

Her whole life is in there.
It's a huge invasion of privacy.

(laughs): Okay.

Nobody in this house has privacy.

All right? I have not gone
to the bathroom in 14 years

without a little hand
sliding under the door.

Look, I say we do my phone thing.

Okay. Well, since
your last parenting gem

was heckling a wheelchair kid...

I think I'm gonna take
the lead on this one.

- (groans)
- Okay? I say

that we give her some freedom

and let her learn from her mistakes.

That's just... fancy doing nothing!

(door opens)

Hey, you left Emme's artwork behind.

- Oh, thanks, Lowell.
- Mm-hmm.

Boy, they really throw the
word "art" around down there.

Hey, Lowell, let me ask you:

don't you think it's
an invasion of privacy

to look through your daughter's phone?

Please. If I could,
I'd put a GPS microchip

in my girls like they do with dogs.

But I spoke to my vet about it,

and our relationship has
been strained ever since.

You hear that?

There's dads way crazier
than me out there.

Thanks, Lowell.

Let me know if you make any
progress on chipping your kids.

I think there's a guy in Sweden.

Well, I'm telling you, we
can't just let Katie lie to us

with no consequences, okay?

She has to know we're smarter than her.

Okay, here's my compromise, all right?

I-I won't go into her phone,

but it does come with

a tracking app, so we can turn it on

and see where she goes.

Wow. Okay. I'm in.

Hey, should we do that
to each other's phones?

You know, for safety?

I already did it to yours.

You go to Popeyes Chicken a lot.

(quietly): Okay, Kate's asleep.

Okay, great. So we
sneak in, grab the phone,

turn on the tracking, put
the phone back, sneak out,

finish House Hunters
International, fall asleep.

Right.

- You ready?
- Yep. Let's do it.

- Okay. What?
- Wait, wait, wait, wait.

You should know that
sometimes when I go to Popeyes,

it's just to get a soda.

- Okay.
- Yeah, and if you bring your own cup,

- it's only 50 cents.
- Oh.

- Can we go now?
- Yeah, yeah, I'm ready. Let's go.

- Okay.
- (sniffs)

- Wait, wait, wait.
- What?

You have got to be kidding me.

I am.

- Oh.
- Huh?

(laughs): That is a good one.

- Right.
- All right, let's go.

(light switch clicks)

What are you guys doing?

Uh, sleepwalking.

At the same time.

Yeah, we do everything together.

(laughs) No, no, not really.

You know, Dad and his midnight jokes.

(chuckles) More like sleep-joking.

(laughs) Eh...

Why do you have my phone?

Uh, well, I couldn't find mine,

so we thought we'd use yours
to call mine and get it to ring.

Why couldn't you just use Mom's phone?

Because her phone is with mine.

Even our phones do everything together.

(sputters)

Hey, well, we'll just give you this back

and-and you can go to sleep. Right.

Or... are you already asleep?

This might all be a dream.

(humming eerily)

Nighty night.

(chuckles)

Well, that was a disaster.

Well, not entirely. While
you were talking to Kate

and she was distracted, I managed to

turn on the tracking before
we gave her the phone back.

Get out!

Pretty good, huh?

Yeah, yeah, really makes up for the...

(humming eerily)

I get excited!

Okay, I dropped Teddy and
Emme off at your parents,

so we have all day to track Kate.

Okay, great. Yeah, when Katie left,

she said she was gonna
hole up at Mandy's

because they have some school project.

- Lie.
- Yeah.

So I said, "Are you
going anywhere else?"

She said, "No."

Lie.

Mm-hmm. So I said,
"You call me if you do."

She said, "Okay."

Big lie.

Yeah.

That's one minute of conversation,

three possible lies. That's a hat trick.

- (scoffs) Man, I can't wait to catch her.
- Huh.

Ooh, and then you can take
a picture of me with her

- like I caught a big fish.
- Yeah.

All right, let's find
out where she really is.

Time to press the button of truth.

- Okay.
- (sniffs)

What does it say?

Says she's right behind us.

- What? Oh...
- (laughs)

I got you.

Okay. It says she's at, uh...

Mick's Ale House.

That's a bar.

A bar? That's worse than a ditch!

We got to go get her right now.

She never went to a bar before
she was friends with Mandy.

Yeah, never trust your
daughter with someone

who's "been to San Francisco."

(door opens)

(gasps) There she is.

Oh, my God. Thank God she's okay.

I'm gonna k*ll her.

Know what? Now it's time
to really lower the boom.

Yeah, that first time was just
practice; we are warmed up now.

You're coming home with us, young lady.

Oh.

Okay.

I'm sorry. You know, w-we thought

you were someone else.

Oh.

What's the name of this place, again?

The Over My Dead Body Bar.

That's it. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, what kind of
degenerates hang out in a bar

at 11:30 in the morning? (chuckles)

Hey, guys.

Well, that answers that.

What are you guys doing here?

What are you doing here?

Well, I'm in the dart league

that I talked you into sponsoring.

Dart league?

You said it was a Little League.

Well, it is a little league.
There's only four teams.

Okay. I-I'll just call Kate.

We've been tracking Kate's
phone. It says she's here.

It's ringing.

(phone vibrating)

Why is your pocket buzzing?

But that-that's Kate's phone.

- Why do you have Kate's phone?
- I-I guess I grabbed it

by accident when I was
over there this morning.

- (sighs)
- It looks just like mine.

Or...

Katie switched phones
with Don to throw us off.

Yeah, she must've figured out
that we turned her tracking on.

And we wasted all day
chasing down this barfly.

Hey. I'm an athlete.

Yeah, if-if you can drink
beer while you're doing it,

it's not a sport.

Yeah, but the problem is,

once again, we have
no idea where Katie is.

You know what?

Forget privacy. We're
going into her phone.

Well, we don't have a choice.

She's like a
counterintelligence mastermind.

We're dealing with
freaking Jason Bourne here.

(exhales): Wow.

20 minutes inside a
teenage girl's brain.

That was terrifying.

If they're the future, we're doomed.

She doesn't have a clown pulling levers,

she's got a monkey throwing bananas.

Well, at least we
know where Kate is now.

She and Mandy made plans

to meet some girls at
Beacon Street Coffee.

Yeah. And then they somehow made
their texts set off fireworks.

After we punish her, I'm gonna
make her show me how to do that,

because that's just fun.

Wow. (laughs)

Mandy sure has a lot to say
about those red sweatpants

you wore to drop-off last week.

What? She said she liked them.

She liked making fun of them.

You know, when a man's
wearing sweatpants in public,

things have already gone
wrong for him that day.

(scoffs)

Mandy!

Let's go bust Katie.

Yeah. Yeah.

But if Mandy catches a little shrapnel,

that's okay, too.

There she is, there
she is, there she is.

Why... why would Katie lie about

meeting people we know at a
place that we'd let her go?

Yeah. It's like Jason
Bourne jumped off a building

just to hang out with
his judgy friend Mandy.

It just doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, we didn't lie about stuff
like this when we were kids.

Well, we didn't have to.
We'd just walk out the door

in the morning, and made
sure we were home by dark.

Yeah. My parents liked it that way.

It freed up time for my
dad to smoke cigarettes

and hose down the
driveway in his t*nk top.

So much hair everywhere,

you couldn't tell if
he was coming or going.

Hey, do you think Katie lied to us

because she wants the freedom we had?

You know, I mean, we know where
she is every second of her life.

Well, yeah, but we have to, right?

I mean, times have changed.

The Internet has taught us

that literally every other
person in the world besides us

is a cranked-up sex maniac.

I know, I know. I just...

I never thought about it
from Katie's side before.

You know, some of my best times as a kid

were when I was out there
in the world, on my own.

Yeah. She'll never have that feeling.

It's kind of sad.

Yeah.

(tongue clicks)

- Okay, let's go bust her.
- No, Adam.

What? We're not gonna do anything?

Well, you just said you understood her.

Well, yeah, I understand her.

But I've been running all over town,

I'm hot, I haven't had lunch,
and somebody's got to pay.

- Okay...
- Plus, we agreed

that we can't let Katie
think she's smarter than us.

Look, don't worry, all right?
We will figure out a way

to let her know who's really in charge.

Okay? Come on.

I still haven't heard the word "lunch."

And we will get you some lunch.

I'm telling you, if Katie
feels the need to lie to us

because we're looking over her shoulder,

let's see how she feels
when we don't look at all.

But what if she feels good?

She won't. Trust me.
We need to change it up.

She beats us because she
knows our whole playbook.

Run, run, pass, punt.

Yeah, but this time we'll blow her mind

and hit her with the flea flicker.

I love it when you talk football to me.

- Aw...
- (both chuckle)

(key turning in lock)

Here she comes.

Hey, guys.

I know I'm late, don't freak out.

Oh, you're late? Hmm, hadn't noticed.

Oh, okay, well, aren't you gonna ask me

how things went at Mandy's house?

I'm not. Are you?

Uh, let me guess: selfie, selfie,

Mandy made fun of something I'm wearing.

We're good.

So that's it?

Well, what else would there be?

I don't know, you guys just
usually have a lot of questions.

Well, I mean, you're 14
now; it's like you said,

you don't need us looking over
your shoulder all the time.

I mean, if this was a hundred years ago,

you'd have five kids by now.

(scoffs) But...

Uh, could you keep it
down? We're reading.

Okay, what is going on here?

I-I mean, I was gone all day,

and you're not asking any questions?

You know, I wasn't even at Mandy's.

(both gasp)

BOTH: What?

Yeah, and you had no idea.

I could've been in a ditch.

I mean, where have you
guys even been all day?

BOTH: The library.

I don't know what's going
on here, but I don't like it.

So... (clears throat)

you don't like it when we're hands off,

and you also don't like it

when we're looking over your shoulder?

Being a teenager's hard, Adam.

Mm.

So hard.

Okay.

I'm gonna make a deal with
you, kid, because I like you.

We'll give you a little more freedom,

and you give us a little more honesty.

But with this new freedom

comes the possibility that
you might end up somewhere

that you don't feel safe,
or you just want out.

And if that happens,

you can call us, anytime, any place,

and we will come get you.

Okay? No questions asked. Hmm?

Exactly.

Except there will be a lot of questions.

ADAM: Mm-hmm.

Oh, and, uh, by the
way, here's your phone.

It was in Don's pocket.

Any idea how it got there?

Uh...

Does this whole honesty
thing have to start right now?

Well, I think that answers our question.

Got to get up pretty early in
the morning to fool us, babe.

ADAM: Mm-hmm.

Now, why don't you go upstairs

and think about what actually
happened here, young lady.

And what we actually did about it.

Hmm?

(both laugh)

Who's smarter now?

It's us.

We just Jason Bourned Jason Bourne.

- Uh.
- (chuckles)

She'll tell us where
she's going next time.

We'll pretend to give her

her freedom so she feels independent,

but we'll track her every
move so we can sleep at night.

Yeah. Yeah, and we'll call
it Operation False Freedom.

Oh, I like that we have a code name.

It makes us sound like Navy SEALs.

Well, we need to be. We're up
against some crafty opponents.

(laughs)

Honey?

You were outside?

Yeah, I was sh**ting baskets with Devon.

Buddy.

Where are your pants?

Forgot to wear pants again!

(sighs) Well, it's not gonna
be hard to outsmart him.

No. That one we got in the bag.

Mm-hmm.

Hi. Um, can I have one
doughnut hole, please?

Oh, and-and the doughnut
that hole came from.

(ringtone playing)

Hello?

Hey, babe. Coming home soon?

Uh, yeah. Still at work,

wrapping up a few things.

Uh-huh, uh-huh. Well,
uh, when you're done,

can you bring some doughnuts
home for your family?

Oh, you're tracking me now, too.

Yes, I am. I'm not the only
secret snacker in this family,

and I want that on the record.

Hey, I could be getting a coffee.

Uh-huh, yeah, and when I go
to Popeyes, I just get soda.

Fine.

Now, I'll turn off my
tracking if you turn off yours.

Deal. But seriously,
bring home some doughnuts.