Grandfathered recap: Perfect Physical Specimen

Our Grandfathered friends are back from break — and they’re still set on lovingly bugging Jimmy into being a better human, which is just how we left them. “Perfect Physical Specimen” begins with the revelation that Edie has to have a minor surgery to get ear tubes. It’s a routine procedure, but Gerald is still scared — which is evidenced by the drinks he’s pounding bright and early in the A.M. at the restaurant where he also works. Being the boss’ kid apparently has some perks.

As Sara tries to console her son, it quickly becomes apparent that Jimmy has no advice for medical situations… because he hasn’t been to the doctor in 20 years. But he’s not worried. “I’m a perfect physical specimen. I do pilates, I wear sunscreen, I have those lines right here,” he says, pointing at his pelvis. Gerald implores his father to go to the doctor, but Jimmy isn’t having it.

So, naturally, Sara hoodwinks him into a physical. She goes to Jimmy’s bachelor pad, where he is trimming his bonsai tree and listening to his bonsai trimming playlist, and whisks him away under the premise of a family brunch at the Polo House.

While Sara is kidnapping Jimmy, Annelise and Ravi find a safe in his office, a safe that Annelise has never seen nor heard of. What’s this? A secret from Annelise? This is new territory. Obviously they have to learn what’s in that safe. After a few incorrect guesses to the keypad combination, it’s clear that these two are going to be busy for the entire episode.

Back in Sara’s car, Jimmy has finally figured out that they aren’t actually en route to the Polo House — instead, they’re going to see a doctor in the valley. He couldn’t be more horrified. But, as Sara says, Gerald is pretty excited to have a father after 25 years, and after all, Jimmy is “crazy old.” To the doctor it is.

Meanwhile, Gerald and Vanessa have made a pact to be cheerful in light of Edie’s impending medical procedure. Rather than mope around with the curtains closed listening to death marches (which Gerald, of course, was doing before Vanessa intervened), they choose to be alarmingly peppy. They make this decision, in true Gerald and Vanessa style, by throwing a blanket over Edie’s head so she can’t see this conversation. Solid parenting.

At the doctor’s office, Jimmy proves to be a seriously annoying patient. He tries to get the doctor (played by Dr. Phil) to punch him in his abs, he insists he can pee in a cup from across the room, and he pulls a coin from the doctor’s ear. The doctor, at the end of an excruciating examination, tells Jimmy he’s probably fine, but he’d like to take a biopsy of a mole on his arm. “There’s less than a 2 percent chance that it’s anything at all,” he said, but it could be skin cancer. Jimmy says he’s not concerned, but it’s not particularly convincing.

He mentions the mole to Annelise and Ravi back at the restaurant, but again — he’s being very cavalier. Until he realizes that his chances of opening a successful restaurant and finding out that he had a son and a grandson weren’t necessarily very high either, but look how that turned out. Skin cancer suddenly seems much more likely. Annelise’s advises against delving into all the uncensored information on the internet — which, of course, causes Jimmy to go home and look up a plethora of uncensored information. What did you expect?

Jimmy enters panic mode. He goes to Sara’s, where everyone is having a “chill, stress-free hang” to get Edie ready for the next day’s surgery. He still doesn’t tell them about the possible skin cancer, but he does stick around to sing songs and play with Edie’s stuffed monkey dressed in scrubs.

Later that night, he tries and fails to sleep. So instead, he goes back to the Internet — and then over to Gerald’s to take Edie. He does leave Gerald a note, but that technically seems like kidnapping?

He takes Edie to the place he goes when he thinks — the roof of a hardware store that used to be a restaurant he worked in. He tells her he won’t let her near the doctor, but she’s more concerned with playing with rocks. Edie’s no dummy. She knows to let Grandpa Jimmy work through his problems with little interference. He tells her he doesn’t want to miss out on all the clingy, annoying people he’s recently found (i.e. family).

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When Vanessa, Gerald, and Sara show up frantically searching for Edie, all is forgiven when he tells them about how his doctor’s visit really went.

The episode ends with Edie calmly going into surgery and Jimmy finding out that he does not, in fact, have skin cancer.

Oh, and Annelise and Ravi did eventually discover the contents of the safe (which opened to Frank Sinatra’s birthday): a special blend of discontinued hand cream. Of course.

Most Millennial Moments:

“It’s always surprises with you people. Jimmy, come to brunch. Jimmy, we have a son.” —Jimmy

“How do you think I’d look with a man bun?” —Jimmy. “You’d look like a man with an assistant who doesn’t tell him the truth.” —Annelise

“What are you doing, you slut?!” —Vanessa when a server tries to take Edie’s food away before she’s finished