Frescorts - Recap

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Emerson Cod's mother Calista was a private detective who brought her son into the "family business." As Cod & Cod, they made a huge profit and insisted on total honesty between each other.

While Emerson brings his most rejection notice for "The Little Gum-Shoe" pop-up book, an elderly woman lurks at the Pie Hole. Emerson comes in and spots her: she's his mother. Emerson hugs her and introduces her to the others, and they leave to go drinking. Ned and Chuck are cleaning up and Ned offers to comfort her since she's discovered who her mother are. However, Chuck and Olive are hanging out together that night. As it turns out, the two women have moved in together: Olive needed a furnished apartment after losing all of her worldly goods at the nunnery. Although they appear compatible, it soon becomes clear that they have issues with each other, but conceal it from the other.

After returning to his office with his mother, Emerson prepares to tell his mother about the granddaughter she never knew he had, and how he's writing a pop-up book to help her find him. Before he can tell her the truth, Veronica Villanueva comes in and asks them to investigate the case of he murder. The victim? Her best friend Joe. Veronica shows them photos of Joe, who was elegant cultured man. Calista takes the case on Emerson's behalf, and after Veronica leaves, Emerson reveals that he already has a case about a murdered best friend named Joe. Emerson's first client is Dr. Eugene Halifax, a dentist. The photos provided have the same Joe, but this time he's an outdoorsman.

Ned, Chuck, and Emerson go to the morgue and Ned brings Joe back to life. He explains that he was stabbed in the back and starts leaking formaldehyde. However, Joe's body shouldn't have been embalmed yet until after the autopsy. Joe says that his love was "Downy" and admits he never got a chance to tell her his true feelings. He also confirms that both Halifax and Villanueva were his best friends, and Ned has to kill him before the one minute is up.

Emerson and his mother interrogate Veronica and Eugene together and discover that Joe was a Frescort: a friend/escort who people rent to become whoever they need for a friend. The gang go to the Frescort company, My Best Friend Inc. Olive and Chuck go in as prospective employees while Ned and Emerson talk to the owner, Buddy Amicus. Feeling lonely and alone, Ned suggests that he go with Chuck but everyone else nixes the idea. As it turns out, Buddy was a former football player who suffered a knee injury while playing high school football at Spartanburg West High for the Spartans. Buddy then decided to use his charm to bring people together by providing them with special friends. He confirms that Joe wasn't on assignment the night he was murdered. Emerson has Ned distract Buddy by trying out his hugging machine, while the detective goes through Buddy's confidential files and gets Joe's address.

Olive and Chuck come in and meet the receptionist, Barb. She's impressed with their ability to fake feelings on command and is eager to sign them up. They note the job is dangerous and ask about Joe, but Barb says that Frescorts and staff, or fellow Frescorts, aren't allowed to fraternize, so she only knows Joe by name. She realizes that Olive and Chuck are friends but promises not to tell anyone.

Ned and Emerson go to Joe's place: Ned is keen on the idea of a place to hire friends when you can't make a friend yourself. Emerson doesn't think much of the concept, but is guilty about not having told his mother the truth. He doesn't want to admit that his ex-wife conned him. They get the door open and find themselves face-to-face with Joe's roommate, Randy Mann. Randy misses Joe, his friend, and Ned can sympathize with Randy's loss over a roommate. Randy doesn't know where Joe was the night he died and refuses to let them see Joe's bedroom. He does notice a dog hair on Ned's jacket and realizes the Pie Maker has a Golden Retriever, and admits he likes dogs too.

Everyone compares notes, and Calista stops in while working on another case. She and Emerson think Randy is the killer but Ned defends him. Olive and Chuck haven't found anyone named "Downy" at the country. Emerson has lured Rand to the Pie Hole with a coupon for a free meat pie-making session, and slips out to go back to Joe's place while Ned is left with Randy. Chuck doesn't want to leave him alone with a possible murderer, but Ned insists he'll be fine. Emerson prepares to tell Calista about his missing daughter but she gets a page for her case and has to leave. Chuck and Olive head back to the company.

Emerson breaks into Joe's place and finds a bill from My Best Friend to randy saying that he's behind on his bill and his Frescort service is being disconnected. Going into Joe's room, Emerson finds the place filled with stuffed animals in bizarre poses. He also spots a jar with a grisly content: Joe's appendix.

Ned is teaching Randy how to make meat pies and Randy mentions how he was a klutz in high school and never got picked for sports teams. Ned admits he had the same problem and the two bond. Randy decides to give Ned a gift: a stuffed Golden Retriever, playing a guitar. Ned, shocked, is forced to order Rand out. However, Emerson arrives and confronts Randy with the appendix. Randy explains that he valued Joe as a Frescort so let him stay at the apartment free. The appendix was a gift from Joe after Randy got him to the hospital when it burst. Randy reveals that he learned Joe was seeing someone at My Best Friend and was going to quit, but doesn't know who he or she as.

Ned calls Chuck to tell her Downy is an employee at the company. Chuck is in the locker room with Olive and gives her the news, and Barb comes in to ask them the answer for a crossword puzzle clue. She admits she doesn't do the acrosses, and they realize that she's "Downy." She starts crying and asks them to get tissues out of her locker. When they both get in, she pushes them in and locks the door behind them.

Emerson goes back to his office and finds a masked burglar ransacking the place. He attacks the burglar and discovers that it's his mother. She explains that she accidentally got one of Emerson's rejection notes and thought he was going to publish a tell-all book blaming her for ruining his life. Emerson finally tells him the truth about his daughter, and says he was going to get around to telling her. She doesn't trust him, and Ned arrives to tell them Chuck and Olive aren't returning his calls.

Olive and Chuck start arguing about their issues and how Olive hates chuck because she has Ned and Olive doesn't. Chuck is frustrated that Olive can touch Ned when she can't, but can't tell Olive why they can't touch. Ned and Emerson arrive and free them, and an angry Olive goes back to the Pie Hole. The others search the place and Chuck finds Barb dead, crushed to death by Buddy's hug machine. Ned brings her back to life but her lungs were crushed and she quickly runs out of breath. Ned pumps her lungs back up with a football pump and Barb explains that she loved Joe, who was going to leave the company to be with her. He called her the night of the murder and wanted to tell her something important, but was on a sports date with a client who was a klutz. The current night, Barb came in to practice her hug and someone dressed as the Spartan team's mascot turned on the hug machine and crushed her to death. Ned re-kills her and remembers about how Randy said he was a klutz. They figure that Buddy and Randy went to the same high school and Randy teased Buddy, so Rand is out for revenge.

Buddy arrives but denies knowing Randy. He goes to order an evacuation of the staff after the most recent murder. The lights go out and Chuck trips over the football bump. She almost touches Ned and stumbles into a glass case holding Buddy's quarterback uniform on a mannequin. The case falls over and shatters. Ned picks up the mannequin... and discovers that it's a corpse that comes back to life when he touches it. The corpse can't speak but points to Buddy's yearbook and indicates that he's Ares Kostopoulos, the Spartans' high school quarterback. The yearbook tells all: Buddy was the Spartan mascot. Ned rekills Ares in time but Buddy comes in, in his Spartan costume, and holds Chuck at sword point.

As it turns out, geeky Buddy was obsessed with Ares in high school, believing the jock was his best friend. Ares never noticed Buddy, and the latter became the school mascot to be closer to his friend. However, when Buddy accidentally ruined a winning championship pass, Ares and his friends pantsed him. Buddy snap and killed Ares, then stuffed his corpse to keep with him. He then took steroid treatments and bought fake trophies to believe he was the quarterback. He also started My Best Friend so nobody else so no one else would suffer like he did. However, when Joe joined the company Buddy found a new best friend to obsess about. He hired Joe to be his Frescort. When Joe told Buddy he was leaving to be with Barb, Buddy had him come to the football field for one last date, and then killed him with a sword. He then started to use formaldehyde to preserve Joe's corpse but had to flee. Later, he killed Barb to make his revenge complete. Buddy is proud of is company, but Ned points out that he hasn't helped: he's just helped the friendless conceal their problems. Angered, Buddy releases Chuck and goes for Ned... and Emerson knocks him out with a baseball bat.

Later, Ned comes to visit Randy and offer his friendship, noting they both are weird. However, Randy says he's learning to be alone and suggests that Ned learn the same thing. Ned then throws a mixer at the Pie Hole for everyone on Joe's client list so they can come out of their shell and become real friends. They eventually come around and a happy Ned asks Chuck to give Digby a hug for him. She tells him that she's going to move in with Ned, since she and Chuck aren't getting alone. Ned tells her she can't: Chuck needs to patch up her differences with her friend and Ned needs to learn to get along by himself.

Chuck and Olive work out their differences. Calista tells Emerson that she needs to act as his mother rather than his best friend, and gives him some motherly advice: write a pop-up book about how himself so his daughter knows he's a good father.

Ned has a quiet pizza at home until Chuck comes to his door... naked.


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