Hot in Cleveland
It's all the way LIVE!!! (by mindimcneil@gmail.com)
This episode was an insider episode that gave inside information to viewers. In this Episode Elka and Mamie Sue are selling medicine illegally to their friends in Cleveland that they get from Canada. The girls (Melanie, Victoria, and Joy) are shocked, especially Victoria because she is disappointed that Elka has access to pills and is not sharing with them. The girls go to Elka and Mamie Sue's storage unit, and they are shocked at how much stuff is there and how the business is operated. While there one of Mamie Sue's customers shows up, Tommy a former spelling bee contestant . He actually used to run the Cleveland black market on pills until Elka and Mamie Sue took over and started selling at cost and put him out of business. He threatens them with arson if they don't give him their business. Melanie and Victoria tell them to give him what he wants, but they don't want to.
Joy decides to contact her detective boss Bob for help with Tommy so, he sends his borther Claude to help them. Claude does some research and realizes that Tommy is a bad guy and says that the only way to deal with a bad guy is to get a bigger bad guy to take care of him. They decide on Salvator Farula, aka Sally from Cincinatti. Victoria says since no one knows what he looks like they can get someone to play him. Elka says she is gonna tell Tommy that Sally is actually her son. They turn to the only obvious choice to help them out, Claude.
When Joy and Victoria respectively go downstarirs to the basement where all of the pills are they realize that Claude is really stressed about trying to play the part of Sally, so Joy gives him alcohol and when Victoria brings him clothes to get into character she gives him pills. This combination causes him to pass out and the girls work hard to revive him. At this point Tommy shows up and threatens to send over his "roided up " mathletes to strong arm Elka and Mamie Sue, at this point Victoria shows up pretending to be Sally, which Tommy doesn't believe, next Melanie shows up pretending to be Sally (Insider Note:Betty white couldn't stop laughing when she saw Valerie like that), then Claude comes in and says that he is Sally, makes a threat and then falls asleep.
Finally the really Sally shows up (played by William Shatner) and is looking for the woman who is claiming to be his mom, because no one is allowed to do that (Elka is doing it). Tommy doesn't believe that this is the really Sally but Sally says that a guy named Phil didn't believe it either and he now only has one ear, and Sally has the ear to prove it. He then says he has a "body part" that belongs to a guy who slept with his sister. He starts to threaten Elka, but then Shirley Jones comes in, she is Sally's mom and one of Elka and Mamie Sue's customers (Insider Note, she is actually 3 years younger than William Shatner in real life).
She thinks that Sally works for NPR and doesn't know that he is a mobster, the girls let it slip that he is and he's mad, but they cover for him being there to hurt Elka for pretending to be his mom by bribing him to buy all of their illegal pills at cost and give them away to all of the seniors in Cleveland for free, which he agrees to do. This is the end of the show, which the actors then say how nervous they were with doing it live, but liked it. They all stand up and take a bow.