Hot in Cleveland
Will you marry me? By Mindi McNeil (mindimcneil@gmail.com)
Emmett wants to marry Victoria, and he shows the ring to the girls (Melanie, Joy, and Elka), and when Melanie sees how big it is she lets out a high pitched squeal. Alec thinks it’s her imitating the squeal he made when he saw a mouse in their apartment.
Emmett says that the proposal will happen on their way to Morocco. They will stop by the Cayman Islands to go swimming with the Dolphins, and during their adventure one of the dolphins will show up with the ring box. Joy says that this will not work because that’s how Victoria’s 4th husband proposed to her.
Emmett says that he has a backup plan, David Copperfield will make the pyramids disappear and a Sphinx will be standing there with a sign saying “will you marry me?” Joy and Melanie say it won’t work because Victoria’s 2nd husband did that. Melanie suggests having Billy Joel sing the proposal, Emmett says no because that is how he proposed to his 3rd wife who left him for Billy. He is stumped on how to propose because between his 4 marriages and Victoria’s 5 he feels like there is not a different or surprising way to propose. Alec suggests proposing at a restaurant and putting the ring in a dessert; everyone calls the idea stupid but says that they actually like it.
Melanie makes an off comment to Alec about his masculinity, which causes Emmett to tell her that she needs to encourage his masculinity more. She comes up with an idea of how he can be more masculine, she tries to get him to open a jar of pickles for her. He is not able to open up the jar but Joy can. So Melanie comes up with another task, chopping wood, which leads to an injury.
Victoria comes home from shopping and says that she is going to miss the girls so she wants to cancel her farewell dinner with Emmett so she can spend time with them. The girls (knowing that he will be proposing) tell her not to cancel because paparazzi will be at the restaurant. Victoria loves hearing this and decides not to cancel.
Once at the restaurant Alec shows up wearing Melanie’s Spanx due to his wood chopping incident. This causes him to walk funny which adds to the dilemma about his masculinity. Joy and Melanie go into the kitchen to hide the ring in the chocolate mousse, when they turn their backs to look at Victoria sitting with Emmett the cup of mousse is taken. Realizing the ring is missing they panic, and then hear screaming in the restaurant because someone has a ring in their mousse. They go to the table to get the ring back and realize that it’s not their ring. They hear another scream and rush to a table where a woman who has been dating the same guy for 17 years accidentally gets their ring. In the process they tell the woman to leave the man if he can’t commit after all that time.
While Victoria is in the bathroom they give the ring to Emmett, and he shows it to Alec, who actually starts squealing because he has seen a mouse. Hearing the squeal everyone in the restaurant thinks that Emmett is gay and has just proposed to Alec. Victoria comes out of the bathroom and Emmett starts to propose to her. As he is about to propose, agents from the U.S. Treasury show up and say that he is under arrest for tax fraud and take the ring. He finishes his proposal to Victoria before he is taken away, and she says that she will marry him.