The Grand Mama-pest Hotel

"" is the thirteenth episode in Season 7, being the one-hundred-and-twentieth episode overall.
==Plot==
Linda jumps at the chance to chaperone Tina's weekend away at a heroine conference, but Tina's new friend could put Linda's perfect weekend in jeopardy. Meanwhile, Gene and Louise throw Bob a "Dad-chelor Party." 
==Full Story==
At the Belcher table at breakfast, Linda gets off the phone with Mr. Frond. He picks her as the chaperone for the Wagstaff eighth-grade class for the "Heroine Conference," which, despite the name, is a weekend-long empowerment gathering for girls by influential female leaders, and Tina is also going. Linda is excited since she and Tina have not had time together since they got stuck in an elevator. Louise asks what they will do while the two are away. Later, on the bus, Frond and Linda speak to the girls. Frond tells them it is an overnight field trip, and if the teenagers break the rules, he will send them home. Tammy and Jocelyn are excited to be rooming together but are not impressed when Tina says she is rooming with her mother. Frond tells the bus that the conference keynote will be Bernadette Baker; Tina explains to Linda that she is an astronaut who flew two missions to the International Space Station while having a black belt in karate and writing a book about it. Frond tells the girls to write down one question for Baker, and if the conference people pick it, whoever asks will get to ask it in person at the Q&A.
After school, Louise and Gene come home to the restaurant. Bob suggests that without the others, they can watch a movie that night. But he refuses to close up early, even when Louise says that Teddy is the only one who comes by, and Linda sometimes closes up and leaves a burger for him on a plate on the sidewalk, to Bob's shock.
The Wagstaff bus arrives at the Brewster Courtyard Gardens Hotel, with Tina amazed at seeing so many girls her age in the lobby (while Tammy and Jocelyn reveal that they don't tell her where they hang out, but it's the mall). Mr. Frond chooses Tina's question, "Who inspired you to go to space?" Linda goes to check their party in at the front desk. Tina sits on a couch in the lobby next to a purple-haired girl reading the Bernadette Baker book, and after some awkward conversation, she and the other girl, Dillon, hit it off.
Linda gets the group checked in and asks for two room keys, one for her and one for her daughter. That catches the attention of another mom chaperone beside her, Amy, who tells her to "enjoy it while it lasts." Linda is confused, and Amy explains that after Linda says her daughter is thirteen, her daughter is thirteen too, and now no longer talks to or chews food around her. Linda dismisses this, but Amy is scared to see her daughter, Dillon, talking to Tina on the couch and is nervous when the two come over. Dillon immediately shuts her mom down when she tries to initiate a conversation, but she and Tina ask to room together as Dillon was planning to have a room to herself, but having a roommate would be more fun. Amy asks if she can room with Linda because otherwise, she would drive home and then back four hours each way in the morning. Linda asks Tina about their planned "mommy-daughter weekend," but Tina insists, and Linda reluctantly agrees. Tina and Dillon head to the elevator, and despite Linda's insistence that Tina will come back, they do, but only because Tina hit the "Door Open" button by mistake.
That night at the hotel, Linda and Amy share a room. Linda is mad that Tina blew her off. Amy says their daughters will talk to them again when they are thirty and suggests Linda get a hobby. Amy herself scrapbooks and has a scrapbook with her of Dillon's stuff, as it's "almost as good as actually hanging out with Dillon and talking to her," which she admits to Linda is sad. Linda heads out to check on Tina after being freaked out by Amy's offer to make a scrapbook.
At the Belcher apartment, Bob gets out a box of DVDs to watch, including the 1980s Tom Hank comedy Bachelor Party, which he says is inappropriate for the kids to watch. Louise asks what happened at Bob's bachelor party, and Bob admits he didn't have one. Louise finds this perfect; as Linda and Tina are gone, they can give him the bachelor party he never had, a "dad-chelor party," as Gene puts it. Bob declines, but the two talk him into it.
Linda arrives at Tina's room, and Tina is confused as Linda comes in to check on them and interrupts her and Dillon's tarot card reading. Tina tries to get her to leave, but Linda tells her she will not crack down on their fun and leaves her room key in her room. Linda tells the girls they can leave the room despite Tina warning her mother about Mr. Frond's rule. Linda tells her daughter not to worry about it. Dillon tells Tina that her mom is "a lot." Linda leads them out of the room to walk down the halls, both frowning. Tina wants to go back to their room, but Linda tells them they haven't gotten to the fun part of their trip out yet but is unsure what that is when Dillon asks and suggests spelling out "Hello" in someone's discarded room service fries.
At the apartment, Louise, Gene, and Bob do apple juice shots, and Louise cuts Gene's speech off. Bob wants to call it a night, but Teddy arrives, having been invited by the kids.
The three are on the top floor of the hotel, overlooking the hotel's interior courtyard lobby. Linda's "soda in the elevator" fails to impress the girls, who both want to go to bed, but Linda tells them the most fun hasn't happened yet. Searching around the top floor, Linda spies a housekeeping cart, picks up a shampoo bottle, and begins uncapping them and throwing them into the hotel's water fixture. The fixture starts to foam as Tina and Dillon get nervous. The hotel manager sees the foam in the water fixture, and the three try to escape, but Mr. Frond stops them.
At the apartment, with dance music put on, Teddy is dancing, and Gene is dancing with underwear on his head. Bob answers the phone and his request to have the music turned down instead turned up by Louise. Linda is calling and needs Bob to pick her up at the hotel, even though it is two hours away. Teddy accidentally kicks the stereo, stopping the music, and Linda eventually yells out that she's the one who got in trouble and is getting sent home, having been taken to the manager's office and watched by Tina, Frond, and the manager.
Linda, Tina, and Frond wait in the manager's office for Bob to pick Linda up. Tina is uncharacteristically fuming and giving Linda the silent treatment for the last few hours. Bob, Louise, and Gene finally arrive, and Frond leaves to get some rest, telling Tina to get some rest since she will be talking to Bernadette Baker the next day. Linda is surprised to hear that Mr. Frond chose her question, and the mother asks her daughter why she didn't tell her. Tina snaps at her mom, accusing her of being too busy embarrassing her and acting crazy. Bob asks what Linda did, to which Linda tries to say it was nothing, but the manager says the Belcher covered the courtyard with the soup bottles she threw in the water feature and bans Linda from the hotel. An angry Tina tells her mom to leave and storms off to go to her room, adding that it'll be hard to remember where it was. Bob states that his daughter will probably wander all night without finding her room when she leaves.
In the parking lot, the Belchers head to the car, but Louise wants to avoid driving back as it is after midnight and suggests they stay in a seedy motel right across the street. In the motel room, Linda lies on the bed, defeated and sad that Tina blew her off in such a manner. Bob fails to reassure her and suggests they sleep, but Louise says that under bachelor party rules, they pass out but not sleep; Bob is okay with it and having his face drawn on, so long as it's tasteful. As the Belchers sleep in the cramped motel bed, Linda has a nightmare: she is in a scrapbook with baby Tina, but as the pages go, Tina grows older and tells Linda she's embarrassing her before running off, leaving Linda trapped in the scrapbook with Amy and her scalloping shears. Linda wakes up and fears that she is losing Tina.
The Belchers are ready to leave in the morning when Linda asks if they can sneak into the hotel to see Tina ask her question. Bob tells her it is a bad idea and suggests they give Tina some room, but Linda, starting to get angrier, says she's losing Tina and needs to bring her into the conference. Bob points out she is banned, but Linda suggests wearing a disguise and that she needs to do it. Despite the "red flags," Bob agrees to help her get a disguise. At a nearby gas station, the family purchases a disguise for Linda consisting of a pink camo bandana, a bikini t-shirt, and flamingo sunglasses, resulting in a disguise that, in Louise's words, looks "like someone who swallows cigarettes for free drinks at bars."
The Belchers sneak into the hotel and grab flyers saying Bernadette Baker is speaking 15 minutes later. Just then, Linda spies Bernadette in the hall and tells the others to get seats while she pees. However, a suspicious Louise waits outside the restroom and asks her mother what's happening. Linda evades at first, then admits that since she cannot get through to Tina, Baker can. She goes backstage while Louise goes back to her seat. With Baker's keynote in 10 minutes, Linda tries to blend in and hide as Frond leads the Wagstaff girls to the speaking hall. Frond tells Tina that since she is asking a question, she should get a seat by the aisle while Tina wants to sit with Dillon. The manager, who does not recognize Linda, stops her before she runs off.
Linda tries explaining to Bernadette.
Bernadette is doing psyche-up exercises in the backstage area when Linda approaches her from behind. Baker puts her in a headlock before realizing Linda is not her sensei testing her. In the speaking hall, Bob asks Louise where Linda is, who excuses her mother as loving another hotel bathroom. On the other side of the hall, Dillon tells Tina she still cannot believe the "crazy smother-mother moves" Linda did the previous night, with Tina wanting her space and Amy, sitting several rows ahead of them, trying to get Dillon's attention, who refuses to make eye contact.
Backstage, Linda has to explain that she is in disguise but realizes she did not read the book when she calls Bernadette a mother like her. Bernadette tries to leave to go on stage, but Linda stops her and tells her that at the end of her speech, Linda's daughter will ask a question about who inspired her to go into space, and Linda wants Baker to answer, "My mother," to her confusion. As Linda says that she thinks Tina doesn't understand the importance of a "mommy-daughter relationship," Baker says Linda is crazy but that Bernadette can "Set her straight." Someone calls for Bernadette to go on stage, and she gladly leaves for it.
Linda gets into her seat next to Bob as Bernadette begins her speech. After her speech, every chosen girl lines up to ask Bernadette their question. After answering several of their questions, it's Tina's turn to ask. She asks Baker who inspired her to go into space. Baker thinks about it and defies Linda, saying it was her seventh-grade chemistry teacher. Linda panics and rushes to the microphone on their side of the hall, interrupting Jocelyn to ask Bernadette if she answered the previous one "correctly" and if someone else inspired her. Tina recognizes her mother's voice at the mic.
Bernadette hesitates to engage, and while Linda tries to get her to say it, Tina goes back to the microphone on her side of the hall to ask Baker (and in the process, ask her mother) what happens when "your mom acts crazy and wears a disguise" to sneak into the event even though Tina didn't want her to come. Linda, in turn, asks Baker what if she was only doing it because her daughter was "blowing her off" that weekend, to which Tina asks if she wasn't blowing her off but just wanted to hang out with a new friend her age. As Bernadette cannot answer, Linda asks if a mom can be a friend, but Tina asks if a friend would embarrass her by pouring shampoo into a fountain.
When Linda says pouring shampoo in a fountain is "cool," Mr. Frond suspects she is Linda in disguise and tells her she is not welcome. Linda shushes him and asks one more question, turning directly in Tina's direction: "What if the mom only did that stuff 'cause she was afraid?" Linda soon admits that she was scared Tina was turning into a different person, somebody who thinks it's weird to be close to their mom. At this point, the manager orders her to leave, but before so, Tina tells her that she doesn't think it's weird to be close to her, and even though she embarrassed Tina last night, and a lot right then, and likely more in the future, she's lucky to have a mom she's close with. The two run through the seated audience in the middle section to hug each other. Amy turns to her daughter, and Dillon returns a smile but then goes overboard by trying to step across the seat rows.
The manager tells Linda it is time to go. Tina asks if she should go too, but Linda tells her to stay and have fun with Dillon. Bob apologizes to the mic and thanks Bernadette, even calling her story inspiring, before leaving with the other Belchers.
==External links==
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Category:Episodes
Category:Season 7 Episodes
Category:Episodes Written by Scott Jacobson
Category:Episodes Directed by Chris Song
Category:6ASA Episodes
Category:2017 Episodes