Cool Moms

*Season 1,* *Episode 4b*

**"Cool Moms"** is the second segment of the fourth episode (and the eighth story overall) of *Close Enough*.

## Synopsis

Emily tries to roll with the "cool moms" at Candice's school, while Josh and Alex help Randy find his mom.

## Plot

Emily is feeling out of place inside the mom community at Chamomile Elementary which prompts Thomas Campbell to entice her to try and join in with the Cool Moms. Campbell also hinted that he is in a one-sided relationship with one of them. Emily initially got too nervous to speak to the Cool Moms which once again prompted Thomas to reevaluate her approach. Shortly thereafter, the unofficial leader of the Cool Moms - a biker woman named Jojo - said she liked Emily and she was happy to see their daughters get along. Thomas hints further to the fact that the Cool Mom he was interested in all along was in fact Jojo. Jojo proposed that she and her daughter Mia should come to Emily's House for a play date. Campbell attempts to invite himself to the play date offering to bring the chardonnay but Jojo turned him down leaving Thomas battling to keep his emotions hidden from Jojo and Emily.

Later on in the day, Randy stops by the apartment. He demands Emily give him a ride to a desert club his mother had gone off to with her new boyfriend, In the heat of the moment Randy shifts his attention to Josh and demands that he take him instead. Emily agrees and suggests an all boys road trip that also includes Alex. Josh, Alex, and Randy leave for the road trip leaving Emily at home, trying to make the house seem "cooler".

Candice gives Emily a customized snap-back cap which Emily proudly wears. Jojo inevitably arrives in her motorcycle with her daughter Mia in the sidecar. Emily answers the door with enthusiasm. Jojo was intrigued to find out that Emily actually uses her daughter's gifts for her, Jojo states that she just takes pictures and throws them away which made Emily buckle to peer pressure and put her cap in her handbag. Emily later asked Candice and Mia to play, to which Candice reluctantly agreed. Jojo and Emily then began to sample Jojo's home-brewed beer. While Jojo was discussing some of her more unconventional parenting techniques Candice ran into the room with a complaint regarding Mia. Jojo, being the enabler that she is, shrugged off the whole thing leaving Emily once again buckling under peer pressure and going along with whatever Jojo says to the point where she tells Candice to call Emily by her name instead of "Mom" since Mia does with her own mother.

One thing led to the other and the girls found themselves in an oddly specific gym frequented by the Cool Moms and their children, which hosts children's arm wrestling. It was at this gym that Emily was officially introduced to the other Cool Moms: Billie, a woman who gave Usher herpes; Zola, a popular Soul Cycle instructor; Saffron, a staff writer for what is purportedly an online magazine and Trish, the "normcore" pity inductee.

Things again escalated quickly and Mia began Arm Wrestling, defeating a couple of children in a row. The Cool Moms and the rest of the children were seated in what was confusingly an arena that was apparently attached to the gym.

Emily sat next to Saffron and her son. Saffron's son had his torso and both arms in a cast to which Saffron explained that he had sustained his injuries after Arm Wrestling with Mia but Saffron was indifferent about the whole thing because this allowed her to get on Jojo's good side.

After witnessing how deeply embroiled into peer pressure Saffron was, Emily had a moment of clarity and understood how superficial and artificial she was being herself. She quickly ejected her daughter Candice from her Arm Wrestling match against Mia and challenged Mia's mother Jojo to an Arm Wrestling match instead, to which Jojo hastily agreed.

The Arm Wrestling table suddenly transformed to accommodate adults and Emily and Jojo began to Arm Wrestle. Jojo had quickly overpowered Emily but Emily hadn't lost the match just yet. Emily focused and the cap that was given to her by her daughter suddenly levitated out of her bag and landed on her head and fit itself backwards. This gave Emily the strength she needed to overpower Jojo and win the Arm Wrestling match.

Emily unfortunately broke Jojo's elbow in the process to which Jojo exclaimed that she had realized her behavior wasn't always appropriate. As Jojo and Mia walked away, Trish offered to set up a play date between her daughter and Candice.

Meanwhile, Randy, Alex, and Josh track down Randy's mother Pearle to a nudist utopia in the desert. The men strip themselves naked and overpower as many guards as they can in their wake of "rescuing" Pearle. Randy finally catches up to his mother and realizes that his mother's new boyfriend was using audio-therapy to relieve her of her muscle aches.

Randy reveals that while a part of him knew Pearle wasn't in any danger, he had developed a complex since childhood because his mother was an LAPD officer, and Randy would fear for her safety every day.

Randy was overcome with emotion at how his mother's new boyfriend was taking such good care of her, and he hugged him in a moment of zealousness, even though they were both naked.

## Characters

* Emily Ramirez
* Candice
* Cool Moms
	+ Jojo (debut)
	+ Trish
	+ Billie (debut)
	+ Saffron (debut)
	+ Zola (debut)
* Mia
* Josh Singleton
* Alex Dorpenberger
* Randy Watson
* Pearle Watson
* Pearle's Boyfriend (debut)
* Timothy Campbell
* Unnamed Mother (debut)
* Holographic Rapper (debut)
* Pterodactyl (debut)
* Maddie (no lines)

## Trivia

* The fact that Jojo describes Zola as "the best Soul Cycle instructor on the East Side" seems to make little sense, as this series takes place on the West Coast.
	+ However, Jojo could have been referring to the Eastside of LA, which includes the section of LA that is east of the Los Angeles River.
* In the Cool Moms group, giving or spreading diseases to celebrities may be a rite of passage, seeing as how Jojo gave Michael Douglas throat cancer and Billie gave Usher herpes, although it may also be something they just like to do or something that just happened.
* Billie and Zola were the only mothers whose children weren't seen nor mentioned.
* The hologram features is a reference to the Tupac hologram at the 2012 Coachella Festival.
* The Cabazon Dinosaurs are featured in this episode, with the pterodactyl mentioning how people who commit adultery should be stoned.
* One of the kids at the gym is wearing a trucker hat that says "I'm Eggscellent" on it.

### Errors

* When Josh and Alex are at the first truck stop, Alex puts a sock over a mannequin's crotch to simulate a penis. When it cuts back to Randy in the car, the sock changes color.

## Gallery

The Cool Moms, Maddie, Candice and Mia watch Jojo and Emily's showdown.