And now, the scene you've all been waiting for -- the Bill Jacks/Vietnam Joe summit, as brokered by John and Zippy. "How do you stand the constant cheeping?" Joe wonders over the constant cheeping. "Every one hatched in this home," John says sweetly, causing Bill to start. "Be aware that if you speak in that voice again," Bill seethes, "I will break every bone in your body." "What's your policy," asks Joe, trying to change the subject, "on guests smoking herb?" Bill's policy is not to permit it, thanks for asking; Joe's face falls as if someone just told him that Christmas has been postponed until mid-January. "And your smart-ass friend here," Bill continues, "with his Charlie McCarthy imitations, skates on very, very, very thin ice." "How about in the backyard?" says Joe, trying a different tack. But Bill is on a roll: "Which I am liable as not to pound his head through. With my fist. And hold him, gagging and thrashing beneath the surface of, 'til he drowns." "The ice," says Joe, indicating that he's able to follow along, weed or no. John, meanwhile, sips a glass of tea and continues to talk in the same sweet voice as before: "Chamomile, Billy -- wonderful." And here we get to the nub of Bill's complaint: John is apparently imitating (or, perhaps more accurately channeling) the late Mrs. Jacks. "What the hell are we doing here?" Joe mutters to John/Mrs. Jacks, which causes Zippy to start chirping. "Go ahead, Zip," Bill says wearily. "You're the big cruise director. Entertain them while I get back my composure." Instead of Zippy, however, John gives the instructions in his Mrs. Jacks's voice: the three of them -- John, Bill, Joe, though apparently not Zippy -- are to apprehend the fellow who stabbed John. A stricken Bill asks his wife if she's in any discomfort; John says that she is not. Bill then asks his wife if John is pulling a fast one on him; again, the answer is no. "Oh, for Christ's sake," says Bill, losing what little composure he has left. He'll go on this little adventure with them, but first, he wants them to go outside so that he can pull himself together. Really, some yeoman's work in that scene from Ed O'Neill who -- whether you love this show, hate it, or just feel generally indifferent to it -- is clearly the best thing about John From Cincinnati. I will tolerate no counter-argument or rebuttal.