Ned returns to the Pie Hole to find this dramatic scene concluded. Finding Randy with a big bruise on his face, he immediately assumes Olive punched him. Hee. In fact, it was Jerry, who only swung in self-defense after Randy threatened them. "Olive," Ned asks, wary, "who are these guys?" Olive nervously shrugs. "Who are any of us, really...?" she asks philosophically, and finally Jimmy D has to break it down. Jerry and Buster weren't really kidnappers. They were stealing a car when they discovered Olive hiding in the back. They wanted to return Olive immediately to her parents, but as she was trying to teach her neglectful relations a lesson, she refused to tell them her name. The sweet guys have to whisper to hide it from her that their repeated attempts to contact her parents have gone unanswered. As a result, they spend a wonderful two days with the little girl, watching cartoons and eating popcorn. When they return her to her parents' house, they realize the Snooks had no idea Olive was even missing, and confront the negligent couple who take umbrage and call the cops. Wow, do all the writers of this show hate their parents? There hasn't been a parent yet portrayed who isn't somehow careless, downright criminal or somehow guilty of abandonment. Anyway, Olive knew what she was losing as she saw Jerry and Buster taken to jail, and thus wrote them every week to stay in touch. They never stopped loving her, either, and had finally busted out of jail to see her again before heading out for a life on the lam.

Short pause while I rant again about the show being cancelled: the lost potential of seeing more episodes with the amazing Richard Benjamin and George Segal... OMG, what if they had set them up romantically down the road with Lily and Vivian?! Siiiigh. Hate.

Olive is so glad they came to see her, and thinks it is only right that she help them escape across the border. She still feels so guilty, she says, that they went to jail, but no one would ever believe her when she said she had run away. "What do we always say about the past?" Buster asks, fatherly. Olive: "It makes an ass outta you and me." Ha! A mixed metaphor, you might say, but it certainly holds true for my own past.