'Last Man Standing' Recap: 'Haunted House'

The latest episode of Last Man Standing was full of Halloween fun with a frightening haunted house and mischief night.

As Mike walks in, Mandy informs him they’re eating takeout from Emperor’s Garden proclaiming, “We’re getting our wonton on.” Vanessa wasn’t able to prepare dinner because she’s been busy helping Kristin with the PTA fall fundraiser. Mike sarcastically comments that it’s just another job outsourced to the Chinese. Vanessa claims she was suckered into helping out Kristin, who basically claims Vanessa wanted to help. Vanessa thinks this will be a great move for Kristin’s PTA career. Kristin doesn’t understand why she needs a PTA career. Vanessa is excited to be doing the haunted house and thinks the scarier it is, the better. Kristin doesn’t think they should make it scary. Vanessa tells her that scaring kids is the goal. Kristin is worried about kids Boyd’s age being too sensitive. Just as she says this, Boyd jumps up wearing a mask to scare her and Vanessa. Mike proudly says, “Getting people to stain their skivvies. That’s what Halloween’s all about. The reason for the season.”

Kyle and Ed arrive with Ed’s coffin for Vanessa to look at. Mike questions why Ed has a coffin. Ed explains that he was at Costco buying a jumbo size pack of bacon and he began thinking about mortality so, naturally, he bought a coffin there. As Vanessa goes out to Kyle’s van to see the coffin, Eve walks in asking, “Sweet coffin outside. Who died?” While talking to Ed, Eve tells him she’s a part of the safety police at school. She writes tickets for bad behavior. Ed immediately relates her position to being a nark. As Eve goes upstairs, Vanessa returns and informs Ed there’s a scratch on the coffin. Ed replies, “I know. It’s a return. You should have seen the scratches on the inside.” Ed then tells Mike he’s worried about Eve being disliked by teens because she’s basically a snitch. In the kitchen, Vanessa tells Kristin that she’ll handle all of the boring details. Kristin knows this just means she’s supposed to keep her mouth shut and let Vanessa do what she wants. Boyd scares Vanessa, again.

At the school, the family arrives for a walk through the haunted house the night before Halloween. Eve says she’s going home to keep an eye on the house because it is mischief night. When Ryan asks what mischief night is, they explain it’s the night before Halloween when everyone goes out toilet papering houses and yards. He tells them they call it cabbage night in Canada. Eve sarcastically comments that we’re “building the wall on the wrong border.” Ryan wittily replies that Canadians think the same thing, but they’re just too polite to say anything. Eve asks Mandy what she is going as, but limits all of Mandy’s possibly costumes to being a slutty version. Mandy tells her that slut shaming is not cool, which is something she learned in class. Eve asks if Mandy was the visual aid. Annoyed, Mandy tells Eve she doesn’t have to worry about the house being toilet papered because it only happens if the cool kids actually like you and Eve isn’t cool. Mike arrives with Boyd as Vanessa comes out dressed as a witch. Eve, upset about what Mandy said, decides to go home to watch the house as the rest of the family enters the haunted house.

The Baxters, sans Eve, walk through the haunted house. Vanessa guides them past Dracula, the dinner of the damned, and grabbing ghouls, and onto the giant spider. As the giant Spider falls from the ceiling, Boyd screams and runs away. They all run after him, including Ryan who is covered in fake cobwebs. As they watch Ryan and Kristin run after Boyd, Vanessa says, “I said beware.”

After finally getting Boyd to fall asleep, Kristin asks Ryan if he can stay with him while she goes to work. Unfortunately, Ryan can’t because he has a strike meeting. He tells her that Boyd will be fine. He adds that if Boyd is anything like him, “he’ll cry for an hour, then be afraid of spiders for the rest of his life.” Vanessa walks in after washing and drying the pants Boyd apparently peed in. She asks Kristin if he’s ever peed that much before. Kristin tells her no because he’s never come face-to-face with a spider twice the size of him. Vanessa says it’s all her fault because she made the house too scary. Mike disagrees and looks at Kristin, who can’t see why it would be her fault. He tells her it’s because she never lets Boyd be scared. She leaves the light on for him while he sleeps and scares the goats away at the petting zoo. Vanessa reminds Mike about Boyd’s goat trauma. Mike replies, “Try to milk a male goat. I’m with the male goat on this.” Mike tells Kristin that she robs him of the chance of overcoming challenges and facing his fears. He tells her that if she puts him back in the haunted house to face his fears, then he’ll come out feeling like a hero. She’s worried he’ll scream and pee his pants again. Vanessa suggests utilizing a costume that is more absorbent. Mike reminds Kristin of how afraid she was to dive off the diving board and asks if she knows why he didn’t let her give up. Vanessa comments that it was because he had already paid for the class. Mike claims it was so she would learn to face her fears. He went up and jumped off with her so she wouldn’t be scared and she ended up being a really good diver. Kristin agrees to let Boyd go to the haunted house if they can get him to face his fear. Before leaving, Kristin tells them not to traumatize Boyd any more than necessary. Vanessa questions whether the comment is directed at her or Mike. Kristin replies, “Exactly.” After she leaves, Mike and Vanessa look at each other and say, “You.”

For his advertising video, Mike incorporates Halloween as he displays knives that are twenty percent off at Outdoor Man. This leads into a political discussion of fear and socialism with him ending on the idea that you need to face your fears. However, facing your fears may obliterate your long johns, which, coincidentally, are also on sale at Outdoor Man. He also informs his audiences that no matter what you’re scared of, Outdoor Man probably has something that can kill it.

Mike tells Boyd he needs to try to sleep without a light on. Boyd says he’s too scared of the spider. Mike tells him there are thousands of spiders in the wall, stopping his story as he realizes that it’s not going to help ease Boyd’s fear. He sits down with Boyd and tells him everything in the haunted house was fake, including the spider. He opens up the catalog Vanessa ordered the spider from. He points to the spider and notices it cost $79.99. Mike sarcastically says, “Your grandma paid eighty bucks for that thing? I’m going to pee my pants.” He tells Boyd they should go back and face his fear together. Boyd agrees to go after Mike promises to hold his hand as they walk through. As Mike turns the light off, he tells Boyd he is proud of him because it takes a brave man to face his fears. He then adds, “Don’t let the bed bugs bite.” Boyd worriedly questions, “Bed bugs?”

Mandy is outside trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to TP the house because she feels bad about what she said to Eve. Eve comes walking out with a bat, not knowing it’s Mandy, proclaiming, “You’re just in time for batting practice.” Sacred, Mandy lets Eve know it’s just her. Mandy claims she just scared the football team away so they wouldn’t TP the house. Eve says that’s a lie because Mandy would have invited the team into the bushes with her. Mandy, angry that Eve is still being mean to her, admits she was doing it to make Eve feel better, but should have known better. Mandy thinks it was a stupid idea to think that Eve had feelings. Eve, realizing what her sister did for her, says, “Thank you. That was a nice thing you couldn’t quite do.” Mandy tells her that toilet papering isn’t as easy as it looks. Eve replies, “And you’re not as easy as you look either.” She apologizes to Mandy, even though she thinks her slams are “killer.” She admits that she’s slightly envious of Mandy’s popularity. The two hug before going back inside.

Vanessa informs Mike he needs to go buy more candy to pass out. He tells her he’s going to put one piece in each bag and take two out. He asks her why she’s not getting ready for the haunted house. She tells him she feels bad and thinks she got caught up in reliving her PTA days. He tells her to go and support Kristin. They both decide to go. Eve enters and tells her parents to come to the front yard. The yard is fill of toilet paper. Eve is ecstatic and Mandy is surprised. It turns out that Eve’s friends, the unpopular kids, toilet papered The Baxter house. Mike lets Eve enjoy the moment and says they’ll make her clean it up alone later.

At the school, Kristin is wearing Vanessa’s witch costume. After Vanessa tells her she looks great, Kristin replies, “Oh, please. I’m half the hag you are.” Mike says, “Don’t fight it. You’re both tremendous hags.” She tells Vanessa she didn’t change a single thing about the haunted house because it’s a Baxter legacy. When Mike tells Boyd he’ll go through the haunted house with him, Boyd decides to go in with just his friends. As he walks through, he points to each prop and says how much they cost, “Fifty dollars for a freakin’ ghost? You’ve gotta be kidding me.” The cowboy that boy went in with comes running out, but Boyd didn’t. Mike goes in to find Boyd. Boyd jumps out to scare him, proclaiming how fun it is to be scared. As he grabs his arm, Mike replies, “Is it? Is it really fun? Was my arm numb when we walked in?” The spider then falls. Mike tells Boyd it’s not that scary. Boyd adds, “And not worth eighty bucks.”

A frighteningly fun episode! Make sure you’re tuning in for that lovely Baxter sarcasm and life lessons Friday nights at 8/7c on ABC.

image: ABC