The previouslies for this ep show footage of the cow creamer ep, which was not sent out to press. (Hence my assumption that this is Ep 4, not Ep 3.)

3/17/04 Edit: My guess that this was Ep 4 was based on the assumption that the eps sent out to press would be from the beginning of the season. Fox could still choose to air this one earlier, if they wanted, but from the list of titles that Tim Minear posted on Buffistas.org (which was the source for the episode numbering at SpoilerSlayer), it looks like it was actually written to be Ep 6.)

Jaye and Aaron are in her trailer, stalking one of Jaye's neighbors. Jaye's been taking photos of this guy for years, because he's hugely fat, and never leaves his trailer. She's nicknamed him "Fat Pat" and "Fatsquatch," and tonight, he's getting a pizza delivered, so she knows he'll have to open the door, and she'll be able to get a good shot. The trailer tilts back and forth on its wheels as they watch. While they're looking out the window and waiting, Aaron asks if she's talked to any cow creamers lately, or if any have been talking to her. Jaye obviously regrets telling Aaron anything, and denies that she was ever talking to the cow creamer in the first place.

There's a knock on the door, and Jaye answers it. It's another neighbor Annemarie Beadle, wearing an apron with a buffalo on it. She asks if Jaye has recieved any of her mail recently, as she's missing her disability check, and the county swears they sent it. Jaye tries valiantly to get her out of the apartment before she and Aaron get caught stalking, but Mrs. Beadle is insistant, and Jaye has to actually look through her mail. She finds the check, and is about to hand it over when the buffalo on Mrs. Beadle's apron looks at her and says, threateningly, "Don't do it." Jaye glances at the wax lion on the table for confirmation, but gets nothing. She tells Mrs. Beadle that she doesn't have her check, but she'll keep an eye out, Mrs. Beadle prattles on for a bit about how she needs that money, or it'll be the end of Muffin Buffalo! (Her business -- she bakes muffins.) Jaye just wants her out of the trailer, stat, because the pizza has arrived, and she's missing Fatsquatch's open door! Finally, she gets her out, but seconds too late. Aaron's been snapping pictures, but Jaye's disappointed all the same.

[This scene may be slightly out of order] Aaron is seeing the psychiatrist because he's worried about Jaye. Now, Jaye hasn't told his guy anything about the talking animals, so when Aaron brings up the cow creamer, it makes him look more than a little insane. As Aaron tries to convince the shrink that he’s worried about Jaye, the shrink starts to become worried about Aaron. Aaron is worried Jaye might think she’s talking to God, and when the shrink asks “Worried that she is talking to God, or that she isn’t?” Aaron says she can’t be talking to God, so she must be crazy. “Are you an atheist?” asks the shrink. “As a theologian, I feel it’s irresponsible to label myself in that way. But yes.” As Aaron tries to bring the conversation around to Jaye and the cow creamer, the shrink starts to make notes, which Aaron isn’t happy with.

In Wonderfalls, Mahandra talks to Jaye about her obsession. She theorizes that Jaye actually admires and envies Fatsquatch for being a shut-in. Jaye admits that she may have a point. A stuffed animal on the rack tells her "Shoe's untied. Staple it." She looks down and sees Mouth-breather's untied shoe, and obligingly staples it to the shelf with the staple gun. A moment later, he trips and knocks over a baby carraige, sending the baby flying right into Jaye's arms. The entire store applauds, which Jaye doesn't like, so she tells them to stop. The baby's mother also looks down near where the carriage was knocked over, and sees a ring on the floor. She's amazed -- it's a family heirloom that she thought was lost forever! Thank you so much for finding it! Jaye doesn't want thanks, she didn't do anything, and stop applauding, damnit. "I'm not a baby-saver!" she insists.

The next day, there's a picture of her on the front page of the paper. She doesn't want the credit, or the attention. She's not a nice person, and she doesn't help people, and she doesn't want anyone thinking she does. Looking at the paper again, she realizes that she probably doesn't have a lot to worry about, since it turns out to be the community paper for the local Seneca tribe. (The paper does have a name -- I'll update this after I check the DVD] Mahandra points out that she's been helping people kind of a lot lately, but Jaye protests, insisting that it's just since "my situation's changed." She hasn't told them she's hearing voices, and she's not going to, so they don't know what "situation" she's talking about.

She heads back to Wonderfalls to find that she's been selected as Employee of the Month. Her family is there, and they're so proud. Jaye doesn't want the honor because she doesn't deserve it, but she reluctantly accepts it when she finds out that it also includes the afternoon off. Her family takes her out for fondue at the Barrell (does Niagra have no other restaurants?), where she once again protests being called a baby-saver, and storms out to enjoy her afternoon off. Before this happens, there’s some conversation that Aaron tries to make about Jaye, but ends up being about him having an existential crisis (according to his mother, she expected this to happen sooner or later). He insists, no, he was fine with the universe having no meaning. A meaningless existence in a meaningless universe makes sense, but the possibility of a meaningless existence in a universe that has meaning…gah.

When she gets back to her trailer, Jaye notices smoke coming from Mrs. Beadle's trailer. She leaves (with her keys still in the door), and goes to investigate. When she gets in, there's smoke *everywhere*, and a tray of very burnt muffins in the oven. Jaye sees a huge footprint on the floor and says "Fatsquatch!" So she heads over to Fatsquatch's trailer, which tilts even under Jaye's relatively small weight. Jaye does some cursory snooping, but finds nothing. So she leaves, and heads back to her own trailer, where Fatsquatch is waiting for her inside.

Only, he's not fat. He's pretty fit, actually. (Played by Eddie Kaye Thomas, from the American Pie movies.) She wants to know what he's doing in her trailer. He wants to know what she was doing in his, and why she has two three-ring binders full of pictures of him. She wants to know what he did with Mrs. Beadle, since she knows he was in there, she saw his "fat-flops" footprint (he's wearing flip-flops). "You think I ATE her???" he asks. "No....no," says Jaye, less than reassuringly. She also tries (rather pathetically) to assure him that the "Fat Pat" label on the first binder says "Pat Pat...like Pat squared, because there's so much of you...in terms of the number of pictures, I mean." Her insistance that the second binder is in fact labeled "Patsquatch" is even less convincing. Almost as unconvincing as when she says she wasn't making fun of him. He wants to know where the camera is, and assures her that if pictures of him ever show up on any chubby-chaser websites, even if his head is cropped off, she'll have a lawsuit on her hands. Just then, Mrs. Beadle shows up, having taken the bus into Buffalo to see about her disability checks. The buffalo on the apron still won't let Jaye hand them over. Pat tells her that her muffins were burning, so he went into her trailer to turn her oven off, and she thanks him. Mrs. Beadle leaves, and so does Pat.

Jaye feels bad about Pat, so she goes over to his trailer, and climbs in through the window to apologize, sort of. He tries to explain that people always make fun of him because he's fat, and doesn't believe Jaye when she tells him "But, you're not fat." She asks when the last time he looked in a mirror was, and notices that his trailer doesn't have any. She decides that it's time for him to leave his trailer, but he resists, saying he still has 12 more pounds to go before he can be seen in public. She says he's crazy, and that if he got out, and got used to how other people see him, he'd realize he's not fat anymore.

They go to the Barrell, where he sticks by her too closely for her liking, as much as she tries to get him to mingle. She finally convinces him to get her a beer. As soon as he's up, Mahandra comes over and asks Jaye if all her recent weirdness is because she's got a boyfriend. Jaye reacts with horror and explains that, no, that's Fatsquatch. Only, he's not fat anymore! Meanwhile, at the bar, Pat is telling Eric that Jaye's obsessed with him, has binders full of pictures in her apartment, and finally got up the courage to ask him out. "Normally, I'd be spooked, but look at her. If I had to pick anyone in the world to be stalking me, it'd be her." Eric is incredibly confused, and a little hurt.

Back at the couch, Jaye still can't get rid of him. They start talking about her family, and Jaye decides he should meet them, so they go to Tyler Family Game Night. It's Pat & Sharon vs. Jaye and Darrin vs. Karen and Aaron in Pictionary. Aaron brings out some tea with the reassembled cow creamer on the tray. (In Ep 3, he broke its head off to get it to stop talking to Jaye. He has since reattached it.) He tries, completely unsuccessfully to bait Jaye. Pat, once out of his shell, turns out to be kind of a competitive asshole. He and Sharon are wiping the floor with everyone else (of course, the fact that all of Aaron’s drawings are of Jaye talking to the cow creamer doesn’t help their team), and while Sharon is loving it, Karen, Aaron and Darrin are not. After they leave, Pat tells Jaye what a great time he had, and asks when the next game night will be. Jaye says that may have been the last one.

Back at the trailer park, Jaye is trying to be polite, but not too polite, and Pat utterly fails to get the hint. After they say goodbye, Jaye goes to check her mail, and runs into Mrs. Beadle. Mrs. Beadle is still waiting for her checks (which have all come to Jaye’s mailbox), but when Jaye thinks about handing one over, the buffalo shakes it’s head menacingly. Mrs. Beadle says that since she’s out of money, she’ll have to move out, but she’s got a cousin who’ll let her park her trailer in his driveway. She’s just sad that it’s the end of Muffin Buffalo. So Jaye heads home, promising Mrs. Beadle to keep an eye out again.

She walks into her trailer and finds Pat, naked, in her bed. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. He launches into a speech about how she rescued him, and how wonderful she is, and how he feels the same way, and he figured it would be better to do it in her trailer, because his has that tilting problem, and he hopes she doesn’t mind that he started without her….and okay, now Jaye’s pissed. Not only has he been wanking off in her bed, but he called her nice. She throws his clothes at him, tells him she’ll never sleep with him, and that he’s misinterpreted their whole relationship, this was not a date, and he really really really has to leave. Pat reacts badly, screaming that she used him and she just sees him as a charity case (well, YEAH), and how she’s an evil horrible bitch. Slams the door behind himself. “Okay,” calls Jaye after him, “As long as we’re clear that I’m not some kind of saint.”

[this scene may be slightly out of order] Aaron is back in the shrink’s office, and this time, he’s brought the cow creamer with him. He explains to the shrink that he broke its head off the last time “I took away it’s mouth,” he says, nodding knowingly, as the shrink writes “schizophrenic” on his notepad and underlines it several times. Aaron is digging himself deeper and deeper into this hole when the cow’s head topples off, flying into the shrink’s swinging little silver ball thing, which knocks over a stack of books, which land on the floor in such away that the titles of two books overlap to form the phrase “cow talk.” Aaron is seriously freaked out.

I can’t remember why Jaye goes back into Pat’s trailer, but when she does, she finds him eating massive amounts of muffins, which Mrs. Beadle is baking for him. She’s moving out, and wants to bake her way through her supplies before she has to go. Jaye tries to tell Pat that he doesn’t need to gorge himself on muffins, but he tells her that no matter what size he actually is, he’ll always feel like a huge fat guy, so the fat may as well really be there. He’s got a new goal weight now, only in the other direction. Jaye thinks this is a stupid thing to do, but can’t really bring herself to argue with him over it, and grabs a muffin for herself. Mrs. Beadle continues to bemoan the demise of Muffin Buffalo, when Pat starts to swoon, and collapses on the table. They call an ambulance, and Jaye decides she has to come clean about the checks. The buffalo doesn’t stop her this time. Mrs. Beadle is understandably furious, even though Jaye tries to say that it wasn’t actually stealing, since she didn’t cash any of them…

Back at the hospital, Pat is awake, and Mrs. Beadle and Jaye have gone to see him. It seems that his plan to become fat again has backfired, since Mrs. Beadle makes all her muffins with Oleo fat substitute, which, unfortunately, may cause gastrointestinal distress when consumed in high quantities. The end result was, Pat lost 13 pounds in an unusual, but quite effective way, very very fast. (There’s a hilarious throwaway “while you were in the coma” line – they just toss it in there with no explanation or follow-up.) And since Jaye had been withholding the checks, Mrs. Beadle now has more money than she’d ever been able to save up her whole life, enough to expand Muffin Buffalo, and hire Pat as it’s spokesperson. (Like Jared!) Jaye is annoyed that she’s ended up helping people yet again, and won't let either of them thank her.

The last scene is Jaye closing Wonderfalls, when she hears a knock at the door. She yells “We’re closed,” and then turns around to see Eric standing there. She smiles, goes to the door, and says “We’re closed” again. “That’s okay,” he says, “I don’t want to buy anything.” “Then you can come in,” she says, and lets him in. He’s there to bring her her Employee of the Month certificate, which she left at the Barrell. Yeah, she says, she kind of forgot it there on purpose. Eric then asks her about Pat, saying that Pat told him Jaye was obsessed with him, and is that true? Jaye says yes, it’s kind of true, but she was only obsessed with him because he used to be a big fat shut-in. Now that he’s slimmed down and started talking to people, he’s not as interesting. Eric is relieved (Jaye may be a stalker, but at least she’s single!), and tells Jaye that she’s not as mean as she thinks she is. She insists that she is. He says “Well, I think you’re nice,” and leaves. And she’s happy – coming from him, “nice” doesn’t sound so bad. [author’s note – the chemistry between these two is absolutely fantastic. It’s not overplayed, so the sparks are there, but not blinding. You can imagine them getting together, or you can imagine them just flirting for the rest of the series, and either way would be okay.]