Mike: Yeah, well, maybe if you were more on top of it, he wouldn't always be doing everything at the last minute.
Frankie: Excuse me? Are you saying it's my job to make sure Brick's on top of it?
Mike: Well, homework is your department.
Frankie: Oh, lucky me, how did I get that job? Oh, right, I have all the jobs.
Mike: Oh, really? Do you change the oil in the cars? Do you shovel the driveway? Do you know where the main water valve is?
Brick: Hate to interrupt, but I have 57 seconds to get this in. 54!
Frankie: Really, Mike? You really want to have the "Who does more around here" argument? I don't think you do.
Mike: I don't think you do 'cause you know I'd be winning.
Brick: 48.
Frankie: I'm sorry, but maybe you're just too busy watching TV and endlessly brushing your teeth to see what I do. Because I have to be responsible for knowing everybody's schedule, I'm doing all the cooking...
Mike: Oh, really? How many Burger Barn punch cards have we blown through this year, huh? Chef?
Frankie: I didn't see you complaining when you were shoving it in your big, dumb face, you dummy.

Brick: [computer beeps] That's it. It's over. Cyberdesk is no longer accepting documents.
Mike: Why does everything have to be in the stupid cloud anyway? His homework's in a cloud. Our pictures are in a cloud.
Frankie: No, I printed them out like you said and put them in a box in the basement. Oh, my God, the basement.

Mike: Unless somebody's pregnant or failing out of school, we got stuff to do.
Axl: Oh, someone's failing, all right. But it's in the school of parenting.
Sue: Mm-hmm.
Axl: Please sit. [Mike sighs]
Sue: [clears throat] Here's the thing... Brick reached out to us because he's upset about some of the things that have been going on around here.
Axl: And after hearing his cries for help, Sue and I felt we had no choice but to come home and speak on his behalf.
Frankie: Speak on his behalf about what?
Axl: You two... the fighting, the bickering, the constant barbs at each other's expense.
Sue: The eye rolling, the rude hand gestures behind each others' backs. I hear the term "crazy woman" was used?
Brick: It was actually "ridiculous woman."
Sue: Thank you, Brick. I was also informed that Mom called Dad a dummy and Dad shook a mop in front of Mom's face.
Axl: I believe what I learned in church was there are better ways to express oneself than mop-shaking and name-calling.

Frankie: [cries]
Mike: Oh, come on. No crying. This house is wet enough as it is.
Frankie: I'm sorry, but our kids just gave us an intervention.
Mike: It wasn't an intervention.
Frankie: [scoffs] Wha...? They both got up before 10:00 A.M. on a Saturday and drove over here without their laundry... that's an intervention. There's a show on TV called Intervention, and that's pretty much exactly what happens.
Mike: Look, if Brick had a problem with us, he didn't have to go tattle on us to those two. He could've just come to us and said something.
Frankie: Well, obviously, he didn't feel comfortable doing that because we're monsters. We yell at each other and his soil is getting damaged and...
Mike: Don't look at me. You're really more of the yeller.
Frankie: Oh, okay, maybe, but you have more of that seethy anger. You know, most of your serial killers have that.

Frankie: Hey, guys. Dad and I want to talk to you for a minute.
Mike: Sue, get in here.
Sue: [enters through the hole in the wall] What's up?
Frankie: So your Dad and I have something to say. We're sorry. We thought about what you guys said and you're right. We have not been behaving in a way that we're proud of. And we are gonna be better. Okay, then. I think that was really healthy and good. And, again, thank you for coming to us. And know that our door is always open. [both exit]
Axl: Wow. Our parents just apologized to us from their hearts. Do you know what this means? We have them at our mercy. Now, what do we want?

Axl: Guys, trust me. I am a business major who attended nearly half his classes. What we have here is something the French call leverage.
Sue: What are you talking about?
Axl: What I'm talking about is Mom and Dad are feeling pretty guilty right about now, so it's a great time to try to get something out of them. You know, it's like a chicken place. They have the power because you want chicken and they have the chicken, so you have to pay them, but if I find a half a rat in my chicken, mnh-mnh, they got to pay me. I have the power. The entire power balance has shifted.
Brick: So you're saying Mom and Dad just gave us half a rat?
Axl: Exactly. And now the question is, what do they have that we want?
Brick: Mm, this would be a lot easier if we had rich parents.
Axl: Ooh, maybe we could ask each of them to give us a kidney, sell it on the black market. 'Course, there are three of us, so one of us would not be getting a kidney.
Brick: Let me guess.
Axl: Yeah, sorry, Brick. But maybe Sue can go halfsies with you on her kidney.

Frankie: [sigh] Oh, my God. The kids are right. We're like the Bickersons. No wonder poor Brick was traumatized.
Mike: Poor Brick? We wouldn't have been fighting in the first place if it wasn't for "poor Brick."
Frankie: That's true. Without his whole homework fiasco, you and I would have been having a very pleasant evening bailing filthy water out of our basement.
Mike: Followed by a romantic hose-spaghetti dinner.

Frankie: Ugh, I feel horrible about Brick. I mean, we might as well have just thrown him down the stairs. That's what we did... we threw him down the stairs with our words.
Mike: You know that's going in the file.
Frankie: I'm disappointed in us, Mike. You know, first chance we got, we went right back to our yell-y selves. And they don't deserve that. They are great kids.
Mike: All I know is not one of our great kids even thought about coming down here to help us until we yelled at them. And I'll tell you something else... when I was a kid, I would never have dreamed of giving my dad parenting advice. And he sure the hell didn't want my opinion. If I was sitting in his chair, he wouldn't even ask me to move... he'd just sit on me.
Frankie: See, now you're getting all worked up again. That's exactly what we're trying to avoid. We need to stay cool, just keep doing our work, and let the kids realize on their own that they should come down and help. Trust me, Mike, role modeling good behavior will work.
Frankie: [v.o.] It didn't.

Frankie: You're gonna punish your 23-year-old son. How are you gonna do that? Go to the college and tell the president of the university he can't have dessert?
Mike: I'll take his phone away.
Frankie: You can't do that. We're bundled. It'll unravel our whole plan. Plus, if he doesn't have a phone, we'll never hear from him again.
Mike: Well, then he can't do laundry here anymore.
Frankie: He does it at Sue's now.
Mike: He can forget about staying here for the summer.
Frankie: Said the other day if he had to stay here, he'd die.
Mike: Okay, look, you can stay down here and role model all you want, but I'm not gonna tip-toe around my kids anymore. I don't care how old he is. I'm still in charge. He's gonna listen to me. And if he's in my chair, I'm gonna sit right on him.

Mike: Well, look who decided to go out and get themselves a snack.
Axl: What?
Mike: You know what? Being a part of a family means stepping up and helping out when something goes wrong. Your mom and I are busting our butts downstairs. Hell, your sister's even down there.
Axl: But I...
Mike: But nothing! I don't want to hear anything out of your mouth unless it's "I'm sorry," and, of course, it'll be a cold day in Hell before that happens.
Axl: What are you talking about? I say I'm sorry all the time.
[flashback to Axl on the couch in his underwear:]
Axl: God, I'm sorry!
[flashback to Axl drinking straight from the tap:]
Axl: Sorry!
[flashback to Axl grumpily closing his bedroom door:]
Axl: Oh, I'm so, so sorry. [door slams]