Game Night

Connie throws a game night at her house, hoping for one evening of pure fun. Guests must follow three rules printed right on the invitation: no talking about work, no grumbling about problems, and no being too competitive. When Jason jokingly suggests that rule-breakers should sit in the corner, Connie happily adopts the idea - three strikes and the offender spends fifteen minutes in timeout. Jason arrives first and greets Jillian by her agent number, which earns Jillian an immediate strike for talking about work; since Wooton and Penny don't know about her secret government job, Jillian must spend the night in her scatterbrained cover persona. Wooton shows up alone, explaining that Penny stayed home to meet the exterminator about their ant problem, though she wants him to call regularly and put her on speakerphone so she can feel included. When Connie compliments his outfit and asks if it's a designer label, Wooton replies, "No, it's a shirt." Whit arrives last, sporting a mysterious bruise shaped like Idaho that he refuses to explain, since the story would break rule number two.

In the kitchen, Jason asks his dad whether he plans to behave, and old family history spills out. Whit remembers Jason as a boy who hated losing and cheated constantly, once painting Whit's croquet ball and the wicket with repelling magnetic paint. Jason even had a line ready when the ball veered away: "It's almost as if God didn't want that ball to go through the wicket." Jason insists he's grown up and will win fairly tonight, and a friendly father-son rivalry is officially on.

The rivalry does not go well for Jason. He and Jillian lose the trivia game because Jillian refuses to break character and answer questions her airheaded persona shouldn't know, even though Jason begs her to risk it. When Jason needles his father about the hollow victory, Connie hands him strike one for competitiveness. Meanwhile, Wooton's phone updates from Penny grow alarming: the ants seem angrier, and when Penny moves a bookcase she discovers a huge second wave of them hiding behind it. Later, the whole group corners Whit about his bruise, peppering him with guesses until he finally erupts with the story - kids at his shop's Inventors Corner were building a pulley system, argued, and let a metal weight swing loose into his face. Then he can't resist adding that the injury clearly hasn't hurt his gameplay. Connie, who has heard everything, calls it a trifecta: work, problems, and competitiveness. With three strikes at once, Whit graciously heads to the corner, and Jason picks up strike two for taunting him on the way.

The next game is a word-guessing race. Wooton and Penny, playing by speakerphone, are unstoppable and score seven. Jason realizes his only hope is to use his training to think like clueless Jillian, so he crafts clues to fit her logic - describing the eighth president as a designer shoe brand gets "Van Buren," and "our country was named after this guy" gets a correct "Captain America." The scheme works brilliantly until Connie disallows one answer on a technicality, dropping them to a tie. Jason files a protest, Jillian grumbles along, and Connie sends them both to the corner. Moments later, Penny calls with news that the exterminator has found the source of the ant invasion: a box of popsicles Wooton left out. After Penny scolds him, Wooton agrees he deserves punishment and voluntarily joins the corner crowd, while Penny sits in a corner at home - the one farthest from the ants.

With every single guest now in timeout, Connie surveys her party and gives a little speech about how nice it is to set problems aside and simply enjoy friends. But Whit gently asks whether something is wrong, and the truth pours out: Connie has had a terrible week, with a thousand-dollar car repair, Jules struggling in algebra, a clogged sink, and a scathing review of her wedding-planning business after a misprinted address sent half the guests to a pet store. She planned the whole night just to escape the stress and be nothing but a friend. Whit reminds her that friends are also meant to bear each other's burdens, but Connie isn't ready for that yet - she just wants Jason to draw a bumblebee for charades. In saying so, she blurts out the answer and realizes she has broken her own rules several times over. So Connie takes her own turn in the corner, where the absurdity of the evening finally hits her and she dissolves into laughter. Soon everyone is laughing together while Wooton narrates the scene to Penny over the phone. Connie admits this is all she really wanted - to laugh with her friends - and Wooton wishes she'd said so earlier, because he would have brought balloon animals. He can even make one shaped like Idaho.