Funny / One Day at a Time (2017)

Season One

This Is It

• Lydia says the quinces is for knowing when their little girl becomes a woman. Elena says, "You missed it. I was twelve, I was in gym, and ironically it happened in first period."
• Elena's argument against her quinces:
  Elena: I don't want to be paraded around in front of the men of the village like a piece of property to be traded for two cows and a goat!
  Lydia: Someone thinks they're worth a lot.
• This exchange:
  Elena: Abuelita, I'll learn more Spanish when you learn more English.
  Lydia: [very seriously] I know the English.
• "Jesus and Santa are cousins, everybody knows this."

Bobos and Mamitas

• Lydia has been telling Penelope since she was five to make sure that if she dies, they use the correct shade of lipstick on her body.
  Lydia and Penelope: [together] Don't let them make me up like a puta! And my shade is Scarlet Sunrise.
• Schneider mansplains what mansplaining is to Lydia and is absolutely horrified when he realizes what he's doing.
• Penelope lit a car on fire once.
• Elena took her makeup off at school because people were staring and "all these boys were talking to me, which is the last thing I want."
• Alex is horrified that his friends said Elena was cute and pretty, because he is the pretty one in the family.
• Lydia is ready to help Penelope, no matter what:
  Penelope: Mami, I did something terrible!
  Lydia: It's okay, I have a shovel.
• Lydia has never let herself be seen without makeup - well, one time, her late husband Berto did, but as soon as she realized, she jumped out of the window and assumes that he thought she was an intruder.

No Mass

• Lydia has multiple pictures of the Pope, and keeps a backup one under the counter, apparently in the event of Penelope moving the one on the fridge to Lydia's room.
• The running gag of Penelope referring to Elena's friend Carmen as a vampire or a witch while Carmen can hear her.
• Penelope wants to go hiking instead of attending church, which Lydia refers to as "hiking with Satan."
• Elena says that God is gender-neutral, but Lydia disagrees:
  Lydia: No! God is a man! If He were a woman, there would be less problems. Pobrecito God, He tries so hard.
• Lydia storming off into her room, and actually yelling "SLAM!" as she pulls the curtains closed.
• After speaking with Lydia at the church, Penelope makes the mistake of telling the kids (and Schneider) that "she's with Jesus now."

A Snowman's Tale

• After Lydia tells the story of how she and Berto met, Schneider is driven to tears and asks her to tell it again.
• Penelope doesn't quite get online dating at first: "How the hell do I do this? Do I like? Do I swipe? Do I put someone in my cart?"
• Schneider helps Penelope set up her dating profile:
  Schneider: You might also want to avoid guys who post their abs, but not their face. And anyone who says they're an entrepreneur.
  Penelope: What does your profile say?
  Schneider: I am an entrepreneur.
• Elena and Alex both mention that it's well-documented that women in their late 30s are in their sexual prime. After Alex says it, Penelope tells him to stop talking to his sister, and he says "Tell her to stop talking to me!"

Strays

• The Alvarezes take in all strays, except for cats, because "they steal your breath and turn you into a cucuy."
• Carmen turns out to be the "raccoon" on the fire escape.
• When telling the story of fleeing Cuba, Lydia can't help but mention her natural charm and perfect legs.
• Lori's drunk dancing makes Lydia say, "It makes me sad to see Americanos dance."
• This exchange:
  Carmen: We had tickets to see Frozen on Ice!
  Penelope: You like Frozen?
  Carmen: Sometimes the skaters fall.

The Death of Mrs. Resnick

• Mrs. Resnick's flaws, including windows that don't roll down, doors that don't open, and a cassette tape stuck in the deck.
• The only music that can play in Mrs. Resnick is a cassette of Toni Braxton's "Unbreak My Heart." When the car breaks down, it ends up unspooling.
  • At the end of the episode, Penelope tells her new car to play the song, and the whole family sings along, with Lydia making up dramatic background lyrics.
• While pretending to be Penelope's husband at the car dealership, Schneider drops his pen to show off his ass, and it rolls under a car. When he crawls under the car to get it, he gets freaked out by a spider.
• When Elena asks Lydia how she manages to use public transportation all the time:
  Lydia: Well, I moved here as a fifteen year old girl without my family and not speaking the language.
  Elena: Is that well ever gonna run dry?
  Lydia: They took our well.

Hold, Please

• Penelope and Elena licking the Cheetos bag.
• Lydia has been harassing Elena about finding a date for her quinces:
  Lydia: Elena, pick by the end of the day, or your escort will be Cousin Orencio.
  Elena: Cousin Orencio smells like a Dorito that died in a pool of Axe body spray. [scoffs] Good luck getting him out of Tía Mimi's basement.
  Lydia: Oh, I'll get him out of Tía Mimi's basement.
• Schneider was in a yacht rock cover band in college, which requires him to wear a pirate costume.
• Jill never tries to deal with the VA:
  Jill: I stopped calling them about my punctured eardrum.
  Penelope: That seems like a bad idea.
  Jill: [gesturing to her dress] Oh, thanks, I got it on sale.
  • When Jill arrives, she's trying to convince Penelope to join her at the street fair, and is particularly enamored with a light-up toy sword she won. She waves it around for a few seconds as it gives off lights and sound effects, then awkwardly tucks it behind her back when Penelope is clearly unimpressed. The sword's sound effects become a Running Gag throughout the rest of the episode.

One Lie at a Time

• According to Jill, the only therapy allowed in her family is Jesus. "And he must be booked up, because he is not returning my calls."
• Lydia's complete nonchalance about her fall in the hallway, and, later, the stroke she had a while ago. She is more concerned about the shoe she broke when she tripped.
• Alex is enamored with Elena's date Josh Flores, the most popular boy at school.
• Elena sends Alex up to Schneider's apartment while she has Josh over, so he decides to do a web search on lesbians, and he gets a lot of (very inappropriate) results. Schneider runs across the room to close the laptop.
• The horrified look on Penelope's face when she thinks Lydia and Dr. Berkowitz were on a date.
• After discovering that Lydia lied about going to church, Alex innocently asks how Penelope's date went. In walks Jill, returning Penelope's phone. Jill reassures the Alvarezes that she and Penelope weren't on a date, they were just at therapy, the hot new club, which gets a "You were at therapy?" from Lydia. Penelope tries to walk it back and say that, no, she was on a date with a woman, which doesn't work.

Viva Cuba

• Schneider is incredibly invested in Alex's culture project. He becomes the producer and tries to give a signed headshot for the Alvarez museum.
• They keep baby teeth in the "Alvarez Museum":
  Alex: Can we take down the shadowbox with our baby teeth in it?
  Penelope: Why would we do that? Abuelita has a whole necklace planned!
  Alex: Who would ever wear that necklace?!
  Lydia: Your bride, at your wedding!
  [The kids gag and leave]
  Penelope: I love that they think we're serious.
• Elena said "Diversity programs are part of our national responsibility to level out a systemically uneven playing field" when she was eight.

Sex Talk

• Apparently, the sex talk Lydia gave Penelope was telling her that her virginity was a handkerchief, and that she must keep men from sneezing in it. She and Dr. Berkowitz walk in and the doc gets emotional about the opera they just saw, so Lydia offers him her handkerchief.
• Lydia demands to see the porn that Alex was watching and looks at it with her opera glasses and curiously tilting her head. She then slowly closes the computer and says, "Burn this."
• When Penelope tells Alex she wants to give him the talk, he pulls a blanket over his head.
• Alex and Penelope try to figure out who was watching porn on his computer:
  Alex: Was it you?
  Penelope: No! It wasn't me.
  Alex: (horrified) Abuelita?
  Penelope: (also horrified) No!
  • Elena then walks in, greets them cheerfully, and goes to her room. Penelope sits with a Thousand-Yard Stare, while Lydia peeks her head through the curtains:
    Lydia: (stage whispering) Elena!
• Alex denies watching porn, because he knows Penelope installed software that shows her the kids' search history.
  Penelope: ...Yes, I did order and installed that. And that's how i found out about this.

Pride & Prejudice

• Penelope is disturbed to find out that Schneider and Alex knew that Elena was gay before she did.
• This exchange:
  Schneider: What does your mother think about Elena being gay?
  Penelope: When she finds out you'll know, because she'll be on the roof with a Bat-signal shaped like the Pope's hat.
  Schneider: He does have a Popemobile...and a cape. Huh.
• When it seems that Lydia has a problem with Elena's sexuality, Lydia thinks Penelope will judge her for being a "homo-fallopian".
• Schneider wants to go with Alex for his away games, and Penelope threatens him with waterboarding if Alex gets hurt.
• Elena is videochatting with Carmen, who has apparently gotten really into saying "y'all" while living in Texas. When Penelope enters, Carmen greets her as "Ms. Y'alvarez".

Hurricane Victor

• While on a date with Ben, Penelope keeps getting texts from Lydia about Victor coming home. When she puts her phone on silent, Lydia texts Ben, and he and Penelope are both confused as to how she got his number.
• "Victor is showing us a picture of a funny camel. It is very tiny, it has no humps, and...it is a dog."
• When Alex plays his part of the quartet, a single riff on his cello, Lydia says "My God, he is a genius."
  • Later, at the recital, she bursts into tears when he plays.
• Victor gets Elena a Latina princess doll as gift:
  Elena: Hi princess, I'm Elena. (falsetto voice) "Hi. My body proportions are not representative of a typical girl my age." (normal voice) At least you know.

Quinces

• This scene:
  Alex: It's gonna be fine, but Tía Mimi just got a call, and you know the Fajardos?
  Penelope: (rapidly) Rosita, Diana, Marta, Cristina, Juanito and Baby Juanito? Can't come because of a baptism on Rosita's mother's side?
  Alex: [beat] They're coming.
  Penelope: [groans loudly] Oh, come on! I should have known better! The Fajardos are OG Cubans. They run on Caribbean time! Cristina was pregnant with Baby Juanito for eleven months and she still thinks he was premature!
• Lydia's reaction when Elena is not literally sobbing with joy over her quinces dress.
  Lydia: I have failed you. I have failed my family. I have failed Cuba.
• Poor Dr. Berkowitz accidentally knocks over Penelope's precious seating chart for the quinces. Before a room full of shocked Alvarezes, all he can say is, "I don't feel safe."
  • This turns out to be Penelope's breaking point, and she backs into Lydia's room in shock; from there she lets out a long Cathartic Scream and steps out as if nothing happened.
    Penelope: [brushing tears from her face] Gracias, estoy bien.

Season Two

The Turn

• The cooler of "snacks" they bring to the baseball game. Rice and beans in one container, meat and veggies in another and cookies in the cookie tin but they're not the cookies that came with the tin.
• Schneider always thought he was homolingual, but it turns out he's actually bi(lingual).
• Schneider's reaction to learning Elena and Syd have been harassed: "Should we call the police? Wait, the army! No, Oprah! She'll know what to do!"
• Schneider also gets discriminated against:
  Schneider: There's a word that people sometimes call me too.
  Penelope: Clueless?
  Lydia: Moocher?
  Elena: Trust-fund man child baby?
• Lydia gets ready to tell the family the worst word she has ever been called, but keeps stalling. She tells Schneider to stand next to her because she's going to faint, and then she asks for something to drink before Penelope gets frustrated and just tells her to say it.
• Elena gets upset at realizing she's white-passing:
  Elena: You’re saying I’m going to go through my whole life without being oppressed at all?
  Schneider: Hey, you're still gay.
  Elena: Yes! That's right! And a woman, I'm back in!

Schooled

• When Elena tells Penelope that she's starting a Gay-Straight Alliance at school, Alex snarks, "You're gay? I forgot because you haven't mentioned it in the last five minutes."
• Schneider shows off his snowglobe collection and is very proud of it, until Penelope spots one of the Alvarezes.
  • When he's laid up on the Alvarez's couch after a spin class incident, he mentions that the Alvarezes together looks just like his snowglobe.
• Penelope's preferred study method is "coffee and tears".

To Zir, With Love

• Elena's queer video gaming group introduces themselves along with their pronouns. Penelope says her thoughts are "what?" and "huh?" and Lydia says her pronouns are "Lee-dee-a".
• Elena explains to Alex that an "Oh..." from a girl after you've asked her out means "I'm not gay and you think I am and now we have a situation."
• Lydia tells Elena that she must be bold with her flirting, but Elena remarks that she's been told by more than a few people that she is "a lot". Mostly by Lydia.
• Lydia tries to find out whether Dani likes girls:

Lydia: Excuse me, "she". What color lipstick are you wearing?
Dani: Oh, I don't wear lipstick, just Chapstick.
Lydia: Oh, nice! [walks over to Elena] Gay.

• Alex attempts to flirt with some pretty girls Elena brought home... all of whom are gay.
  Lydia: Ay, papito. You are barking up so many wrong trees.
• When Syd asks Elena out, she accidentally does the "Oh..." to them, and when Syd takes it as a rejection, Elena yells, "No, no! Gay, me gay!" Syd just says "Oh, me gay too!"

Roots

• When Alex wants to see a movie:
  Elena: I know, why don't you pluck your one mustache hair, and you can get the kid's price?
  Alex: Why don't you pluck your twenty mustache hairs?
  Elena: Joke's on you, because each one of these mustache hairs is a blow to the patriarchy.
  Alex: (sarcastically) Oh, you win.
• This bit:
  Penelope: What have I told you about comparing yourself to other people?
  Alex: To always do it and make sure I'm better.
  Penelope: No, that's your abuelita.
• Penelope tries to defend the fact that she doesn't vote in mid-term elections by saying that she votes in other ways, like taking a lot of online quizzes. Turns out, she's a Hufflepuff.
• When Elena wants to talk to Lydia about becoming a citizen, Lydia told her that she could only do it if she spoke in Spanish. When Elena does, Lydia admits that she thought that was going to get her out of it.
• "You know, everything is a big deal to you. If I light a candle, I am killing the air. If I shop at Walmart, I am killing mom and pop. If I cook pork, I am somehow killing pigs.
• Elena's eagerness to vote someday sounds a lot like something else: "I can't wait for my first time. And I hope I do it right. I was really hoping my first time would be with Hillary, but I can picture myself doing it with Elizabeth Warren."
• When Lydia locks everyone out of the apartment, Penelope asks Schneider for his key. When he hands it over she says, "Thank you, I've been trying to get this away from you for two years." He then shows off his keyring and says, "Nice try, these are all for your apartment."

Locked Down

• Penelope thinks Doctor Who is a medical show. Lydia has to be the one to tell her, "He is a Time Lord, everybody knows this."
• To distract her mother, Penelope says, "There are more than three people in this apartment and no one is cooking? What kind of Cuban are you?" Lydia replies, "You're right. Mala Cubana!"
• Lydia tries to give Max relationship advice:
  Lydia: Yes Max, you deserve someone with beauty and brains and shares the same passion as you to help people, like a nurse. [to Penelope] Remind me honey, what is it you do every day?
  Penelope: Price one-way flights back to Cuba.
• Some Crosses the Line Twice humour: During the lock down, Penelope discovers Lydia has been keeping a gun in the apartment without her knowing, and orders her mother to take it to the police first thing. Lydia takes this to mean she should wave over to the police helicopter and shout, "We have a gun!" Fortunately, Penelope clarifies she was talking about the police station before the worst happened.
• After Syd and Elena's Big Damn Kiss, the armed helicopter's spotlight shines on them.
  Pilot: KISSING TEENAGERS! PLEASE GO BACK INSIDE!
  Elena: IN A MINUTE!

Work Hard, Play Hard

• Schneider and Elena are playing a video game together. Schneider thinks he's doing great, until Elena tells him he's looking at the wrong part of the screen.
• Penelope says that "do what you love and the money will follow" is for rich white ladies who want to make jewelry.
• "The American flag has fifty stars, and Cuba has one: Me.
• At the end of the episode, Schneider gives Elena a job working as a handyman in the building. She walks in dressed like the original Schneider and says, "Check it out, I'm butch."

Exclusive

• Lydia tries to deny that she's angry about Dr. Berkowitz taking another woman to the opera: "I am very, how do you say...very chill. ¡Carajo!" She then yanks her curtains closed so hard that they fall to the ground.
• Penelope refers to Lydia's opera outfit as "Latina Breakfast at Tiffany's" when she asks why she thinks Dr. Berkowitz won't recognize her. Lydia reveals that she isn't wearing earrings, so he'll never know.
• Schneider compares going to the opera to spy on Dr. Berkowitz with going to the horse track with one of his step-mothers to spy on his father.
• Elena wonders about the identity of the person Alex's been texting, 'P', and theorizes that it's a boy: "Elena, I've been waiting for the right time to tell you, but I'm straight."
• Dr. Berkowitz's mystery date turns out to be a Puerto Rican woman who wears the same shade of lipstick as Lydia. After Lydia learns this, she smears the lipstick all over the bathroom before revealing that she bought a whole case of it before it was discontinued.

What Happened

• This:
  Elena: He's been lying about having a girlfriend!
  Lydia: Papito's gay too? I will be the only woman he's ever loved? Okay, I'm good.
• In a flashback to just after Elena's birth, Victor comments to Penelope, "I installed the car seat. Then your father reinstalled it. Then your mother reinstalled it. Then they started arguing... then they started making out! When I left them, they were salsa dancing in the parking lot."
  • Also in the flashbacks, Schneider's utterly ridiculous hairstyle.
• At one point, Alex called Victor a "typical cisgender male", which Elena couldn't be prouder of.
• Lydia says she hasn't yet had her turn at hugging Alex, and he complains, "My whole life has been your turn."

Hello, Penelope

• Lydia tells Max that she is too old and weak to walk to the bathroom herself, so he carries her. When he turns around, Lydia sticks her tongue out at Penelope.
• Penelope tells Lydia to be quiet, or she'll tell Max that Lydia doesn't have eyebrows.
• According to Lydia, Vick's VapoRub cured Tía Neni's appendicitis.
• Lydia in confession: "You know, I don't understand these things. Depression, anxiety, OCD...I was just thinking about them the other night when I got up at 3:00 am to do my makeup and clean the sponges." Later, when Padre Jose tells her that taking on others' suffering isn't possible, she asks, "Is that not what Jesus did?" and he admits that she has a good point.
• This lovely bit of Crosses the Line Twice from Schneider.
  Schneider: So it's Fourth of July, 2011. I'd been sober for a while, so I thought I'd celebrate with a beer. Woke up three days later in an alley. (beat) Then the bowling ball hit me. I was in the gutter for a long time. (beat) It's really slippery without the shoes.
• Penelope admits that Schneider might actually be her best friend, which really does make her depressed.

Storage Wars

• Lydia hangs up multiple curtains to hide the junk she's stashed in her room.
• When Schneider's tending to his bonsai tree, Elena sees that he's included figures of the Alvarez family, which he quickly covers.
• When trying to make a point about Lydia's hoarding, Penelope says that there's an entire television show about people like her. Lydia responds, "It is called Dancing with the Stars, and it's fabulous!"
• Penelope made Alex dumpster dive for an entire day, trying to get back magazines that Lydia supposedly stashed money in.
• Lydia asks Penelope if she would still be shopping at Marshall's if she had secret money. She would, because she loves Marshall's, and she'd shop there even more.
• Lydia tries to cheer Elena up by watching The Love Boat with her. Elena remarks that it's nice that they had an openly gay cruise director in Julie, which shocks Lydia.

Homecoming

• Syd asks Elena to Homecoming with a "We Didn't Start the Fire" parody.
• Elena says she doesn't understand why she's never been popular, before yelling at another student for trying to throw out a soda can instead of recycling it.
• Elena and Syd reaffirm that they don't care that the other doesn't have any friends, and then remark that they should really get some friends.
• "It's not my fault people hate powerful women. The same thing happened to Hillary." "You can't say that about everything."
• "Will you be my starter wife?"
• While speaking to Sister Barbara, Schneider attempts the sign of the cross. He is awful at it.

Citizen Lydia

• When Schneider tells Penelope that she's the greatest mom he knows, she says that it means a lot coming from a guy with five moms.
• According to Schneider, you only need to get 60% right on the citizenship test to pass:
  Elena: Basically, to become an American, you need to prove that you're a D- student.
  Schneider: Yep, it's the same requirement as it is to become the president.
• Schneider wore an American flag outfit to his citizenship test, and worries that he doesn't look American enough and that he should've brought a gun.
• When Schneider gets called up for his test, Elena and Alex encourage him. After he leaves, they say he's screwed and that they're going to miss him.
• Lydia changes her curtain to the American flag to celebrate passing her citizen ship test.
• When Penelope reveals that she's broken up with Max, Elena just says, "I knew he was too pretty to be straight."

Not Yet

• Penelope's wedding started a half-hour late because Lydia needed to adjust her tiara, because she wanted to match a little figure of herself on the cake.
• Lydia once told Alex that tears are the pee-pee of the face.
• Nurse Wally asks if Elena and Alex and Penelope's kids and she tells him that they're actually kids she picked up outside to show what a coma looks like.
• As Alex does Lydia's nails, he tells her about the homily at church that was also in Spider-Man, that Elena didn't burst into flames when she walked into the church, and that he recorded her soap opera, "El Amor y La Sangre" and that, while he won't give her any spoilers, "Francisco está vivo!"
• When Tía Mimi got sick, thirteen relatives prayed by her bedside even though she just had pinkeye, and then they all got pinkeye.
  • When Dr. Berkowitz arrives, he asks Penelope is he's intruding, she says it's fine, because Tío Felix is on his way to the hospital with sangria and a karaoke machine. "The more, the merrier!"
• Penelope and Elena both gasp when they realize Lydia isn't wearing earrings.
• Nurse Wally starts crying when he hears what Elena said to Lydia, because in Pittsburgh, it's "steel town, steal hearts" and he hasn't cried since his fish Tupac died.
• Schneider puts up string lights and fake candles in Lydia's hospital room and gives her his snowglobe of the family.
  • "Don't worry, I haven't legally changed my last name to Alvarez. [beat] My lawyer said it was a whole thing, so..."
• Padre Jose gives Penelope a jar of Vick's VapoRub that he blessed, because science and religion can exist side-by-side.
• A bit of Black Comedy:
  Penelope: (to Lydia) You can't have a stroke to win an argument, Mami! That's not fair.
• "And now, Elena's going to be graduating from high school, then college, then graduate school, then a doctorate. I just wish I could be there to say, 'You can't go to school forever, get a job!'"

Season Three

The Funeral

• The way the entire family is in utter and complete denial over Pilar having come out as gay years ago. This includes the Running Gag of folks just holding up their hands as a "you know" gesture rather than say it.
  • When Pilar explains she used the mantilla for her wedding to her girlfriend, everyone is thrown to realize "that was a wedding?"
    • Made better when she reminds them that they were at the wedding
• The different nicknames for the tías. Especially Penelope's, "tía divorce".
• The very idea of Estrellita trying to lead a family of Cuban-Americans (that includes a few gay people) in a toast to "our President making America great again." The slow double-takes as Penelope asks "I'm sorry, what?" and the quick cut to credits makes it better.
• Early in the episode, Lydia mentions that if Mirtha comes to the Alvarez home, she will never make it past the cross hanging in Lydia's room. Watch carefully: Mirtha never does.

Outside

• Elena and Syd are trying to think of a more inclusive term for Syd than "girlfriend". Penelope suggests "better half," but since Elena doesn't want to call Syd half a person, she suggest "better whole", which Penelope rejects.
• Schneider comes in with suggestions, despite Syd and Elena specifically telling him not to help. His ideas include:
  • Main Squeeze
  • Person friend
  • Gay of Sunshine
  • Partners ("We're not lawyers.")
  • Lovers ("We're not gross.")
  • Longtime companion ("We're not two 70 year old men suing each other over custody of a bulldog.")
  • Queer dear
  • Non bi-nosaur
  • Mighty Morphin' Power Gaynger (Which Syd says is too 90's.)
  • Finally, the winner was Syd-nificant other.
• Syd remarks that Alex probably posted about his girlfriend on his Finsta. Elena slowly turns to them and says, "Your favorite book is "Chamber of Secrets", why can't you keep them?"
  • Elena's Finsta is her cosplaying Wynnona Earp, while Syd's is their chinchilla in drag, which Schneider requests to follow.
• Alex lets Penelope's coworker Scott follow his Finsta, so Penelope steals his phone to see it, and later remarks that it probably gave her HPV.
• The instructor of the sexual harassment seminar that Dr. Berkowitz and Scott went to told them "Don't be creepy, don't be douchey, don't be Scott."
• Lydia tells a story about her sister Mimi and her husband Rico. Mimi initally didn't like Rico because he was kind of ugly, so he broke into Mimi's room, blindfolded her, and drove her out to his farm, where he told her that if she married him, it would all be hers, and she ended up marrying him. Lydia doesn't see anything wrong with this story and thinks it's very romantic.

Benefit With Friends

• "I don't trust that doctor. The first thing she did was weigh me, and after that everything she said was clouded with jealousy."
• Elena puts Lydia's curtains on remote control. As they slowly open, Lydia says, "You should have let me die."
• Lydia tries to prove that she isn't too old to wear her old dancing shoes, so she dances around in them and hurts her ankle.

Hermanos

• The last time the Alvarezes went on vacation, Alex was too young to form memories. When Penelope asks where he thinks his Mickey Mouse ears came from, he says "The dollar store. They're not even Mickey Mouse, they're Ricky Rat."
• "Planes are the trash cans of the sky, everybody knows this."
• The noise Elena makes when she vomits, described as a sad foghorn or a drunken moose.
• To get the nice hotel room, Penelope combined her student ID, her USAA, and her AAA discount. She also said she was a travel agent, didn't mention Lydia would be there, and told the hotel that Alex and Elena were twelve year old twins.
• According to Penelope, hotel minibars were introduced by the CIA to publish poor people.
• The montage of Dr. Berkowitz and Schneider bonding, including them seriously discussing whether Earth has enough water to support the population.
• Schneider and Dr. Berkowitz discuss the doc's use of medical marijuana:
  Dr. Berkowitz: I just need them to help me sleep. I'm such an old guy cliche. You know, with the tossing, and the turning, and the constant night terrors of my ex-wife and daughters strangling me.
  Schneider: Oh my god, that sounds awful.
  Dr. Berkowitz: Just my ex is strangling me, my daughters are filling my pockets with rocks. I don't know much about dreams. Maybe it means something good.
  Schneider: Our minds are such mysteries.
• Lydia has told the story of her debut as a dancer so many times that Tito and Penelope can tell the story with her. Lydia just says, "I am so happy that I brought you into this world to laugh at me. Because of your giant heads that I pee when I cough."
• After Penelope makes Elena go with Alex because she doesn't want them wandering around alone:
  Tito: Remember Mami never let us go to the freezer section of the supermarket alone, because we might accidentally get trapped in there?
  Penelope: [imitating Lydia] "In the freezer, nobody can hear you scream!"
  Both: "Everybody knows this!"
  Lydia: So did you freeze to death? You're welcome.
• Penelope is more like Lydia than she thinks:
  Elena: Remember when we were little, Mami wouldn't let us go on the seesaw because we weren't the same weight?
  Alex: [imitating Penelope] "You're gonna launch your brother into freaking space!"

Nip It in the Bud

• Dr Berkowitz and Elena make the same "opera-tunity" pun, so Lydia looks to the sky and says, "Berto, I am ready!"
• Penelope's first concert was at seventeen, and she saw Lisa Lisa. Lydia's confused because she thinks Penelope's first concert was at 23 to see Julio Iglesias. Penelope agrees with her and says that the Lisa Lisa concert was just a dream that she had where she snuck out, but really she was just sleeping like two pillows under a blanket.
• Penelope walks into Schneider's apartment because she needs to talk to him, and he jumps to cover something on his coffee table. It turns out to be a puzzle of the family, and he says the only piece missing is him. Later, he asks Penelope to take a picture of himm so he can Photoshop himself into the puzzle.
• Schneider and Penelope go to the concert dressed as hipsters to spy on Alex, who Penelope made wear a red and white striped shirt. Schneider got his beard trimmed at the grooming tent, but decided against eyelash extensions because the line was too long.
• At the opera:
  Elena: Aria ready for some opera?
  Syd: I give that pun a tenor so.
  Lydia: You think I would survive this fall?
• Penelope grounding Alex, capped off with: "The next time you be allowed to go to a concert, robots will rule the galaxy! And music will be outlawed anyway!"
• When Penelope's at therapy, Ramona tells a story: "So, he shows me a drill and I say, 'You better put that thing away or you're gonna need a dentist!' So whatever, now I'm banned from Home Depot." Pam notes that she's gotten banned from every other store in the Westfield Mall.
• Penelope tells her therapy group about how she caught Alex smoking pot and that he said he would stop, saying she "nipped it in the bud". They all start laughing, and she thinks it's because of her pun before they tell her that it's because Alex played her.
• Penelope searched Alex's whole room top to bottom, looking for marijuana. Schneider looks around for a literal second, and produces a stash from a fake can of deodorant.
• Lydia unknowingly takes Dr. Berkowitz's medical marijuana, causing her to trip out at the opera.
  (rises up from behind Doc's chair, pointing at the stage) "THE CASTROS HAVE FOUND ME!"
• Lydia eats Cheetos just like Penelope and Elena.

One Valentine's Day at a Time

• Penelope and Mateo both stole food from the all-you-can-eat buffet.
• Lydia claims that Dr. Berkowitz is the chaperone for her and Alex's outing to a bocce ball tournament.
• Syd's increasingly less subtle hints that they would rather go to Benihana for Valentine's Day instead of running in a marathon for heart disease.
• "Everybody knows that going out with wet hair is almost as deadly as walking barefoot in your own home!"
  • Mateo later backs that up, claiming that it's how his Tío Paco died, instead of the cancer that his doctors claimed it was.
• Schneider, trying to convince Avery that he's poor, recounts the plot of Forrest Gump like it was his life. Avery and Syd totally fall for it.
• Dr. Berkowitz's wife left him on Valentine's Day. And the divorce papers arrived on April Fools Day.
• The only reason Avery believed Schneider about being poor is because she's also rich and pretending to be poor, so she also has no idea what poor people are like.
• Penelope and Mateo fight over who's more overprotective. Penelope wins when she says she makes the kids wear flip-flops in their own shower.

The First Time

• Dr. Berkowitz describes how when his credit card got stolen, the thief started small and worked their way up, living his best life. When Penelope asks if he cancelled the card, he says he wanted to see what he would've done next.
• While Penelope is on the phone with the hotel trying to reverse the charge, Elena walks out and sees Penelope's laptop opened on her credit card statement. She tries to sneak away, but Penelope stops her when she hears that the name on the card was "Elena Alvarez".
• Elena tries to say that she was at the hotel because a few people had died there and she was ghost-hunting.
• Penelope finds out Elena and Syd have had sex, and the look on her face is like she’s staring into a Stygian abyss.
• Penelope sends Alex to talk to Schneider about irresponsible spending. Specifically, she wanted Schneider to show Alex all of the stupid stuff he's wasted money on, so Alex doesn't end up like him, which she calls "Scared Smart". All Schneider says is that Penelope's really been leaning on him as a co-parent.
• Penelope says that as far as Lydia knows, she only had sex once, to make Elena. When Ramona asks how Lydia thinks Alex happened, Penelope says that Lydia tells everyone that Alex is her son.
• Alex decides to sell the shoes Lydia got for him and use the money to take her out to dinner. And unlike Penelope, he's going to let her get an appetizer and a beverage.
• "One day you're fine. The next day you have sex. The day after that, the boy you lost your virginity to doesn't call you back, and you're filling the glove compartment of his Camaro with tuna so he knows he messed with the wrong girl. Then you're called 'Tunelope' for the rest of high school. Worth it? Yes!"
• After Penelope bursts in on them making out, Elena asks Syd if they can go to their house. They can't, because Syd is homeschooled and their parents are holding football tryouts for their brother.
• Penelope sends Alex to keep an eye on Syd and Elena while she's in the bathroom, which he refers to as "chaperoning two horny nerds".
• After Penelope says Alex can't have the next day off from being grounded:
  Lydia: Psst! Papito! [gestures for him to join her] Do you, ah, need something from the outside?
  Alex: The new Yeezys drop tomorrow.
  Lydia: Jesus is coming back tomorrow? I just spoke to him, he didn't tell me anything. [crosses herself]
  Alex: Yeezys are shoes, and if I'm not in line at the store tomorrow, they'll all be gone.
  Lydia: Consider it done. I will get you those shoes even if I have to cut off somebody's feet!
  Alex: You just have to stand in line.
  Lydia: Oh fine, suck the fun out of it. Which reminds me, I will invite Leslie.
• Lydia says she'll get Alex the sneakers that go best with his church pants. When he says no, she says she'll get whatever's on sale, which Alex thinks is worse.
• To set the mood, Syd made a playlist with all of the sexiest songs. It starts with the X-Files theme.
• When Elena reveals that she took all of the hotel toiletries, Penelope starts crying with joy and says that Elena really is a woman now.

She Drives Me Crazy

• Lydia painted Dr. Berkowitz running from a bull. He thinks it really captures his essence, and Penelope agrees with him.
• Penelope's idea of teaching Elena to drive is watching her parallel park and screaming "We're all gonna die!" She says Elena is stuck with her unless she can find a sucker with nothing better to do, so Dr. Berkowitz says he'll teach Elena.
• "I have two great legacies: my family recipes, and a neckline that almost capsized a Carnival Cruise.
• Lydia refuses to write down her recipes because she believes that her sister Mirtha will break in, steal the recipes, rappel out the window, and use the recipes to win Chopped.
• Part of Dr. Berkowitz's 42-point system for driving includes looking into the rear-view mirror and saying "Hot cakes! Am I a winner?"
• Penelope says that Lydia's recipe for ropa vieja is so secret that she buys each ingredient at a different store so the cashiers can't reconstruct the recipe. Lydia says that it's actually the bag boys: "'Please, let us help you to your car.' I know what you're up to, comunistas!"
• Elena and Dr. Berkowitz have the same taste in music: sapphic folk.
• When it's revealed that one of the things on Lydia's list was "Fix Penelope", Penelope is mad. Lydia insists that it is little tweaks, just as Alex comes in telling her that the teeth-whitening trays she ordered arrived. When he sees Penelope he runs out of the room.
• Lydia keeps her recipes in the Bible, because Mirtha can't touch them without burning her hands. She also wrote the recipes in code, and the key will be delivered upon her death.

Anxiety

• Penelope's anxiety fantasies are hilariously overdramatic.
• Cynthia says her worst-case scenario is the world-ending and she has to eat her mother, and the whole time her mother is saying things like "You are still too skinny!"
• All the women in the therapy group get freaked out by fireworks. Ramona says, "The other day, a kid through a snap at me. Next thing I know, I had him in a headlock. Now the judge says I've got to clean some parks."
• After an anxiety attack, Alex asks if Penelope is okay and why she's breathing heavily. She says that the ghost of his abuelito just passed through her. Alex accepts this, because Lydia comes out of her curtain all sweaty and says that too.
• After Ramona found out her girlfriend was cheating on her, she was about to set her clothes on fire. When Pam says that she hopes Ramona reminded herself of what was real, Ramona says that what was real was a can of gas in one hand and a book of matches in the other, but stopped herself before she could go all Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes on her stuff.
• Penelope, while defending leaning on Schneider after an anxiety attack, refers to him as a "privileged, hipster, clueless man-baby who thinks he's Latino but still pronounces the H in 'Hola'" and "white noise". Ramona says that he is the "whitest of noises".
• Elena high on test prepping.
  Elena: You taking your practise NP test. Me taking my practise SAT test. Mine's harder. No-I'm-kidding-actually-I'm-not. NextstopYale!
• Fat baby pictures don't help calm down Penelope or Elena, because they worry about the babies' health.
• Pam says that the group has made a lot of progress: it's been two years since Ramona set anything on fire, which makes everyone cheer.
• Penelope knows exactly where her anxiety came from:
  Lydia: Lupita! Remember we went to the park last weekend, and there were so many mosquitoes swarming everywhere? I think they had the Zikas. And now we have the Zikas!
  Penelope: Okay Mami, good night.
  Lydia: No, no! Pero, Elena bumped her head on a kitchen cabinet, un tremendo cocotaso. We should not have let her go to sleep. If she has a concussion, she will die. I went to check on her. Her breathing is relaxed. Too relaxed. Sueña con los angelitos.

The Man

• When Penelope pictures Schneider's dad, she thinks of the Monopoly man, but that's actually Schneider's Uncle Doug.
• Avery is Schneider's ace in the hole: his father will like her because she's rich and beautiful, but he won't want to date her because she's over 30.
• Schneider knocks on the door when he shows up to introduce his father, also dressed in a suit. Penelope is suitably weirded out, especially by Schneider's tone, which sounds something like a door-to-door salesman.
  Penelope: Since when do you knock? And dress like American Psycho?
  Schneider: I always knock. I'm the landlord. It's a courtesy!
  Penelope: Did you join a cult? Again?
• The brief Running Gag where Penelope starts to walk towards Schneider's dad every time he says something offensive, with the obvious intention of hurting him, and Schneider grabs her by the shoulders and holds her still.
• Penelope is incredibly confused by the conversation between Avery and Schneider's father, which Schneider refers to as "cha-ching-lish".
• The new dryers in the laundry room play music when they're done; Lydia tells them not to quit their day jobs.
• When Lydia discovers Alex's vape pen and marijuana in Penelope's laundry, a panicking Alex tries to say that it's a pen set and some catnip, and obviously someone was writing letters to a cat.
• The descriptions of wives: the first wife is for breeding, the second is for spite, the third is to forget the second, the fourth wife is Asian, and the fifth is 30 years younger so it circles back around to breeding.
• Elena refers to herself as the "white devil" because her hard work on the building contributed to gentrification.
• Lydia wants a fried egg, so she can show Penelope what her brain looks like on drugs, and then yells that she is never going to stop yelling at her.
• Lydia refers to using marijuana as "riding the green dragon" and "tossing the devil's salad".

A Penny and a Nicole

• Lydia reaffirms her support for Elena, saying that she can go from zero to flipping the table. Later, after Victor announces his engagement, we see her straining to flip the table.
• Victor's new girlfriend Nicole walks in, and she is nearly identical to Penelope, which Victor doesn't seem to have realized. Penelope and Nicole stare at each other and then look at Victor, while Alex just says that Victor has a type.
• Schneider walks in, greeting Nicole like she's Penelope then greeting Penelope at which point he realizes what's going on and is weirded out.
  • Made better by when he goes to shake Nicole's hand after being introduced and pauses to check with Penelope.
    Schneider: Wait, am I mad about this?
    Penelope: All good.
• Lydia recruited Dr. Berkowitz, dressed as Dick Tracey, to help her spy on Victor at the restaurant.
• Penelope and her friends from the support group go to a bar so Penelope can drown her sorrows about Victor and Nicole. Now very drunk, Penelope rants that Nicole is a special education teacher — the one job you absolutely cannot mock. Ramona, also plastered, indignantly shouts, "She did that on purpose!"
• After Victor talks about Nicole's queer sister, Mia, Elena says, "Oh, so you're cool with her. Did you go to her quinces?" which leads to this:
  Schneider: I gotta go to the bathroom. If there's gonna be a big dramatic scene, wait till I get back.
  Lydia: Of course, I can't flip this table by myself.

Drinking and Driving

• This exchange at the beginning of the episode:
  Penelope: Mami, we need to talk.
  Lydia: Hold on, I'm watching the President. Oh, wait. It is a hemmorhoid commercial. Hold up.
• When Penelope says that she thinks Schneider fell off the wagon, Lydia goes into a tangent about her cousin Miguel who fell off of a wagon, rolled down a hill and into a cave of bats, lived among them for many years, and can see in the dark to this day.
• After an encounter with Schneider:
  Penelope: He's definitely drinking again.
  Lydia: What? You saw him. He's his normal self.
  Penelope: Oh yeah? Because before he came in, he knocked.
  Lydia: [Dramatic Gasp]
• Dr. Berkowitz is quizzing Elena for her driving test. One of the questions is what to do if Elena sees a nun crossing the street. ^note Do not hit her.
• It's been one full year since Lydia told Dr. Berkowitz that she had absolutely no romantic feelings for him, which he calls a "non-iversary".
• As Elena waits to take her driving test, another student pulls up with one of the headlights hanging off, and weeps that she shouldn’t have studied exactly like Elena did.
• Elena starts to have an anxiety attack, so Alex urges her to think of something calming like the Supreme Court lady she likes, Darth Vader Ginsburg. Elena refers to her as "the tiny old lady who's clinging to life with one hand and to our frail democracy with the other", which sends Dr. Berkowitz into an anxiety attack.
• When Lydia discovers an almost-empty bottle of alcohol hidden in a yoga mat, Schneider tries to deny that it's his. Lydia unfurls the yoga mat to reveal Schneider's name in capital letters.
• Dr. Berkowitz takes a look at Lydia's bouquet list:
  Dr. Berkowitz: "Take a hot-air balloon ride". No can do, I'm afraid.
  Alex: Heights?
  Dr. Berkowitz: Baskets. Let's see, "Kiss Andy Garcia", "Kiss Julio Iglesias", "Kiss the ugly Property Brother to make the handsome Property Brother jealous".
  Alex: This part of the list was after she had some rum.
  Dr. Berkowitz: "Buy more rum".
• At the AA meeting Penelope accompanies Schneider to, she finds out his first name. It's Pat. Her response is to mouth it at him in confusion and he just shrugs at her while she makes a judgy face.

Ghosts

• When Schneider notes how nice it was of Victor to invite him and Dr. Berkowitz to the wedding, Dr. Berkowitz says that since they're his ex-wife's landlord and his ex-mother-in-law's non-sexual platonic companion, they're practically family.
• Penelope, to use Alex's term, "flipping out" before Victor's wedding.
  Penelope: [in hair rollers and a bathrobe] There are only two types of people who go to their ex-husband's wedding. Psychopaths... and heroes. Guess which one I am?
  [An insanely awkward pause as everyone avoids eye contact.]
  Penelope: I'M A HERO! Now, let's go!
  [Penelope storms out, still in the bathrobe and rollers.]
  Elena: ...When she comes back in, nobody make eye contact.
  [Five seconds later, Penelope walks back in and walks with purpose to her bedroom, while everyone looks anywhere but her face.]
• Schneider and Lydia talk about his broken heart:
  Schneider: I gotta move on, but it's hard.
  Lydia: Well, of course. It takes time to heal. [suddenly] Leslie! It's go-time!
  [Dr. Berkowitz walks over with a woman.]
  Dr. Berkowitz: This is Anna-Maria, she's a swimsuit model.
  Schneider: Ugh, fine!
• Lydia has "Spread Berto's ashes in Cuba" on her bouquet list, but since it's too painful for her to return to Cuba, what she meant was "Go to Miami, find a pier, wait until sundown, play Berto's favorite song, and then spread his ashes on the ocean so he can find his way back to Cuba" because he's an excellent swimmer. Dr. Berkowitz says that it's so obvious in retrospect.
• Lydia lets Dr. Berkowitz take her to Miami. Same hotel, different rooms. When he says he'll start booking the flights, she says they can even take the same flight.
• When talking to her about Mateo, fantasy-Berto tells Penelope that he and Lydia only had sex strictly for procreation. When she tells him the lie was a nice try, he admits that he could barely get through it.
• "And as a wise man said, love is the three-point shot you should always take. [beat] It was me."
• Elena once went through the Bible and put an S in front of all the "he's".
• Another item on Lydia's bouquet list was to master a dance from another culture, so Dr. Berkowitz requests the Chicken Dance. Lydia swore that she would never do it because she has dignity, but decides to do it now that she is an American.
• Schneider is initially more excited that Lydia called him an Alvarez than he is that Avery came to the reception.

Season Four

Checking Boxes

• After being canceled by Netflix and rising from the dead on network TV, how does the show come back?
  Alex: It's like there's nothing good on Netflix anymore.
• Ray Romano makes a guest appearance as a census taker. "See you in ten years. Ah, who am I kidding? In ten years, President Kardashian's gonna do away with us all."

Penny Pinching

• Alex and Nora telling the story of how they met. She saw his shoes, complimented them, and he gives her a confident nod.
  Nora: (smitten) And we've been together ever since!
  Elena: God, it's so easy being straight!
• Penelope summarizing the last few minutes.
  Penelope: Oookay! Elena is gay, Alex is a catch, and you are making everyone uncomfortable!
• Dr. Berkowitz is drafted to be Elena's designated adult passenger with her having just gotten her license.
  Dr. Berkowitz: They always said staring at the phone wouldn't make it ring. It took twenty years, but I proved them wrong!

Boundaries

• The episode is about Alex walking in on Penelope masturbating. Enough said.
  Lydia: It's Adam and Eve, not bzzt and Eve!
• Elena hears her mother arguing with Lydia about the normal activity of female self-pleasure.
  Elena: Oooooh! Can I tag in?

One Halloween at a Time

• Lydia accuses Penelope of sleeping over at Max's.
  Penelope: No, Mami. We just had pizza and read the bible.
• Penelope immediately starts roasting Alex for his new silver hair, and Lydia remarks that he looks just like Berto, which makes Alex rethink his decision.
  Lydia: Tonight, I will dress you in your abuelo's suit, and we will dance!
  Alex: Oooooh, I've made a big mistake.
  • At the end of the episode, she asks if "grandpa" could take them out for ice cream around the corner to celebrate Avery's pregnancy.
• Elena and Syd dressing up a Greta Thunberg and a melting ice berg respectively. No one gets who they are, being called Dorothy and the Tornado, to Anna and Olaf.
  Syd: ...We didn't think this through.
• Lydia and Dr. Berkowitz are dressed as Belle and the Beast, but Lydia didn't realize it's a couple's costume because she's never seen the movie.
• Schneider and Avery keep coming in with different costumes for a competition.
  • He then says they need to have a good costume to win the trophy because he never wins anything.
    Elena: You're a cisgender white man, you've literally won at life!
    Schneider: ...But I wanna win the trophy!
• The discovery that someone threw away a pregnancy test in the trash. When Lydia discovers it, Dr. Berkowitz gets on his knees and swears to treat the child as his own, causing Lydia to tell him to get up.
  • Lydia then suspects the pregnancy test was Penelope's. So she spends a lot of time trying to stop Penelope from doing anything to hurt the baby like drinking wine.
• Penelope and Lydia start wondering if the pregnancy test could belong to Elena.
  Lydia: Do you think she could have fallen off the wagon?
  Penelope: (beat) No, she really loves that wagon.
• Penelope introducing herself to Nora's parents, switching from sweet to Suddenly Shouting when calling for Alex. Since they're speaking in Spanish, Max tries to jump in, but Penelope tells him nows not the time.
  • When Nora's parents find out Penelope found a pregnancy test, her mother reacts the same way Penelope does.
• Alex and Nora having to admit in front of their parents they haven't had sex yet. Nora panics and says the furthest they went was under the shirt stuff. She then admits that that may have been too much information.
• Penelope confronts Elena and asks if the pregnancy test was hers.
  Elena: (beat) How many times do you want me to come out? You do know you need a man for that, right?
  Lydia: Excuse me, I think the Virgin Mary would, clap, back.

Perfect

• Elena has a beautifully organized board full of ideas for her college essay, divided into categories based on different themes of her life, including how her dad left but they made up so they're cool now, and "general gay stuff," which she claims is her ranking in the lesbian army.
• Alex tries to con $500 out of Penelope by claiming that he wants a quinces, but everyone is into it: Elena likes that they're breaking down gender norms, Penelope would get a mother-son dance, and Lydia would get a "mistaken-for-your-mother-son dance".
• Penelope scaring Alex by standing behind the curtains and throwing them open when he comes home.
  Penelope: I get why she does this, it's a total power move.
• Lydia tries to make her normal entrance but realizes too late that her curtains were opened up already.
  • Penelope then shuts the curtains on her mother's face.
    Penelope: End of discussion, y ja! [shuts curtains and then peeks through them] I love this!
    Lydia: What the hell is going on!?
• Dr. Berkowitz gives Avery and Schneider an early baby gift: a terrifying clown doll named Rascal that's been in his family for generations. Schneider loves him.
  • When Avery yells at him to take Rascal away, he lifts the clown up and accidentally knocks his head into the side of the wall.
    Schenider: Oh, are you okay?
    Avery: HE'S NOT REAL!
• Dr. Berkowitz confirming to the two that they have a healthy baby and they were perfect for one another. Avery then asks if he can give them the gender of their baby.
  Dr. Berkowitz: Of course I can. I'm a doctor. [leaves]
  Schenider: (beat) Kinda did wanna know.
• Elena stressing so hard about her collage essay topic that she starts hearing voices.
  Penelope: ...Is this fire put out? Because mami has to deal with a real inferno over there.
  Alex: [worriedly nods his head]

Supermoon

• Alex telling his family he wants to do something special for Nora and they like the idea as they 'aww'.
  Alex: So, can I have forty bucks?
  Penelope: Awww, no.
• Penelope tells her kids how Max wants to take her up to the roof to show her the super-moon.
  Penelope: And I said, "Relax nerd, it's just a freaking moon."
• Thinking that Max might propose to their mom on the roof, Elena and Alex try to stop her by using moon euphemisms.
  Alex: She may never get a chance to see another moon!
  Elena: There are plenty of moons out there! Jupiter has four!
• Once Penelope sees the setup on the roof, she starts throwing out a Rapid-Fire "No!".
• The group hiding and realizing the whole thing was for Lydia and Dr. Berkowitz, and they overhear them talking to each other about them being "ready". Penelope asks if they should all just jump off the roof. Everyone nods silently.