'Ben and Kate' Season 1, Episode 1: 'Pilot' Recap

In the pilot of the kind of cute and quirky new “Ben and Kate,” we’re introduced to the brother and sister duo.

They basically raised themselves, says Kate. That means that Ben never really grew up, and Kate grew up too fast.

This especially goes for the moment she announces to her boyfriend in a car that she was pregnant.

“I’m so excited!” he yells, and then throws open the door and books it to freedom.

So, years later, Kate is settled down with her super-cute daughter Maddie, and Ben tends to show up from time to time out of the blue.

“Do you have a bear trap?”

Generally these moments tend to ruin Kate’s dates, like when Ben shows up in a hockey mask from stealing the neighbor’s cable, or with a drum set.

“As you may have noticed, my brother is an idiot,” Kate tells us.

This is how he meets George, the guy with a beard, who she is really into. Ben doesn’t approve, however—the guy doesn’t know how to high-five properly.

The next morning, Maddie and Ben are both hanging over Kate, insisting she get up. She goes to work as a waitress, chatting with her sassy British friend BJ about George, and how she’s hoping to have “the sex” with him soon.

Meanwhile Ben is on the same subject with her co-worker and not-so-secret admirer, Tommy, and the two despair of George’s high-giving abilities.

Kate demands to know why Ben is in town but he insists there’s nothing to it. He takes the keys to go get Maddie from school—only they take a little detour to drive past his ex girlfriend Darcy’s house, the one he calls Mrs. Ben Fox.

In the window, he sees Darcy in a wedding dress, and, unable to swear in front of the 5 year old, fills the car with a lot of strange vowel sounds. He becomes determined to crash her wedding.

He insists that Kate help him, but she won’t. She swears she won’t. She does—Kate style, where everyone is prepared and no one goes to prison. She has a walk-through of what Ben should say to Darcy, but Ben fails pretty miserably.

Meanwhile BJ, babysitting Maddie, is applying make-up all over the little girl and giving her a future self-image complex.

The wedding crash planned, Kate can worry about her date.

“It’s been so long since I’ve had to be sexy. I don’t know what to do with my body.”

Kate reveals that she just wants Maddie to know what a good relationship looks like. She and Ben grew up with parents who fought all the time, and the two used to hide from the noise under the table together.

Back at home, Ben is preparing to go crash the wedding, but he decides he hates Maddie’s babysitter, and fires her. She won’t stay until he returns, as he had hoped, so he takes Maddie with him, as a distant cousin from Portugal.

On Kate’s date, she accidentally butt dials Ben, who is on his way to the wedding but listens to her conversation. She gets hot and tries to remove her sweater, but her shirt sticks and she is awkwardly stuck with her head hidden and her bra on full display. Finally BJ takes her off to get her sorted out. When she is gone, Ben hears George call someone on the phone, promising to get her from the airport and calling her “baby.”

Angered, Ben swings the car around, slowly and ineptly, and confronts George and Kate.

“Don’t you understand? He loves someone at a conference!”

George gets booted out. Kate realizes they can still make the wedding, and off they run. In the hall, they encounter Darcy. Ben tries to give her the speech he wrote on his hand but flubs it, so Kate steps in. She tells Darcy all about how in love with her Ben is, and what a big heart he has.

That’s when Darcy’s new husband comes up. They’ve been married for an hour.

They all go to the reception, and hide under the table like old times. Ben reminds her of how he pushed her in the pool once, fully-clothed, which she hated. Kate mourns her luck with men.

“We’re like 2 pea in the worst pod ever,” Ben says.

Ben decides then he will move back to help Kate take care of Maddie, and they can all be a family.

As they all leave the wedding, Kate pushes Ben into the pool. Everyone jumps in after.