'Raising Hope' Season 3, Episode 14: 'Modern Wedding' Recap

Sabrina and Jimmy prepare for their wedding, and Burt and Virginia come home to find their living room filled with a camera crew.

Burt believes that their whole lives have been one big reality show, and that is the only way to explain all the crazy things that have happened.

Sabrina bursts his bubble and tells him that her mother won’t come to their wedding, so she sent the camera crew from “Modern Family” to record it in her place.

Virginia and Burt do a Big Brother-esque confessional to the camera, claiming that they were going to film the wedding themselves and that would have been their gift to them. Now they don’t know what to get them and only have a day to come up with something.

Burt lists some options: “Coffee mugs that say Mr. Right and Mrs. Always Right. A tie that looks like a fish, or a fish that looks like a tie. Hermit crabs. Ice - you always need ice.”

Virginia suggests they just give the couple a framed picture of them.

Sabrina and Jimmy tell them they don’t need to give a gift. They printed the wedding invitations, and that was enough. (However, the RSVP address was wrong, which meant all the wedding gifts and RSVPs were sent to a convenience store.)

Burt and Virginia decide on their wedding present: fixing their marriage license. They pose as Sabrina and Jimmy and hope to fix whatever was wrong, but are told Jimmy is still married to Lucy, so he can’t get a new marriage license. They say Lucy is dead, but they need to get a copy of the death certificate to prove it, which could take weeks.

Jimmy and Sabrina attempt to pick up the wedding cake, but find that Sabrina’s father changed the order. The cake was now too large to take home, so Jimmy suggests they use Burt’s truck to haul it, but Sabrina strapped it to the roof of her car instead.

“…We almost made it a block.” The cake falls off and is destroyed.

Burt and Virginia go to Lucy’s father in attempts to get a copy of the death certificate. Except they find that she isn’t dead.

She survived electrocution and being hit by a bus, but she now has the mind of an 8-year-old. Burt and Virginia want to turn her in to the authorities, but instead make a deal with her father, who forges a death certificate for them.

Barney reveals he is catering their wedding reception in a gymnasium, where he will also be the DJ.

Burt and Virginia, having obtained the marriage license, bring it to Reverend Bob, who recognizes Maw Maw, who faked her death 50 years ago to get out of giving him voice lessons.

“I used to fake my death. All the time. Mostly to get out of stuff.”

It was easier to fake a heart attack than to tell him the truth. Reverend Bob is resentful towards Maw Maw because she forced him to give up his dream of becoming the next Frankie Valli, and he refuses to marry anyone related to her.

Virginia sends Burt to stall the wedding as she and Maw Maw work on Reverend Bob.

Burt tells the congregation that Reverend Bob is stuck in traffic, and decides to send everyone to the reception to kill the time.

Lucy’s dad is at the reception looking for Lucy, who escaped, saying her brain was retriggered somehow. They agree to look for her.

Virginia convinces Reverend Bob to come back by explaining how crazy Maw Maw is. The only catch was that they promised he could sing their bridal march. “Big Girls Don’t Cry.”

Burt excuses himself as best man in order to keep an eye out for Lucy. He finds her, and a battle ensues, while Jimmy and Sabrina get married, uninterrupted, none-the-wiser.

Virginia and Burt tell the cameras that their gift was to allow Jimmy and Sabrina to believe their wedding went off without a hitch. (Except the cake fiasco.)

Burt pays Lucy’s dad another visit. He claims she’s back to her child-like state again and has no memory of the wedding. Burt tells him to keep her away from the family.

“We’re kind of done with the whole Lucy-coming-back-from-the-dead thing. It’s like, every year we think she’s gone, and then she comes back in some crazy way and messes up our lives again. It’s getting old.”

Lucy’s dad agrees, but points out that they’ve been filmed the whole time, so Jimmy and Sabrina will see it all on the wedding video anyway. So Burt attacks the camera crew.

Sabrina records a special message to Jimmy in hopes that they’ll watch the video together many times.

As she walks off, Burt attacks the camera crew again.