'Raising Hope' Season 3, Episode 17: 'Sex, Clown and Videotape' Recap

Burt hunts down a rogue fly in his kitchen that has been tormenting him, but he refuses to kill it. He tells Virginia it’s because he was voted “least likely to hurt a fly” in high school, and he wants to live up to that title, unlike his other classmates with their accolades.

He finally catches the fly, and releases it outside just to watch it fly into a spider web.

“Wow. That is going to be a slow, slow death.”

Jimmy wakes up on a teeter-totter on a school playground. He heads back to Sabrina’s house, and she tries to hit him with a golf club.

“Where did you get that golf club!? We don’t even golf!”

“I got it in case you ever ‘Tiger Woods’ed me.”

Jimmy assures his new wife he wasn’t having an affair, but that he tends to sleepwalk when he sleeps in strange places, which apparently means their marital bed.

Sabrina vows to help Jimmy, and asks how his parents used to handle it. He says they just got him a dog collar with an ID tag containing all his information.

“Oh, of course they did…”

Back in the Chance residence, Maw Maw is microwaving some food, only to have the door come off. Burt suggests they get a new microwave, but Virginia says she has an extra in all her stuff, and they can just swap it out.

“All your stuff? You got rid of all your stuff when you stopped hoarding… You told me your stopped hoarding…”

“I did… tell you that.”

She leads him to her storage unit and finds that it’s open, being aired out because it’s being put up for auction. She hasn’t paid the rent. She owes $700.

As they wander the storage units, they see another unit up for auction. In the midst of the stuff, she sees “Creepy the Clown”, which her and Burt used to terrify Jimmy with. But they also used it to keep him out of trouble. He almost happened upon a sex tape that Virginia and Burt made, but they decided to hide the tape inside the clown, knowing Jimmy would never find it there. And it was safe, until Maw Maw decided to donate it.

“We gotta get our sex tape out of that clown’s ass.”

“I bet nobody’s ever said that before.”

At Sabrina and Jimmy’s, Jimmy reveals his sleep apnea mask, which might help stop him from sleepwalking.

He wakes up later on a bus bench, still wearing his mask. Guess it didn’t work.

At the Chance house, Virginia puts her van up for sale, hoping to raise enough money to buy the storage unit so she can get her sex tape back. Burt doesn’t want to sell it, because it contains so many wonderful memories.

Instead, Virginia brings Barney her porcelain pig figurine (“pigurine”) collection. He’s interested, but he knows she’s holding out on one figure, one he wants most of all; “Swiney Todd, the demon butcher of meat street,” the rarest of them all.

She agrees to sell it to him… for a price.

Back at the storage unit auction, Virginia gets into a bidding war with Frank. She tries to make a deal with him.

“You let us win this locker, we’ll give you everything inside except for that cute little clown doll for Hope.”

“You can keep the doll, but I get to keep the sex tape inside. …oh, I know.”

They argue about it, and finally come to an agreement. They win the unit for $500, but have to let Frank ‘rent’ the tape on occasion.

She goes to grab the clown and celebrate, but realizes it’s not the same clown. There’s no tape in it.

Jimmy and Sabrina go for a walk, thinking exercise might help Jimmy’s sleepwalking. They approach the Chance residence and see them having a garage sale with all the stuff they bought in the auction. Virginia hopes to get enough to buy back her pigurines.

A man approaches Burt and asks to buy a photo album. He isn’t interested in the pictures inside, which prompts Burt to look at them. He realizes that all these items belong to some family, and they probably want them back. He can’t sell their stuff. Virginia still wants her pigurines, so Burt agrees to sell the van.

Frank buys the van from them, having wrecked his car in a demolition derby. He plans to start a mystery solving business (a la Scooby-Doo).

At Sabrina’s, a sleepwalking Jimmy begins to set up all of his old stuff that he got at his parent’s garage sale, fashioning a replica of his old bedroom in their new kitchen. Sabrina, waking up alone, goes to find Jimmy and finds him sleeping on the kitchen table.

Virginia and Burt track down the owners of the storage unit, Jimmy and Christine Hughes (from “Yes, Dear”). They recognize Burt and Virginia from their sex tape.

They invite them in and tell them the story of how they got the tape. They say the tape was heaven-sent, and helped them rekindle their romance. They also edited a copy of the tape, removing all the sex, and use it as a tool for their sons Dominic and Logan (also from “Yes, Dear”) to learn about healthy relationships.

Stunned into silence, Virginia finally speaks.

“Oh my god, Burt, do you believe that?”

“I know… I thought we were the only ones who still had a VCR.”

Virginia and Burt agree to sell Jimmy Hughes the tape for $800 so they can buy Burt his van back.

At Sabrina’s, she stayed up all night mapping out Jimmy’s sleepwalking patterns. She reveals that Jimmy tends to walk towards his Mecca, the Chance residence. He points out that he woke up on the kitchen table this time, and she says it’s because all of his stuff is there now.

So Sabrina helps Jimmy integrate his “old junk” into their room. He asks if she’s okay with it, and she says she keeps her junk in the closet, so it’s fine. She has him check the closet, and when he opens it, he finds Creepy the Clown sitting on a box. His parents gave it to Sabrina.

Jimmy reveals he’s glad to be in control of his sleepwalking now… Until he realizes it’s hereditary, and finds Hope wandering in the street.