Welcome back, Sirens! This week’s episode of Big Shot is called “Kalm Korn” for a variety of reasons, which you’re about to discover in our detailed recap of the Disney+ original series.
Emma, Lucas, Louise and Dylan arrive outside Emma’s house, presumably from a walk on the beach. Louise tells Emma she should have a party, saying she really needs one. Lucas reveals that their dad, Larry Gruzinsky, is back at home and under a court order to stay there. Standing in the same spot they met, Lucas kisses Emma. Emma turns to Louise and tells her no to the party as Marvyn opens the door, telling her he’s been waiting. “He’s here,” he tells her. “Who’s he?,” she asks, confused.
“Isn’t he great?,” Marvyn says as he points to the bronze statue of himself that was torn down outside of the University of Wisconsin, adding that they were going to melt it down and donate the bronze to charity. Emma is a little upset by the statue’s appearance, telling her dad they’re supposed to be making a fresh start and bringing the statue from his past feels wrong. She then asks if she could have a “Small party.” He tells her that’s fine, but he wants to wait a month until the season is over. Lucas is present and Marvyn asks him to help him move the statue into the living room where it can be better appreciated, calling Lucas “Boy.”
At basketball practice, Coach Korn is 15-minutes late and Holly starts practice, having the girls do burpees. When Korn enters, he tells the girls to stop what they’re doing and Holly tells them to keep going, telling Marvyn they’re not done with her drill. They quietly fight about Marvyn undermining Holly and he tells her if she’s wanted to be the head coach, she should’ve applied for it. She tells him she didn’t have the chance because an NCAA coach applied. “I didn’t apply for this,” he scoffs, turning around and taking control of the practice she was coaching.
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Later, Principal Sheralyn finds Marvyn reviewing footage from the Carlsbad game, complimenting him on the decision to move Louise to the 2nd position. He tells her it was Holly’s idea and she was right. Sheralyn tells him he needs to look through the bids to repair the gym floor, which was smashed at the end of the previous episode by the removal of the Gruzinsky scoreboard. He tells her he doesn’t think that’s in his job description, but she tells him it is if he wants to keep his job, adding that the assistant coach is showing a lot of promise if he fails. She also suggests a new name for the gym: “Korn Arena.”
Marvyn is getting coffee inside the empty teacher’s lounge when Maggie enters. “We need to talk,” she tells him, saying that they’ve had two dates, both of which she instigated, and now it’s his turn to make her feel wanted. “What you’re saying is, you want me to ask you out?,” he asks as he gives her a confused look. “You’re asking me to ask you. Isn’t that the same as asking me out?” She tells him they need to “Define the relationship” and Maggie also reveals that she has a daughter. “I think we should give us a chance. I think we could have something real or lasting, but I’m not going to ask you out again,” she tells him, adding that she won’t wait much longer as she exits.
Out in the hallway, Louise finds Coach Korn and thanks him for sticking up for her during the Carlsbad game. He asks her how things are at home and she describes it as “Hell,” saying her dad is stir crazy from being under house arrest, but her mom doesn’t want to be alone with him and she’s constantly caught between them. “I’m just trying to stay away as much as possible right now,” she concludes, sharing that Destiny invited her over for dinner tonight. “You’ve always been there for me. You’re more like a dad than my own dad.” Louise walks away as George Pappas comes down the stairs, revealing that he overheard their conversation.“The same thing used to happen back when I was a warden, and I was as proud of them as I am now of you,” the guidance counselor says as he pats Marvyn on the shoulder.
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Back at home, Marvyn is pouring himself a drink, ranting about the stresses of his day to someone off screen. When he moves to the living room, we see that he’s talking to his statue as he expressed his fears of growing old and washed up working at Westbrook. “And you, you’ll just be a memory of the best of me, collecting dust in the garage,” he says to his bronze doppelganger.
Louise helps Destiny chop vegetables for dinner. Destiny cheers her up by saying that something good may come out of her situation, talking about how before her father died, she didn’t see her aunt Angel often because they didn’t get along. Destiny’s mom, Christina (Keala Settle, The Greatest Showman), enters the kitchen and shows Louise the right way to chop carrots. Destiny’s grandma enters as well (Marla Gibbs, The Jeffersons), asking Destiny to put more garlic in the dish.
Marvyn calls Sam, his agent, to beg him for a new job. Sam tells Marvyn that he heard about his blowup at the last game. “All you had to do was play nice at a high school for one year and you couldn’t even do that.” Marvyn pleads, telling Sam about how Wisconsin was trying to melt his statue. “I’m sinking. Get me out of here! Please, this can’t be my life.” Sam tells him he will try to do something.
Dinner is going well at Destiny’s house when her aunt Angel enters, upset that they started eating without her. Angel asks who the guest is and when Destiny introduces her to Louise, she raises her eyebrows and says “Louise Gruzinsky?,” giving Louise a look. Christina intervenes, telling her sister that Louise’s dad’s mistakes aren’t his daughter’s. The tension is diffused and dinner resumes with Angel joining in.
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The next day at lunch, Emma tells the Sirens that her dad won’t budge on letting her have a party. She adds that her dad still sees her as a little girl, adding that he gave her a Frozen comforter for her last birthday. Olive is surprised that Emma is suddenly so timid with her dad when she was so brazen with Ms. Grint. Louise tells Emma to convince her dad to take Maggie on a date to Montigue’s Steakhouse, where the signature dessert, a Grand Marnier Souffle, takes a long time to make.
Entering Marvyn’s office, Holly firmly tells Marvyn that she wants to meet him tonight at 7:00 for beer and dinner. He asks her if there’s a reason and she says “Yes,” walking away.
When Emma gets home, she finds her dad repositioning his statue again. Marvyn tells Emma that she’s on her own for dinner tonight because he’s meeting Holly. She asks if it’s because she’s mad at him and he asks for more information, learning that the Sirens were gossiping about their fight during the last practice. Emma suggests that instead of the sports bar, he take her to Montigue’s. “That’s a date place,” he tells her. “No, that’s a nice place, and if she’s mad at you, you want to make the extra effort.” As he thinks it over, she also tells him to order the souffle, asking if she can have some friends over. “A few friends, no boys,” he advises.
At the steakhouse, Holly asks why he didn’t stick with the plan to meet at the sports bar and he tells her it’s because he wanted to apologize. She asks what for and he doesn’t seem to know. She informs him that he never congratulated her for the win, so he does. But what she really wanted to talk about was her ambition to become head coach someday, which surprises him as he thought she was more of a teacher who coaches than a coach who teaches. He congratulates her on the way she finished the game, telling her he watched the footage. “I was very proud of you.” Realizing that Marvyn doesn’t know that much about Holly, she invites him to ask her questions and the first one is whether or not she’s single. “I am single right now. I don’t find it that easy to find the right guy.” She adds that she has specific criteria for the men she dates and he asks how long the list is. She uses her fingers to count and he suggests they order their dinner if it’s going to be a while.
Dylan pulls up in his car outside of Emma’s house with Louise in his passenger seat. They just went out to dinner together and she tells Dylan she would like to pay for half the check, but he promised to spend his entire paycheck on her and he did. He tells her she’s pretty, leaning in and surprising her with a kiss. She looks a little uncomfortable, saying “We should probably head inside.”
All of the Siren’s plus Harper are at Emma’s when Louise and Dylan enter. He takes her coat to Emma’s room and Louise tells the girls about the kiss. “I wasn’t trying to send signals… was I?,” she asks, confused why it happened. Destiny suggests that this is her silver lining, but Louise tells them that Dylan is her best friend and she doesn’t want to mess that up. He returns with a bag of chips for Louise. Lucas arrives and he and Emma kiss. Samantha sees it and looks anxious, grabbing a bag of chips and nervously stuffing her face. Emma walks over and apologizes for the PDA. “Oh, that? I didn’t even notice,” Samantha lies. “If everyone is hooking up, I’m going to text more guys.”
At dinner, Holly is now at number 23 on her list (presumably a nod to the year the Walt Disney Company was founded), telling Marvyn she wants her guy to be “Emotionally manly.” He tells her that the guy she’s describing doesn’t exist, so she asks what’s on his list. “I don’t have one and even if I did, I don’t think I would tell you.” She asks him what he likes about Maggie and he tells her, but confesses that the timing is bad for him to be in a relationship.” He tells her about his last conversation with Maggie and Holly says she thinks it would be good for him to be in a relationship with her. Marvyn asks for the check and Holly tells him dinner is on her since she invited him to talk. They argue about who’s going to pay, with Marvyn saying that he makes more than her. She asks if that’s the real reason he won’t let her pay, or if it’s because she’s a woman. “I’ll tell you what, when you become head coach, then you can pick up the check. Deal?,” he asks. Holly says “Deal,” but grabs the leather folder from the waiter and adds “But I’m picking up this one.”
Samantha opens the door and four guys rush into Emma’s house, heading straight for the statue of Marvyn Korn to take selfies with it. Louise recognizes them as the guys from Carlsbad, including the ringleader of the “Free Larry” protest, the one who held the sign that Coach Korn tore apart. Dylan offers to beat Jake Matthews up, but Louise asks him to ignore the bully. Seeing them, he confidently saunters over and says “Seems like fate keeps bringing us together.” He suggests that Louise was staring at him because he’s handsome. Dylan and Olive prevent Louise from getting in a fight and Olive suggests that they go look at the fire on the porch. Jake then tries to hit on Olive.
Sitting on the couch looking out at the ocean, Louise asks Dylan if they can talk. “Fine by me,” he tells her, leaning in for another kiss, which she blocks. “With everything going on, I really need you to just be my friend.” She apologizes if she sent mixed signals. Dylan seems hurt. “It’s not that I don’t like you. I mean I love you… as a friend.” He gets up to leave and she asks him not to leave, but he reveals that he has started crying and says he has to go.
Emma finds Louise on the patio, who tells her the party was a bad idea. “It was your idea!,” Emma defends herself. The party has grown even bigger with more people arriving that Emma doesn’t know. “When my dad finds out, he’s going to murder everyone here starting with me.” She hears a glass break and goes inside to find that the photo Marvyn’s dad took with the statue fell and the glass frame is cracked. Lucas tries to come to the rescue, yelling “Party’s over,” but nobody hears him or pays attention.
Marvyn and Holly are walking together after their dinner. “I figure part of my job is to help you get my job,” Marvyn tells her. She asks if she can take over practice on Mondays going forward and Marvyn tells her it’s a great idea, adding that he things Louise should stay in the position Holly moved her to permanently. She begins to question his motives. “Are you leaving?,” she asks. “No… Well, eventually, yes. This was always just a pit stop on my way back to college ball. And if the opportunity presents itself, I think you would be a great head coach.” She asks if this is happening now and he says no.
The party has gotten worse and Jake and his Carlsbad buddies have picked up Marvyn’s statue, trying to take it to the front yard. Emma asks them to put it down and while taunting her, it starts to slip, with the bronze head breaking through a wall in the foyer. Lucas gets confrontational and ends up throwing a punch at Jake’s chin, who responds with a harder punch that sends Lucas to the ground. Olive tells Emma she should call her dad.
Marvyn accepts the call. “What? I’ll be right there.” He and Holly soon arrive in a rideshare, finding the front yard covered in tee-pee with teenagers partying on the lawn. Entering his home, Marvyn blows his whistle to get everyone’s attention. “Out!,” he yells as the music stops. “Out!,” he reinforces as the shocked teenagers start to file out. Lucas is sitting at the kitchen counter with an ice pack on his chin. Marvyn asks what happened and kicks him out when he hears about the fight. The Sirens are among the last to exit. “Nice, real nice, girls,” he scolds them.
With everyone gone except for Holly, Emma tells her dad she knows it looks bad as he starts to lay into her. Holly interrupts, saying she’s seen and done worse than this party. Emma argues that she was just trying to cheer up Louise, but Marvyn tells her he thinks she just wanted to see Lucas, blaming him for Emma’s “Change in behavior” as he forbids her from seeing him and grounds her for a month. “Where do you get off acting like a dad all of a sudden?,” she stings him. “Because I am your dad,” Marvyn angrily responds. “Only when it’s convenient!” Emma heads to her room and slams the door. Turning to Holly, Marvyn tells her that it’s all his fault, he’s “Gotten soft.” She tells him that while there are a lot of problems here, this isn’t his fault, adding that everyone makes mistakes. “Handle this however you want, just don’t make a bigger mistake,” she cautions as she leaves.
Sitting down on the patio, Marvyn gets a call from Sam. “Marvyn, I’m sorry, I tried. It’s just not happening right now.” Marvyn is disappointed. “Bottom line is you are still a toxic chair thrower.” Marvyn asks what he should do now. “What you’ve been doing,” Sam advises as Marvyn confesses that he’s worried the college basketball world will forget about him and that he will be stuck in this current situation forever. “Is it really that horrible? You know, most people I know would gladly trade lives with you… You can choose to be miserable or you can choose to make the best of it, it’s up to you.”
The next morning, Marvyn knocks on Emma’s door, who doesn’t hear him through her headphones. Entering, he tells her “You were right about what you said about me last night. I’m not very good at this dad thing, but I want to be. I’m trying to be.” She tells him a good place to start is to let her see Lucas again. He tells her she’s getting too attached, but she counters. “You’ve had one foot out the door the whole time we’ve been here… you never commit to anything.” She adds that her life isn’t fluid like his is, she thinks of this as her home now and she wants him to accept that. “If I’m supposed to fix my mistakes, then you should have the same opportunity,” he tells her, leading her outside where she finds the Sirens helping to clean up the front yard.
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While the girls clean up the house, Marvyn takes a stroll to Maggie’s house, bringing her a bouquet of flowers. He finds her pruning her rose bushes. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying,” she says. “I’m selling a romantic dinner with me.” She accepts his offer, saying she will see him tonight at 7. He tells her actually he will see her tomorrow at 8 and that he made reservations. She asks what if she already has reservations. “Well, we’re just going to go with my reservation,” he takes control, asking if it’s okay if he picks up the check. Flirting, Maggie says she expects him to.
Finishing up in the living room, the Sirens joke about plotting revenge on Jake, with Olive saying “He’s kind of hot.” They ask Louise for an update on Dylan. “I think I screwed it up between us,” she tells them, but Olive thinks he just needs time and will come around. Destiny asks Emma about Lucas and when she mentions that her dad doesn’t want her seeing him anymore, Samantha looks temporarily excited. “We’re not over-over,” she says, looking at Samantha, who nods her head nervously. Emma tells Samantha that if she’s not over Lucas, Emma would choose friends over guys. “Okay, truth?,” Samantha starts. “It kind of sucks seeing him with you. It’s not that I’m crushing on Lucas, but he just moved on so fast.” She adds that she’s glad that they’re friends and she wants her to keep seeing him. The Sirens leave now that the house is back to normal.
Marvyn comes home to find Emma laying on the couch with her feet up. “Place looks good,” he tells her. Earlier in the episode when she called this their home, he corrected Emma that it’s a rental. “Yeah, for a rental,” she throws it back at him. He asks her to take her feet off the couch, sitting down and saying “This is our home.” She asks about Lucas and he says “Forbidden.” She asks if he can do one thing for her.
Emma must have asked her dad to move the statue someplace where she can’t see it because the next scene finds Marvyn moving his statue into the closet. “We had some good times, didn’t we buddy,” he tells it as he closes the door, which stops on his outstretched hand. “Figures, can’t cage a tiger,” he grins. “Take care, buddy.”
Big Shot returns with another new episode on June 4th, titled “Everything to Me.” Here’s the official episode description from Disney+:
Marvyn teaches the girls a lesson: never underestimate your opponent. Emma auditions for the play.