Very Superstitious

"Mom is crazy superstitious. You know that Stevie Wonder song "Superstition"? She won't listen to it because she thinks that's what made him blind."
"I am not crazy superstitious."
— Eddie Huang and Jessica Huang

"Very Superstitious" is the eleventh episode of the first season of Fresh Off the Boat. It first aired on April 7, 2015.

Synopsis[]

Jessica's superstitions get the best of her when she sells a house with the address 44 West 44th Street - the number 4 being bad luck in Chinese culture. At the urging of the new school counselor, Eddie decides to run for school president, but Jessica's bad luck gets the best of him too when a white lie spirals out of control.

Plot[]

This section needs a rewrite

Ever since Jessica has gotten her real estate license, she can finally go around and sell open houses to others. After recently getting a job with Ashley Alexander's Real Estate, she demanded Ashley to give her a difficult task instead of an easy one. Ashley decided to give her, "The Allen House". The house has been vacant for years, as there has been a rodent infestation, a broken roof, and a murder took place and no one has been interested to buy the place. Luckily, Jessica was fine with all that and was ready to get started. But when she found out the address, Jessica was disgusted. That's because it was on 44th West, 44th Street, and in Chinese culture, the Chinese word for the number four and death almost sound the same. Even the janitor pointed that out.

In fact, Jessica is crazy superstitious with the number four. She banned the number four in the house by making the clock have the letter "h" instead of 4, getting rid of Forbes magazine, and making Evan celebrate a second 3rd birthday. She doesn't want to be in the same room as the flyer! Though she tries to argue she isn't superstituious and claims Jenny is more than her and by banning the number four has kept them safe from bad luck. Even though she promised to try and sell the house, she was now hesitant to do so. But Louis persuaded Jessica to do so since it could help out with the restaurant.

At Abraham Lincoln Middle School, Eddie was trying to sell bootlegged CDs to his classmates until a faculty member quickly comes over to see what's going on. He introduces himself as Ray and he is the school councelor. He claims he isn't here to punish Eddie for what he did but rather convince him to do something better. He suggested to Eddie that he should try to run for student council, as they'll get a free period and even show celebrity visitors around the school. Later that day, while Jessica was trying to show the Allen house from outside while the customers were inside. Eddie is convinced that running for student council is a great idea. He's even got his slogan ready: "This Huang can make it right!" but sadly no one understands it. And he's not having that much luck getting support. Unlike his rivals Phillip Goldstein who was handing out chocolate dreidles, Brock who was allowing others to play a game of Street Fighter II, and Trent who got famous basketball player Scottie Pippen to come since his dad is his accountant. In fact, Scottie is giving out free pairs of "Air Pippens".

Back at home, Louis was watching a commercial about Finnegan opening a "Kids Corral" at The Golden Saddle and he wanted to find a way to compete against it. Jessica comes back home and lets Louis know that she was able to successfully sell The Allen House with no issues. She even got her commission check already and even got herself some snickers and a clear pepsi. The two happily discuss that Louis can get a mechanical bull to compete against the kids corral and Jessica can get a pedicure. But when she opens up her check, she freaks out after finding out the check number is "tainted" with fours. Louis tries to calm her down but its no use, Jessica desperately wants to rip up the check so they can rid of the bad luck. She does, but as soon as her back is turned, Louis quickly tapes the check back up and cashes it in.

After cashing the check, Louis finally gets the mechanical bull for the resturant and nicknames him: "Romeo". Though he may not seemed that friendly to begin with. Jessica comes in with the boys and wants Louis to take care of them while she is tries to sell three open houses. The thing is, the boys nor Jessica know anything about the mechanical bull, plus Louis made his workers hide it before they see it. Eddie and his brother's Emery and Evan settle down at a table and continue to talk about Eddie's run for class president. He doesn't think he can win against the others but Emery assures him he can still try and even Louis mentions it will look good on his college application. However, things went bad for Eddie when he accidently trips over the wire from the mechanical bull and breaks his arm. Louis explains to Emery and Eddie that they can't tell Jessica about the incident. If they do, Jessica would get upset since she would think its related to the check. So they decided to make a cover up story by pretending Eddie tripped on a rug instead of a wire, and luckily Jessica believes it.

However, because Louis told the boys its okay to tell a "little white lie" every once in awhile. Eddie decides to make up a cool story in order to win the election. When he overhears Dave talking to some of his friends about who to vote for, and when they asked how he got the injury. Eddie claims that several high school kids were stealing their Street Fighter machine, and was giving their mascot "Loggy" an Indian Burn. He then mentions that he managed to beat them all in a fight and even took out his dad's machete to finish it off. Luckily, this quickly earned the popular vote amongst his classmates, but it drew some suspicion towards Ray.

Eddie comes home announcing to his family that he managed to win the election and is now class president of Abraham Lincoln Middle School! He even decides to pimp walk as a way to celebrate. However, during the middle of celebrating, the doorbell rings and child services is here. It turns out Ray called them because he was greatly concerned over how Eddie recieved his injury and didn't believed his story was true. He was even worried that possible parental neglect was in play as well. The family, Mrs. Parker, and Ray settle down in the living room and Mrs. Parker informs the Huangs about the many different stories on how Eddie broke his arm. Louis clears up that he doesn't own a machete and questions Eddie why he would make up all of this and wants him to tell the truth. Eddie finally confesses and claims he made all of it up so he can win the election. He also admitted that he broke his arm after tripping over the wire from the mechanical bull. Luckily, this cleared up everything but Jessica didn't let the hook off Louis.

After the talk, Louis grounded Eddie for making up the story. But Jessica is still furious with the fact Louis told him its okay to lie and for cashing the check in which caused them to get so much bad luck. But Louis calls her off for ripping up the check, claiming it was ridiculous and those incidents were just coincidents. So to prove that superstition is real, Jessica demands Louis to take off his jade necklace. Louis was hesitant since he had it on since he was a kid, but he does so. But he quickly panics and ask for it back. He apologizes for going behind her back and telling Eddie to lie. Jessica declares that they need to get rid of the bad luck they have and they quickly head over to Jenny to ask for help.

They head to the resturant and Jenny performed a ritual to get rid of their bad luck. After doing so, they can all finally relax and move on. Though, it seemed like the bad luck continued with Eddie. He later found out from Ray that the freedom that a student council member has is not the way how he envisioned it. The "free period" is really going to the office to lick envelopes due to budget cuts. Ray apologizes to Eddie for giving him misinformation and claims its "their" bad luck.

The episode ends with Scottie Pippen trying to give some tax advice to Louis while Eddie and Emery crawl between his legs. However, Louis is more interested in trying to score on Scottie. Scottie gets upset since Louis wasn't listening and walks away. Evan tries to get his attention but he ignores him.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Recurring Cast[]

Paul Scheer as Mitch
Lucille Soong as Jenny Huang (credited as Grandma Huang)
Jillian Armenante as Nancy
Evan Hannemann as Dave Selby (credited as Barefoot Dave)
Trevor Larcom as Trent Masterson
Brady Tutton as Brock
Eddie Huang as Narrator (voice)

Guest Cast[]

Judah Friedlander as Ray
Steve Little as Finnegan
Amanda Lund as Vanessa
Scottie Pippen as Scottie Pippen
Vernee Watson as Mrs. Parker
Arden Myrin as Ashley Alexander
Albert Tsai as Phillip Goldstein
Eric Beigel as Commercial Kid
Max Chen as Younger Evan Huang
Elyse Cole as Stacy
Roam Diesel as Kid
Nick Gore as Ned (credited as Bush Kid)
A.J. Tannen as Noah
Karen Teliha as Teller
Kimberly Wallis as Danielle
Kellen White as Andrew
Greg Wilson as Janitor
Morgan Bertsch as Student (uncredited)
Helena Claussen as Kid in Golden Saddle Commercial (uncredited)
Ava Camille DeVore as Kid in Golden Saddle Commercial (uncredited)
Taylor Noel Gordon as Student (uncredited)
Tiffany Martinez as Student (uncredited)
Ace McAfee as Student (uncredited)
Jean Nasser as Student (uncredited)
Jake Shaw as School Boy (uncredited)
Frankie Sims as Real Estate Agent (uncredited)

Trivia[]

Max Chen, the younger brother of Evan's actor, Ian Chen, was featured in this episode, portraying Evan when he was younger.

Errors/Inconsistencies[]

According to this episode, Evan turned three years old in 1992, placing his birth year at 1989. However, later episodes would have his birth year as 1987.
- Evan being born in 1989 would also mean he is just six years old as of this episode (set in 1995) although he is much older than this.

Quotes[]

Jessica: Ashley, give me something good. I can sell anything.
Ashley: Well, if you want a challenge... the Allen house.
Janitor: [whistles] The Allen house? No one ever goes in. No one ever comes out.
Jessica: Well, that makes sense if no one ever goes in.
Ashley: We've had the Allen house on the market for years, and nobody's been able to sell it. It has a rodent problem.
Jessica: It's pet-friendly.
Ashley: The roof has a hole.
Jessica: Skylight.
Ashley: There was a brutal murder there.
Jessica: So statistically, another murder is unlikely.
Ashley: Okay, great. Here you go. The address is 44 West 44th Street.
Jessica: Aw, hell, no!
Ashley: W-what's wrong?
Janitor: Well, in the Chinese culture, the number 4 is bad luck. On account it's pronounced sì (四), which sounds like the Chinese word for "death", sǐ (死).

Gallery[]

Videos[]

Fresh Off The Boat 1x11 Promo "Very Superstitious" (HD) ft. Scottie Pippen

Episodes

Fresh Off the Boat – Season One

Episode 1 "Pilot"	Episode 2 "Home Sweet Home-School"	Episode 3 "The Shunning"	Episode 4 "Success Perm"


Episode 5 "Persistent Romeo"	Episode 6 "Fajita Man"	Episode 7 "Showdown at the Golden Saddle"	Episode 8 "Phillip Goldstein"


Episode 9 "License to Sell"	Episode 10 "Blind Spot"	Episode 11 "Very Superstitious"	Episode 12 "Dribbling Tiger, Bounce Pass Dragon"


Episode 13 So Chineez

Fresh Off the Boat – Season Two

Episode 1 "Family Business Trip"	Episode 2 "Boy II Man"	Episode 3 "Shaquille O'Neal Motors"	Episode 4 "The Fall Ball"


Episode 5 "Miracle on Dead Street"	Episode 6 "Good Morning Orlando"	Episode 7 "The Big 1-2"	Episode 8 "Huangsgiving"


Episode 9 "We Done Son"	Episode 10 "The Real Santa"	Episode 11 "Year of the Rat"	Episode 12 "Love and Loopholes"


Episode 13 "Phil's Phaves"	Episode 14 "Michael Chang Fever"	Episode 15 "Keep 'Em Separated"	Epsiode 16 "Tight Two"


Episode 17 "Doing It Right"	Episode 18 "Week in Review"	Episode 19 "Jessica Place"	Episode 20 "Hi, My Name Is..."


Episode 21 "Rent Day"	Episode 22 "Gotta Be Me"	Episode 23 "The Manchurian Dinner Date"	Episode 24 "Bring the Pain"

Fresh Off the Boat – Season Three

Episode 1 "Coming from America"	Episode 2 "Breaking Chains"	Episode 3 "Louisween"	Episode 4 "Citizen Jessica"


Episode 5 "No Thanks-giving"	Episode 6 "WWJD: What Would Jessica Do?"	Episode 7 "The Taming of the Dads"	Episode 8 "Where are the Giggles?"


Episode 9 "How to Be an American"	Episode 10 "The Best of Orlando"	Episode 11 "Clean Slate"	Episode 12 "Sisters Without Subtext"


Episode 13 "Neighbors with Attitude"	Episode 14 "The Gloves Are Off"	Episode 15 "Living While Eddie"	Episode 16 "Gabby Goose"

	]
Episode 17 "The Flush"	Episode 18 "Time to Get Ill"	Episode 19 "Driving Miss Jenny"	Episode 20 "The Masters"


Episode 21 "Pie vs. Cake"	Episode 22 "This Is Us"	Episode 23 "This Isn't Us"

Fresh Off the Boat – Season Four

Episode 1 "B as in Best Friends"	Episode 2 "First Day"	Episode 3 "Kids"	Episode 4 "It's a Plastic Pumpkin, Louis Huang"

Episode 5 "Four Funerals and a Wedding"	Episode 6 "A League of Her Own"	Episode 7 "The Day After Thanksgiving"	Episode 8 "The Vouch"

Episode 9 "Slide Effect"	Episode 10 "Do You Hear What I Hear?"	Episode 11 "Big Baby"	Episode 12 "Liar Liar"

Episode 13 "The Car Wash"	Episode 14 "A Man to Share the Night With"	Episode 15 "We Need to Talk About Evan"	Episode 16 "Ride the Tiger"

Episode 17 "Let Me Go, Bro"	Episode 18 "Measure Twice, Cut Once"	Episode 19 "King in the North"

Fresh Off the Boat – Season Five

Episode 1 "Fresh Off the RV"	Episode 2 "The Hand That Sits the Cradle"	Episode 3 "Working the 'Ween"	Episode 4 "Driver's Eddie"
Episode 5 "Mo' Chinese Mo' Problems"	Episode 6 "Sub Standard"	Episode 7 "Where Have All the Cattlemen Gone?"	Episode 8 "Cousin Eddie"
Episode 9 "Just the Two of Us"	Episode 10 "You've Got a Girlfriend"	Episode 11 "Driver's Eddie 2: Orlando Drift"	Episode 12 "Legends of the Fortieth"
Episode 13 "Grand-Mahjong"	Episode 14 "Cupid's Crossbow"	Episode 15 "Be a Man"	Episode 16 "Trentina"
Episode 17 "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"	Episode 18 "Rancho Contento"	Episode 19 "Vice Mommy"	Episode 20 "Nerd Watching"
Episode 21 "Under the Taipei Sun"	Episode 22 "No Apology Necessary"

Fresh Off the Boat – Season Six

Episode 1 "Help Unwanted?"	Episode 2 "College"	Episode 3 "Grandma's Boys"	Episode 4 "S'Mothered"
Episode 5 "Hal-Lou-Ween"	Episode 6 "Chestnut Gardens"	Episode 7 "Practicum?!"	Episode 8 "TMI: Too Much Integrity"
Episode 9 "Lou Wants to Be a Millionaire"	Episode 10 "Jessica Town"	Episode 11 "A Seat at the Table"	Episode 12 "The Magic Motor Inn"
Episode 13 "Mommy and Me"	Episode 14 "Family Van"	Episode 15 "Commencement"