Sam didn’t look up from his phone. “We don’t set fires, Dad.”
Sam sighed, but he was almost smiling. “Fine. But I’m not sharing a phone. You can all get your own burner flip phones from the gas station like civilized goblins.”
And so, as the Netflix screen dimmed into its “Are you still watching?” prompt, the real Complete Savages didn’t become more orderly. They became more themselves —which is to say, louder, weirder, and slightly more dangerous with power tools. But that night, for the first time in weeks, they all fell asleep in the same room, surrounded by popcorn dust and unpaired socks and the quiet, feral peace of a family that had finally stopped trying to be anything else.
“They learn to occasionally do laundry without flooding the basement.”
Halfway through the second episode—where the TV dad tries to teach his sons about responsibility by making them share one single phone—Mark paused the screen. He looked at his three boys: Sam’s lanky frame folded into a beanbag, Finn’s face now a Rorschach test of orange snack residue, and Ollie sharpening a plastic spork into a “ceremonial dagger.”
Ollie, who had just finished lashing a ladle to a broom handle, paused. “Press play. I need tactical inspiration for the weekend.”
Sam looked up. “And the kids?”