Morticia believes they're overworking Lurch, so Gomez builds a robot named Smiley to help him out. Lurch is initially disturbed by this new situation but grows to accept it before taking complete advantage of it, relegating all his duties to Smiley. Though the family isn't pleased with Smiley's capabilities, they praise them for Lurch's sake, but perhaps overmuch. It effectively has Lurch looking at Smiley not as helping him out but as helping him right out of his job.
—statmanjeff