Episode Report Card 3 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT The Anti-Natalie Intervention
By Maggie | Season 3 | Episode 2 | Aired on 10.10.2000
Back at the restaurant, Ben is hunched over his plate and eating some fries with his hands. Jack asks him how his burger is, and Ben says that it is fine but a bit rare. Jack wants to send it back, but Ben addresses him as "Dad" and says it is fine. So, Jack Tripper moved from San Diego to Palo Alto, got married, and fathered Ben. Very interesting -- all those pratfalls were booze-related. I just thought he was lovably clumsy. Obviously, Ben has not learned that when you are a university student and someone takes you out for a free meal, you shouldn't order a burger. You should order something expensive and unlike what you exist on from day to day. Anyway, Jack asks if Ben's mother has told him that he started a twelve-step program. Jack admits that he is powerless over alcohol. Ben is surprised that Jack and his mother are even talking. Jack admits that he called Ben's mother last week because one of the steps, step nine, is making amends with people you've harmed. Jack tells Ben that's why he has come to see him. Ben incredulously asks, "That's why you're here, because you're supposed to be here?" Jack stammers that he is trying. Ben says that he's glad that Jack called.
Knoll is going through a filing box, and he takes out a notebook. Gnatalie comes into the room tying up a hideous crop top, and she asks Knoll how it looks. He lies and says it looks great. Gnatalie looks at the notebook and asks what it is. Knoll tells her it is his four-year plan, "a road map for [his] college years." Gnatalie takes the book and starts flipping through it. She asks what Wavefront is. He explains that it is a 3-D animation program. Gnatalie coos, "Oh, you used to be such a geek!" Used to be? Knoll doesn't think much of her calling him a geek, but he plays it off. She hands the book back and then gives him a shirt that she wants him to wear that night.
At the loft, Sean and Meghan are preparing the meal. Richard wants to "state unequivocally that although this dinner is in support of the nuptials, in [his] heart of hearts, Gnatalie's a harpy." Um, Richard, don't you have some student council business to attend to? Julie, Elena, and Felicity are folding napkins when Ben arrives. Felicity kisses him and he tells her that it went well with his dad and that he's going to see him again tomorrow night. Felicity is pleased, and Ben is tentatively happy too. Knoll and Gnatalie walk through the door, and Sean shouts, "Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. and Mrs. Knoll Crane!" while the rest of the gang cheers and applauds. Um, Sean, Mr. and Mrs.? Assume much? Cut to the gang sitting around, and Gnatalie declaring that Cuba was "amazing." Knoll brings up a Hemingway museum, and Gnatalie interrupts to describe it as a "little white-washed house where Hemmingway used to live for twenty-something years." It seems that although it is a museum, no one is allowed into it, not that that stopped Gnatalie. She sneaked in and got into Hemmingway's bed and described it as the "most visceral feeling." Richard pedantically says, "Visceral means feeling." Okay Richard, she should have said it was the most visceral 'sensation' to be more clear, but your definition wasn't the most erudite. Try looking up eviscerate in yer Funkin' Wagnalls because I'm sure that's what Gnatalie is imagining doing to you. Knoll and Gnatalie give him the stank-eye, and Elena changes the subject to Germany. Richard says, "What the hell's going on there, celebrating October?" Julie hits him and explains that Oktoberfest is a beer festival in Munich. Tracy asks what they're going to do after the Germany trip. Knoll mops his brow and asks Gnatalie what the plan is, and she states that she hates plans. When asked if they're going to live in New York, Knoll nods but Gnatalie says she doesn't know and asks what Knoll thinks of the United States. He mops his brow again and says that he likes it. Gnatalie says that she never wants to live in the same city for more than two years. Knoll grins, sweats, and takes a slug of his wine with both hands. Sean asks what they're going to do to earn a living. Gnatalie doesn't like to worry about it because she has a "theory that money always works itself out." Richard snipes, "Yeah, there's relativity and there's that one." Knoll is about to implode, and he stumbles when he gets up to go to the bathroom. Once in the bathroom, he looks at himself in the mirror and sees his sweaty reflection and splashes water on his face.