Episode Report Card Cate: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Dirty Laundry
By Cate | Season 4 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.21.1999
At the high school, two popular girls are discussing a homecoming party for the boys' basketball team, while Lucy keeps up the proud Camden tradition of eavesdropping from a couple feet away. They're talking about how the girls' basketball team is comprised of screw-ups who were stupid to vandalize the gym. Hey, no argument there! I do have to laugh extra-hard, though, when one girl gets all prissy and says, "It made the whole school look bad." Lucy butts in and says, "Do you mind? You're talking about my sister!" She has to tell them who her sister is since they don't know. The girls apologize and say that they didn't mean to offend Lucy because they like her. One of them says, "You're really nice and smart. You're not anything like your sister." Hee hee. They invite Lucy to the party but tell her she can't bring Mary. Lucy declines and walks away. Instead of feeling dissed, the girls just watch her walk away, and one comments, "Lucy looks great this year. Too bad she has that loser sister." Okay. Along comes Mary. She asks if they've seen Lucy. They just point her in the right direction but don't say anything. I think that's kind of weird, and Mary must think so also, because she turns to look back at the popular girls, who just fake-smile at her and then start giggling when Mary's back is turned.
All this weirdness makes me almost glad to see RevCam again. Almost. He's summoned the donor of the $20,000 cheque to his office for a chat. The donor is an older Japanese woman named Sachiko, and she looks kind of annoyed to have RevCam harassing her about the donation. He just says that since it's such a large amount, he wanted to be sure it wasn't a mistake. I don't think Sachiko owes him any explanation., but I guess if she doesn't give one, there won't be much of a show. She tells him it's the reparation money the government gave her for putting her parents in an internment camp during World War II. She also says that her brother fought in the 442nd regiment, for the Americans, in that war. By the end of the war, her parents had lost their farming business, and her father was a "broken man." Both parents died before she received the reparation money, and "like them, most of the people who suffered and deserved the money the most are not alive today." She doesn't want the "blood money," as she calls it, and wants to get rid of it so she won't "have to talk about it ever again." Jeez, RevCam, thanks for making her talk about it again. You've made her cry, too. She asks him just to take the money, and he smiles wanly.
He's reading about internment camps when Ruthie comes along to bother him. Oh, goody, it's time for a history lesson masquerading as dialogue! I'm tempted to tune out, as I often do when this stylistic device is employed, but I'm glad I don't because RevCam does a nice job of explaining how people of Japanese descent were rounded up and locked away in the camps during WWII in case they were spies. He also explains about the reparation given out by the US government as an apology for violating the constitutional rights of those sent to the camps. As he's winding down, SuperMom comes in to say that she just got off the phone with one of Ruthie's teachers, and "Ruthie and her friends made a little girl cry at school today." Ruthie tries to weasel out of it by saying that she didn't do any name-calling, and that she'd offer Sarah some money but she doesn't have any. Nice to see that's all she got out of RevCam's lecture. Instead of trying to explain the futility of reparation money to Ruthie, RevCam just sits silently while SuperMom tells Ruthie to apologize to Sarah the next day. Ruthie leaves, rather insolently. SuperMom sighs and says, "Well, she shouldn't have done it." When RevCam points out that he didn't say anything, Annie replies, "Well, you could have."