Episode Report Card Djb: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Real Slim Shady
By Djb | Season 4 | Episode 4 | Aired on 07.10.2004
Claire, Anita, Russell, and some girl who's there to fill out the couch sit around a common room at LAC Arts, watching, I think, a documentary on cave paintings and saying a lot of really pretentious things. Like this: "If you take humans out of nature, there's only human nature." Compliments of Russell, a comment that inspires Claire to respond tartly , "That sounds really good, but what the fuck does that mean?" Though Claire's comments didn't sound that much more cogent, and Anita just opened her mouth to link the ruin of the environment to the shortcomings of "bushwhackers," which I'm sure is actually a less-than-subtle dig against the current Presidential administration, which is actually fine by me. Just then, Olivier saunters through the room with a leggy woman who is carrying two cups of coffee. Olivier is laughing uproariously in a "please note I am Olivier, for I will become important to the action of this episode shortly" kind of way, and the woman he's with goes so far as to say the words, "Oh, Olivier!" Here's another way we could figure out who he is with a little more ease: have him take off the damn Ali G. skullcap. "I heard you fucked him," Anita says to Claire, and Claire peers right through Russell's soul -- and believe me, there are some murky goings-on trying to see all the way through there -- as she responds, "No, I did not fuck him."
Satisfied with not noticing nuance while Russell stares guiltily at the ground and looks like The Crow, Anita immediately turns the topic to the pussy-whipping she took in class, asking Claire why she was so bitchy about her photos. "Or is that just the new Claire Fisher?" You could totally see the creative staff of this show puzzling over the extraordinary amount that had to be accomplished in this scene, with some producer standing in front of a board with lots of different color dry erase pens being all, "Okay. First they talk about cave paintings. Then we say something mean about Bush. Then they make fun of Russell. Then -- oh crap -- how are we going to get Olivier in there? Okay, then we solidify the talking point of 'The New Claire Fisher,' just in case the kicky new haircut isn't doing all of our work for us. And it had better work, too, because we don't have the marketing money to launch some apology Claire, like, 'Claire Classic,' if the new model tanks. Then we'll introduce the blonde if we have time. Then Claire -- wait, has Olivier been in yet? Crap. I so quit." It's just meandering all over here, people. Russell asks what was wrong with the old Claire Fisher, and she shoots back, "She just waited around for the world to happen to her," before rising from her chair and walking to a nearby computer. There she discovers Jimmy, who is famous for his many storied "things," as we learned last week. She walks up behind him and knocks a hat from his head, saying "Hey, Jimmy" in a way that makes the '80s commercial lover in all of us reflexively yell back, "Gimme a cheese with nothin'!" He turns around all angry ("Nothin'?"), and she apologizes for the awkward moment. She tells him that she would love to hang out with him, and he tells her, "Say when." Russell looks on, all, "I live in a house of silent torture, one that is of my own making entirely" before the camera operator runs his five fingers vertically across his neck in a "cut!"-like motion from the shot of Russell before they call attention to the fact that they didn't get around to introducing the blonde. Too bad. She's a pretty girl.