Episode Report Card Niki: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Won't Someone Please Help George Bailey Tonight? (2)
By Niki | Season 2 | Episode 20 | Aired on 04.17.2001
...just as Rick emerges from the courthouse to get an eyeful of her getting it on with his nemesis. He makes his patented guppy face.
Cut to Rick striding down an ornate hotel hallway toward the Presidential Suite. He pauses at the door, then knocks decisively. He glances over his shoulder down the hallway.
Soliloquy Rick drops by to recount the day his dad died. Rick was at his friend Bert's house, playing in the backyard, when Bert's mom came out with a "weird look on her face, and said that she was going to drive [him] home."
A male nurse leads Rick into the suite and through the living room.
Soliloquy Rick continues: "And the whole way home, I kept thinking, 'He's gonna be okay. He's gonna be okay.'"
Rick strides into the bedroom, where a nurse is adjusting an IV next to Miles's bed, while one of his flunkies fiddles with paperwork.
Soliloquy Rick: "And by the time I got home, the paramedics had come and gone, and he was just lying there. It didn't even look like him anymore."
Miles, mouth open in ragged breathing, eyes Rick and says, "I wondered if you'd come."
Soliloquy Rick: "I wanted to touch him. But I guess I was too scared." He stares off for a second and then looks at the camera, adding, "I was never much for hugging anyway."
Rick glances at the other people in the room and says, hushed, that he needs to speak with Miles alone. Miles still has some of his spark, retorting, "How quaint that you think privacy can preserve one's dignity." Rick's not amused. Miles dismisses his nurses and flunky and slowly turns his head in Rick's direction, grinding out, "Rick Sammler. How I've enjoyed our association." Rick cuts to it: "You lied to me." Miles doesn't flinch. Rick goes on, gaining momentum, blaming Miles for ruining his reputation, his business. Miles interrupts, "I urged greatness upon you." Rick doesn't even pause, accusing Miles of "sabotaging the project right under [his] nose" and saying that Miles "destroyed" him. Miles opens his eyes and says slowly, "And you wish for restitution?" He blinks. Rick's eyes are shooting death rays as he grates, "I want you to go to jail." Miles finds this amusing, puffing out air and saying, "Not likely now, I'm afraid." Okay, then. Rick says he wants "to smash [his] face in." Miles says, "I doubt it would hasten my demise by much," and grimaces for effect. Part of me wonders whether he's staging this whole thing just to avoid prosecution. "I could do it," Rick insists. Miles sounds like an indulgent father when he says he knows. They look at one another for a moment. Rick says that Miles doesn't care. He sounds like he can't believe it. Miles answers, "That would give you some satisfaction, wouldn't it? For a moment. But then you'd still be left with yourself, wouldn't you?" Miles pauses for a breath before continuing, "Were you blind? Were you greedy? Was your ambition greater than your good sense?" Rick looks hangdog as Miles's words sink in. Miles is relentless: "Were you still a boy, sent to do a man's work? You, of course, will have years to answer those questions. As for me, I am tired now, and choose not to spend another moment in contemplation of the past." Dismissed, Rick swallows and fights off the urge to cry. He hangs his head and thrusts his hand in his coat pocket, pulling out the brass turtle. He places it on one of the bed rails and silently leaves. Miles turns to see what Rick left, and smiles hollowly at the trinket. His face is like a death's head.