Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Class Is Not Taylor's Thing
By M. Giant | Season 1 | Episode 11 | Aired on 11.27.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Sophia's suggestion of a ten-chicken feast leads to a chicken-coop riot, as Taylor and her little cabal step in to protect the "cute ones" from Greg's axe. Sophia defuses the conflict by letting Taylor pick the uglies. With that out of the way, the Pioneer Journal suggests starting a school. Recognizing that the Journal typically gives clues to the Showdown, most people agree that school's in. But not Taylor and Leila. So the Council decrees that Taylor is really totally not getting the reward this week, and they absolutely completely mean it this time. The brain-crammed kids show up for the Showdown, which not only tests their knowledge of Bonanza City history, but also their aim with slingshots. I'll explain in the recap. Green wins Upper Class thanks to Hunter's slingshot prowess and Sophia's studying technique. Blue is Merchants, Yellow is Cooks, and Red are the Laborers again. After winning the reward, the Council has to choose between a library and a free video arcade, and semi-literate Taylor isn't pleased at being shut out of the latter. While most of the Green team heads into the arcade, Sophia builds a library while DK struggles to get his team to fill the water tower and ends up facing a minor rebellion. With the twin inducements of the arcade and Zach's experimenting with catching flies with honey, Taylor turns into a dish washing machine and earns entry into the arcade. The whole town ends up spending all their time in there, much to the frustration of Sophia and DK. At the Town Hall meeting, the Council decides to limit arcade access for after work is done, and nominates Sophia to enforce compliance. Hunter gets his Gold Star at long last, and Jared steals an illicit DDR session before the arcade gets locked up. If that sounds like an anticlimactic ending, that's because it kind of is. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
In the previouslies, Jonathan warns us that there are only a few Gold Stars left, and plenty of deserving pioneers. We see brief glimpses of some these pioneers, and also of Olivia.
It's Day 31, and Taylor is living up to her reward-earning promise to work hard by…hanging out in the chicken coop with Kelsey and Leila. She tells us which ones are pretty, and decrees, "I think all the ugly animals should die and all the pretty ones should stay." Dude, what kind of pageants have her parents been signing her up for, anyway? Lest you think she's completely cold-hearted, she says that it's different for people. Because of their inner beauty? No, because they can put on makeup. How I wish I were making that up.
While hauling a wagon full of stuff through the town, Greg and Blaine are accosted by Sophia, who suggests having a chicken feast that evening. The guys are open to it, and an agreement is made that ten chickens are going down.
Taylor has moved on to petting the goats, so no one's there to protest when Greg steps into the chicken coop and starts grabbing birds. That won't last long, because he quickly draws a crowd. Which he plays to. "Ten chickens. One axe. Ten heads," Greg movie-trailers. One of the spectators is chicken-lover Emilie, who runs to tattle to Taylor that it's looking like her favorite birds are for the block. This bodes well for Emilie's future as an animal-rights activist: her ability to enlist incredibly shrill allies. Sure enough, the Taylorites come rushing to join the crowd, Kelsey yelling that the brown chickens are off-limits since they lay eggs. Greg points out that this ability really doesn't set them apart from the rest of the birds, and says he's picking the most edible ones. Which by now are in crates to carry to the chopping block. Taylor complain-terviews about Greg's bossiness, and Greg tells Taylor and her friends to relax. Taylor warns Greg through the chicken wire, "Don't make me go off, because I don't like it when I go off." Yeah, we could tell. Next thing you know, the girls are in the coop, physically fighting to release the chickens from the crates. There is a lot of yelling and pushing in the confined space, enough so that even the chickens are like, "These people are like us with our heads cut off."
After credits and ads, Sophia appears in the coop to mediate a solution to this crisis: let Taylor and her little friends pick which chickens will die. Taylor latches onto this idea like she came up with it, and? Problem solved. The town will be feasting on ugly chicken tonight. While Greg gets busy with his hatchet across town, the younger girls hang back in the coop. Taylor snuggles a Rhode Island Red (at least that's what it's called according to Greg, who certainly knows more about pre-stove chicken than I do) and assures her, "I'm not gonna eat you, but I'm gonna eat your brothers and sisters. They're better to eat. They're uglier." Not satisfied with having saved her cute favorites, Taylor now leads her little friends on a march through the town hollering, "Ugly chickens deserve to die!" "That's a ridiculous, dumb, idiotic thing to say," Sophia comments from the kitchen. Word. Taylor's so shallow, she's an island.