Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Let's Spend The Night Together
By Niki | Season 1 | Episode 2 | Aired on 09.27.1999
"What's her body like?" piggy David wants to know, typically heading directly for the important stuff. Rick claims he has no idea. "Exactly," David rests his case. Almost. First he has to plant the ominous "two ki-ids" in Rick's mind. Rick says that he happens to like the fact that she's got kids. "Oh, you're so evolved," David says. And it isn't a compliment. He says "evolved" as though it's synonymous with "full of crap." Hey David? Shut up, already.
Lily, of course, is still freaking out at the thought of impending intercourse. She begs Judy to give her a way out of the date. Judy encourages her to go, until it becomes very clear that Lily's head could, quite possibly, begin spinning uncontrollably off her shoulders. At which point, Judy tells Lily that she could just tell Rick the truth. But that goes against everything The Rules taught us! Lily flashes her a look that impressively conveys the question, "Are you high?" Judy immediately adjusts her advice to suggest that Lily could lie. To let us know that she's tormented, Lily flits and flails around and sighs at least five times before finally picking up the phone. She leaves the old "something came up" standby on Rick's machine and then executes an odd little celebratory dance.
Cut to Rick, who's having a decidedly different reaction as he listens to her message. Crestfallen. Deflated. Crushed. Yep, that about captures his mood.
A little later, Rick's sitting at his desk poring over plans when Eli walks in. He's surprised to find Rick at home. Flopping into a chair, Eli asks the question of the ages: "What do they want, anyway?" Honestly, I'm getting really tired of this whole "us" and "them" shtick, and let me humbly suggest that, if men really want to know what women want -- and vice versa -- then maybe they should try asking one another. It's crazy, yes, but so crazy that it just might work. Toss out The Rules and drop that locker-room bullshit, and just get on with relating as human beings. Anyway, Eli embraces the fine tradition of complaining about the catch-22 that is womankind, claiming that he did something wrong by trying to do something right, and he has no idea what the problem is. Rick tells Eli that Jennifer is "just scared." He asks whether Eli wasn't a little afraid of sex himself. Eli admits that he was, but figured it was better to "just get it over with." Since when has sex become a trip to the dentist? Eli's attitude I can understand, since he's new to the whole thing. But David, who said almost exactly the same thing, really has no excuse. Oh yeah, except that he's an ass. Rick sympathizes with Eli's view, and then imparts another dose of men-and-women-are-different-animals advice, telling the kid that the genders view sex differently. Women, you see, sometimes don't know that they're ready. This statement seems like an invitation for disaster, but Rick quickly clarifies his point: Women need to know that the man is totally there and willing to be responsible for their feelings. He warns Eli that he'd better be ready for all that, or he's "just another jerk trying to get laid." Eli asks how he'll know when he's ready, and can you guess Rick's response? "Oh, you'll know." The two sit silently for a minute, and the shifts and twists happening on Rick's face make it clear that the wheels are turning. He'd been listening to his own advice. He pops out of his chair and tells Eli that he's figured out what he wants to do with his night.