Episode Report Card Jessica: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Four Scary Stories
By Jessica | Season 5 | Episode 9 | Aired on 12.11.2001
Library. Josh from Popular pushes a book cart around in the background and pretends that he's just another extra, even though his name was in the credits. It's nice that the WB is finding work for the Popular folk. Okay, I guess mostly they're finding work for Harrison, since he's all on Felicity now. Did I ever tell you that I went to college with Chris Gorham, the guy who played Harrison? Because I totally did. We lived on the same hallway in the dorms! I totally know him and shit. Or, you know, I did. While I was in college. He's an extremely nice guy. Ahem. Anyway. Audrey and Joey sit at a table in the reading room; Joey reads. Audrey stares at her. Joey looks up and insists that she's "perfectly safe." Audrey waves her hand dismissively, saying that she doesn't want to be "the first idiot at the punch bowl, anyway." Joey reiterates that she's not coming to the damn Halloween party. "Well, who asked you to?" Audrey retorts. Joey laughs, and assures Audrey that she's serious; she's studying tonight. She's staying at the library. Audrey can leave. She's fine. She's safe. She's in no danger. Nothing bad will happen to her. Now, if Audrey will excuse her, she needs to go change into a filmy white nightgown and wander around in the dark, so safe is she. Audrey reflects that when she's scared, she likes to count out loud. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six," she counts. "It's very calming." Joey says for the seventy-fifth time that she's not scared. She's utterly surrounded by people, she points out. Audrey looks up and catches a glimpse of a creepy dude behind them, slowly shelling and eating peanuts. "Check out the creepy guy at one o'clock," she hisses. "He's eating peanuts. And he keeps looking at us. Don't look now! Don't look now. Okay, go." Joey peers over her shoulder and catches Peanuts watching her. "Maybe it's the tiara and prom dress that caught his eye," Joey snickers. Audrey just exposits that, recently, this girl was, like, totally attacked in the library, and you know what? She wasn't the only one. Joey could be next! A studious guy next to them tells them to shut up. Joey tells Audrey to leave, already. She stands. "I'm going. Put your life at risk. See if I care," Audrey says. "Are you sure you don't want me to walk back with you?" she says, gathering her bouquet and scepter. "Hey, Miss America, are you coming or going?" Studious Guy asks. Joey assures him that Audrey is going. Audrey rolls her eyes. "Goodbye, Beauty Queen," Studious Guy calls. "Excuuuuuse me," Audrey begins. "I'm Carrie, okay? Carrie White. From the book and the movie. Is that not obvious to you? God!" With this, she stomps out of the library. You know, it's nice to see a girl on TV with a normal body. Busy Philipps is a babe, but she's no waif. And thank God.
Eventually, the library empties out, and Joey is alone at her table with her books and her notes and her maniacal desire to achieve. Dear Joey: It's called a Xerox machine. And you can use it to make facsimiles of reading material that you're not permitted to remove from the library. With these items (called copies), you can read your assignment from the safety of your own dorm room, on the bus, or even in the bathtub. Look into it. Love, the world. So, anyway. Joey's the only loser left in the library, other than Peanuts and Josh. Peanuts ambles over and asks if he can borrow her pen. She gives him one. He stares at her. Ominous, whirly music. Joey stammers that he can feel free to keep the pen. "You shouldn't be here after dark. It's not safe," Peanuts says. Joey cheerfully informs him that her boyfriend is going to pick her up, "as soon as football practice lets out." Joey's dating a football player? Awesome! I had the hugest crush on -- oh. Hey, you guys, I think she's lying. Also, as though a school like Worthington would have much of a football team. Anyway. Peanuts tosses a legume in his mouth and walks off. Joey makes a freaked-out face and walks over to Josh, who's sitting behind a big old counter, and asks him for the reading for "the intellectual history of Europe." He gets her name, and runs off to look for it. Peanut watches from the back of the library. The Ominous Music Of Something Funny I'm Too Tired To Think Of (or, rather, Of Which I Am Too Tired To Think) wails in the background.