Episode Report Card Niki: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT There Be Dragons
By Niki | Season 1 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.18.1999
She doesn't get a chance to respond, however, because Rick's so busy looking at her, that he slices his finger instead of the tomato. They don't show it, but the sound effects are really gross -- squishy, juicy, squirty sounds. Of course, it could be the tomatoes.
"Daddy!" Jessie gasps, covering her mouth. She tells them she saw this very thing on 911 and they have to find the other part of his finger. Lily waves her hands back and forth like tiny wings, but that doesn't help things, so she moves to look for a towel. Rick assures Jessie that his finger is exactly where it should be, and he just needs a towel. Eli comes charging into the room and yanks a wad of paper towels from the rack just before Lily locates a dishtowel in one of the drawers. Jessie's still frantically rambling, but now she's onto the topic of ice. Eli informs her that she's hysterical, and with a cracking voice she cries that she's not. Lily says they should have the cut looked at, just to be safe, and Eli offers to get the car. He asks if he can go through all the red lights. Inexplicably, Rick says yes. He and Lily exchange looks to let us know that this wasn't supposed to happen.
After commercials, we return to find Lily and Jessie camped out in the waiting room. Lily rummages through her enormous bag looking for mints, while recounting how her mother would always give her mints that tasted like perfume at the weirdest times, like funerals. Not that this is anything like a funeral, she quickly adds. Right, thanks for the update. Jessie tells her how squeamish Rick is about blood by sharing the story of how they ran over a rabbit, and she had to pick it up because he couldn't. They took it to the vet but it died. Jessie then asks if Lily thinks God has a good personality. Lily answers that she doesn't think God controls death, if that's what Jessie means. Then, borrowing a few tips from the Keanu school of philosophy, she says she thinks it's "all about cycles, you know? Like nature?"
Fade to a new view of the waiting room, which lets us know that time has passed. Now we're looking at Eli, sitting sideways in the chair with his legs draped over the one next to him. He's such a little rebel. The camera pans over to Lily and Jessie, where the bonding continues. Lily's saying that she didn't really get into school -- she just couldn't wait for it to be over so she could get on with her life. Jessie imparts one of Rick's observations: "If you're popular in high school, it's practically guaranteed the rest of your life will be a mess." This view seems to have replaced the "it's the best time of your life" cliché as the prevailing view of high school, but I'm not sure how true either of them is. Okay, I know the second one is total crap. As if to confirm the truth of the observation, though, we hear Eli the golden boy complaining that "this thing only gets, like, one channel." We then see him fiddling with the television mounted on the waiting room ceiling.