Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Illin'
By Sara M | Season 8 | Episode 15 | Aired on 02.08.2004
Ruthie and Peter are all smiles as they pass out their newspaper. The teacher takes one look at it and tells the class to throw their papers in the garbage, and for Peter and Ruthie to meet her out in the hall. Once there, she yells at Ruthie and Peter for saying bad things about two presidents on "a holiday set aside to honor them" or whatever. She tells the two that they have failed their assignment and can look forward to a meeting with their parents and the principal. The gravity of getting an "F" is now lost on me, as I now regularly give this show so many Fs that Sars should just call the rating "7th Heaven." ["Done." -- Sars] She tells Ruthie that she never would have expected this from her. "Well, it was Peter's idea!" Ruthie immediately says. Ha! Ruthie is so evil. Eventually, they bargain the teacher down to not having a meeting with the parents or the principal, and they get a second chance to do a "more traditional" project. The teacher says they better do their "very best," as opposed to their "very worst," holding up the tabloid as an example of that. This storyline is absolutely ridiculous. Perhaps if it was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Peter and Ruthie wrote a newspaper about how segregation was totally awesome, that might warrant the kind of reaction the teacher just had, but not this. Having watched Annie for a few years now, I really thought I had become immune to noticing when people overreacted, but I guess not.
Officer Baldy McCrewmember'sSon is back for a triumphant third appearance, along with most of Kevin's co-workers, for a meeting called by Det. Michaels. Det. Michaels comes in and announces that Roxanne was doing her reading program when she met a certain prisoner -- Det. Michaels's brother, who is at the end of his thirty-year sentence for armed robbery. An "honor prisoner" serves thirty years for armed robbery? Damn! He must have robbed a store in, like, Dickensian England to get such a draconian sentence. Det. Michaels says that his brother is the reason he became a police officer, but he's never told anyone about it before. Roxanne looks on, and the extra standing behind her is overacting the hell out of this scene. Every time they cut to Roxanne, you can see the extra putting her hand to her chin or her mouth, looking absolutely distraught over Det. Michael's secret past. It's pretty hilarious. Det. Michaels says that his brother has paid for his mistake and is ready to become a productive member of society, although considering that the poor guy has spent more time in jail than he has in the free world, and that he has only recently learned to read, I'd say that odds are against him here. Det. Michaels says he hopes that this won't affect anyone's opinion of him, and that he will answer any questions anyone has. Then he leaves, so I guess he meant that he would answer any questions anyone had at some point in the future.