Episode Report Card Niki: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Daddy's Girl
By Niki | Season 1 | Episode 16 | Aired on 02.13.2000
Cut to a paper cup getting filled in a vending machine. Jared is in the hallway at school waiting for it. Grace appears and gets a coffee too.
Black-and-white Grace cuts in to let us know how socially awkward it is to be a teenager. "In books you know. Everything slows down so you get to notice all the details, like the way light makes someone...glow. But in real life you never have enough time because you have to figure out what to say, like, immediately."
Back at the coffee machine, Jared invites Grace to sit down somewhere. We see students moving up and down a staircase between classes and hear Grace say that sometimes she just watches herself. The camera pans to a window on the landing, where she and Jared are sitting. She says that she "just goes up and looks down on [her]self," something she calls "helicoptering." Jared laughs and looks charmed, which causes Grace to become self-conscious and say, "It's stupid." Jared disagrees and they talk about how hard it is to relate to other people, and how phony other people can be. Jared tells Grace she "really see[s] inside people...the part that everybody hides." They share a look and hey, here's black-and-white Grace again, looking positively girlish as she smiles and covers her mouth with her hand. Aw, shucks. Back in colour, Jared's friends appear on the landing above them, telling him to come on. They give him a hard time when he tells them to wait a minute. Grace looks uncomfortable and says she has to go anyway because it's her dad's day to pick her up. Jared knowingly asks her, "How long have they been divorced?" Grace replies, "They're not. Well, they are...sort of." Jared then shares his own divorce experience with her, saying that it's weird because now, suddenly, he has to take care of his mom. Grace says, "Yeah" like she knows all about it. As they get up to leave, Jared asks her about her soccer plans and makes it clear he's noticed her before because he's been to a few of her games. Grace starts backing slowly down the stairs, still talking to him, but her attempt at a cool getaway is ruined when she stumbles. (I really feel for her at this moment, having fallen down not just one, but every single staircase in my high school. ["Ah, memories." -- Wing Chun]) Jared's friends nearly bust a gut, but somehow Jared maintains, telling them to shut up as he walks up to meet them. Grace overcomes her embarrassment pretty quickly, and is smiling by the time she reaches the bottom of the stairs.