Episode Report Card Deborah: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT La Vie En Rove
By Deborah | Season 1 | Episode 22 | Aired on 05.13.2004
Toni and Will arrive at a park, as Will exposits that the perp in the dry cleaner robbery got laid off from the security company, but can't keep his hands off the alarms: "That's a man who loves his work." He calls over to a man pushing a little girl on a swing: "Ben Pollack." Will's got his jacket pulled back and his hands on his hips, so both his gun and badge are showing. Will introduces himself and Toni. Ben makes a gesture to ask Will to dial down the threatening pose a bit, which Will does. Ben tells his daughter he has to go talk to them for a moment, and to keep swinging. He walks over to the cops and says, "I'm not going to give you any trouble." He asks them to call his ex-wife to come pick up their daughter, so she doesn't have to be taken to the station. Will: "Now you're worried about being a good father?" Ben: "Look, I know that I screwed up…but I've been looking for work for months, and, uh…" Will glances at the little girl. Ben continues, "I don't want my kid to see this." Toni assures him there are social workers there to take care of her. Will, the big old softie: "How soon do you think your ex can be here?"
Joan and Adam walk into school. She's wearing a wide, pale pink headband and a very lightweight short-sleeved blouse, with about one button done up, rolled-up jeans, and sneakers. Dunno about the headband. She apologizes again for what she did yesterday. Adam says weakly that it's cool. She says it's not: "We should know things like that about each other." They enter an empty classroom to study. Adam: "No, it was me. I just shouldn't have…you know…" Joan: "Gone postal?" Adam: "Yeah." Dude, not to be too much of a bean-counter about it, but if anyone's entitled to a freak-out or two, it's you. Joan: "Hey, first fight, right?" Pause. "Except for all the other ones." Adam smiles a bit. Joan says that Dr. Phil says fighting can bring you closer. Man, I'm tired of Dr. Phil. I know this is going to get me in trouble with Wing and Sars, but I don't think they'd fire me during sweeps, so I'll just say it: I wish Dr. Phil would shut it. ["I'm kind of tired of him too, frankly, especially his sexist crap." -- Sars] Adam starts complaining about having to study wars and treaties and stuff, and says the only interesting thing about the nineteenth century was the art scene in Paris. William Morris, Richard Wagner, and I really have to take exception to that, but I still love him anyway. He realizes he's forgotten his history notes, so he goes to his locker to get them. As soon as he said that I knew Joan was going to start rummaging through his bag, and sure enough, after a moment or two, she does, rationalizing, "Hints are everywhere…just have to look, right?" She opens his bag, pulling out a thick, leather-covered sketchbook. She opens it and sees that there are only a few pages used at the beginning; the rest are empty. Glancing over her shoulder quickly, she rummages some more and finds…a condom. She's pretty stunned, and she exhales forcefully and drops it in the bag. She sits back down quickly just as Adam returns: "Here we go…thirty-seven pages of crushing boredom." Yeah, I'll bet she can concentrate on history now, what with God apparently dropping big latex hints on her like that. Also, she has such a one-track mind: it didn't seem to even occur to her that they might have been something he was carrying around for/using with Iris. I know, I know, but the possibility has to be considered. He and Iris haven't been broken up all that long, and God knows I edit the contents of my various bags, purses, and totes only slightly more often than George Bush issues a sincere apology for anything. So I wouldn't assume Adam's all Joe Neatnik about his bag, either.