Episode Report Card Wing Chun: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Scribbling Rivalry
By Wing Chun | Season 2 | Episode 9 | Aired on 01.16.2001
Crusty follows Lily to the reception area, where several bubble-wrapped pieces of furniture are cluttering the floor. Lily asks what they are, and Crusty says that "they" have been delivering "his" furniture for two hours: "I guess he'll be staying a while." Lily takes a peek at a credenza (I think; it could be a desk), and Crusty asks her if she likes it. Lily appreciatively pronounces it "gorgeous." Crusty asks whether she thinks they're antiques, or reproductions. Lily doesn't know, and Crusty urgently commands her to find out if they're D.B. Sweeney's "personal things," or whether Clavan and Fosdick is furnishing the office for him. In the tone one uses to pacify people one suspects of being insane, Lily says she will, adding, "Christie, don't torture yourself. This is just furniture." Crusty, defeated, says that she's just tired. Lily suggests that they wouldn't send over "all this nice furniture" if they didn't believe in the magazine. Getting paranoid again, Crusty pronounces, "They believe in getting their money out as soon as they can. I'm the one who believes in this place." Crusty wanders off, muttering, "I'm the knife on the edge of the world! What they need's a damn good whacking!" under her breath.
Jake strides in the back door of Manning Manor carrying a big box containing Grace's new computer. Jake spins it to Zoe thus: "You and your sister get your very own computer! This one goes in Grace's room [where'll the iMac go?], and you can use the one downstairs any time you want. Well, as long as you let your mom use it every now and then." Zoe's wise to their scheming, though, and figures out that what he really means is that Grace is getting the new computer. She knowledgeably asks the new computer's specs and when it becomes clear that the new one is much better and faster than the old, she throws a hissyfit and storms off to her room. She ends by yelling at them never to come into her room again.
Naturally, Lily and Jake follow Zoe into her room, where she's pouting on her bed listening to some hip-hop song I don't identify. Zoe's all, "This isn't fair." Jake sighs heavily and tries to tell her that she can have her own computer when she's older, too. I sort of see where Zoe is coming from on this -- one of the thrusts of her argument is that she is better with computers than Grace is, and thus shouldn't be deprived -- but, come on. Zoe's ten. I think the teenager in high school should get the computer in her room. Well, actually, what they should have done is put the new computer downstairs, and let Grace have the old one to herself. But they didn't ask me. Zoe goes on to complain that she only ever gets Grace's hand-me-downs anyway, which Lily says isn't true. Zoe stomps (very cutely) into her closet and comes out with two sweaters that apparently were originally Grace's. Lily points out that the one in Zoe's right hand was the reindeer sweater Zoe loved, and that was why they gave it to her. Zoe regards it as if she'd forgotten that, as Jake points out that Zoe has a lot more sweaters than Grace did at Zoe's age. Zoe doesn't buy it, and Lily explains that Jake made a lot less money then. Zoe snits, "So I got an extra sweater. And she got five more years of a non-divorced family. I think that means you owe me a computer." Heh. No parent, naturally, should put up with this crap, and if I were Lily, I'd not only deny her the computer, but take back the reindeer sweater as well. However, this sort of emotional blackmail is very true to the behaviour of divorced kids, and judging by the expression on Jake's face, it almost works. ["Either that, or he was stricken by how much Zoe resembled her mother at that moment." -- Niki]