Episode Report Card Gwen: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Robbie's in the Thicke of it
By Gwen | Season 5 | Episode 16 | Aired on 02.25.2001
Lucy brags to Annie that Ashley's mom took them out for ice cream with "really cute guys." Annie rolls her eyes. Lucy asks permission to go to the party with Ashley and Serena that night. She says that Serena's "cool -- she's not like…" Annie asks if Serena's not like her. Lucy says that StuporMom just doesn't like Serena because she doesn't bake pies and hang out at the church. Annie turns on the stony face. She tells Lucy to make her own decision regarding the party. Lucy decides to go. The clarinet moans.
Ruthie smiles over a make-up kit that looks like it came from Hobby Lobby. She calls Mary to crow about her own duplicity. She explains that she faked out Annie by buying her a cheap-shit gift. Mary lectures Ruthie, who hangs up on her.
Lucy leaves for the party in a pale green sweater with an ugly pointed cowl neck. Simon comes downstairs next, and Annie asks where he's going. "You said I could go out," Simon Jedi-mind-tricks his mom. "No, I didn't," says wily Annie, who wasn't fooled. There's a knock at the door and Simon lets in five of his friends, none of whom I've ever seen before. Annie is forced to tell them all that Simon won't be going out with them that night. Ouch. The friends leave. Simon is pissed. "I hope you're happy, because you just completely humiliated me in front of my friends!" he pouts. Annie asks to read his paper. "I'M NOT FINISHED!" he yells at her. Then he comes out with, "You know, I don't like you very much right now." I am shocked by his nerve. Annie tells him that the feeling is mutual, and that he'd better go upstairs and do his freaking paper or he won't be leaving the house until graduation. Simon runs upstairs, and Annie calmly goes back to folding her laundry. I have to say that I was impressed with StuporMom in this scene. I was expecting her to call in RevCam for help or something.
Sally Palmer, Robbie's mother, calls RevCam on the phone. She's wearing a goofy Hawaiian shirt, I guess to symbolize the fact that she now lives in Florida. She warns RevCam about Ed's wily ways. Considering that she just took off and left Robbie for another state, I can't see why she cares. Where do Robbie's brothers live, anyway? I know Robbie lived with Cheryl until she threw him out, and then he was homeless. Are his brothers homeless now, or are they living with Glenoak's rabbi and priest?
Ed and Robbie get back to the CamPound. Annie asks if Ed won't miss his bus. He has Robbie inform her that the two of them just put down a deposit on an apartment together. The clarinet plays sadly, though, because it knows that Robbie was probably the one who paid for the deposit, with the minimum wages he makes at the grocery store. Working at the grocery store is very sad for clarinets to imagine.