Episode Report Card Cate: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Smoking
By Cate | Season 7 | Episode 14 | Aired on 02.02.2003
It's time to meet Betty, Ben's new girlfriend. She tells Kevin that she and Ben met at the airport a few weeks ago. Seriously, how many characters on this show have hooked up at airports or on planes? Wilson, Lucy, Mary, and now Ben? Okay, you tell me that's not some sort of in-joke or shout-out to us. Otherwise, the writers would have to be pathetically uncreative. Kevin behaves himself until Betty lights a smoke. Then he starts glaring. Maybe cigarette smoke is bad for his circuitry. I know it's rude to blow smoke in someone's face, but I still laugh when Betty does it to the T-1000.
Did you really think Ruthie would keep her promise and not rat out Peter to his mother? Actually, I did, but I was wrong. She's on the phone to Mrs. Petrowski now, filling her in on all the details of Peter's nasty little habit. Mrs. Petrowski looks a bit like an older Ali Larter. Which reminds me -- you know what I would love to see? A 7th Heaven-Final Destination crossover. Mrs. Petrowski hangs up the phone without even saying goodbye, because apparently everyone in Glenoak is a rude fuck.
Roxanne stops by RevBong's place to find him sitting on the front steps of his house. He says he is not "fine," as he'd claimed to be earlier. He starts telling her about seeing a man, some stranger, yelling at his son, and how that made him realize that his father won't be around much longer to be abusive toward him. I'm sorry that sounds facetious. You know, as far as this show goes, this was actually one of the better scenes I've witnessed. They're just so few and far between that when they happen, I can't even bring myself to appreciate them. I'm sorry. I'll really try to be more sensitive. Or not.
Back at the Promenade, Ben, Betty, and the T-1000 are sitting at some patio café, where Betty is smoking. A man at the next table politely asks her to put out her cigarette because he's allergic, but Betty refuses. Then she loudly says, "Non-smokers -- they always think that they own the air. It's so weird." She turns back to the man who'd asked her to butt out and says, "Also, just so you know, thanks to you non-smoking nuts in California, the new smoking section is the outdoors. So get used to it." When the man and his date get up and leave, Betty says, "Bye!" The fact that she does that means that now I can't decide if she's one of the ruder characters on the show or one of the most polite. In any case, I'm falling in love with her too. I don't think I've ever been in love with a walking caricature before. It's kind of a weird feeling. Not even when she rudely says, "It's my God-given right to smoke wherever I want to," does my love wane. And when Kevin monotones a lecture on secondhand smoke, Betty just disdainfully replies, "Huh," and then gets up to check her messages. Right now I'm running a fever of 99.6 and my throat is positively burning from some nasty viral thing, but I just started really craving a cigarette. Hmm -- I wonder if this is the effect the episode is supposed to have.
While Betty is gone, the T-1000 trashes her to Ben. Hey, leave my girlfriend alone, you fuckwitted rust-bucket! Betty comes back and tells Ben that her answering machine was not picking up. She's worried that it's because a prowler broke into the house. I really don't see the connection, but it's by no means the most contrived thing I've ever heard on this show. Betty and Ben agree to leave to check on the answering machine. Oh, wait -- maybe this is just some bizarre excuse so that Betty can drag Ben away from the T-1000. If so, Ben didn't clue in, because he's trying to get Kevin to come with them. I can't tell if Betty is kicking him under the table. He tells her, "I'm sure there was a logical reason why your machine didn't pick up." There probably was, and I'm doubting it was a prowler. I suspect the average prowler has better things to do with his or her time than listen to some stranger's phone messages.