Episode Report Card Demian: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT A Pain In My Ass
By Demian | Season 4 | Episode 10 | Aired on 01.16.2002
No, I really mean it. You shouldn't have.
Somewhere in time, That "Clyde" Person's door slams down into the middle of a bedroom and flings itself open. Raige flies through and snipers immediately to the carpet. The Dolt follows, but remains on his feet. Hey, Dolt. Don't take this the wrong way, but those pants make your ass look fat. The Dolt shuts the door, which disappears. Raige rises and gasps in horror at her reflection in a mirror. She's wearing a Vietnam-era Army surplus fatigue jacket over a horizontally-striped t-shirt, but that's not what frightens her. She's more concerned about the braces on her teeth. I'm more concerned about that nasty wig they slapped onto her head. The bangs are cut in a straight line across her eyebrows, which wouldn't be bad were the sides and the back bobbed up to her jaw à la Louise Brooks. Unfortunately, they aren't. Rather, the flatly-ironed sides and back hang limply past her shoulders. She looks like Joanne Worley. Raige is outraged. She thought she'd be an observer. The Dolt corrects her, explaining that she must relive the experience as her former self. Raige is as pissed as I would be, were such crucial information withheld until this point. She was looking forward to "[sitting] on the sidelines and [making] sarcastic comments about [her] lack of style." Sorry, honey. That's my job. The Dolt instructs her to take a look around. Raige reevaluates the "lack of style" thing. "Hey, you're right," she tells the Dolt. "I was cool. Even then." Not. The only cool thing about Raige's 1994 bedroom is the Bride Of Chucky doll dangling from a bookshelf. The other elements include about fifteen Metallica posters and a Godzilla figurine. In a word: Loser. Then again, I really have no room to talk. If I remember correctly, I had posters of 1940s movie stars on my walls when I was sixteen, like I was Anne Frank or something. I suppose "closet case" works just as well there, but this isn't about me, is it?
Raige's reverie is interrupted by a knock at her door. At the Dolt's urging, Raige crosses to open it. Meet Fireman Matthews. Raige hurls herself into his arms for a hug. Pops snorts a bit at her effusive greeting, then sniffs the air. "Is that smoke?" he asks, drawing away from her. "Are you smoking in here?" Well, no. She does have a lit cigarette on the windowsill, though. Because teens smoking cigarettes ranks right up there with priests diddling altar boys in the WB's Hierarchy Of Sin, Pops recoils and sneers at Raige as if scabs of leprous flesh were dangling from her cheekbones. "I don't know how much more of this your mother and I can take," he snorts, stubbing out the butt and stomping out of her room. Jesus. It's not like you caught her with a crack pipe, Pops. Ease it the fuck up. Raige's face falls right into commercial.