Episode Report Card Deborah: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Are You There, God? It's Me, Joan
By Deborah | Season 1 | Episode 18 | Aired on 03.11.2004
Helen is explaining to her class a technique called pique assiette. She shows them an example in a shallow box. It looks a lot like something either Frank or Hildi would do on Trading Spaces. Hildi would glue it your wall, and Frank would decorate a vase or a coffee table or a lamp with it. And Hildi would have gotten her raw material by smashing up your grandmother's Limoges. Frink quotes one of Frank's deathless lines: "You see this? This is a broken shard." For some reason the redundancy just kills him. Okay, okay. Enough Trading Spaces nostalgia. I'm over it. Helen says she asked them all to bring in an old toy, and what she wants them to do is smash them up and set them in wet plaster. I hope she told them that's what they were going to have to do. I wouldn't be too happy about being forced to smash something I wasn't ready to part with. Though I am, in fact, smart enough to know that when an art teacher asks you to bring something in, it had better be something you're not too attached to, I'm not so sure about her students. Also, how many people this age have things from their childhood that lend themselves to smashing and mosaic-ing? Didn't china dolls and metal cars go out with poodle skirts and HUAC hearings? Fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds are going to have stuffed animals, rubber dolls and toys, and things made of plastic -- if any of it survived.
Anyway, one girl asks, "You want me to smash Naughty Nancy?" Helen: "Well, think of it as using your past to create something new." Spunky Booster thinks that's "cool." You know, I'm starting not to care if Adam ever gets with Joan as long as he dumps Iris. Go away, little girl. Helen tells them to put on their safety goggles and start smashing. Denise, the owner of Naughty Nancy, is being totally feeble about it, and holding the hammer all wrong, and Helen tells her to put some muscle into it. Frink: "Learn to use a hammer! God." Joan comes in and shouts over the hammering noise, "Hey! What's going on?" Helen says, "We're memorializing our childhood relics. What do you need?" Joan says she came by to see if Helen needs any help, what with Luke sick and all. Helen says she knows about Luke, because Will called, and he also told her Joan ran off and left him with everything this morning. Joan says she's here now. Helen explains she's already arranged to miss her fifth period class so she can check on Luke. Joan apathetically offers to do it. Helen seems surprised: "You'd do that?" Joan: "Yeah. What's the big deal? Drive home, give Luke a pizza pocket…" Helen: "No, he needs soup and flu medicine, lemon flavour, and check his temperature." Joan: "Fine, I'm all over it." Helen thinks of something else, but then decides it's too much, and says, "Forget it." Joan: "What?" Helen left some ground beef out to thaw so she could make meatloaf, but forgot she had a meeting tonight, so now it's going to spoil. But she does another guilt-tripping "forget it" well enough that Joan says in a weak, pouty way, "I can make the meatloaf." Helen: "Your father would be so thrilled." Joan barks, "But I have to be done by seven!" Helen says she can leave as soon as her father gets home. Joan shlumps off as Helen chirps, "Thank you!"
Kevin's sitting on the end of an examining table in a room by himself. He watches a guy struggle past the door on a walker. I hope that wasn't an anvil. Frink thinks the actor with the walker totally looks like a crew guy who was grabbed on the spur of the moment. Kevin's doctor comes in and expresses his hope that Kevin doesn't have another basketball injury. Kevin explains that this morning he had a new feeling in his gut, a feeling that he hadn't had since before the accident. Okay, wait a second -- he had this feeling this morning and got an appointment, with a doctor -- who's probably a specialist -- today? Wow. I called my doctor two weeks ago to schedule my annual physical, and I have to wait two and a half months for my appointment. Dr. Hughes asks Kevin to lean back and pull up his shirt so he can examine his abdomen. As he gently prods and pokes, he asks Kevin if it was painful. Kevin says it was more like a fluttering: "Like I had feeling there again. Is that weird?" Dr. Hughes: "A lot of factors can cause reactions. Even a mild skin irritation." Kevin: "Yeah, but…this felt more like…something waking up." Dr. Hughes puts his stethoscope around his neck and says in a matter-of-fact tone, "With an injury like yours, neural regeneration is extremely unlikely." Kevin: "But…not impossible?" Hughes says he'd want an EMG before he'd be comfortable even entertaining the possibility. Kevin: "Okay. So…when can we do that?" Dr. Hughes says he'll see what's available. Kevin asks him not to say anything to his parents about this. Hughes says it can be confidential. Kevin assures him he can do the test today if there's anything available. Hughes is careful to keep his face on the slightly grim side of neutral.