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
On the Soliloquy Stool, Lily muses, "Why are we so pathetic? 'I wanna see it.' 'No, I wanna see it.' 'Well, I saw it first.' And that's our life? From the beginning to the end, and it never gets any better than that?" Well, that depends who you ask, I guess. I think it's better to be the person who does the thing that people fight over seeing, myself, and so does Crusty, I think.
Back at the office, D.B. Sweeney ponderously declares, "In two days, Clavan and Fosdick will be bringing a group of investors to see a revised presentation. We need something much simpler that articulates our goals." Crusty sniffs, "It's a piece. It can't be shortened." What? D.B. Sweeney snorts that "anything can be shortened." She pouts, and he says that he's trying to help her, and that she has to "let [him] into the process." She snaps, "No, you're not trying to help. You're digging my grave." Yes, Crusty. That's why the venture capitalists that employ D.B. Sweeney invested in your shit-ass site: because they want to dismantle it. Because that's a worthwhile use of their cash. It's not like you're fucking boo.com and there's even software underlying your crappy site that's worth buying. It's just content. They can find crappy content anywhere. It's not like Salon is that hard to find. They are trying to protect their investment. Stop acting like you're fucking Custer. D.B. Sweeney replies, "Why would I dig your grave when you're so willing to do it yourself? It's too much work!" Crusty regards him with parted lips, and he adds, "I'm trying to save what you created!" Tension crackles, and he says he's going to the kitchen and offers to get each of them something. Crusty watches him go, wild-eyed, and Lily leans forward and gently asks Crusty what she could do to help her. Crusty hisses, "You can help me by doing research on him. Not from these computers. Can you do it at home?" Lily asks what Crusty wants her to research, and Crusty says, "Everything: where he's been, what he's written, who he's screwed, how...Find out if those are his original eyes." Lily asks what Crusty's on about, and Crusty replies, as if it weren't painfully, embarrassingly obvious, "I don't trust him."
I used to have a little crush on Penélope Cruz. Then she went and kissed Matt Damon in All the Shitty Horses. Now it's over between us.
Lily sends a file containing her rip-off...I mean, "her idea," to D.B. Sweeney. She then sends the same thing to "Zooey25@bukbiz.com" (wow, that's the best fake domain they could come up with?). Zoe, watching over Lily's shoulder, asks who "ZO-ey twenty-five" is, and Lily says that it's Judy, and that it's "ZOO-ey," after the Salinger heroine. Niki and I both observed that, when they sit side by side, you can almost see a resemblance in Zoe and Lily; great casting job there. Lily leaves the computer, and Zoe climbs into the vacated chair. The phone rings, and as Lily goes to get it, Zoe asks, "Do you want me to look up his driver's license, too? I know how to find it." Finding the phone on the couch, Lily asks, "You do? Isn't that illegal? [into the phone] Hello?" "What's illegal?" asks Rick. Lily tells Rick about Zoe's hacking and Rick comments that they're becoming a crime family. Lily reads him a passage from What Would Machiavelli Do?, about inspiring loyalty in one's employees by setting them at each other and making them rip out each other's throats. Rick wonders what happened to "girls reading National Velvet." Well, Rick, maybe they grow up to be mothers in their forties who aren't so interested in Young Adult novels anymore. Whatever. He asks the follow-up question of whether D.B. Sweeney, "of the mesmerizing eyes," inspired Lily's research. Lily coyly asks whether Rick is jealous, and Rick protests that he isn't: "I just want to know what he looks like." Lily says that he looks like an older, fatter, more baggy-eyed version of that guy who was in The Cutting Edge, and adds that he's being silly. Rick asks if D.B. Sweeney is a billionaire, and Lily giggles that Bill Gates is a billionaire, and that she wouldn't leave Rick for Bill Gates. Rick says he's not so sure. (I would.) ["Dude, I have to say that Bill Gates just might be my Nealon." -- Niki]