Episode Report Card Cate: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Still Dopey after all these years
By Cate | Season 5 | Episode 17 | Aired on 04.15.2001
In the living room, Dopey is telling his father, "I'd rather have hot needles poked into my eyes." Now, I know it's possible the writer could have come up with that phrase in some other way, but I prefer to think that he or she lifted it from one of my recaps. Hey, thanks for the shout-out! Dopey's worried that "a stranger will know all the sordid details of [his] life." Yuck. I know that's supposed to be a joke, considering that Dopey has no life, but now I have this really unfortunate idea in my head that they're referring to some bizarre hobbies or fetishes he practices instead of sex. I'm sorry, I hope you're not eating while you're reading this.
Over at the hospital, Dopey paces the hallway for a while. Then he starts banging his head against the wall. Oh-ho, isn't it great how they play those mental-health issues for laughs? Everyone knows that insanity provides a veritable treasure trove of comedy! Dopey sits down. As the opening credits draw to a close, a tweedy-looking man walks into the office next to where Matt is sitting. Matt takes a few dorky deep breaths, then walks into the office the man just entered. You didn't honestly think he'd be polite enough to knock first, did you? He is a Camden, after all, so he's had plenty of experience barging in where he's not expected. The tweedy guy just stares at him as Dopey launches into some nervous patter before finally sitting down. The guy wants to be called Doc. It is decided that Doc will ask Dopey a few questions to get him started. Doc's first question makes me wonder if he frequents MBTV: "What's with the hair?" That may be the funniest intentionally funny thing ever said on this show. Doc refuses to be pinned down to an answer on whether or not he likes Dopey's hair, but he says he thought the hospital had a policy mandating that staff members' hair had to be clean. Heh. Dopey explains that he puts product into his clean hair to make it look dirty. Well, duh -- Gwen and I were talking about that months ago in the forums. Doc endears himself to me totally when he remarks that Dopey can't be wearing his "best look." This makes Dopey defensive. That's unfortunate, because when Dopey gets defensive, he gets really chatty. He rambles on about Lucy and Mike Pierce for a while -- to Doc's intense boredom, no doubt. Maybe that's why Doc decides to liven things up a bit by playing a prank on Dopey, telling him to talk to a chair as if it were Lucy. Dopey doesn't fall for this trick, saying he'd feel foolish. And he doesn't already feel foolish sporting that stupid soul patch? Doc claims that one can learn a lot by not being afraid to be foolish, but Dopey still won't talk to the chair. If Doc really wants Dopey to talk to inanimate objects, maybe he should get him a mirror, like the one Matt talks to in the opening credits. Dopey wonders if he can be evaluated by someone else. Doc does that weird body-language thing where he answers that it's "entirely possible," but he's shaking his head at the same time. Matt's suggestion that they "start over" is met with what really is a very logical question: "Now, how would we do that?" Oh yeah, Doc has the whole quirky thing going on, in spades. So has everyone else already figured out that Doc is not really a doctor, that he's just some guy who wandered into the psychiatrist's office? This becomes even more evident when Dopey says, "I know nothing about anything," and Doc compliments him for it. The homage to J.D. Salinger would work better for me if Doc weren't so damn annoying.
Robbie runs into Lucy in the upstairs CamPound hallway. He wants to know where SuperMom is so he can ask her permission to drive Ruthie back to school. Lucy tries to tell him it's okay, but as an über-Camden, The Amazing Robbie needs to hear it straight from SuperMom. I can sort of understand, but it's not like he's taking Ruthie with him to knock over a 7-11; he's just bringing her to school. How much nerdier could he get? Someone has attempted that zigzag part trick on Lucy's scalp, but it's a pretty sad effort that just makes her look exceedingly dorky. I'd feel sorrier for her if she weren't so damn annoying. SuperMom comes into the hallway and shushes the kids, telling Robbie to take Ruthie to school. Of course, he complies. Simon asks Lucy about Matt's whereabouts; he claims it's because he needs advice about women. I wonder who this "Matt" is. Is he some recurring character who has the same name as Dopey? Because obviously they can't be talking about the Dopester. If I needed advice about women, I'd ask just about anybody else first -- and that includes all the gay guys I know. Hell, I would probably ask the Pope before I'd approach Dopey. I'd feel sorrier for Simon if he weren't so damn annoying.