Episode Report Card Niki: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Chew on This
By Niki | Season 2 | Episode 6 | Aired on 12.04.2000
We return from commercials to find Karen on her couch and Leo hanging all over it, trying to get her to smile. He suggests that she "clean up a room. That always makes [her] happy." Hah! Well, now she's welcome Chez Niki anytime. Karen rolls her eyes and tells him to stop trying to cheer her up. Leo tells her that they caught Jessie's problem early, which is good for her recovery, and then he kisses Karen's ass by telling her that it's good that she's really sensitive to it. Karen makes a froggy face and whines that she "can't do this case." Leo nuzzles her neck and tells her she's being ridiculous. He tries to burrow his head under the blanket on her lap and she gets really short with him. Dude, take the hint, already. Karen complains that taking the case will "keep [her] in a relationship with Rick," and we all know how much she'd hate that. Leo keeps wriggling under the blanket, and Karen almost shoves him off the couch. Leo says she could help thousands of people. Karen whines that she's talking about helping her daughter and she just doesn't think he understands that. Leo figures out that Karen thinks he's just a kid, and the two sit on the couch looking sad.
Cut to the interior of a fridge. Luckily, someone opens the door immediately, before it gets tedious. It's Rick, looking for some midnight -- no doubt post-coital -- snack. Lily appears over his shoulder to continue perpetuating the myth that she eats. Sure she does: yogurt and a grape. As they pillage the fridge, they talk about Doctor R.'s assertion, and Rick admits that he's right. He's still involved with Karen. "Well, duh," Lily replies. She asks if he thinks that she's "the only one who has an unhealthy attachment to [her] ex-spouse." Rick asks if that doesn't make her mad at him. "Do I have any choice?" she asks popping a grape. I'm shocked. Not just because she's eating with a little gusto, but also because, for the first time in a really long time, she's being mature and unselfish. The fridge door closes, and that's all we get.
Cut to Dr. Rosenfeld's office. "Okay, so everybody knows," he says to a tearful, teeth-gritting Jessie. He asks how bad it is, really. Jessie stops chewing her pinkie to inform him that it's "really bad." He concedes that it is, "particularly if you're fourteen." He starts goading her, saying she probably "can't stand the prospect of going back to school and facing all those people lined up to laugh" at her. "That's not funny!" she snaps. Jessie says it's hard enough facing all those people as it is.