Episode Report Card Alex Richmond: F | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Neutral Corners
By Alex Richmond | Season 5 | Episode 3 | Aired on 11.11.2001
Jenny asks, "A video?" A video. About the telemarketing case: a bad-publicity PSA to scare the phone companies. Get Dame Edna back in here, we need to rehearse!
Richard knocks on the door of John's stall in the Uni. Fish knows John is in there. The secret door slides away, and we see John slumped over in an easy chair. John tells Richard his bodysuit is fake. Fish says John's "sullen attitude" is "boring." Thank you! My god. John asks whether Fish ever has a problem with being "profoundly ridiculous." If he cared, maybe. Fish notes that these three weeks of John being lame all started when he decided he loved Ally. John never declared his feelings, never took the shot. Maybe Ally loves John! Ever think of that? Fish thinks that John should at least "let her say no," and "walk the plank" and all that. Seriously. Unclench thine ass and go for it.
Dame Edna and Ally are having a little chat. Ally seems "blue," and Dame Edna "knows [her] colors." Ally looks down at her hideous blue plaid suit and stamers a bit. Is it Glenn, Dame Edna asks? Oh my god, for fuck's sake, GET ON WITH IT already. Dame Edna asks for Ally's hand, and I want to find the therapist that took DEK's hand, giving him this lame idea, and take that therapist's hand and SMACK HIM WITH IT. You know, as in, "Why are you hitting yourself? Why are you hitting yourself?" Dame Edna says that, back in the say, when she rode dinosaurs to Dick's Bar, she "tingled in every nook and cranny. Now, [she] tingles vicariously, and is tingling for [Ally] and Glenn." Wait, something's tingling on me. No, I'm just annoyed. Ally says that Glenn isn't her type. Dame Edna admits that she "may have had a phantom tingle." Ally is all, I have a lot of work to do, and Dame Edna makes to split. But just one last pithy moment before she goes! "Love is the one game you lose by refusing to play." So will someone please GET IT ON, already?! Jesus.
Hot Guy Ray and the phone company guy get off the elevator, ready for the settlement hearing. Elaine gets her one line in, telling Glenn the TVs are ready. Portia gets Line #2 in, asking Glenn to sing for Ling even though he doesn't know her: "The problem is, others do." What? Ally blows off John and slams into Ray, who says that sometimes he asks out the chick lawyers he works with as an unnerving tactic. We know. So, post-case, Ray will ask Ally out "for real." Oh my god, will somebody fuck someone already?
Conference room. Ally and Glenn agree that $125,000 is way too low. So, they made a little commercial. Hello, it's Dame Edna. If you're like her (and who isn't?), you've been annoyed by those calls from the phone company. And if you're like me, you've been annoyed by plotlines about those calls from the phone company. The phone-company guy looks scared; Jenny, triumphant. Dame Edna continues her schtick, saying that 72,000 "possums...er, 'people'" have joined in a class-action suit. Do enough people know Dame Edna's routine by now? She calls people "possums." Why is this bit so ineffectual on this show? Oh, right: it's not funny! Yeah. There's an 800 number people can call to join the suit. Oh, and the phone companies also offer a service (for $11 a month) protecting you from cold sales calls. Jenny has a few seconds of screen time, batting cleanup for Dame Edna. They bought airtime for the spot tomorrow night. Good for them! Of course, never mind the fact that all the phone companies could have made a dozen ads themselves by now, with bigger stars, or even with Carrot Top, Vanessa Williams, and Sela Ward having a three-way with those ex-football players watching and saying how much bang you get for a buck or whatever. But still. Hooray, or something.