Episode Report Card Deborah: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT "Until A Little Light Gets Through"
By Deborah | Season 2 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.18.2004
Next shot: Joan holding up her physics test in front of her face, with a big fat red F, and lots of errors, all circled. And a "NO!" Yikes. Grace and Adam, on either side of Joan, are staring at the paper. Grace: "Wow…did Lischak use her own blood?" I think it's more likely the blood of some hapless science student. Joan's incredulous. Adam: "What happened? You knew it." Joan guesses she froze. Adam tries to conceal his paper, but Joan snatches it and sees that he got an A. She and Grace seem equally surprised. Adam claims he got lucky: "Look, it's just 'cause you're under a lot of stress." Joan tells him, "Luke is stressed. Friedman is heartbroken." Joan's interrupted by the sound of Luke and Friedman noisily congratulating each other with complicated handshakes and high-fives. Joan continues, "I am incredibly…stupid." Adam: "Physics is hard." Joan: "'Physics is hard?' That's like the intellectual version of "you're not fat.'" Hee. Adam says it's just her first test and there's lots of time to compensate. Friedman turns around with a piece of paper and stands in front of Joan, who snarls, "Next sentence could be your last." Friedman just looks sad as he hands Joan a test, saying, "Lischak gave it to me because I helped her study. That's all I was gonna say." He returns to his seat. It's Judith's paper, with a C grade. Joan looks upset, and runs her hand through her hair, finally letting her chin rest on her hand. Grace and Adam say nothing. Okay, wait a minute: obviously this test was given before Judith died. So then what's all this exceptional stress Joan was under?
Will's being deposed. The other lawyer wants to go over basic details like name and address. Will glances around the office, noticing some football helmets on display. He lapses into a memory of the day of Kevin's accident.
Flashback time. Will opens the fridge and takes out a beer. He drinks it at the kitchen table as Luke raves about a kite he wants. When Frink and I get a load of two-years-ago Luke, we just explode in laughter. He's so adorably gawky, with the massive orthodontic apparatus around his head and his hair all combed down straight. He's…adorkable (tm Queen B). Frink and I are freaking so much we can barely hear the dialogue, which consists of Luke exclaiming, "Dad, it is so cool! It's got ram-air traction, ripstop nylon…I mean, you barely need a breeze to fly it! It's, like, the perfect display of positive/negative airflow!" Great, now Frink wants one. He loves kites. Maybe I'll get him one for Festivus. Will's basically ignoring him. Imagine that. Joan, sitting on the counter making a friendship bracelet, says, "It's a kite." Luke: "Yeah, and it's smarter than you." Joan: "And it's more interesting than you." Joan looks like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, with her hair in two tight braids. She's wearing overalls and dumpy-looking shoes. Kevin comes into the kitchen and flings his gym bag on the counter as their father tells them to knock it off. Kevin: "Where's the Gatorade?" Well, it's probably in the fridge, but with all the jock sense of entitlement in the room, it might be hard to, you know, see the fridge. Wow, the Girardi kitchen is really…well, fugly's too strong a word, but...let's just say the Girardis sure got it together taste-wise when they bought the house in Arcadia. The kitchen's a bacchanal of knotty pine, and there's at least one shelf that has scalloped trim carved along the bottom. Egad, is it the range hood that's got that scallops on it? Yucko. They've got a huge old double oven, though. That'd come in handy. Man, I want one of those Maytag Gemini ovens with the two compartments…sorry -- there's no staying on topic once I start thinking about interiors.
Kevin grabs a bottle out of the fridge as his father says, "It's 4:30 and you're not suited up." Kevin says he'll suit up at the gym: "I got time." Will says he'll get benched. Kevin: "Henderson pulled a groin muscle. Nobody else to carry the ball." Will: "That's your work ethic?" Kevin says it's football, and not even his sport: "Baseball, I give 110 percent." Will starts riding him: "So you skim off the top elsewhere? What kind of a man are you?" He rags on Kevin as Joan and Luke decide to quietly slip away. It's obviously not all that unusual for Will to be on Kevin's case like this. Kevin asks if he can get the "abbreviated lecture," because he's going to be late. Will: "You're already late, and this is not how I raised you to think." Kevin: "You've been on me all day!" Will says that's his job. Helen comes in and wonders what the problem is now. Will says it's between him and Kevin, who's trying to leave. Will stops him, saying he's not finished. Helen says Kevin will be late for the game. Will: "Helen, please! You're always making excuses for him. You encourage him!" Helen sets the table, asking, "That's my crime? I encourage my son?" Will says she babies him: "He's a man and he needs to act like it! And he can't do that if his mother's still making his bed." Man. Will needs to calm the hell down. Helen sighs, "Will, it's homecoming. Try not to ruin it for him." Will: "I'm ruining it?" Kevin tries to get going while the going is good: "Bye!" Will goes after him: "Kevin, don't you walk out on me!" Kevin calls back, "I'm a man! I'm acting like it!" Will stands at the door, hollering that they're not finished: "One day, you're gonna get your ass kicked and there's a part of me that's looking forward to it! Do you hear me? Kevin!" He slams the door and stands there with his hand on the knob, exhaling heavily. It's a lot of work being a hard-ass.