Episode Report Card Aaron: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Nobody Likes A Busybody
By Aaron | Season 3 | Episode 2 | Aired on 03.08.2003
The Taj Banal (tm norweigangirl). Nate comes home (although we never actually did see him at work, which might be important later) and finds Lisa making polenta in the kitchen. Before they can settle their argument from earlier, however, Carol calls once again for her weekly dose of wacky shtick. This time she's at Mark Harmon and Pam Dawber's house in the mountains, and she needs tips on getting Robin Williams to shut up and stop insisting that he's a lovably cute alien from another planet. Yeah. Good luck with that, Carol. We've all been trying to get Robin Williams to shut up for years, and it hasn't worked any better than our efforts with Rico have. Carol also needs instructions on making Lisa's famous balsamic vinegar salad dressing, and Lisa reluctantly agrees to talk her through it. Nate decides that this would be the be the perfect time to kiss and make up, and while Carol rants and raves on the phone, he apologizes for getting angry that morning. Lisa apologizes as well, and I guess she must have a way about her that makes people not notice how much of a raving lunatic she is, because Nate proclaims that Maya has the best mom in the whole wide world. Yeah. In Crazy World, maybe.
Cut to art school, where Claire is chatting with the guy we were so briefly introduced to last week. She's telling him all about JP, and how he's the only guy she's ever met who actually seems to understand her. "That's cool," says Russell, through his flowing locks of greasy hair. "Not even my imaginary friends understand me." Heh. I totally know how he feels. None of my imaginary friends understand me, either. ["Ain't that the truth!" -- Alan Ball] The conversation continues in a similar vein, with Claire extolling the many virtues of JP ("He's sweet!" "He's hot!" "He's always a man to me!"), and Russell using clever self-deprecating humor to make it oh-so-painfully clear that he has a massive crush on the redheaded object of our mutual affection. Upon hearing that JP even has his own band, Russell feigns surprise and asks, "Oh my God, it's Keanu Reeves, isn't it?" "Actually it's this internet recapper guy," replies Claire. "Maybe you've heard of him?" After taking a moment to be extra sure that they've hammered home the fact that Russell is caring and sensitive while JP is sexy and dangerous, Claire offers to listen to him talk about his own love life for a while. "I'm not dating," he says. "No dating. In fact, I think I'm kind of allergic, actually. I start itching and I swell up and bleed profusely." Heh. He also says that Claire's assertion that Russell's a really great guy will be of little solace when "it's 2 in the morning and [he's] laying in bed and eating [his] fourth bowl of cereal and beating [himself] up over some stupid thing [he] said in the eighth grade." When Claire determines that his cereal of choice is Cap'n Crunch, she laughs and suggests that they might actually be twins. Wow. Substitute Golden Grahams, and we could be triplets. Although that does take me to sort of a scary Brenda & Billy kind of place, doesn't it? Yeah. Never mind.