Episode Report Card Niki: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT 'Til The One Day When The Lady Met This Fellow...
By Niki | Season 2 | Episode 15 | Aired on 03.13.2001
Cut to Manning Manor. Grace is carrying a stack of dishes to the dining room, and complains that she can't set the table because it's covered in papers. Rick's papers. Lily comes in with a stack of placemats, and stares at the table, thwarted. Rick breezes in, asking, "What's wrong?" Lily says that they're just trying to set the table. "Oh, I thought I was supposed to work here," Rick says mildly, spreading out yet another plan. He adds that he thought that's why she moved all the clothing. She puts her hands on her hips and informs him, "No, I moved the clothing so we could eat here." Rick rolls up his plans and says, "Oh. Okay. I'll just find somewhere else for all this stuff." Yeah, yeah. But not in the living room, bedroom, laundry room, or kitchen, okay? Oh, and not in the bathroom, either. Other than that, make yourself right at home.
Cut to everyone seated around the table, which is covered with enough food to feed a small Third World nation. Jesus, Lily, overcompensate, much? They pass a platter of chicken pieces along the table, the clattering dishes emphasizing the absence of conversation. "Did everybody get a yam?" Lily asks eagerly. Eli and Grace just look at her, while Jessie bites her lip and closes her eyes, as if suppressing a scream. "Why did I make yams?" Soliloquy Lily wonders, "Nobody likes yams." Back at the table, she looks down, wondering how she could be so stupid, stupid, stupid. Rick pipes up like a good shiny boy, "I love yams!" "I hate yams!" Soliloquy Rick immediately argues. Lily smiles at him and sends the heaping dish of mashed yams his way. Eli devours his drumstick like a wild man, which Grace observes, disgusted. I think Eli's been spending too much time with a certain ill-mannered young she-devil, don't you? Seriously, he's going to choke on a bone the way he's hoovering that thing. Grace looks at him again, this time a little fearfully, as if he could at any minute turn and start gnawing on her. Soliloquy Grace says, "I'm still not clear on where he's gonna sleep. That hasn't been made clear to me." Her eyes are wide and slightly wild. Wow. Imagine how freaky it would be to have your secret high-school crush move into your house and share a bathroom and see your dirty underwear in the laundry pile. Zoe stares at Jessie, who turns and catches her. Jessie smiles uncomfortably and looks down at her plate. Soliloquy Jessie gripes, "So now I'm going to have three more people sitting there, staring at me at every meal to see if I'm eating. Great." She smiles bitterly. Eli sucks the chicken grease off his thumbs, and then Soliloquy Eli complains, "The house smells like camels." What? "You know, aromatherapy stuff." Oh, candles. He pauses for a second, trying to pin down exactly what's bothering him. "It smells like...[grimacing]...women." Zoe sits at the table surveying everything and everyone with a tiny triumphant smirk. Soliloquy Zoe then confides, "I don't care. In fact, I might even get bunkbeds out of the deal." She smiles shrewdly. I love this kid. I am concerned, though, to note that the barrette affliction that plagued Grace for all those months seems to be contagious and Zoe's come down with a raging case of parted-down-the-middle-clamped-to-the-sides. The poor kid.