Episode Report Card Deborah: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT "Can You See Them / See Right Through Them"
By Deborah | Season 2 | Episode 14 | Aired on 01.27.2005
Joan hesitates near the cart, and then sacks up and marches over to the counter. She hoists her dark plaid shoulder bag up on the counter and starts rooting around in it as The Duff remarks, "Nice bag. Bargain bin? K-Mart?" Joan: "And your heads, I assume, are from Mattel?" Ha! The Duff glances back at Nine West, who whispers something to The Duff as Joan places her order. The Duff "accidentally" knocks Joan's bag to the ground and says, "Sorry," as the three of them wander off cackling. Joan is too taken aback for any witty ripostes. Too bad Grace wasn't there. She would have taken all three Barbie heads and switched them around. Frink thinks she should throw the bag in The Duff's face. He doesn't react well to bullies. As Joan crouches to gather up her bag, she sees The Duff trip as she's crossing the street. Her coffee goes flying and she takes an inordinate amount of time to collect herself. Joan mutters, "Oops," under her breath and smiles a snarky little smile to herself. When she stands up, she sees an SUV coming down the street. The driver is blathering away on a cell phone -- with no headset, so only one hand on the wheel; can't wait until it's illegal everywhere to drive and talk without a headset (mental note: remember to buy headset really soon) -- and Joan realizes he's not paying that much attention to where he's going. The Duff is still floundering cluelessly in the street, and it'd be a hard scene for a good actor to play convincingly, and here we see what the results are when you don't have a good actor…and Joan realizes she'd better do something. She runs over and saves The Duff's duff by grabbing her out of the way toward the sidewalk. They hit the pavement just as the SUV runs over her coffee cup. Nine West and Gold Bag watch with mild consternation from across the street. As Joan and The Duff gather their wits and brush themselves off, Joan sees Freaky Friendly getting on a bus down the street and giving her a Godwave. Theme song.
Oh, God, this Heffalump movie. Every time I hear that word it gets stuck in my head for days. What in the blue blazes is a Heffalump? I want to dig up A.A. Milne and clock him just for inventing that word. And while I'm at it, because one of the last things the world needs is some more Disneyfied crap, let's dig the old Nazi up, too, so I can kick him in the nuts for starting his miserable empire.
Huh. Good thing I'm mellowing out as I age.
In the Girardi kitchen, Will's reading from the newspaper story about Joan's heroic act. Kevin beams, "Nice, huh?" Joan complains, "You made me sound like Catwoman." Kevin wrote the story about Joan? I find it hard to believe that any newspaper that would be large enough to hire a fact-checker -- Kevin's original job -- would also allow staff to write stories about relatives. I find it hard to believe many papers too small or poor to afford a dedicated fact-checker would do it, for that matter. But if I start talking about all the bogus things related to Kevin's career trajectory we'll be here all day, and I still have two driving lessons to get through. The story says that Joan knocked The Duff out of the path of an oncoming truck, and Helen says, "I thought it was an SUV." Luke pipes up: "Actually, the Transportation Safety Administration classifies all SUVs as light trucks. Taking my driver's test Thursday." No one comments. Will tells Kevin he used the word "hero" seven times. Apparently they've fired all the editors at the Herald. No wonder reporters are allowed to write about their relatives. Helen comes over to kvell over the story some more: "In the Metro section? I thought you said last night they'd bury it on the comics page." Kevin: "Well, my editor thought Joan the Hero was too good for Hagar the Horrible." Joan: "It was more like a momentary loss of brain function." Luke: "Well, bravery can be seen as having a correlation of impaired judgment: Napoleon marching on Moscow…" Joan: "Grace going out with you…" Joan tells Kevin: "You forgot to mention my face full of latte…and Dylan Samuels* is not my friend. She's a total skank." (*Hereafter known as The Duff. Yeah, I know this should be at the bottom of the page. You think Sars doesn't have anything better to do than format footnotes? Deal.) Kevin says he focused on what readers want: "That's how journalism works. The public wants heroes." I thought the way it worked was: Your corporate overlords tell you what to do, and you do it. Joan thinks they could have found something better. Helen tells Joan she's very proud of her: "And if you ever do it again, I will kill you."