Episode Report Card Niki: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Second Time Around
By Niki | Season 2 | Episode 22 | Aired on 05.01.2001
At the office, Rick is mindlessly tearing a piece of paper. Cho (Amanda, is it?) wanders over, and I wonder how the hell she managed to show her face at work again after essentially propositioning her boss and getting shot down. She makes some reassuring comments that someone will call the next day. Rick's out of hope. Cho mutters that she wouldn't want to design a parking garage anyway. Rick wearily snipes, "Yeah, and designing a parking garage could actually lead to getting paid. Wouldn't want that, now, would we? I'm serving dinner, and liquor, and wedding cake to over a hundred people on Saturday, and I don't even know how I'm going to pay for it." Cho says, "Can I ask a stupid question?" "Do I love her?" Rick asks, and answers, "Yeah, of course I do." Uh, not quite where Cho was going, but thanks for the perspective. She asks, "Um, how soon do you have to fire me?" Rick's head snaps up, pulled momentarily free of his ass. He looks at her for a few seconds, and softly says, "Soon." Cho smiles sadly and says goodnight. Rick goes back to tearing his paper. ["Augh, that one broke my damn heart." -- Wing Chun]
Cut to Rick and Lily in the bedroom, where the only thing seeing any action is the calculator. They're surrounded by a pile of papers, adding up the cost of the wedding. Lily bitterly complains that she can't believe how much everything costs. They reel off a few expenses.
"This is too much. This is too much," Soliloquy Lily frets.
"This is just what things cost," Lily tells Rick. Lily says they could cancel the musicians, and just have Eli set up a sound system. "You want to have a wedding without live music?" Rick asks. Jesus, don't question it, just jump on it! One less thing to pay for, man. Lily says she doesn't want to, and Rick says, "I don't want to not have anything. But $21,000?" Holy crap. Get a DJ. Get a hundred DJs. Who could enjoy dancing to music they paid $21,000 for, knowing they don't know where next month's mortgage is coming from? ["I'm pretty sure that's the cost for everything. It's still a lot for a hundred guests. That's $210 a plate." -- Wing Chun]
Soliloquy Rick interjects an incredulous "twenty-one thousand dollars?"
To Lily, Rick says, not all that convincingly, "It's worth it." She looks at him. "Isn't it? Isn't it what you want?" he asks. "Yeah, if it's what you want," she answers. Oh, I hate this pseudo-polite "I only want what you want" crap. How can they not tell each other the truth? I'm no relationship expert, but if the person I was marrying were developing ulcers and nervous tics worrying about how he'd pay for everything, I'd want him to tell me about it. Before declaring bankruptcy. Anyway, they both force a smile and lie that it's what they want, but their intestines are churning through it all. Phil watches them from outside the window. The hell? That's a borderline Peeping Tom, there, Phil. Rick senses someone over his shoulder, and looks toward the window, puzzled, as we fade to commercials.