Episode Report Card Sara M: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Let's Not, and Say We Did
By Sara M | Season 3 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.22.1998
Annie walks Jordan and Lucy to the front door, telling them that she hopes that they have a good time bowling and eating burgers with their friends. After reminding the two of Lucy's curfew, Annie walks away. Lucy informs Jordan that they are not going bowling as Mary lumbers downstairs wearing an ugly pleather jacket and carrying a sleeping bag. She asks Lucy and Jordan if she can hitch a ride with them to the sleepover. Lucy says that Mary just doesn't want Annie to drive her because then she'll find out that the sleepover is co-ed and that Mary has been lying to her. Well, duh. Jordan says that everyone's a liar tonight, and that he'll give Mary a ride. Mary asks what Jordan and Lucy are lying about. Jordan says that they're lying about bowling, at which point Lucy basically tells him to shut up. The three leave.
Upstairs, Simon breaks out the Parcheesi, explaining to Annie -- who's just popping up everywhere in the CamPound tonight -- that his babysitting class said that "kids like board games." This is what the Camdens get for taking instructional classes at the Glenoak Y -- tips like "babies like food and shelter" and "kids like board games." Simon says that he's just going to let Ruthie do what she wants to do tonight, making Annie frown and say that Simon is a "surrogate parent" when babysitting, so it's his job to make sure that Ruthie's fun is of the "clean" and "safe" variety. I guess that rules out the Porn Film Festival and the Razorblade Swimming Adventure. Damn. Annie leaves the pool-hall phone number with Simon and tells him not to bother Matt, who will be up in his bedroom working hard on his sex project. Awwww yeah...bamp chicka bamp bamp.
Annie comes into Ruthie's room, where the little brat gives Annie her permission to stay out as late as she wants. Yeah, I'm sure Annie was just waiting for the good word from you before she finalized her plans. Annie asks Ruthie if she's planning to give Simon a hard time, which leads into a long and boring walk down babysitting memory lane as Annie tells us about the unfortunate things that happened to the older three Camden kids when they attempted to babysit Ruthie. Fortunately, Annie is trying to sit her hugely pregnant self in one of Ruthie's tea party chairs while she speaks, which was entertaining enough to keep me awake. Annie asks Ruthie to "go easy" on Simon, then kisses her goodbye and leaves. Ruthie rubs her hands together and smiles wickedly.
RevCam and the guys play pool. It's about time someone used this pool hall for what it was intended. As he chalks his stick, RevCam suggests to Roger that he go home to let some of the shock wear off before he sees Cassie. Roger says he needs to stay and talk to her. RevCam offers Roger some unsolicited, though surprisingly good, advice, delivered in typical RevCam style: "More than likely [pause], someday Cassandra will [pause] tell [pause] your son [pause] or daughter [pause what you said when you found out [pause] you were having a baby, and those words [pause] will stay with your son or daughter for all of his or her life, so I just -- I just want to suggest to you --" and then Annie enters the pool hall and calls out to RevCam, thus interrupting him before he can finish his platitude. Annie runs up with Babs and Cassie in tow. Sam tells Babs that he got the job, and she does a poor job of pretending to look happy about it. Roger tries to say something to Cassie, but settles for crying into his pool stick, being sure to lower his head so we won't notice that he has no actual tears in his eyes. "He knows," RevCam says to Cassie, as if this wasn't totally obvious. If only RevCam hadn't delivered his advice to Roger with so many pauses for dramatic effect. He could have gotten everything out before Annie interrupted him. Now Roger's kid is going to hear about how his dad cried with sadness when he found out about him, and be scarred for life. He'll probably become really bitter and cynical about everything around him, especially television shows that depict warm and loving families so unlike his own. In fact, he may even start doing snarky recaps of these shows for a website, still trying to please the one man who will never care enough to read them -- um, I think I might be projecting a little bit here. Back to the show. (And yes, I am kidding. My father's reaction to hearing of my existence was, by all accounts, very positive.)