Episode Report Card Deborah: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Revenge Is Sour
By Deborah | Season 1 | Episode 17 | Aired on 02.26.2004
Angela and PMEC are leaning against some lockers, giggling over something on Angela's phone. Joan comes along, wearing a different outfit, so I guess this is a different day. As Joan reaches her locker, she asks, "Is that me, or some new life you're trying to ruin?" PMEC snots, "We just sent it to three people. We can't control where it goes from there." Save your BS, bitch. No one would have it at all if it weren't for you. Joan asks, "Is this some kind of sport for you, or more like ambition?" What a clunky line. Angela laughs, "Psycho!" PMEC: "Go bang your drum." They wander off. Joan calls out, "Hey! Yours is coming! It's only fair!" They're all, bring it on. Joan yells, "Ha! When you least expect it!" She turns back around, where a few lockers down, some maintenance guy is cutting a lock with bolt cutters. Just your garden-variety search and seizure, I guess. Speaking of which -- whatever happened to the metal detectors? Are they still around? The maintenance guy says, "The cornerstone of the practical joke. Who knew you guys would get so good at being mean?" Joan stops and looks at the guy: "The Devil?" Maintenance Guy God: "Go to the head of the class." He tells her to skip band practice this afternoon and go home and do the laundry: "Your mother's behind on laundry. Hence the bad underwear. This, you know." Joan points out that God ought to know that her mother is a total control freak about the laundry and none of them, except for her father (who likes to do his own), is allowed to touch the laundry. I'd tell Helen to get over that right quick, except I'm much the same way, so that'd be like the Tide calling the Cheer, uh...powdery. Maintenance Guy God: "Surprise her. She'll be grateful. Sometimes people need the choice taken out of their hands." Yeah, control freaks love that. Not that I'd know. Joan: "Isn't that your job?" He replies, "No. This afternoon it's yours. Do the laundry." He walks off with his bolt cutters and toolbox. Joan yells, "Ha! You're the one who made us ashamed to be naked!" Of course, he's more or less vanished, and everyone stares at her. Joan says to herself that she should stop doing that.
At home, the floor of the laundry room is covered with laundry. I think she's wearing the same thing she was when her mother read the review of the art show in the kitchen. But now at least we know there's a laundry situation. Joan clumsily starts shoving a big pile of it in the machine at random. She grabs one of those smallish boxes of ultra-concentrated powdered detergent and dumps the box in, all sloppy-like. I estimate there were at least three cups of detergent there. Frink: "Go, Curious George!" (Heh. That's one of our favourite Curious George stories, with the washing machine.) She looks at some softener but dismisses that. All that's convincing enough: the most common laundry mistakes are too much detergent; overstuffing the machine; mixing colours/fabrics incorrectly; and choosing the wrong cycle (hot water for woolens, et cetera). She perches herself up on the dryer and sticks one leg in the machine, jamming some clothes down. Luke happens along at this moment, commenting, "Oh, this is bad." He points out that their mother doesn't let people do laundry. Joan says she's taking the choice out of her hands. Luke: "Joan, you're standing in the washing machine." Joan: "I'm improvising. I can't be here all day." Luke doesn't think it looks safe. Joan laughs weakly, "Like laundry is not safe? Look, when I say go, I want you to hit the on button." Luke looks at the panel and asks what it looks like. I'm sorry, Boy Genius can't find the on button? The Credulity Strain-o-Meter is shaking. The button more likely says "Start" than "On," but still. Joan continues stuffing clothing in the machine as she says it should say "On." Luke says it doesn't: "It says 'Whites' or 'Colours.'" Joan: "Both." Luke: "There's not a 'Both' button." She tells him, "Well, hit something." Luke: "Joan, there's..." Suddenly the machine starts agitating and Joan falls backward, one leg in the machine, hanging upside down. She's yelping, and Luke's freaking; she tells him to hit "Stop." He says there isn't a stop button. She yells for him to call 911. Luke trips and falls on the laundry on his way to the phone, panicking in the doorway about which way to run. (Friggin' cordless phones. You never know where the hell they are.) We see suds bubbling up over the edge of the machine as the camera pulls away, with Joan hanging there, flailing and yelping.