Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Cat-In-Hat
By Niki | Season 1 | Episode 19 | Aired on 04.02.2000
Cut to Eli and his friend Creep (Coop), who irritates me to the core. Not only does he look like a cross between Screech and Kirk Cameron (just think happy thoughts and wait for the nausea to pass), he embodies that juvenile "get laid, go team" jock buffoon stereotype that I just love to hate. Anyway, it's after school, and the two of them are in a music store reveling in the token adolescent-male dream of starting a band -- probably because Creep the walking hormone has figured out it's a good way to score chicks (and I have to imagine he needs all the help he can get). So Creep's walking around waving a pair of drumsticks like he's having a seizure -- his really pathetic attempt at air drumming -- and he makes some suggestive remark about what a teacher was wearing. Eli starts wailing (hah!) on an electric guitar as Creep blatantly eyeballs some girl walking by. If I could, I'd smack him. Hard. Another guy walks up and tells Eli that "they suck." Thanks for the update. Apparently they know this guy -- he graduated from their high school the year before. He's with a girl who's way too cool and above all this, and the guy tells Eli they're in a band together. They're playing the next night at a bar called the Doghouse. They tell Eli he should check it out. After they leave, Eli and Creep realize they've missed their basketball practice. They also realize they don't care.
At her tae kwon do class, Jessie's talking to her friend Toby. She tells him she's sparring with a guy named Paul, who looks older and considerably larger. Toby's eyes bulge and you can almost hear him gulp. Paul approaches and dismisses Toby with some "grasshopper" crack. "Hey! You're not supposed to call me that!" Toby whines in a pathetically misguided attempt to win respect. Paul asks Jessie if she's ready for the black-belt test on Saturday. He basically tries to scare her while seeming friendly. As they line up on the sparring mat, Paul tells Jessie he'll go easy on her, but she very coolly says that won't be necessary. They get called out to spar, and Jessie proceeds to kick the cocky bastard's ass. After getting flattened, the big suck refuses to accept her hand up. She should kick his ass again, the big baby.
Karen walks in and sits down to watch the sparring. Naomi spots her and comes over to talk. Turns out they're good friends but haven't seen each other in a while. Naomi closely examines Karen and repeatedly tells her how good she looks. Finally, something clicks, and she knowingly asks if Karen's having sex. Karen's flustered reaction tells her everything she needs to know. "Go ahead, Lloyd," Naomi cheers enthusiastically. Um, not quite. Karen's evasive about the man-child's identity, telling Naomi he's hard to describe (without giving away the fact that he's a young'un, you mean). She says she's not sure where things are going, or where she wants them to go. She does admit that the mystery man is a doctor. Jessie joins the women, and Naomi tells her how good she is and then commits the worst sin imaginable for the mother of a pre-pubescent boy: She tells Jessie she thinks Toby may be a little scared of her. Toby overhears this betrayal of his budding manhood and is suitably mortified.