Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: B | 4 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT The 09 Is Even Worse Than You Thought
By Jacob Clifton | Season 2 | Episode 7 | Aired on 11.15.2005
Lamb arrives, and Mr. Manning starts in immediately, all innocent about how he "just came home from church," and Veronica starts yelling that they were trying to help Grace. Mr. Manning talks over her the entire time about how she's a filthy lying whore, which kind of came out of nowhere, even though the Mannings are confirmed Veronica-haters, and definitely adds to the "I Can't Believe It's Not A Sex Cult" feeling. Veronica's yelling that they're abusing Grace and keeping her locked in the closet, look at the books they make her write in, and Mr. Manning actually takes a step forward. Lamb stops him, but since it's Lamb, he immediately steps up to cuff Veronica and Duncan. As he's doing it, Veronica whispers intensely at him: "There's a small room inside the closet that he had her locked in. Move the clothes." Have you ever had that nightmare where the guy has you held hostage and you're trying to tell somebody what's going on while not arousing your captor's suspicion? I love it when movies and TV shows play on that, because it's such an awful, scary feeling. Especially if you don't have any meth or your copy of The Purpose-Driven Life handy. He drags them away -- Veronica still valiantly eyebrow-talking toward the closet -- and down to the cop car, then back up for Mannings' statement. I'm starting to think maybe that whole pull Meg's plug reference when Lizzie gave Duncan the laptop wasn't so funny.
Upstairs, Mr. Manning -- stupidly, he stayed up there instead of going down to the living room or something -- immediately starts talking about how he wants the m prosecuted blah blah blah, and how they may have stolen from him, but Lamb proceeds directly to the closet. Mr. Manning yells that Lamb has no right to poke around, and he's the victim here, and Lamb interrupts him: "It's funny -- I heard my father give that exact speech once." Now, I don't know precisely what that means, but in my head we pan across the hallway and see Lisa Rinna quietly drinking a cocktail, because that's the last time I felt this slapped by something like that.
Lamb drives Veronica and Duncan down the block as a weird, spacy Air song plays. I like the texture it gives, like how that loud and not-precisely-right song was playing when Veronica and Weevil stumbled across the bus crash. At first you're like, "What?" but if you just give in and take it on, it becomes this whole new experience you've not had before. Something specific and real that you'd only get on this show. I think they made up the technique, at least the way it's used on this show. And as a fair-to-middlin' fan of Air, I know the lyrics: "Holy girl, don't get up for running/Stay..." Whoa. Lamb stops the car, uncuffs Duncan and Veronica with nary a word, and drives back toward Meg's house with his lights going.
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