Episode Report Card Strega: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Status Quo Vadis
By Strega | Season 4 | Episode 13 | Aired on 03.26.2002
Ben is stuffing a duffel bag with sports equipment when Jack Tripper shows up. Ben explains that he's "doing this Big Brother thing," and is about to go meet his Little Brother. Jack thinks that's great and isn't at all curious as to why Ben is doing this, but it's so contrived that I don't blame him for just skipping it. Jack just dropped by to make a speech, anyway. He starts by offering Ben some sympathy and then declares, "I think you're making a mistake, and I don't want you to do something you're going to regret." Ben insists that it's simple: "She decided to have the kid and I didn't." Jack says that the kid needs a father, and Ben snarks, "You're the last person I want to listen to about this." Ouch. Jack admits he wasn't a perfect father, and Ben corrects him: "No, you weren't a father!" Double ouch. Although if Ben's hurt that his dad wasn't there for him, that kind of proves Jack's point. Jack pauses and says he's trying to be a father now, and Ben mutters something that I eventually translate as, "It's a little late." He grabs his bag and leaves. Another thing I don't understand is why Ben has to decide what to do right this second. I do think that, planned or not, he has a responsibility to the baby, but the kid hasn't even been born; he can take a few weeks to adjust to the idea. If, months later, he's still acting like he can just pretend it never happened, then people should start nagging him.
Ben walks down the street and checks an address. Across the street he spots a kid on a stoop who actually looks pretty cute, even to me. Ben and the kid look at each other. Ben stares at the kid with an expression that I think is meant to indicate emotional conflict, but it reads as flat-out disgust. Then he turns and leaves. It totally looks as if he checked out the kid and thought, "Ew, that kid doesn't deserve me," and left. Way to traumatize the poor kid. Jerk.
Zoe is setting up slides in the conference room. She's wearing a different sweater, and Noel is wearing the shirt that he wore earlier while Sean was inviting Clancy to the party. So I'm guessing that was the out-of-order scene. Or one of them. Noel says he wants to talk about what happened yesterday, and asks, "What was that?" He says that he thought they were going to be professional, and Zoe cluelessly says, "We were!" and I really don't like her. She's all, "Oh, I'm just a cute girl, and if I was rude I didn't mean to be, and I'm so pretty that you can't possibly be mad at me, tee hee!" Noel persists, and says that she can't take it out on him if she's uncomfortable with him. He actually handles that pretty well, confronting her without sounding hostile. Zoe continues to act innocent, and says that she just didn't like some of his ideas. She says, "I know it's hard working below me, but..." And then Noel ruins everything by saying, "If it weren't for me you guys wouldn't even have this account!" Oh dear. At least he didn't make a joke about being "below" her in some other sense. Zoe brushes him off, and Noel gives up after asking her again to look at the ideas he and Sean came up with. Okay, so the coffee-cart scene should come before this one, and it takes place while they're on their way to work instead of going home. Buying coffee on the way to work makes more sense, too. This episode is like a logic problem.