Episode Report Card Jessica: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Four Scary Stories
By Jessica | Season 5 | Episode 9 | Aired on 12.11.2001
Basement. Remember Jack's Frat Rat friends, Caesar and Red? Yeah, they're in the basement, too. "We are way cooler than these dorks," Caesar says, looking at a picture of Frat Brothers From Days Of Yore. Jack finds a transistor radio in one of the boxes they're futzing with, and tunes into Jen's show. "Is [Jen] hot?" Caesar asks. "I don't really know how to answer that," Jack says, which is such a lie. People are either hot, or they're not, and I think you can tell even if you're not interested in their gender. I mean, I like boys, but I know when another girl is a babe. "Yes, or no?" Caesar asks. "Yes," Jack admits. "Bring her over sometime," Caesar offers, and I'd love to see that, because Jen would kick his ass. Jack coughs instead of answering. He's got the flu, he says, and he's all hopped up on medication. At the mention of "medication," Caesar takes out a flask of Jack Daniel's and talks Jack and Red into getting liquored up with him. How does he accomplish this, you ask? He tells them that they're at the "peak of their sexual primes." And he wants them drunk, in the basement of the frat house. Oh, no: he thinks they "should be out partying tonight instead of in latrine duty hell," and they need to "live a little." "I believe this is what as known as peer pressure," Red says, taking a swig. Woo hoo, drinking and cleaning! Crazy! Jack coughs and yelps as he takes a swig of the JD. "That's some strong stuff," he wheezes. As Jack sputters, Red looks at an old picture, which just happens to feature his father. Red's father, not Angry McPhee. This discovery just serves to set the scene for this vignette, by the way; the year Red's dad pledged the frat, some guy killed himself for reasons unknown, but Caesar thinks it's because he had a slutty and unfaithful girlfriend. Damn womenfolk. Why can't they just mind the house and the children and leave the catting about to the gents?
Anyway. Jack doesn't feel so well. "Dude. This is a vomit-free zone. There's a bathroom back there. Why don't you go use it?" Caesar suggests. So Jack goes into the oldest, nastiest bathroom ever, where he washes his face and stares into the mirror. A shadow flashes behind him, and he whips around. Nothing. He walks into the basement. It's empty. He rubs his eyes. A rocking chair in the corner knocks back and forth of its own accord. The lights are out. The wind blows. The picture falls to the ground, its glass shattering everywhere. Music plays clearly over the transistor radio. It's "Beyond The Sea," in, like, the eighth rip-off of The X-Files in this segment alone. Jack runs through the empty frat house, listening to mysterious banging. Sounds like the wind to me, and nothing more. Jack wanders from room to room, finally finding a door with a rattling knob. He opens said door very, very slowly, revealing a guy bound and gagged on the floor of the closet. Do you get that? Do you get it? He's IN THE CLOSET? And he's GAGGED? Like, he must be silent about his true nature? GET IT?