Episode Report Card Keckler: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT That's So Ravenwood
By Keckler | Season 1 | Episode 12 | Aired on 02.20.2007
A fleet of nondescript white trucks drive on wet streets. Inside a warehouse, a man with a big-ass gun canters rather jauntily down some steps. The camera pans over to the trucks, where someone secures a barrel-shaped DEVICE in the back. Sort of looks like a big plastic trashcan. We get a shot of a small blue screen that reads, "Ready to receive code," which is followed by "3F68 A907 93E1 49AR." It's totally someone's American Express card. The blue screen's dot matrix font then flashes, "ARMED." Some military-ish guy -- he's more "ish" than "military," but he's also wearing a greenish khaki shirt, so the effect is there -- tells a line-up of plainclothes men that all the devices are armed, and this is the moment they've been waiting for. So, they are going to drop trite scripts on all those cities? He passes out Manila envelopes and says that the other "cells" are receiving their instructions as they speak; the target cities have been confirmed; and their routes have been scouted and cleared. Hawkins opens his envelope and pulls out a AAA road map, a key, a thin stack of Benjamins (hopefully with non-consecutive serial numbers because otherwise, small bills are preferable for overthrowing the government), and a 4x6 card that reads "COLUMBUS, OH." The best part of all this is that the 4x6 card is laminated. LAMINATED! Because you don't want your target city to get wet or bent. Hawkins looks up at the military-ish guy, who says, "We're ready. The strike will go off tomorrow at precisely 8:05 Eastern." Which means, of course, that if Jake were interviewing for his celebri-jet job thirty-six hours before the bombs, he was having that interview at 5 in the morning, Pacific Time. Perfectly normal time to have a job interview, really. That's Time Inconsistency #1. Militia Man says, "Take a look around you, gentlemen." One of you will not be graduating. The four men look at each other. "These are the faces of the men who will change the world," Militia Man tells them. Behind Militia Man, several men with big-ass guns are standing IN THE OPEN AND SUNNY DOOR of the warehouse. You know, these guys are so stupid, I'm not so sure I want them dictating the new world order.
Tonight's Morse code message translates to "Laminate the world."
Ah, the perpetually wet streets of Jericho, KS. Who knew they got more rain than Portland, OR? Flags fly, and a braided girl wears a helmet as she pedals her banana-seated bike through the town. Do they still make banana seats for bikes? Those things were wicked comfortable. It's "33 HOURS BEFORE THE BOMBS." Let the record show that it is now either 9 or 10 in the morning in Jericho. (Part of Kansas is in Central Time, and the other part is in Mountain Time, so take your pick.) We're at City Hall, and Eric the Nitwit is panting at Mayor Dad's heels to tell his Daddy Dear that USA Today is having a contest to find the "Top Five Towns Under Five Thousand." Eric wants to submit Jericho as a contender. "Why, so some big developer can come in and start buying the town up, maybe turn Main Street into a strip mawwwwwl?" kvetches Mayor Dad, not a fan of Starbucks. Eric comments, "There are worse things than venti cappuccinos." Yeah, there's you. "Speak English," Mayor Dad orders him. Heh, I would have just gone with "Shut Up, Clone." Eric pleads that getting USA Today to recognize Jericho would make the kind of headlines that would bring out voters next month. Mayor Dad drawls that he is not worried about beatin' Gray Anderson: "The people of this town have kept me in office for over twenty years. I will earn their votes by doing the job they hired me to do." Whoa -- twenty years? And he got voted out just because of a little ol' nuclear kerfuffle? Jerichoians are fickle, fickle individuals. Mayor Dad turns and jumps when he sees his wife and daughter-in-law bearing down on him. His wife has a fixed and firm smile on her frog face as she announces that Mayor Dad missed his check-up that morning, so April is using her lunch hour (at 9 or 10 in the morning) to make a City Hall call. Mayor Dad calls April "Doc" and says that he'll have to reschedule his physical for after the election. Mom marches up to him and orders, "Johnston!" He's going to do this whether he likes it or not. See, his exact physical condition will determine which poison Mom should use. If he's horse-healthy, she'll break out the arsenic in her homemade elderberry wine. However, if he's already ailing, she can just introduce a little light Staph into his next shaving cut. Mom and April lay the groundwork for Mayor Dad's future and nearly deadly flu, and Mayor Dad submits to being examined in his office.