Episode Report Card Shack: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Jock Trap
By Shack | Season 4 | Episode 26 | Aired on 07.23.1998
A voice tells the jocks that Steve has had enough and offers a hand to help him up. It's Gavin. Steve gets up with his help and asks Gavin if he's okay. Gavin tells him he feels fantastic. Then he knees Steve in the stomach, and he goes down again. Rachel, U.V., and Ratcatcher Porno are all helpless witnesses. The jocks give Gavin his own blue jacket and leave. Chug kicks over Porno's mop bucket as he leaves and calls him a "retard." It occurs to me that if all the jocks have been brainwashed, then what was the school like before this all started happening? Was it really a school with no obnoxious popular clique? Did it even have a football team? Man, that sounds like utopia. And somebody had to come in and screw it all up. Later, Steve walks through town while "Danke Schoen" inexplicably plays on the soundtrack. He passes by the yogurt shop and sees Gavin hanging out with the Blue Ribbons, in case any of the slower members of the audience hadn't yet understood the fact that Gavin had been converted. Because that knee to the stomach was so ambiguous. Steve seeks refuge in the boiler room with Ratcatcher Porno. Ratcatcher babbles some nonsense. Really, I can't even transcribe it. He's added a New England accent to his cranky-old-man shtick. I managed to make out a reference to ketchup, but that's about it. Steve notices a paperback book in Ratcatcher's back pocket. He walks over and pulls it out. Now, see, Porno can claim Steve made the first move and he just thought the boy wanted some sugar. Anyway, the book is Slaughterhouse Five. Steve makes a big deal of the book being evidence that Ratcatcher Porno's behavior is just a big act. Yes, I think it's in Chapter Seven of the DSM-IV where possession of a Kurt Vonnegut book is considered evidence of good mental health and intellect. Anyway, Ratcatcher Porno makes a big deal of shrieking about rats being everywhere and leering around at nothing in particular and chewing scenery in an attempt to disabuse Steve of the idea that he's at all normal. Steve goes to leave, but Ratcatcher stops him. He lets the façade fall a little and asks Steve if he's ever wanted to just disappear, and explains that people get more "interesting" around you when they think you're stupid. But of course we're not going to hear what Porno tells Steve, because that would ruin the surprise. Or it would, if there were anything surprising in this movie, which there isn't. Instead, time passes, and we see Steve walking through the woods at night. Suddenly, voices in the darkness start calling Steve's name. The Blue Ribbon kids are stalking him. He freaks out and runs away. He makes it home safely, or so he thinks. Inside, Lorna is sitting on his couch. She claims she's there to tutor Lindsay in algebra. But Lindsay's gone to bed, and Steve's parents have gone to a meeting, leaving the two of them alone. Steve orders Lorna to leave, but she asks to use the restroom first. She washes her hands as she watches Steve drink a can of product-placed Coca-Cola. Lorna suddenly starts having "flashpresents" of Steve, much like the ones Chug had of Rachel. She unbuttons her shirt as she comes out of the bathroom and flashes a nipple at him. Steve tells her to leave, but she asks him if he thinks she's unattractive. He tries to explain that he's not a Blue Ribbon, but before he can get very far, she starts kissing him. Then her eye glows red, of course. And I suppose it says something about how we socialize boys and girls differently that, unlike Andy, Lorna starts her freak-out by blaming herself. She backs away from Steve, saying that what they're doing is wrong and repeating how bad and wrong she is. Steve tries to calm her down, but she stares at herself in a mirror, then suddenly rams her face into it. That moment might have been genuinely scary if it hadn't been given away in the trailers and commercials. Or if it hadn't been outdone by the seminal girl's-face-smashed-into-glass moment on Twin Peaks. Scariest thing I've ever seen on television, that scene.Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20Next