Episode Report Card Deborah: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Arcadia the Beautiful
By Deborah | Season 2 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.21.2004
Oh, God, enough with the Star Jones Payless commercials. No way Miss Thing wears plastic shoes. And what the hell happened to the other half of her? I've been so gobsmacked by her altered appearance that I was forced to tune into The View the other day -- a show I can't stand and haven't watched for years -- just to get a better look at her. My God, she seemed…so very enervated. Like some sad balloon you find shrivelled up behind the La-Z-Boy three days after a party. I mean, she was annoying as crap before, and I'm not arguing that her weight was healthy, but at least she seemed to have a spark of life in her. I don't know if she had her stomach stapled or whatever, but I do know one thing: the thread about her on Fametracker is one of the funniest damn things you'll ever read.
The next day, Joan and Judith are moving through the cafeteria line; Judith's looking at her video -- she made a video, not just a picture -- of the Lars/Teddy kiss, and mourning Lars's gayosity: "His hair…his arms…I even liked his ears. He was gonna be my New Year's resolution." I get the feeling Judith's watched this video more than a few times. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Joan: "Guess you're gonna have to fall back on calling your grandma more often. Look, we need to focus!" God, I can't believe Joan is even considering outing Lars, particularly as a campaign strategy. Is this the same Joan who stood up to those homophobic bitches last year when they were slagging Grace? If Grace knew Joan were even considering this, I think it would be the end of their friendship. Hell, she might even dump Luke for guilt by association. Judith suggests mass IMing of the video. Joan dismisses that as "too techie," although at first I thought she said "too tacky." Judith: "Right. We have to weaponize the information into the most lethal form possible. Maybe we go simple: the rumour?" Joan thinks Lars would just deny it: "And if people think we made it up, we could get some serious blowback." Judith: "We're pretty much destroying a guy by pandering to homophobic bigots. Isn't blowback a risk we're going to have to take?" Joan graciously pays for Judith's lunch, too. Judith thanks her. Joan says they need cover: "If things go bad, we need plausible deniability. Wow. Who knew Social Studies would come in so handy?" Judith has a brainstorm, if by "has a brainstorm" you mean "comes up with a completely obvious idea." She suggests anonymous flyers with a picture from her video. Joan gasps, "We are so good at this!" Yeah, I'll bet the Bush administration could use a couple of bright lights like you. Judith agrees: "Yeah, we are."
On a stairway, some Larsian goof is drawing prison bars over Brian's face on a poster. He runs down the stairs, where a crony is doing the same thing. Close your eyes and listen to the soft hooting and giggling. You'd swear you were listening to monkeys. Adam rounds the stairway and sees the first chimp defacing a poster and busts on him: "Hey! Hey! Don't mess with my artwork, man!" He pushes the guy away from the poster. The other chimp cackles, "Do you wanna die?" Adam: "What, it's not enough you talk trash about his family? What, you don't get a big enough charge out of that, huh?" Chimp #1 grabs Adam and starts shoving him around, but luckily for Adam, just then Lars comes along and yells, "Hey! Hey! Forget it." His obedient goons called off, he pulls them down the stairs and they all walk away. Wow. You don't get to see Adam that pissed very often. Brian's there and he says "hey" to Adam, who doesn't say anything. He just rips down the defaced posters and crumples them up.