Episode Report Card Niki: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT If You Love Something, Let It Run Free
By Niki | Season 2 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.03.2001
Cut to Karen apprehensively tucking her hair behind her ears and taking a seat. We're watching her through the blinds at Dr. Wise-Ass's office. The camera cuts inside the office as she asks if it's okay for her to be there alone. He holds up his hands, teasing, "Let me check the rule book." Karen sits in a chair across from him, lower than him, and looks like a little girl. She admits that she doesn't know what she's doing, "if any of this is right," and finishes by saying that she doesn't think Jessie is ready to be away alone for five days. "So, don't let her go," Dr. Wise-Ass suggests. Karen says, "Everyone thinks I'm wrong." Dr. Wise-Ass knowingly says, "'Everyone' meaning 'Jessie.'" "And Rick," Karen says, fidgeting with her fingers. "Two against one," Dr. Wise-Ass says. "Maybe that's why you're here, to try to even the odds?" Karen looks thoughtful and nods her head, looking into her lap. Dr. Wise-Ass gets Karen to admit that Jessie has been eating, maybe even "microscopically larger amounts." He suggests that Karen is afraid the progress will stop if Jessie goes away. She finally admits it. Karen then starts going on neurotically about the "school people" and how they don't care about Jessie as much as she does, and how she can't count on them to make sure Jessie's eating the "right portions" or to stop her from eating tons of junk food. "It's not my imagination. This is a life or death issue. And I'm responsible for her," she insists. "You're her mother," that sneaky Dr. Wise-Ass says. "Yes!" Karen agrees. She righteously rhymes off all the times she's saved Jessie in the past, and her ass-pole does a happy dance of vindication. But then Dr. Wise-Ass pulls out a big shiny pin and pops the bubble: "And if her bus crashes, are you responsible for that too?" She angrily asks, "What?" He tosses off a list of disasters, all of them beyond Karen's control, which of course, is making the ass-pole spin and splinter. Karen shuts her eyes against the pain. "Thank you very much. You know I can't control those things," she says. He asks what kinds of things she can control. "Whether she eats," she says. "Can you?" he challenges. She asks whether he's saying that she's too controlling. "You tell me," he says. Oh, she's mad now, and that ass-pole is chafing. "No. If you have something to say to me you say it, dammit," she orders. He looks at her. She asks, "What do you think?" He answers, prodding, "From Rick." She looks away, teary. "From before Rick," he pokes. She can't look at him. She nods and takes a deep breath, asking, "So this is all my fault? Karen the control freak? Karen who needs everyone to follow her plan?" "Karen who's afraid the world will fly apart if she's not there to take responsibility for everything that happens?" Dr. Wise-Ass adds. She asks who will take responsibility if she doesn't. "Karen, I don't know you, really, but I've got a feeling you've been asking yourself that question since way before Jessie was born," Dr. Wise-Ass says gently. She clenches her jaw and looks around, trying to hold in her tears. She nods slightly. After a few seconds, she reins it in again, and says, "But this is Jessie's therapy, not mine. Right?" Dr. Wise-Ass nods his head and says, "Okay." He asks what they should do, and Karen says she can't just "do nothing." We fade out, but it's clear their conversation is far from over.
We fade in on Judy at the bookstore, moving boxes of books. Lily pokes her head around the door and says a tentative "hey." Judy gives one back. Lily saunters in, sarcastically, saying, "Well I was hoping I might find Karen. I wanted to ask her some things about Rick's problems." Huh? Was that a joke? Rick's weird non-humor is rubbing off, it seems. Judy puts down her box, and the wariness slips from her eyes. She smiles a little. "Okay," Lily says, tossing her coat on a stool at the coffee bar, "you're right. I have never really asked you what you thought about Rick. And maybe that was selfish [did that word just escape her lips in the context of self-awareness? Or is this all a beautiful dream?], but I'm not sure I really wanted to know." Mmm, sounds more like denial than selfishness, but whatever. Judy says, "That sounds fair." Judy starts shelving books, her back to Lily, as Lily starts in on one of her condescending spiels, likening Judy's reaction to Rick to her reaction to dairy: she's "just so sensitive. To everything." Lily says "sensitive" like it's a serious character flaw. Judy somehow manages to hold her tongue. Lily admits, "I know Rick has problems, but there's so many remarkable things about him that you don't know." Judy looks like she's swallowing a dictionary's worth of words, and Lily prompts, "Judy?" Judy looks a little petulant as she confesses, "It's hard for me not to worry about you." Lily smiles at the sentiment, and Judy moves a pile of books to the coffee bar. Lily asks what she's worried about. Judy stares intensely at the stack of John Grishams, avoiding Lily's eyes. She admits, "I'm worried that he'll sit in my chair. Or drink from my coffee mug." She looks shyly up at Lily. "Oh, Judy," Lily sighs. Judy says she's afraid she won't be able to call Lily at 2 AM when she's had a bad date. Lily points out that she doesn't do that now. "Yeah, but I could," Judy says. "Of course you could," Lily says hoarsely. Judy is also getting misty. Lily looks at her, sighs with a mix of frustration and love, and grabs Judy's head to plant a kiss on her forehead. "Oh," Lily sighs again, in mock exasperation as she pushes away from Judy. She grabs her coat and heads for the door, pausing to say, "And I do want you at the wedding. As long as you don't have a very good time." Oh, so many things could be said to that, but this recap is already way too long and my shoulder hurts from typing. Judy, however, just smiles and goes back to shelving her books.