Episode Report Card Cate: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Forget Me Not
By Cate | Season 4 | Episode 11 | Aired on 12.12.1999
Dopey's phone rings, but he isn't gonna answer it. If it's Chickenhead, he doesn't want her to think he's just sitting around waiting for her call. How refreshing! Somebody still does The Rules, and it's a man! His "light and breezy" act flies out the window, though, when Chickenhead leaves him a message and is about to hang up. After he leaps across the room to answer the phone, Chickenhead starts telling him how she's at a party being thrown by her new roommate, Brett. I'm just glad Shana is finally getting out a little. She's telling Dopey all about her three new guy roommates when he just hangs up the phone, right in the middle of her story. I've met some pretty rude people in my time, but as a group, these people take the cake. Dopey starts bitching to Simon that Shana has "moved into a frat house." Okaaay.
Mary is talking on the phone with The Amazing Robbie. Sigh! She's all excited as she tells him that her parents have agreed to let him come over for what she calls a "home date." At this point, I'm not even surprised when Robbie cuts her off to say it'll never work: "When your parents look at me, all they see is trouble." He believes the CamRents are stalling until Mary and Robbie give up on this romance. Mary claims she'll "never give up. [Robbie] means too much to [her]." When Robbie claims that Mary is "stronger" than he is, she asks, "What is that supposed to mean?" Yeah, really. Robbie is thoughtful enough to translate for us: it means he doesn't want to hang out at the CamPound. Mary tries to convey that she's upset by weirdly spacing out her words: "I'm -- getting a really -- bad feeling -- here. Are we breaking up?" Silence -- well, except for me cackling wickedly.
Charlie's helping Ruthie build a fire in the barbecue. Yes, it's that stupid Y2K crap again. Grandpa has to light the barbecue, since Ruthie's not allowed to use matches. That doesn't stop her from having a creepy gleam in her eye as she proclaims the fire "excellent." Ah, Ruthie, you mischievous imp! She goes inside to get some food, but first she instructs Charlie to watch the fire. He does, until his attention is caught by a shiny red bike that's sitting a few yards from the barbecue. The background music reminds me of a bad horror flick, and for a few seconds I wonder if the bicycle will turn out to be possessed by demons. Charlie wanders over to the bike, while the fire gets bigger and bigger.
Upstairs, everyone smells smoke, and they go outside to investigate. RevCam grabs a fire extinguisher and sprays the hell out of that fire, which makes Ruthie sad. Annie goes over to her father. He takes a few seconds to recognize her and then starts rambling about the time he taught her to ride her "first two-wheeler." She asks him about the fire, but he stands there looking confused. Ginger is trying to appear sad, but you can see her looking over at Annie, and I just know she's thinking, "So you didn't believe me before, did you, beeotch?" Finally Charles asks, "What's all the commotion?"