Episode Report Card Niki: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Where's That High Road?
By Niki | Season 2 | Episode 7 | Aired on 12.18.2000
"I can't do this, Jake," we hear Lily whine. She's on the phone, kvetching that she just can't stay detached, so Jake "has to do it." Jake, at the restaurant, smiles and assures Lily that "it's okay -- [he] wants to do it. It's a father-daughter thing." Lily visibly decompresses, unclenches her fist, and tells him how much she appreciates it. Tiffany, meanwhile, has moved into the restaurant shot, eavesdropping and waiting for Jake to hang up. She asks, "What's a father-daughter thing?" Jake proudly relates that Grace got her learner's permit and he's going to teach her how to drive. Tiffany's mind races all the way back -- like a year or two -- to when she was fifteen, and she starts blathering on about all the trouble she and her girlfriend got into when her friend got her permit. There's mention of a stolen car and two quarts of vodka. Just what a father wants to hear. Jake peers over Tiffany's shoulder as she continues her babble, and spots a crowd at the entrance. "Howard!" he calls, walking away from Tiffany just as she's in the midst of describing her delinquent friend's energy blocks. Her voice trails off and her face clouds.
Jake, having safely made his getaway, slides into his best impression of a Smooth Operator. He schmoozes Howard and the two women accompanying him, while Tiffany watches from a distance and looks decidedly unimpressed. As Jake starts flirting with the blonde (whom I'm sure is wearing way too much sweet and powdery perfume), black-and-white Jake pops up to tell us that, for him, people are like booze or drugs. They're his "thing." Especially when they're female, vacuous, and wearing too much makeup like this suburban nightmare of a woman. Back at the restaurant, Howard officially introduces Jake to the blonde and the brunette accompanying him. Jake and the blonde commence another round of flirting, and over his shoulder, we can see Tiffany watching, still unimpressed and, I'd imagine, suddenly realizing what it must have felt like to be Lily.
"And, if they happen to be female -- so much the better," Jake smirks from the Soliloquy Stool. See? I knew it.
Howard slaps a bill into Jake's palm and jokingly growls for him to get them a better table. Jake walks back toward Tiffany, and The Blonde -- who's wearing LAVENDER, by the way -- makes a very obvious display of sliding her cheesy eyeballs up and down Jake's backside. I'll be back in ten, everyone. I just need to take the hottest shower I can and scrub myself with a brillo pad...