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
Cut to Brian…uh, taking a leak and zipping up his pants in the boys' bathroom, which is yellow, and combined with the yellow filter factor, is the most uriney yellow room you've ever seen. Joan bursts in (hey, how'd she know he was in there?), shouting, "They're lying about you!" Brian, still struggling with his zipper, keeps his back turned and talks over his shoulder, pointing out that this is the men's room. Joan: "I don't have time for gender issues, Brian! They're trying to smear you. They're spreading crazy lies about your dad!" Brian already knows. A young boy comes in to use the washroom. Joan turns and barks at him: "Hey! We're holding a cabinet meeting here!" He flees in terror. Joan puts one hand up on the wall to brace herself. Ew! Joan! Don't do that. She asks what he's going to do. Brian says, "Nothing." Joan sighs, exasperated. He tells her it's not a lie; his dad's in jail for theft. Joan: "Your dad? Really?" Apparently Brian rarely sees him; he's a deadbeat who only comes around for money. Brian says someone broke into his school records and found out. Brian says he'll quit now that everyone knows. Joan rejects that. Brian says when he told his mother that everyone knew, she cried about having ruined his life. Just then the boy who wants to use the washroom comes running back in. Joan: "Do you mind?" He does a minor pee-pee dance and says he really has to pee. Joan points: "Use the bushes!" Hee. Or maybe she meant "the Bushes." He whimpers and flees again. Joan tells Brian forcefully that he can't quit: "I mean, I don't even like you, and I still know that we need you! If you quit, they'll win!" Brian looks at himself in the mirror and asks her, "You really believe in me, huh?" Joan: "Yeah, yeah, I guess I do. And I also believe that it's our mission to throw some dirt right back at them!" She marches out and then stops, takes a look around and big sniff, and comments, "Ugh, boys are animals." You have two brothers, Joan. This can't be news. The camera lingers on a Lars campaign poster, with the warning "Touch + Die" scrawled in magic marker above it.
As Joan walks into school the next day, she sees Hippie Boy God sitting against a tree trunk and playing the guitar (an electric bass). "Shouldn't you be playing the violin?" Hippie Boy God's all, "Huh?" Joan: "Violin. Fiddling while Rome burns. Didn't you take history?" He replies, "I created history." Joan: "How can you just sit here and rock out? Everybody in school knows about Brian's dad." Hippie Boy God: "Some people do whatever it takes to win." Joan's instantly defensive: "You think I'm not trying? You think I don't want to win? What else am I supposed to do?" She storms off and God goes back to his fingerwork.