Episode Report Card Niki: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Aaron's Gettin' Better
By Niki | Season 2 | Episode 16 | Aired on 03.20.2001
Fade to the foyer, as the camera pans to the slowly opening front door. Grace creeps in, grimacing as she tries to close the door quietly. She tiptoes in and glances furtively toward the top of the stairs before turning and spotting Aaron in the living room. She smiles, relieved it's not Lily, and sighs, "Uncle Aaron." He's standing in the shadows in his bathrobe, working in earnest on opening a package of licorice. She asks what he's doing, and he whispers, "Licorice. Specifically, red. Do you want one?" She says sure and moves into the room with him. He mutters about the importance of opening the package carefully, in such a way as to preserve their freshness, even though "they're nothing but chemicals." He triumphantly passes a strand to Grace and whispers that Lily's taking a bath. Grace's shoulders slump. She asks whether Lily's mad at her. "No. Not that I saw," Aaron says, adding, "But I see things that are not there." Grace turns to catch him smiling at his joke. He tells her she can laugh, and she does. She asks how it's going, and he says pretty good. He reaches to turn on a lamp, but Grace stops him. She lights a candle instead. She looks up at him in the light and says, "You know what? You clean up nice." He smiles bashfully and looks down. She remembers how Phil always used to say that about her. "My grandpa. Your dad," she says. "Some people are two things," Aaron says, chewing on licorice. "Sometimes they're three." "Like you," Grace says. She's about to list them off, while he struggles to get some words out. Finally, he blurts, "I get worried." Grace asks, "About being too many things?" He scoots closer to Grace, pleading, "Don't tell Lily." He sits back against the couch and gnaws on the licorice, reassuring himself, "I'm doing really well." Grace nods and smiles, and says, "Me too." She confides in him about her experience with Spencer, saying that when you've been through something with someone, you see everything differently. Aaron listens, transfixed, and his eyes light up. Grace says that suddenly the word feels like it's "made up of two teams, you know? Those who were there, and those who weren't. You know what I mean?" Aaron looks like he's trying to contain his glee and answers, "That's my life," before taking another bite of licorice. Grace stares at him, digesting this, and finally breathes, "Wow."
Tap, tap, tap, tap. Lily's slippers slap the stairs as she stomps down, snapping, "Grace!" Grace exchanges a look with Aaron, huffs, and says that she's ten minutes late -- Lily said 10:30. Lily's no fool, though, and she knows that she said ten o'clock. She moves to turn on a lamp, and Aaron whispers to Grace some secrets from Lily's high school days. He mentions "Brian Garvin," and that "he was the one [Lily] was always late with." Lily smiles at the memory, which she'd clearly forgotten. Grace asks what happened to him, and Lily hedges, "He changed." After a second she explains, "He turned gay. He is gay." Grace is thunderstruck: "So you made him gay?" Lily insists that it wasn't her. "Are you sure?" Grace asks, suppressing a laugh. "That was after me, Grace, not during me." Lily decides that Grace has had enough of a history lesson and orders her upstairs. I think Grace needs a lesson in sexuality before she goes, though, don't you? I mean, they just discussed whether Lily "turned" a guy gay, like it's even possible. And, they laughed abut it like it's an embarrassment for Lily. That's just not right. Jesus, to put it in perspective, that's stuff George Costanza has said. Anyway, Lily says that they'll discuss Grace's curfew in the morning. "You mean we'll infantilize me in the morning," Grace complains, and Lily corrects her pronunciation of "infantilize." Hee. Grace says that Lily could just trust her -- it's not like she's out doing drugs or anything. "I take drugs," Aaron chimes. Grace nudges his shoulder and laughs, "These are different." She catches Lily looking at her and quickly holds up her hand, reassuring her, "The ones I'm not taking." Lily points to the stairs.