Episode Report Card Deborah: B | 1 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT My Sister's Keeper
By Deborah | Season 1 | Episode 10 | Aired on 12.04.2003
Joan: "What about Kevin? I mean, do -- do you think he'll ever be -- I mean..." Luke: "A, Kevin is probably still fully functional, and B, it's not as if he hasn't --" Joan: "How do you know?" Luke: "I caught him." Joan laughs. Luke: "Once with Maggie Fraser, and -- and once with Maureen McKeon." Joan's greatly amused and asks if he's sure. Luke screws up his face at the memory and says, "Absolutely positive." Joan: "Twice? What are you, some kind of Peeping Tom?" Luke says it's not his fault that he has a naturally quiet tread. He looks up and says suddenly, "Watch out!" There's a man in the road ahead of them. Joan gasps and slams on the brakes. Luke, perhaps a little too wired on caffeine still, says, "Don't stop! Go around him! He's got a chainsaw!" Joan, more in possession of her wits, says, "Oh my God, it's Dad!" Luke doesn't move, shouting, "Come on, the probability of that is --" Joan's already out of the car, screaming, "Daddy!" as he collapses to his knees in front of the car. They're both running toward him now; Joan gets there first and hugs him. They huddle there, panting, confused and relieved. I'm all blubbery. And no, I'm not talking about my ass right now. Obviously she knew there was some reason God sent her out there, but I'm sure she never imagined that this is what she'd find.
Helen's staring into space when the phone rings. She's made to wait to answer it until the cops can do whatever it is they have to do to trace the call. She answers, and Will says, "It's me." She exhales and says, "Will?" He says he's all right. He tells her there was a car accident, and the guy he was with died, but he's okay. Kevin comes wheeling in. Helen says she can tell Will is hurt. He asks if Toni's listening. While he gives Toni instructions on where to find the car, Helen wipes away a tear and nods, smiling, at Kevin. Will says, "Now, Toni, get off the line. Helen, I love you. I love the kids." Helen tells him there are still people listening. Will: "I don't care. I'll tell the world." Okay, that's pretty cheeseball dialogue. He says it again: "I love you." Helen cries some more.
Helen comes in the house late, and Joan, sleeping on the couch, wakes up. Helen tells her it's almost 3:00 AM. Joan asks where her father is; Helen says they're keeping him overnight at the hospital: "But he is fine, honey, you don't have to worry." Joan asks if anything was broken. Helen says, "No, but apparently everything is almost broken. Was that really the best he could come up with: ram himself into a pole?" Hey, it's easy to talk when the gun's not pointed at your head. She asks, "I mean, what are the odds?" Joan thinks, and says, "One in 22,957,480." Helen gives her a look. Joan explains, "I spent most of the day with Luke." She adds, "He won. The TriMathlon?" Helen obviously forgot all about it. So Luke won, but he didn't say anything to Joan right away? If he didn't know right away, when did he find out? Wouldn't it take a while to grade these things? Maybe it's computerized. What do I know? Do I look like a TriMathlete? Also, $30,000 at what seems like the local level strikes me as an astounding prize. If this were a qualifying competition for a higher state or national level round, I could see it. But a $30,000 MIT scholarship is pretty substantial. Helen seems somewhat excited, but not thirty-grand excited. Helen tells her about his probability scenario. Which reminds Helen: "Tomorrow we will have a talk about the rules, about how we don't just drive around for the fun of it." ["Did anyone else find that line really odd, given that Joan found Will while driving around 'for the fun of it'? That's not mentioned in this scene at all, which annoyed me. Anyway." -- Sars] Joan changes the subject: "Mom...you left a pregnancy test in the wastebasket." Helen, mildly annoyed, asks her why she went digging through the garbage. Joan says she didn't; Luke did: "He thought it was mine." Helen: "Why, are you sexually active?" Joan wrinkles her nose: "Why would you think that?" Helen: "Well, Luke thought it, and evidently he's a genius." Joan: "Not at everything. And you're changing the subject." Helen says she got her period, and she's not pregnant. Joan: "But you were...pregnant?" Helen thinks it was "too soon to know for sure maybe." Joan wonders if she's sad. Helen smiles: "My husband's alive; I have no right to be sad." Joan keeps looking at her, like she knows there's more. Helen admits to "a little sadness. Beneath the joy. A little sadness." Joan puts her hand over her mother's.