Episode Report Card Niki: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Sex, Lies, and Bugaboos
By Niki | Season 1 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.11.1999
The camera pans across the floor of Rick's apartment as we hear the door creaking open in the background. Eli's feet appear amid the strewn clothing that leads to the bedroom like a dirty little bread-crumb trail. He takes in the scene and casts his eyes toward Rick's bedroom. He knows what time it is. The soundtrack is now a blend of the theme song and that porn Muzak. I guess it's because the world of hot monkey love is about to collide with the world of filial obligation. The sound of wet lips in the process of creating a vacuum seal gives Eli pause on the stairs. I feel like I'm watching a horror flick here. I'm yelling, "Get out of the house! Don't go in there!" He's still thinking about his options. Then Lily giggles, and that makes up Eli's mind for him. He's gone.
After commercials, it's the following morning. Eli, Jessie, and Karen are in the kitchen getting breakfast. Karen asks how late Eli stayed up studying. "Pretty late," he lies. Karen asks whether he got the chapter read. Eli's silent, so she presses until he lies again. Grabbing her coffee and cramming toast in her mouth, Karen says, "I'm glad that all worked out," and rushes off.
Cut to the high school, where Grace is hanging out in the hallway with Lacy and The Sage. ["Coming soon to the WB's New Friday, right after Reba." -- Wing Chun] Grace's smile disappears when she spots Jennifer and Eli further down the hallway. Jennifer's reassuring Eli that the test will turn out okay, but he hardly looks convinced. Grace narrows her evil eyes as Jennifer snakes her arm around Eli's neck and pulls him in for a kiss. He leaves to meet his doom, and Jennifer's eyes land on Grace, who's shooting a stink-eye laser beam at her forehead. Grace looks away with a disgusted expression. Jennifer looks slightly amused in a what-the-fuck- is-up-her-ass kind of way.
Rick wanders into the bookstore, startling Judy behind the counter. He starts to explain that he was just in the neighborhood, but Judy cuts him off to say, "She'll be back in a minute. She just went out for sandwiches." Rick makes an embarrassed apology, and Judy says she's the one who's sorry. He asks why, and she brings up the Incident at the Apartment. Awkward pause, awkward pause. "You got your scarf back," Judy finally says. "Yeah," Rick says, patting it self-consciously. He takes a few steps toward the shelves, saying, "There's this book I've actually been meaning to ask Lily --" Judy interrupts him with an indulgent laugh and says that he doesn't have to buy a book. "Excuse me?" he says with a plastered-on smile. Judy repeats that Lily will be back any minute, and that he should just relax and wait for her. "I'm relaxed," Rick insists. "What makes you think I'm not relaxed?" Judy says that he just doesn't have to pretend to buy a book. Rick's smile fades a little, since he's not pretending anything. "I realize that," Judy manages from the corner she's worked herself into. "Is ordering books allowed? Or is it not that kind of bookstore?" Rick asks. You could slice the tension with a limp-wristed karate chop. Lily, of course, walks in at this moment and asks, "What kind of bookstore?" She smiles as she waits for the answer, blissfully unaware that Judy and Rick would each love to tear the other a new orifice.