Episode Report Card Deborah: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Ready Or Not
By Deborah | Season 2 | Episode 16 | Aired on 02.17.2005
Kevin wheels into a half-dark gym where Andy's playing basketball. He confronts him about the fact that he never called about the courier job. Andy claims he was going to, but got busy. Yeah, I can see how shooting hoops would take up…pretty much your whole day. Kevin asks, "Doing what?" Andy says he was "settling in." Settling in? He's been living at the Y for what, five weeks now? How much more settling in is there to do? He says it's weird being in a new place. Kevin just stares skeptically. Andy tries a different feeble approach: "Look, Kev, I appreciate the help, I do, but the job sounded like a drag. You know, you're being ordered by some secretary half the time on some power trip…" Kevin: "So? It's a start. You need money, right? All you had to do was drive around --" Andy bounces the ball angrily and says, "I know what I had to do! Okay? I know." Kevin asks what is going on with him. Andy crouches down and then looks up at Kevin, finally admitting, "I can't drive." Kevin doesn't understand; he thinks they took his license away. Which they damn well should have, but apparently people regard driving as such a sacrosanct right that even when you drive drunk and permanently cripple someone, it's not a big enough deal to remove that right. Andy says that's not it: "No. But I haven't driven since the accident. I mean, I've tried, I have, but every time I get behind the wheel and I try to turn the key, I can't. I just keep seeing your face." Kevin shakes his head slightly: "It's okay." Andy disagrees. He twirls the ball idly on the floor and the scene ends in silence.
Will and Helen are walking up the stairs to bed. He's telling her about the case he's working on. This segues into an irrational comment about her conflict with Joan. As Will removes half a dozen pillows from the bed (Frink: "She has time to make the bed like that?"), he says, "This isn't the first fight you've had, Helen." She says this is different: "This time, when she left for Grace's, I tried to talk to her but she just brushed me off. Like she didn't care. Like I didn't matter anymore." Will says she'll get over it. Helen: "There's a time when a girl has to take a step away from her mother. She took that step today. I just don't want her to keep on walking." Will insists that won't happen: "You two are part of each other." Helen says her mother didn't listen to or understand her: "I barely spoke to her for over a year." Will: "You got over it." Helen: "Not really. Sure, I'd go visit a couple of times a year. But it was polite, and strained, and I couldn't wait to leave. I swore I'd never be like her." Will says she isn't. Helen: "Well, I said…'because I said so.' What's next: 'This is my house' or 'Because I'm you're mother'?" Will: "Wonderful phrases, all." Helen promised herself she would never say those things. So join the long line of women who made the same promise until they became mothers. Will: "The only thing we know about being parents is that every day we're thrown something new, something we're not ready for. You can always second-guess yourself. You were protecting her." Helen snuggles against Will: "We were like strangers, Will."