Episode Report Card Deborah: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT God Is My Co-Pilot
By Deborah | Season 2 | Episode 18 | Aired on 03.03.2005
At school, Grace and Luke are walking outside as he tells her, "So I realized, nobody's ever created a force anywhere near ten to the nineteenth power volts, and nobody ever will, because if they did, they would risk creating an enormous black hole that would suck up the entire universe." Hmm. What's the power we'd need to suck up just the White House and the Pentagon? Grace smiles a bit: "Awesome recovery." Luke: "Yeah, you know, who cares what a bunch of idiots from Arcadia College think of me?" Grace looks pleased: "You read The Anarchy Manifesto." Luke: "Huh? No, Steinholz just made me realize that it's not about ego, it's about the work, the struggle. That's all that really matters." Now she looks annoyed: "That's what I said to you." Yeah, but you're not a big-deal string theorist. You're just the girlfriend. Suddenly Friedman rushes up to brag about his steakhouse dinner. He spreads his camel-coloured blazer apart to show his souvenir Don Thornberry's T-shirt with some cheesy cowboy cartoon on it and a Ye Olde Saloon font that reads "Eat at Don's." Which he's wearing over an orange turtleneck sweater -- or maybe just an orange turtleneck dickie, knowing Friedman. Just the thought that there could exist in the world an orange turtleneck dickie is making me feel woozy. I think I need to go lie down. Friedman says, "Dude, Don's steak was like a whole cow and his baked potato was as big as my headIgottago!" He rushes off. Grace puts her arm through Luke's and reminds him, "Dude, it's about the struggle." Luke: "Yeah, okay. I'm -- I'm struggling."
Adam brings Bonnie into Helen's empty classroom: "Voila." Come on. She goes to the same school and is seriously interested in art but doesn't take the art class? The Credibility Strain-o-Meter is already way over its annual mileage allowance. Okay, I know that metaphor didn't work but not all the writing on this show is doing so, either, and of the two, I am by far the lesser problem. Bonnie claims it's a waste of time: "Our teachers are so lame. Like you could teach creativity." Adam insists "Mrs. G." isn't like that at all. Helen's just about to come into the room when she hears Adam talking about her, so she lurks outside the door, eavesdropping. Adam: "She knows just how to say the right thing for you to see your work a new way without even pissing you off." Bonnie snots, "Anyone who would teach high school is too scared to do art for real." Helen's reaction indicates that, somewhere, she really believes that about herself. Adam argues, "No, just the other day she asked for my feedback on her work and it was amazing. She treated me like an equal." Helen smiles to herself and decides to come in before she has to hear Bonnie's rejoinder to that. She asks him how it's going and he says he was just showing Bonnie the art room. Bonnie apathetically raises her hand in silent greeting. Adam gets her to give him her notebook, and he shows Helen her small paintings therein: "Check this out. She's totally twisted, in a good way. She did this awesome mural behind a dumpster." Helen looks at the work and describes it as "very confrontational." Bonnie: "I don't like to be ignored." Helen: "Yeah. No one does. Especially an artist." Bonnie smiles. Adam says he knows it's halfway through the semester already but wonders if Bonnie can join the class. Bonnie: "Yeah, but you know, I don't paint kittens. Yeah. Unless they're dead." Hee. Helen takes that in stride: "Fair enough." She suggests a landscape, but Bonnie has a pretty limited idea of what a landscape can be, and balks. Helen explains it doesn't have to be literal, and pulls out a big illustrated book of Bosch's paintings: "In 1510, Hieronymus Bosch painted a landscape. Of hell." Bonnie smiles, and Helen smiles back: "Could be your thing." Bonnie looks at Adam, a sort of "You were right about this one" look. And Adam's expression is priceless: he looks sort of hurt and threatened, but just barely. Like he just now realized it was possible to lose the teacher's pet position to this weird girl. And it's not so much that he cares about being the art teacher's pet in general, but he cares deeply about his specific relationship with Helen, his mentor and surrogate mother.