Episode Report Card Deborah: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Arcadia the Beautiful
By Deborah | Season 2 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.21.2004
Helen talks to her art class. The room is full of various bits of artsy weirdness. "Wow, I'm excited here. I asked you guys to stretch yourselves creatively and you did." She plans to display their work for the rest of the month so the whole school can see them. There's one piece that has the word "risk" in large letters lit up with flashing light bulbs. She comments on the "memory piece" of a girl named Gina, and then turns her attention to Adam's sculpture, The Lost Boy. "And Annie, you took the tragic death of your little sister's gerbil and you turned it into…well…" Annie supplies the name of her piece -- which is a dead gerbil dipped in shellac and mounted on top of its cage, along with various other gerbil accoutrements: "Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This." This phrase is stencilled on the outside of cage's metal tray. Helen: "Upsetting, ridiculous, and strangely sad." The student at the next table puts up her hand and says, "I don't understand why it's art." Oy. Art is whatever anybody claims is art. Haven't we been over this? Helen apparently heard this from Darlene yesterday. Darlene says that it was a living creature: "You can't just dip it in shellac and use it like it's a thing." Annie, who's got a case of bitchface, although nothing on the order of Nicole Kidman's, asks, "What was I supposed to do? Not shellac it and let it rot?" Darlene: "I just mean that it's disrespectful…" Annie gives her a "Say what now, girl?" look. Darlene: "To life. It's…it's wrong." Helen says gently, "Well, you're entitled to your opinion. Thank you." The camera gives us a close-up of the gerbil, which is really pretty bloated for a gerbil. It's more the size of an anemic kitten.
Out in the hallway, Elizabeth Goetzman is handing out campaign flyers singing some song she made up to the tune of "America the Beautiful," which starts out "Arcadia the Beautiful / The school that we all love / From English class to drama club…" I knew it! Joan and Judith come along and she hands them flyers and interjects, "Hey there! Thanks so much for your vote -- it means oodles to me!" between two lines of the song. Professor Frink: "Her mother is a Texas beauty queen wanna-be." Joan's wearing some striped socks which weren't visible in her previous scene, I don't think. I probably wouldn't have noticed except that I keep trying to figure out what the hell is on her skirt -- pheasants? Judith balls up her flyer and pretends to stick in her finger in her throat as they pass. Joan glances back at Elizabeth and her geek chorus of drama club sycophants, all wearing straw hats, for God's sake, as they sing "Arcadia, Arcadia / You have to vote for me-e-e-e-e…" Oy vey. I hate to say it, but I'm with Judith. Somebody put a finger in Elizabeth's throat and leave it there.