Episode Report Card Niki: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Daddy's Girl
By Niki | Season 1 | Episode 16 | Aired on 02.13.2000
We next see Lily in her lawyer's office, and she's decided to go forward. Toby, her attorney, says that they should messenger a legal letter to Jake today outlining their intentions to seek receivership. Lily looks reluctant, but only because she knows the kids are at the restaurant with him. She asks the lawyer to send it after six. Hee.
Cut to Lily at home, playing with her bills again. Grace comes up, clearly wanting to talk about something. She wants to know whether Lily happened to pull the book Rick gave her from the garbage. Lily reaches into a desk drawer and hands her the book. Grace admits that throwing it away was a horrible thing and she doesn't know why she does stupid things sometimes. Lily reassures her that everyone does, and they share a moment. Wow, what pulled Grace's head from her ass? Did she recognize some common humanity when Rick looked so sad earlier, or is her interest in this new boy sparking some self-scrutinizing? Whatever the reason, it's nice to see.
Later that night, Zoe is in bed with Lily as we hear the front door opening and keys jangling. Lily wakes with a start and goes to see who's in the house. She creeps down the darkened stairs and says, "Jake!" He turns and asks, "Are you trying to bury me?" He's holding the letter in his hands and muttering that she's burying herself too, but she interrupts him to point out that he can't just barge in like this. "I still pay the bills on this damn house!" he shouts. "Since when?" Lily demands. Yeah, you tell him. "You left me no choice," she says, and he responds, "Oh, that is such crap!" Not surprisingly, his little temper tantrum has awakened other people in the house, and we see Grace lying in bed listening to the argument. He's so thoughtful, that Jake. Nothing like giving your kids a heart attack in the middle of the night. "I told you to wait, just for a few more days, until after the opening," Jake is saying to Lily, but she sticks to her guns: "When? What happened to Grace's check for camp? Do you even know what kind of camp it is, or how much it means to her?" We see Grace creeping closer to her doorway, eavesdropping on what an ass her father is. Jake's response is to ignore the question and the mention of his daughter, and to keep the conversation squarely fixed on himself: "I'm trying to make a living the only way I know how. I'm forty-one years old -- what do you want me to do, start over?" No, but you could have skipped the ice dolphin and sent your kid to camp. I don't know, I'm just saying...Lily, thank goodness, does not appear to be caving: "Jake, please. I haven't hurt anything. A neutral third party is going to go over our accounts and give us a reality check." From his reaction, I don't think Jake knows what a reality check is. He tells her to admit that she just doesn't trust him. Now call me crazy, but I think I'd have trouble trusting someone who maxed out my credit card behind my back, who left me standing humiliated in the checkout line like some kind of pauper. But I digress.