Episode Report Card Alex Richmond: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Under Pressure
By Alex Richmond | Season 7 | Episode 8 | Aired on 11.10.2002
There's a knock on the door. Ruthie tells Yasmin to ask who it is before answering it. Yasmin is all, why am I opening the door? Ruthie says because she has a face full of make-up on. It's Jake, the little boy that just called and was informed that Ruthie was "too busy" for him to come over. Jake, I suspect, has a listening problem. Or maybe Señor Watson thinks the viewers have the attention span of a gnat. The girls open the door, and Jake is all, "Wow! You look like you're eighteen or something!" Ruthie says thank you. Yasmin says she has to go, but she wants to recommend Jake leaving too, and Ruthie washing her face as promised, but "then [she'll] sound like the Muslim prude." Yasmin splits without saying goodbye. Ruthie tells Jake to go, too, since she's alone and has to watch the boys. Jake says his sister dropped him off and "should be back in half an hour." What an imposition! He says he wants to make their relationship "exclusive." Ruthie says she's "not really seeing other guys." Jake explains that the girl that called Ruthie "Monkey Lover" asked him to go to a party with her, and he has no good reason to say no -- unless Ruthie and he "aren't seeing other people." Or, perhaps, if Jake grows a "spine" and learns the words "no" and "thank you." What, his testicles dropped but his backbone didn't come in yet?
The piano plays the woeful, whimsical tune of hijinks. Sitting in a car in the church parking lot, Eric and Rabbi Lewis sit and read RevLite's sermon. Is two men turning a page at the same time supposed to be funny? Barry Watson thinks so. The sermon is pronounced "not bad." But maybe RevLite can't speak in public! Maybe that's his "Achilles heel"! Eric is all, let's go see what he's got.
It seems that Chandler...Hampton has taken oratory lessons from William Shatner. He rushes through most of a phrase, and slowly punches the remaining words in the sentence. Eric and Rabbi Lewis listen dully. "Throughoutthislittleepistle, hecallsforsuchthings as...prayer...study...and attentiveness to the needy." Rabbi Lewis has his head cocked to one side, his tongue slightly protruding. He looks like me. Wow, I'm actually being literally preached to! I hate it. Eric nods his head, rapt. The kid is good, I guess. He makes me want to run, which is how I've felt any other time I was in church. So, he's churchy, all right. He must have the joy, joy, joy, joy down in his heart. Where? Down in his heart, to-dayy! RevLite continues his right pretty speechifying about the love of money being evil, not money itself, and Eric turns to Rabbi Lewis, who says, "On top of everything else, the kid has a nice head of hair. So can you drive me to the hospital?" He really looks ill. So do I.