Episode Report Card Gustave: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Kiefer kombustion
By Gustave | Season 1 | Episode 12 | Aired on 02.18.2002
Okay, this Nike ad with the little boy running, which cuts to the hockey player skating, which cuts to the soccer player dribbling, which cuts to the gymnast on the pommel horse and then to the baseball player running the bases et cetera is the most beautiful thing on TV right now. Most commercials like this are relatively simple to make, since all you have to do is get some nice shots of athletes doing their thing and edit them together randomly with some music, but this one is different. Every shot had to be planned specifically so that each image rhymes visually with the one that comes after it. For instance, as the gymnast dismounts the pommel horse, his body has to be the exact same size within the frame as the baseball player's body, who is standing in a similar position in the next shot before he runs to the left and is replaced by a football player, who is the same size and running in the same direction. It's brilliant, and I get misty every time I see it.
The time is 11:39:15 AM. Klockwise from the top left, Nina tries not to spill her guts to an Emeco Naval Sidechair, Soul Patch tries not to spill his guts to a Modotti Table, and Spawn waits by the window of the SoS for Rick like Penelope herself waiting for Odysseus to come home from the Trojan war. Elsewhere on the TerrorKompound, AsianTerrorMinion -- the only TerrorMinion with a speaking part tonight, apparently -- takes a TerrorWhiz in the woods and notices the FauxYorkMobile in the distance. He approaches the car with his gun drawn and finds the unconscious duct-taped body of FauxYork just as Rick arrives at the TerrorShack to grab a van. After cruising several hot TerrorMinions -- like, where have these guys been all morning? -- he finds an empty van with a set of keys in the ignition and an unused semi-automatic weapon, and gets the engine started. Gaines taps on the glass. Rick explains that he's using the van to help Igor with the bodies. Gaines makes a bitchy comment about Igor and Rick not being able to "pick up two women themselves." Rick is about to surrender the van when AsianTerrorMinion calls Gaines on his walkie-talkie and tells him about FauxYork. Gaines changes gears and has Rick drive him to the FauxYorkMobile.
Palmer and PMHC arrive at BadShrink's office complex just in time to see some firefighters pulling dead bodies out of the burning building. "They torched his office," laments Palmer. "It could have been an accident!" counters PMHC. Palmer still wants to go over to the burning building and do something, but PMHC stops him. "Even if you're right," says PMHC, "this is the absolute wrong way to play it." Touching yet frantic piano music underscores Palmer's frustration.