Episode Report Card Cate: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Dirty Laundry
By Cate | Season 4 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.21.1999
SuperMom is laughing while watching one of the babies play peek-a-boo with a blanket, except I'm all distracted, since it's obvious this has been edited together in post-production after some camera operator kept a camera trained on the twins all day, waiting for them to do something adorable. SuperMom says, "They're so cute and innocent. I wish we could keep them this way forever." I guess it's meant to be sweet, but it comes off a little disturbing instead. ["Not least since she's already been through the whole cute-and-innocent wringer five times already." -- Sars] She asks RevCam if he's on his way to the bank. He says that before he cashes the $20,000 cheque he's going to talk to the donor first. SuperMom perkily suggests that maybe the donor won the lottery, but RevCam pessimistically says he has a bad feeling about the whole thing. This prompts Annie to ask if RevCam's been talking to Simon, which he has. SuperMom says, "Wow, that kid's a black hole. He's sucked the life out of this entire family with his bad mood." RevCam says he'll try to stay out of Simon's "gravitational pull."
Over at Dopey's swingin' bachelor pad, Chickenhead's knocking at the door. Dopey lets her in, but doesn't say anything at first because he's scribbling away furiously. Finally he says, "All right! I've only been working on it for a week, but I think I finally figured out that 'Daily Jumble!' Man, it was hard!" Actually, what he really says is that he's going to ace some test. I doubt that's true, but it's nice to see him being so optimistic about it anyway. Chickenhead's come by to give him one of his T-shirts that she'd found in her laundry bag. He says he could have picked it up later. Chickenhead says, "Later is something I'm not sure about. I'm confused." Dopey replies, "And evidently doing laundry just confused you more." Well, actually, Matt, most people aren't really that confused by doing laundry. But don't worry, I'm sure you'll "ace" that task one day also! He tries to tell Chickenhead that they should do "what other couples do." What exactly that would be is lost to posterity, because Chickenhead cuts him off to say that they should see other people. She says it is all too much and that she won't be able to keep up her 4.0 GPA if their relationship continues. No, Shana, really, it's okay -- stupidity isn't contagious. He fights her on it a bit, asking her why she's trying to distance him. Then he starts whining, "Don't my needs count for anything?" Shana does what any sane woman would do -- she rolls her eyes and leaves. Dopey's still apologizing as she closes the door in his face. Then he realizes that the shirt she gave him isn't even his. Man, that's cold, Shana. You didn't have to flaunt that you've been "doing a load of whites" with some other guy, you know. A simple "I'm dumping you" would have sufficed.
Ruthie and her troll friends are on some swings at the playground, chanting, "Friends forever! Girl power forever!" Another girl comes over. We know she is geeky because she is sporting braids and black-framed glasses. She asks what they're doing, but the Trolls just start teasing her and calling her a bird. Much as I hate to admit it, they do have a point about her looking a bit bird-like, though once she gets older, I'll bet she beats the Trolls hands down in the looks department. While Ruthie looks on uncomfortably, the Trolls keep the insults flying, although many of them sound like they were poorly translated from some foreign language a couple hundred years ago. My favourites: "You're a skinny bird who can't do anything," and "Fly away, skinny bird, shoo!"