Episode Report Card Deborah: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Casper, The Friendly Ghost
By Deborah | Season 1 | Episode 16 | Aired on 02.19.2004
As Helen prepares dinner, she talks to Joan and Casper. She says she doesn't think she's seen Casper at school: "Do you go to Southside?" Casper says she does. Joan tells her she's lucky: "You could have my mom for art." Joan adds, "By the way, Mom, whatever you did to Adam today, he's, like, totally catatonic, so I hope that's what you were going for." Helen says her teaching methods aren't open for discussion, and asks Casper where she met Joan. Joan explains that they met jumping rope: "Casper's teaching me. It should totally, like, be an Olympic event. It's much cooler than twirling those ribbons. What's up with that?" Casper smiles shyly and shrugs. Will arrives home: "I smell garlic!" Joan warns him, "Before you launch into the embarrassing lecture on the health benefits of garlic, this is my friend Casper and she doesn't care." Will walks over to Casper: "Nice to meet you. It is a natural antibiotic, you know." Casper: "It also lowers blood pressure." Will: "I love this kid!" Will asks Joan about participating in Drag Your Kid to Work Day, but she quickly replies, "No can do. I already get enough parental bonding with Mom. Besides, Casper and I jump after school." Doesn't this take place during the actual work day, not after school? Will: "'Jump'?" Helen: "Rope." Joan says she can't explain: "I just have to, okay?" Luke wanders in, and Joan says, "Ask Romeo." Will: "Romeo?" Luke: "It's a crude attempt at irony. Ask me what?" Joan: "Dad's gotta take a kid to work. Kevin's got a job, I have a life -- you're option C." Will says that's not it at all, even though it obviously is: "I just thought that...you'd be bored hanging out with a bunch of cops." And Joan wouldn't? Luke thinks it sounds cool. Will, having taken off his jacket, puts his badge on the counter and asks Helen if he can help with dinner. Casper notices the badge and freaks: "I just remembered -- I have to run." Helen says they're eating in two minutes. Casper says she has homework. Will, not one to miss an opportunity to preach the gospel according to Allium sativum, informs her, "You know, garlic helps increase the blood flow to the brain." She tells Joan, "See you in the park, yo," and takes off. The Girardis are all puzzled, but Joan seems more concerned than puzzled.
The next day, Joan goes back to the park where the girls are jumping rope. When Casper sees her, she comments to a girl quietly, "Watch out for her, yo. Her pops is 5-0." Joan asks Casper, "What's up with you? We were all hanging out having a good time and then you jet like some freak show." Another girl comes up and says, "Who do you think you are, girl? Better step off!" Casper tells her, "It's cool. Keep jumping." Casper pulls Joan aside and says, "I had to go, a'ight? Chill!" Joan: "Chill? Are you in some kind of trouble?" Casper says she's not, but that it was a mistake for her to go to Joan's house: "Let's just roll back the clock. You go back to your life, and I'll go back to mine." Joan: "Wait -- here I'm like some embarrassment because you have to keep it real with your homies?" Casper: "You think I'm frontin'? Okay, Princess, why don't you come to my house for dinner?" She pulls some kind of laminated card out of her pocket and shows it to Joan, who looks at it and asks, "A shelter?" Casper: "Yeah. I keep it so real that I sleep there every night. Me and my fifty crazy-ass homies." She snatches the card back. Joan asks about her family. Casper says her mother took off when she was nine, and her dad's "upstate" looking for work (though apparently nobody in Maryland uses the word "upstate" to describe anything). Maybe he's in Pennsylvania. Anyway, Snow White's pretty shocked: "Casper...you're my age...I mean...you can't live in a shelter." Well, what are her choices, exactly? Casper doesn't say anything. Joan figures out that she doesn't go to school at all. Casper asks bitterly: "What are they gonna teach me?" She walks off. Joan grabs her arm and says she can talk to her dad. Casper: "The cop?" Joan says he can help. Casper: "Why do you think I took off? He'd call Children's Services and they'd toss me in a group home." Joan tries to argue, but Casper tells her, "Look, if you want to help me, just stop coming down here. Go back to your castle, Princess." She turns haughtily and jumps back into the ropes, during a nice little ditty about being robbed blind by twenty-four burglars.