Episode Report Card Sars: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT First Encounters Of The Close Kind
By Sars | Season 3 | Episode 10 | Aired on 12.14.1999
Andie and Marla at an outdoor café, bonding. Andie says she might write her essay about her mother's illness, and she reminisces about the time she found her mother sitting in the creek, and says she'll never forget that. Marla asks if she can "lay a dose of truth" on Andie, and Andie says okay, so first Marla tells her always to wear comfortable shoes (word), and then Marla tells her, "Let yourself off the hook for things over which you have no control." Again, word. Marla goes on to say that Andie's mother couldn't get over her brother's death, but Andie shouldn't punish herself for that, or for finding a way to get over it herself. Marla then apologizes for butting in, but Andie says not to worry about it, and offers a theory about children losing their minds as a form of empathy with their parents who have lost their minds -- or something, I don't really understand what she means. Then Andie says she can't believe she's bonding over coffee with Marla, and Marla coughs up another pearl o' wisdom, this one about how life can surprise you in a thousand different ways. Funny, then, that this show never surprises me at all, eh what?
Oh, blimey. A.J. brings Joey to a room which he calls the "rare book and manuscript library." I visited the manuscript vault at my university a few times. It didn't look like a rec room, and you couldn't just stroll right in and fondle the Victorian-era folios, either -- the room had a device by which, in case of fire, all oxygen would get sucked out, suffocating anyone trapped inside in minutes. But at Harvard, I guess you can walk in and smear your bodily oils all over the Gutenberg Bible if you want. Oh, hold on -- not! Not not not not NOT! God! Okay, so A.J. takes an Alcott first edition (whatever) off the shelf, reels off a few factoids about it to Joey, and urges her to open it. She does, and they read together from the part where Jo and Meg attend the sniffy party at the Gardiners', and Jo and Laurie run into each other behind the curtain and make awkward conversation, and at the same time, Joey and A.J. make significant eye contact. Cue The Mrs. Potter Memorial Little-Orphan-Joey Dead-Mother Reference, just in case the man at the helm of the oil rig in the middle of the Indian Ocean missed the crucial bit of information that Joey's mother has in fact passed away, as Joey says her mother used to read the book to her, so she supposes she reads it and rereads it as a way of remembering her mother. You'd think bringing up her late mother in every damn conversation she ever has would keep the memory alive, but apparently not.
A.J. nods sensitively at Joey's tale of woe and murmurs, "So it's like a friend, the book," and Joey says, "Yeah. Exactly." A.J. observes that you can never have too many friends. Joey asks him what his favorite book is, and A.J. answers The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe, and he cringes all dramatically even though that book has worn a lot better than Little Women since my childhood. Joey teasingly calls his choice "rather infantile," and he admits that it is, but adds, "Like all the best things in life, simple, sweet, magical." Did everyone get that? Because I did. I got it.