Episode Report Card Niki: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT There Be Dragons
By Niki | Season 1 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.18.1999
That night, Jessie's in her room, doing science homework at her desk when Rick pops his head in the doorway. She's distant with him as he talks about science and astronomy, in particular. He uses it as a launching point to talk about life, how "sometimes, it's an exciting thing, not knowing." Jessie cuts the crap and asks the big heavy question: Are they ever going to be a family again? Rick takes a deep breath and looks at her for a second before breaking it to her. "No, not the same way, we aren't," he says finally. Both are misty but trying to swallow their tears. Jessie says she hates that everything is different now. Rick says things aren't so different. "You are," she tells him, "You're always excited or singing or whistling and getting ready to go out." She says she's happy that he's happy now, but when he was sad, she really felt like she could help him.
B/W Jessie's onto a new memory now. She recalls that, when she was six, all she wanted to do was learn to ride her bike without training wheels.
Rick points out that Jessie's changed too. She's staying up late, running around the mall by herself, and pretty soon, boys will be calling her.
B/W Jessie remembers that Rick would always help her practice by holding the bike's seat for her.
Rick says he's not sure either one of them wants things to stay the same, and to illustrate that some changes are good, explains that she "changed [his] whole universe" when she was born.
B/W Jessie says that, one day, she was going so fast she couldn't believe it...
Rick continues with the Hallmark moment, saying that "maybe that's what love does to you -- it keeps opening you up, and changing you, and you keep finding out that there's always more." They hug, framed in her bedroom window, as the camera pans back.
...and when she looked over, Rick wasn't holding onto her seat anymore. She "was free."
Out on the driveway, the camera pans back from Jessie and Rick shooting hoops and laughing under a star-filled sky.