Episode Report Card Manimal: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Reckoning
By Manimal | Season 1 | Episode 6 | Aired on 11.17.2001
London. Shots of double-decker buses, rainy London streets. Very white (the walls, not the people), crowded art gallery. I think it's supposed to be a crowd of the Beautiful People, but the art is so awful and derivative that mostly it looks like some scene of Beautiful People circa a bad, late '80s movie, like Weekend at Bernie's. Some alt-rock plays. Close-up of Dixon and Sydney. Dixon is wearing so many textured fabrics that I start to fear he may cause a fire by walking too rapidly. He's wearing a black silk ascot, wide-collared black shirt, and a velvet blazer with glittery pinstripes. He looks like a refugee from The Love Boat. Sydney has fared no better: a chartreuse halter-top dress and a long black wig complete with little Bettie Page bangs. Sydney asks if he's ready. Dixon nods, looking nervous.
Sydney sashays her way off-camera as Dixon lights up an enormous stogie. Everyone looks disgusted. Across the room, some bespectacled guy nods to a curly-headed guard. They both approach Dixon. Sydney sneaks behind the barricade where Curly-Top was standing.
Bespectacles approaches Dixon and tells him that it's a non-smoking gallery. Dixon, in a winceworthy French accent, tells him, "Not anymore." Bespectacles tells him that if he doesn't put it out, they're going to kick him out. Dixon asks what kind of a deal he can get if he buys the entire collection. Bespectacles decides to alert the gallery's owner. Dixon keeps smoking.
Alt-rock makes an annoying switch to techno as Sydney, in her bright-green dress, moves down a very white hallway. Cut to a door, then inside an office as the gallery's owner gets the call about Dixon. He leaves, arming the motion-sensor security system. As he walks down the hallway and turns a corner, Sydney ducks behind him and tosses her purse into the door of his office as it closes, wedging it open without a sound. Neat! Where was Sydney when I was at summer camp, and none of us could figure out how to jimmy a lock? She hustles inside and closes the door, then grabs a conveniently placed cap (good job, Props) and tosses it over the motion sensor installed in the ceiling's corner. The camera circles her as she puts on some green glasses that let her spot the hidden wall safe. Hey. Where was Marshall and his little gadget talk, dammit? I feel cheated. Sydney walks over to the wall and pops it open.
In the gallery, John Smythe is chatting up Dixon. People are coughing in the wake of Dixon's cigar, who asks if the cigar is bothering Smythe. Smythe says, "Not at all."