Episode Report Card Niki: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Wake Up, Little Susie
By Niki | Season 2 | Episode 1 | Aired on 10.23.2000
Cut to Rick's office, where David, ever the man of depth, is asking Rick if he wears boxers or briefs. "Shut up, it was horrible," Rick says. So, David wasn't just asking because he was curious. At least there's context. David then asks "what they were wearing." Hello, they're kids? Joke's not funny, man. "What was Jake wearing?" he asks next. Okay, I smirked. But it doesn't mean I hate him any less. The receptionist hollers that Lily's on line one. "Hello Lily. Good-bye Lily," David intones. He gathers some plans and walks away. Rick asks for the "damage report." Lily informs him that maybe one of her daughters is still speaking to her. Lily supposes that it could've been worse, and Rick supplies, "Yeah, like if they'd come down about an hour before." "Oh, don't even go there," Lily groans. Okay, how many Ricki Lake reruns have the writers been watching? They really need to be cut off. Rick suggests that, in the grander scheme of things, maybe getting caught isn't as bad as it seems. Maybe it's forced them to do something they'd been "too chicken" to do. Rick says he knows they "need to respect [the kids'] feelings and prepare them for any possible change in [their] situation, but maybe the way to do that is to just start doing it." Hold up just a minute, please. Last time we saw these two, all those months ago, their kids were meeting for the first time. And now they're talking "possible changes in their situation"? Brakes, people. Apply them, please. Rick suggests they just go for the gusto and suddenly be totally honest. He tells Lily to tell the girls that he's sleeping over Thursday night. Lily says she can't. "You're still thinking about what happened when we came over for pizza." And that would be what? Background please. Details. Rick says it "wasn't a disaster." Lily says she knows, "but they were all so uncomfortable." And, naturally, the way to make them comfortable is to have Rick suddenly start spending the night. Lily says she's "not avoiding what needs to happen," but Rick says he thinks she is. The receptionist interrupts to tell Rick that Karen is on line two. Rick tells Lily to hang on a minute, "Karen just has to tell [him] something [he] did wrong." "Shut up!" Lily laughs. Maybe it's the sleep deprivation. Karen, in fact, doesn't want to give Rick shit, she just wants to know if he can pick up Jessie after school. Eli took Karen's car, and his SAT classes are that night (so he is still in high school....but where?), so he'll be late, and she's stuck downtown. Rick can't, though, because he has a meeting with the wonderfully prickly Miles Drentell. Rick tells Karen to hold on and clicks back to Lily to inform her that he's "trapped in divorced parent logistics hell." She volunteers to pick up Jessie. Rick asks, "Can you do that? Is that allowed?" "Look who's chicken now," Lily teases. Rick agrees, and they cement their kids into yet another uncomfortable and unexpected situation. Rick tells Karen that it's all taken care of.
At school, Jessie's walking that longest mile -- the cafeteria. She's looking for somewhere to sit, but everyone's already settled into their cliques, chatting amicably and laughing. Grace is sitting with her friends and G.I. Jolie, who plunks a CD on the table and then announces that she stole it. Oooh, she's bad. And she keeps pushing out her lips, thinking, I guess, that she somehow looks more like her role model that way. She doesn't. Jessie's still looking for a seat, her face stony but her eyes betraying her discomfort. She sits at the end of a table where a couple of skinny, geeky-looking boys are eating. They inform her that the seat is taken. It's gotta be a burn, because there's no way these two have enough friends to fill that big ol' table. Poor Jessie, evicted, grits her teeth and wanders Cafeteria Row again, looking, looking...G.I. Jolie is still blathering on about something not interesting -- man she's annoying -- while Jessie walks. G.I. Jolie starts talking about the King Lear production Grace was in last year, trying to sound deep with proclamations such as, "Shakespeare always makes me cry. It's so weird. Each person is like this vessel of pain." Oh, shut up Pretentious McPouty. Especially since Shakespeare also wrote comedies. Grace spots Jessie, and notices her unease.