Episode Report Card Niki: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Mystery Dance
By Niki | Season 1 | Episode 15 | Aired on 02.06.2000
Cut to Judy in bed. The phone on her night stand is ringing and, yes, it's Sam again with more begging and pleading. Judy slowly rolls toward the phone as he's whining away, and in the end picks up and agrees to meet him for five minutes.
Cut to Lily in bed. Zoe, her youngest daughter, bursts into the room for a moment of gratuitous family cuteness. She claims to have Attention Deficit Disorder. Grace pipes up, "Yeah, she can't get enough attention." Har. They crawl under the covers to snuggle with mom.
Rick drops by Sam's workshop for a little man-to-man talk. After some idle chat, Rick says that Sam can have more time to think about working for Miles. He expresses his sympathy over Sam's having to do his art for money, especially when it means dancing to Miles' tune. Sam rebuffs Rick, saying that he can handle the situation, and ends up calling Rick a hypocrite for trying to force him to live up to some artistic ideal while Rick "jumps through more hoops than anyone." Rick takes a moment and then cuts to the chase, asking, "How's Janine, Sam?" Sam is instantly angry, moving to put on his coat and telling Rick that if he wants to know what's going on with his marriage and Judy, he should just ask, and that it's none of his damn business anyway. Sam leaves Rick sitting there, looking troubled.
Cut to the interior of the bookstore, which isn't open yet. Sam knocks on the door and Judy lets him in. Both are reserved and understandably uncomfortable. Sam dives into the typical married-guy explanation: He tried to tell her, he wanted to tell her, this really isn't who he is. Judy pipes up to let him know she "really doesn't care who he is." Sam goes on explaining that for the past ten years he's thrown himself into his work and it was enough, but really he was hiding. And then he gives her the classic line: "My wife and I don't love each other anymore." He claims he was afraid to look at everything, but now he has, and he sees that he's lost himself, and nothing in his life has any meaning. He says he's sorry because none of this really has anything to do with Judy except that they met at the moment he realized all this. All he knows is he feels light inside, and he hates that he had to lie to her. Judy, meanwhile, has gone from being hostile and defensive to receptive. He tells her that the last few days were more than something sordid, and he thinks she needs to know that she was truly wanted. Uh-oh, he's found the magic button; Judy's all ears now. He gives her a book of poetry -- it's the anthology he was telling her about -- with a specific poem marked. He pauses behind her before he leaves, and I'm pretty sure he's smelling her hair. Judy's eyes follow him as he goes, and then she moves to the door to flip the sign from "closed" to "open." Hmm.