Episode Report Card Deborah: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Slings And Arrows Of Outrageous Fortune
By Deborah | Season 2 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.14.2004
Nighttime at the Girardis'. Joan's got Larry in her room in her attempt to domesticate him. She's wearing oven mitts. Larry's meowing angrily and swiping at her when Helen comes in with a bowl of something for the cat. Joan puts it in the cage. Her mother suggests putting the cat in the garage, but Joan says the pamphlet says he needs "nighttime sleep companionship." ["What he 'needs' is a flea dip. When you adopt a feral cat, you get a whole biosphere. Truuuuust me." -- Sars] Joan asks if there's any news on the Aunt Olive front. Helen says she threw pudding at the doctor. Joan puts something that looks like a dark purple doll dress with a white collar on it into the cage; Larry paws it. Joan says it's his "comfort object," comparing it to a "little blankie." Helen asks if she can do anything: "This seems like a lot of work." Joan declines, saying she's going to read to him: "He needs to get used to a friendly human voice. [The] Cat in the Hat: good choice, huh?" Joan sits down and starts to read to Larry as Helen wanders out: "'The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play…'" Helen stops and turns, pausing to listen and smile as she remembers the joys of reading to her children when they were young. She closes the door gently behind her.
At work, Chewy and Will are waiting in "Internal Affairs Interview Room D." Chewy's scarfing some potato chips as Will watches silently. Chewy dumps the empty bag and pulls another package out of his jacket in the same gesture. Will: "Are you kidding? You're a walking pantry." Chewy: "Chimichanga. I need something more substantial when I'm nervous." I don't know, maybe I should stop commenting on this character's eating habits. I feel like maybe I'm encouraging an eating disorder. He must have the metabolism of a hummingbird, though: the nonstop eating doesn't really show. Anyway, let's get the rest of this over with: Annie Potts comes in, and introduces herself as Lucy Preston. She declines to shake Chewy's greasy hand. Lucy tries to make understanding noises in their general direction but Will wants to get right to it; he's got all the files she wants on Duncan and Simmons, the suspected dirty cops, and the Wallace case. He asks if there's anything else. She says there always is. They leave. She's very affable for an IA type.
Luke and Grace are walking through the hall at school as Luke describes watching Olive's stroke. He says he "kind of shut down, like it wasn't real." Grace: "Dude, weird." Luke can't believe that's all she has to say about his aunt almost dying. Grace: "Okay, Bruce Banner, relax." Luke: "Is it totally impossible for us to share things that are important to us?" Just then Joan, Judith, Adam, and Friedman catch up with them, so that's the end of that discussion. Joan: "You two look deep into something." Grace: "Madam Curie's just trying to recruit me for the science fair again." Luke lies: "It's just that the competition's fierce, you know, and…" Joan: "Nod-ding off…" She starts walking again as Judith asks if they're all "into ridiculing mall-heads tonight." Friedman's right behind her with some pitifully bad French accent, "But of course," and then makes an even more pitiful sound that I think is supposed to be a meow. Me? Ow. Judith: "By 'all,' I didn't actually mean all." Joan says, "Sorry. Can't. Have to tame the beast with literature." Adam: "Mm. Sounds dirty. I can help." Joan barely titters, and thanks him, but says she doesn't want her boyfriend getting scratched to death. Judith declares, "You don't want to be a cat person, Jo-Jo. They're antisocial, sexually frustrated introverts --" I think I'll let Sars field that one. ["I'll take 'Shut up, Judith' for $200, Deborah." -- Sars] Joan tells her, "Stow the shrinkisms! I'm taking care of one of God's creatures." Grace: "Dude, we eat most of his creatures." Judith: "And your aunt eats the rest of them from what I hear." Friedman laughs in a kind of forced way, and tells Judith, "You're a cat on a hot tin roof, all hot and tin roofy." She stops short and turns around: "Friedman: you and me -- it's never gonna happen." Friedman, unfazed: "I'm a scientist, my sweet. We toil in unsolvable equations for years." He wanders off, wiggling his fingers weirdly and drawing out the phrase, "We l-i-i-i-i-ke…" Frink expounds on some flimsy theory he has about how Adam either is or should be a vegetarian. I humour him in case he comes out with something interesting or funny, but no. Nothing but flimsy theory. Sorry, guys.