Episode Report Card Niki: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Where's That High Road?
By Niki | Season 2 | Episode 7 | Aired on 12.18.2000
Cut to the restaurant bar, where Zoe's ordering a Shirley Temple from Tiffany. As the camera pans around, we see that camera equipment is being set up, and there's a particularly shaggy man seated next to Jake at the bar, taking notes. Right! The interview. I almost forgot. Jake and the reporter move to a table to talk more, and the reporter observes that Tiffany is great with kids. Grace, seated at a nearby table, eavesdrops as the guy asks how long Jake and Tiffany have been going out. Jake asks if that's going to be in the article. "Only if you want it to be," the reporter says. Tiffany sidles up and starts singing Jake's praises to the reporter, giving a speech that sounds remarkably like the one she gave Judy a few episodes ago. She mentions Jake's vision, blah de New Age crap blah, and Jake looks just as embarrassed as he did in front of Judy. The reporter asks Jake to tell him about all the changes he's made to the restaurant, but Jake can't get in a word because Tiffany's too excited and answers for him, describing how bad the place used to be. Jake interrupts and gets rid of Tiffany by sending her to the kitchen to check on something. He tells the reporter that the place has always been a great restaurant, and his loyalty to Phil comes shining through. Jake actually scores a couple points with me for that one. "All set," the photographer announces, and they all get ready to be photographed by the bar. The reporter starts arranging them around the bar, and spots Tiffany lurking in the background. "You want to be in this, don't you?" he asks rhetorically, and Tiffany bounds up to the bar. "Oh," Jake says pointedly, as he sees her approaching. "Well, maybe we could do a couple different versions," Jake says. Tiffany's getting the message loud and clear, and backs away with a hurt look. She tries to put on a brave front, but you can tell she's really disappointed. Grace seems to feel bad for her, and glances uncomfortably at Tiffany while the pictures are being snapped.
Later on, we see Tiffany coming out of a room at Jake's place, begging Zoe to go to sleep "sometime this century." She joins Grace in the living room, saying that it's a good thing she's "not officially baby-sitting here, because [she] lacks a certain moral authority with [Zoe]." Grace assures her that the kid is like that with everybody. They chat about school and driving and are interrupted by the phone. It's Jake calling to blow off Tiffany one more time with excuses about too much work. He says she can take off, but Tiffany insists that it's okay; she wants to talk to him when he gets home, so she'll wait. She's guarded in front of Grace, but you can see that she's not too happy with Jake. When she hangs up, Tiffany explains to Grace that Jake's hung up at work, and then she goes on about what a good guy and hard worker he is. She's a bigger person than I, that Tiffany. The phone rings again, and this time it's Pace. He wants to know if Grace can hang out for a bit, and Grace tries hard to maintain an iota of cool. She tells him to hang on a second then looks pleadingly at Tiffany on the couch. "I guess I am baby-sitting," Tiffany says like a good sport. Grace tells Pace she can go, and then races to her room to apply lipstick. Tiffany follows and leans against the doorway, asking if it's the same guy as the night before. "Way to go, Grace!" she says when she learns that it isn't. Grace says the guys are friends and that she doesn't know if she should do this. "What? Go outside and talk to somebody? It's a free country," Tiffany encourages. Grace doesn't need much convincing.