Episode Report Card Niki: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Losing You
By Niki | Season 3 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.07.2002
"My own daughter, and what do I do? I completely sell her out," Lily gripes to Rick. They're in the bathroom. She's applying mascara, while he's in the midst of a steamy, steamy shower. Rick asks why she did it. "Because I knew it would make my mother happy! Ugh, why do I always end up in the happy business?" she complains. And speaking of happy business, Rick turns off the shower and peeks his glistening head out of it. "It's called being a good daughter," he says. She says she feels like she's seven again, every time her mother gives her "that look." She psychoanalyzes that she doesn't have a relationship with Bea, so she's forcing Zoe to have one. She squirts a few shots of breath spray in her mouth, shrugs her shoulders, and muses that at least it's good that Zoe and Bea are doing something together by shopping for party favors. She turns away from the mirror and wipes her hands on a towel, musing, "Who remembers their twelfth birthday, anyway?" Rick steps out of the shower and absently rubs a towel over his chest, recalling, "Gina Bradley. She let me feel her up on my twelfth birthday." Lily snorts and chucks her towel at him, saying she really needed to know that. The camera jumps back and rewards us with a view of Rick's posterior. A strategically placed candle covers his pertinent bits as he turns to the side. And let me just say that it's a rather substantial pillar candle, and not some wimpy taper, if you know what I'm saying. He calls out, "It was her present to me!" And herself, I'd say.
Meanwhile, Zoe and Bea are trawling through one of those trashy accessories stores at the mall, where everything is mounted on cheap white plastic cards and hanging from pegboard. Bea pulls something off its hook for Zoe's inspection. "My friends don't wear makeup," Zoe says. Bea returns it to the wall and shuffles a few feet down, rubbing her hands and murmuring, "There's just so many choices." "And they're all made in China," Zoe says, adding, "Which invaded Tibet and killed thousands of monks." Bea turns, affronted, and says that she's just trying to help with Zoe's party. You know, the one she's forcing Zoe to have in the first place. Zoe makes a valiant effort to suppress an eye-roll. Bea finds another gewgaw to distract her. Zoe glances around, and then says she'll be over in another corner of the store. Bea sternly warns her not to wander off, because she promised Lily they'd be home by five. She tells Zoe to meet her at the counter in three minutes.