Episode Report Card Cate: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Ay Carumba
By Cate | Season 6 | Episode 8 | Aired on 11.18.2001
After prudently hitting the mute button on my TV, I give the opening credits another try, to see whether anything's changed. I don't make it very far, though, since one of the first things I see is Dopey sitting on a chair and reaching for his groin. He pulls out a stuffed animal from somewhere around his crotchal region. I've always suspected that's what resides there. Still, I'm queasy enough to fast-forward through the rest. Maybe you can just watch the opening credits on your own some time, okay?
This week's Guest Star Credits Timewaster is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Robbie and Joy take turns kissing each other's fingertips. It's shot in tacky slo-mo, with lots of fades, meant to evoke either low-rent movies from the '70s or porno. I'm going to be generous this week and assume that someone wanted it to look this way as a joke, and not that they thought it was a beautiful and tender depiction of teen love. Joy is looking forward to introducing Robbie to her parents at dinner tonight. Her way of preparing them for this meeting is to tell them that she is in love with Robbie. Remember -- she's been dating him for less than a week, so I'm sure that won't come as a great surprise or anything. She hasn't told them about Robbie being in love with her, though, since she expects Robbie to tell them himself. Why would anyone think this is a good idea? What parents wouldn't be scared as hell to hear that some loser has fallen in love with their daughter in under a week's time? Not Joy's parents. Apparently, they want every man she dates to be "serious," with the "intention of marriage." At least she'll fit right into the Camden family, whose members regularly get engaged after a few weeks of dating. I guess that's just one of those "family values" things it would take me about a million years to understand. I don't understand this next bit, either: Joy says her parents want her to have "a long, long courtship and even longer engagement." Okay, all fine so far. But Joy doesn't want all that for herself; she wants "to sing and dance and have a good time." Robbie seems to understand that Joy's desire to sing her crappy songs somehow correlates with her parents wanting "that other stuff," but I can't say that I see any connection. If you can figure it out, please pick up your Nobel prize at the door.
The banished kids are all studying in the Treehouse when Lucy tries to get Ruthie to go into the CamPound and fetch something for her. Dopey and Simon chime in their own requests. Ruthie has the good sense to stand up for herself and refuse. That makes me like her for, literally, two seconds, until she starts blaming the rest of the kids for getting in trouble, as if she hadn't joined them willingly. Vile Ruthie tries to talk the others into apologizing to Annie and Mary so that they can go back to staying in the CamPound, leaving the Treehouse to Ruthie. Ruthie compounds the inanity by likening their situation to a game of Survivor, in which the last one left in the Treehouse will get to keep the apartment. She sure has some imagination, unlike the 7th Heaven writers, who can't come up with anything original and have to resort to ripping off ideas from another network's show.