Episode Report Card Pamie: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Boy Next Door
By Pamie | Season 3 | Episode 16 | Aired on 03.26.2000
John is on a stretcher on his way to the hospital. Ling asks when the elevator is going to be ready. Elaine says it'll be an hour. She asks why Ling is so obsessed over the elevator. Ling explains, "Hey, some of us have lives, Elaine. I'll either have to take the stairs or risk a facial." Elaine apologizes for just thinking about Billy's brain tumor. We call this scene "stalling."
The doctor is in Billy's office asking about the dancing hallucinations. Ally and Georgia sit side-by-side on the office couch like the doctors in the death scene from All That Jazz. (And I realize that with that I may have tried to pull off the oldest pop culture reference in Mighty Big TV history. But I think I'm okay with that. My science is that tight). Ally says that the hallucinations seem to be coming more frequently. The doctor asks to speak with Billy alone. Georgia and Ally leave. The doctor tries to joke about the hallucinations, but Billy isn't really interested. The doctor says that they will probably have to take out the brain tumor. He says that it's growing at a more rapid pace. He says they can do it this weekend. Billy says that seems so soon. As Billy is saying that if the doctor thinks it's the best thing to do, they should do it, the opening strains of Lean On Me chime in. Oh, I'm hoping it isn't going to be Vonda. Fortunately, it isn't. It's the doctor singing to Billy in another hallucination. It goes back and forth between "reality" and "singing doctor" and each one of the lines is supposed to "mean something" but the song is so overused I'm refusing to buy into it. You know the words. You figure it out. Billy says he's going to close this case first and then go home and rest.
John is in a hospital bed. Nelle comes in to check on him. He's having some lower back pain and is in traction for a few days because of some swelling. He says that she could have done it face to face instead of to "his buttocks." She says that she's never been good at breaking up with people and when she saw him dangling she seized the chance: "Also, whenever I do something where I might be unlikable, I, I don't know, I embrace being a total bitch. There's more power in that. I do adore you." John says he's going to get some rest. Nelle goes to leave and she tells him that they both knew it was coming. "Onward and upward then," John says. "Yeah. Yeah! I hope you feel better." I have nothing funny to say about the break-up scene in honor of the ninety thousand break-ups I've heard about in the past two months. (But...orange and blue, Nelle? Come on. Sorry, I had to put in one.) Nelle leaves and John sits quietly as the next scene starts voicing-over. "A marriage is a union..."