Episode Report Card Deborah: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Hole In Your Soul
By Deborah | Season 2 | Episode 2 | Aired on 09.30.2004
Grace and Luke are having a semi-private conversation around a corner in a school hallway. Grace is at her locker, and Luke's pretending to read posters and kind of talking to the wall, just loud enough for her to hear. Grace: "Dude, ABBA?" Luke: "I thought you might like them 'cause everyone hates them." Grace: "Well, you thought wrong. Tell me you don't have any BeeGees in there." Dead silence. Yikes. Grace: "Dude?" Luke: "It's just music." Grace: "Just music?" She issues an order: "Meet me tomorrow night with mix CDs. If we find no common ground, we're toast." She closes her locker and vamooses. As Luke watches her go, Friedman "When I Kissed The Teacher" Owlander (or Aulander, or whatever his last name is) comes up and brags, "Dude, I just dropped my pencil to look up Charlene Lister's skirt…" Luke walks off, bored and/or disgusted. Friedman: "It was one of those culotte things…" Culotte things? Are those actually still fashionable anywhere?
Joan zooms up behind Adam "Mamma Mia" Rove at his locker and covers his eyes. He smiles, realizing who it is. She says hi as he turns to face her and then kisses him enthusiastically several times. He asks, "Did I miss something?" Joan: "Me." She suggests they skip school and have a picnic at Mercer Creek. Adam says he has a history quiz and art project. Joan, exasperated: "Who cares?" As they start walking, Adam wonders, "Aren't you the one all into school?" Joan: "That was yesterday. I was sick of being the goody shoes [sic] girl." Adam, putting his arm around her gently: "Are you okay?" Joan: "No, I'm crazy, remember?" He says that's not what he meant. She says to just forget it. She complains that she was supposed to come back and pick up her life again, but wonders what she's supposed to do if she wants things to be different. Adam asks, "Are you talking about us? 'Cause a minute ago you seemed pretty happy to see me." Joan: "I was. I am. I just…forget it." Adam promises to do something incredibly irresponsible with her during the coming weekend: "Maybe we'll even wind up on Cops…" He swings her hands playfully and she chuckles. Frink comments on Joan's hairstyle: "I like the part. It makes me forget the bangs."
In the background, a girl comes around the corner, sees Joan, and comes running over to her. They're both excited to see each other and they hug and giggle. The girl, played by Sprague Grayden of Six Feet Under, is wearing a plum-coloured fedora -- and a choker of big white pearls -- so right away, I'm not crazy about her. Joan strokes her hair and says, "Oh my God! Look at you!" The girl explains she got booted out of Clayton Country Day [School]. Joan: "After ten days?" She explains, "Well, I was already on probation, and apparently they have this rule about not filling the evil math teacher's car with packing peanuts." Joan's still all, "Look at you." The girl finally turns to Adam, who's been standing there patiently while he's ignored, and says, "Oh, my God. Adam, right?" Joan confirms it, as the girl says, "He's just like you said. I'm Judith Montgomery." Adam, finally getting it: "Oh, from camp. Yeah, Jane told me all about you." Judith: "'Jane.'" She chortles a bit. "I love it." She then sticks a knife in my gut by telling him, "People called us 'Joanith.' We had this instant mind meld thing." Great. That's all I needed, one of those fugly pairing portmanteaux to become canon. I hate those "cutesy" conflated couple names. They look ugly and sound ugly and bleah. Yuck. The less heard about that, the better. Joan can't believe Judith goes to her school now. Judith says she has to find AP Physics. Adam says that's where they're going. Judith: "Same classes? This is outrageous."