Episode Report Card Cate: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Choices
By Cate | Season 1 | Episode 17 | Aired on 04.13.1997
After the opening song and an all-too-brief commercial respite, we see Annie putting together a tea tray in the kitchen. I realize someone's just trying to come up with an original way to showcase the credits, or to keep the guest star names from distracting you from the action, or something, but is it really necessary? Honestly, this opening feels like it goes on for days. There's Annie pouring water into her ugly, ornate teapot. Oh, and look! Now she's pouring milk into the milk thingy. Okay, and now she's putting the sugar bowl onto a wooden tray that's ornate, but not in the really ugly way that her tea set is ornate. Okay, there goes the creamer onto the tray, and the teapot too. I can't wait to see what happens next! And of course, all of this is accompanied by some generic, tuneless "music" that somebody stole from a relaxation tape. Feel free to print out this page so you can read it the next time you have trouble falling asleep.
What happens next is that Annie carries the tray down the hall to the living room, a huge smile plastered on her face even though there's no one around to see it in the hallway. She makes pleasant chitchat with Tom while sitting next to a surly RevCam. When Tom says he's been getting tired of living in Denver and was looking for a bit of a vacation, RevCam snarkily asks, "What, you couldn't find a vacation spot better than Glenoak?" I like to think the writers were winking at us when they wrote that, but I'm probably giving them too much credit. Tom mentions the real reason he just happened to drop in from three states over: he was hoping RevCam would give him a job as Associate Pastor. RevCam doesn't, so Tom asks the CamRents to call a cab that will bring him to a "cheap motel." RevCam boasts that with his connections, he can get Tom a good rate at the Holiday Inn. Channeling the intelligence and sensitivity of Mary for a moment, SuperMom insists that Tom stay at the CamPound. Damn, she's perky. She obviously didn't think that through very well, because if Tom had gone with his original idea, she could have told RevCam she was off to the supermarket and then joined Tom for some hot, unbridled, cheap-motel sex. Those two have way more chemistry than Annie and RevCam have ever had. When Tom leaves to "wash up," RevCam lets SuperMom know that he's never liked Tom much. She is surprised, because evidently Eric's surliness and total rudeness toward Tom was not enough of a tip-off. RevCam thinks Tom is hiding something. I can only hope that whatever it is, he keeps it hidden, because the last thing I want to see is a big emotional scene between RevCam and Tom.