Episode Report Card Erin: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Wait -- maybe we should go back ANOTHER six monthsâ¦
By Erin | Season 1 | Episode 10 | Aired on 11.26.2006
Odessa. Claire's lying across her stuffed-animal-strewn bed. Jackie the Cheertator enters and tells her that some other girl on the cheerleading squad has gout or fell down some stairs or accidentally drank bleach or something, so there's a position open on the team for Claire. Okay, no, actually, Jackie says that Laurie Trammell "skanked her way through the entire football team" and that Jackie refuses to have any skank but herself on the squad. It's actually a nice script moment, seeing as we know that Laurie was raped by Jock the Rapist and he told everyone he knew that she was a skank. Now that's the kind of writing I like to see! So, whatever, Laurie left the squad and now Claire can be the cheerleader she's always dreamt of being.
Jackie wants her to try the uniform on now so that they can "commiserate" the event. Claire's all, try "commemorate" you illiterate asshole. And I'll try it on later. Jackie's all, uh, ungrateful much? Try the shit on NOW or I'll find someone else who REALLY wants to be on the squad. Claire's all, hey, I want to be on the squad, I just don't feel it necessary to UNDRESS IN FRONT OF YOU just to make you feel self-important. Now gimme the uniform so we can tussle over it until I smash my hand into a glass cabinet! Claire cuts the shit out of her hand and they head down to the kitchen so Mrs. Bennet can mop up the blood right on top of the food prep area. Unsanitary! Claire seems oddly calm as everyone around her, including her father, freak out about all the blood. Mrs. Bennet says she's going to take Claire to the emergency room to get her some stitches as Mr. Bennet goes to answer the phone. It's Suresh and he says that he needs to speak to him about Claire.
Burnt Toast Diner. Hiro tells Charlie that he teleported from the future to save her life. Charlie's like, dude? I like strays and everything, but you might want to keep the crazy to a minimum here. Hiro tells her not to go to work tomorrow and then he sees that it's raining outside. Charlie tells him it's April showers, and Hiro realizes that he's transported himself way too far back into the past. He also realizes that if he tries to teleport again, he may wind up anywhere on the universal timeline. "I'm stuck!" he hollers in Japanese. Charlie just offers him birthday cake and Hiro waveringly wishes her a happy birthday.
Vegas. Niki's standing up in front of a classroom full of adults and she introduces herself as Niki, an alcoholic. "Hi, Niki!" She says she's one year sober, and Texas Tina yells out, "Happy Anniversary!" Niki runs through a litany of all the crap in her life that sucks: she works sixty hours a week, her son's so smart he's flunking out of school, and her husband's out of work because no one wants to hire an ex-con. All of these things make her very thirsty. As she's talking, Niki sees an older man in the seats, and the expression on her face indicates that he's not one of her faves. They meet outside on the street and she asks him why he's there. He says he wants her in his life and he understands how she wouldn't want to be in it because was such an awful father. She says he wasn't awful, he just wasn't there. He wants to get to know D.L. and Micah and even her, and Niki says she isn't really ready to get to know him