Episode Report Card Gwen: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Hoop Dreams
By Gwen | Season 4 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.09.2000
Over at the Bachelor Pad, John's walking in with donuts. Matt's bitching that he can't get a hold of Shana by phone. He says that letting her go to NYU was a big mistake. The guys start doing their not-hilarious little routine in which Matt rants like a cokehead and ignores John snickering at him. Matt decides to go to New York to be with his woman. Ah, young love. Young, deluded, obsessive, stalking-inspiring love. Matt just needs to make some money.
Mary accosts some blonde chick at the lockers and asks her if she's going to work out with Coach Cleary after school. The chick was not asked to do so. Mary immediately blabs about her dream. The chick makes this face like, "Desperate for a plot much?" Mary posits that Coach C was planning to contact this blonde chick for the same reason later in the day. The blonde says she already has something lined up. She's "going to Brown back East." She says she has an academic scholarship "and a grant from the government to document [her] life as a single mom going to college." What the? The frick? On what planet? Hey, man, where's my government freaking grant? I could have documented having morning sickness between classes! No fair! Where's MY scholarship? (Oh, wait -- that's right. I used it to finish off my husband's truck payments right before I went on probation and lost it and dropped out of school. I remember now.) (Just kidding, UT! You know I used it all for books!) Mary merely smiles at her alleged friend's news and doesn't bother to mutter "congratulations" or anything. Her friend hopes Mary's dream comes true. She's like, "I hope your dream comes true. Now excuse me while I get back to the Non-Camden world."
Next we see RevCam stalking Simon at the junior high. The teacher tells Simon to step outside of class for a "surprise." Simon's all tripped out, wondering if someone died. It turns out that RevCam made arrangements to take Simon out of school and to the movies for a little quality time. Man! Why couldn't MY dad have been a minister who stalked me all the time instead of trying to make money to pay our bills all the time? How come you only took us to the movies on the weekends, Daddy? No wonder we don't have any family values! That's it, dang it. I'm gonna be on a talk show. Simon has a huge pimple on his forehead that's now preserved on film. They tried to cover it with makeup, but you can still see the bump. Poor Simon. No wonder he's so testy.
Matt is rummaging through his parents' basement, looking for stuff to hock so he can end his respite from Shana's life. Annie tries to reason with him. Matt finds a clock. Annie says he can't have it because it was an anniversary gift from RevCam and she's gonna fix it some day and blah blah blah. I think Annie had some work done around her eyes and mouth. The twins are in some sort of large box in the basement. Paging V.C. Andrews! Annie noses around, asking if work or school is too hard for Baby-Waby Mattsky. Matt fumes that he's saving his effort for the hard stuff. Annie says she'll leave him alone, but he can't have her clock. She asks how much he expects to raise by selling the junk. He says a couple of hundred bucks. Annie goes, "Hmm. Maybe Shana can meet you in Kansas?" Oh, that's way harsh. What's harsher, though, is the fact that she goes upstairs and leaves the twins in the basement with Matt. They were smiling in this scene, but I'm going to play it safe and call Child Protective Services, anyway. Be right back . . .