Episode Report Card Cate: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Twelve Angry People
By Cate | Season 4 | Episode 17 | Aired on 02.27.2000
Exit girls; enter Simon. He wants SuperMom to allow his whiny girlfriend, Deena, to come over. SuperMom is tired and says she might not feel like chaperoning the little lovebirds. Simon is still talking about the hickey experience, saying that he will never give Deena another one for as long as he lives. Okay, whatever, but I think the more important issue here is that he should really, really just shut up about the damn love bites already. Part of me wants to feel sympathy for SuperMom, because all her children are so bloody rude to her, but I just can't be bothered to dredge up any emotions for someone as annoying as Annie.
Dopey enters his father's church office and sits down at the desk, in front of what are either the world's tackiest rainbow-coloured curtains or else a fairly ugly stained-glass window. He attempts to drink some coffee but can't even get that right, spilling it all over his crotch. He strips down to his boxer shorts. Could I be any more underwhelmed? Maybe, but I'd really have to work at it.
SuperMom walks into the girls' bedroom and asks them where Ruthie is. They don't care, nor do I. Lucy and Mary start badgering SuperMom again: Mary is arguing that it doesn't cost anything for the girls to go to the Promenade and "stalk Lucy's old boyfriend," Andrew Nayloss. Lucy whacks Mary in the arm and points out that Mary is hoping to run into Robbie, a fact which could hardly advance their cause in Annie's eyes. Mary whacks Lucy in the face, hard, giving her a black eye. Mary goes downstairs to get some ice while a very frazzled SuperMom tries to comfort Lucy. Simon chooses this moment to hassle his mother again about having Deena over. She's flustered enough to give in, provided he can find Ruthie for her.
Wow, this is turning into a regular comedy of morons here. First Mary and Ruthie discuss the fact that SuperMom is looking for Ruthie. Then Simon and Ruthie discuss the same thing. Finally, SuperMom herself shows up, and she starts bitching out Ruthie for not going to her room when instructed to do so earlier. Ruthie explains that she'd gone to Mrs. Hinkle's to tell her in person that she wouldn't be visiting, since she didn't know the phone number of the Hinkle residence. Okay, it's sort of dorky, but it does make a convoluted kind of sense to me. Apparently SuperMom has the IQ of dust, though, because she just doesn't understand it. I won't get too upset over the stupidity of this scene's pretensions to comedy, because there's already enough overacting taking place on camera.