Episode Report Card Niki: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Mystery Dance
By Niki | Season 1 | Episode 15 | Aired on 02.06.2000
Different clips of black-and-white Judy saying "I'm thirty-five" like six times in a row. Neurotic much?
The next day, Sam pops in to see Judy at the bookstore. He walks toward the counter, making some lame joke about a tiny book light but, not surprisingly, it falls flat. Judy tells him to leave. Immediately, he knows she knows. He starts trying to kiss up and explain what happened, but Judy's having none of it. She's good and mad, demanding to know why he doesn't wear a ring. He responds by pulling his ring, which is on a chain, from inside his shirt. Oh. His fingers swell while he works, so he can't wear it. So Judy shifts gears, calling him self-absorbed and self-serving. Now call me crazy, but isn't she the one who's been talking non-stop about herself through this entire episode? Lily walks in on Judy's tirade, which shuts up Judy fast. Sam beats a hasty retreat, and Lily instantly knows something happened: "You didn't sleep with him, did you?" Judy says no, but she might as well have. Lily cannot understand how all this happened in, like, two days. Judy starts bawling, so Lily hugs her. But then she starts lecturing Judy on how she gets herself into these things; she says that Judy just can't help it because she's so passionate. Judy realizes she's being condescended to, and she gets angry. Why can't Lily just give her some support for once and not judge her, she wants to know. Lily watches her storm out of the bookstore with an expression that says, "What the hell did I do?
Rick's at his office having a webcam tête-à-tête with Miles, who is being pompous as usual. The material Miles wants to use in the building won't work aesthetically with the design and it's not structurally suited, either, Rick explains. "But I like it," Miles says with a hint of petulance. Rick the whipping boy sighs and says he'll look over the design again. Miles asks about Sam, and wants to know why he hasn't heard from him. Rick reminds him it's only been a day since they've seen him, and they should give him time.
Cut to Judy's apartment, with the phone in the foreground. Sam's voice is on the answering machine, begging to see her. Next there's a message from her mother; she went ahead and gave Judy's number to the pharmacist. Next is another message from Sam, but Judy cuts it off mid-grovel.
At a restaurant called Canetti's Seafood Grotto, we follow Lily as she heads to Rick's table. They hug, get comfortable, and make small talk. Lily then jumps in and asks about Sam: Is he a good friend? Has he said anything about Judy? She tells Rick that Judy and Sam hit it off, that they didn't sleep together but something happened. Rick is disbelieving and wonders if Judy could have imagined it. Lily defends her sister, saying, "She's not an idiot." The argument escalates until Rick pulls back and Lily opens her menu and studies it angrily. A woman at the next table stares at their little scene. Lily starts to get a clue, and wants to know what's really bothering Rick, but he doesn't want to get into it. She says she doesn't think things will get back to normal until they clear the air, and she keeps pressing until he gets visibly upset. Finally, he admits what's been bugging him; not surprisingly, it's the fact that she slept with someone else. He can't stop trying to imagine where she and Jake "did it" and he can't stop picturing her with "this expression on her face," by which, I assume, he means her expression when she's in the throes of passion. When he's finished, he looks uncomfortable and even embarrassed. But there's also a touch of "there -- you wanted to know, now you know" in his attitude.