Episode Report Card Niki: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Scarlet Letter Jacket
By Niki | Season 1 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.04.1999
Cut to Rick's apartment later that night. Eli tickles and teases Jessie before she races off upstairs, giggling. Alone with Rick, Eli mentions that he got the schedule for working the carnival. Rick studies it and makes his guppy mouth. "Oh!" he exclaims, and rubs his chin as the camera cuts in for a close-up on the schedule. Looks like Lily and Karen will be rubbing elbows in one of the booths. Rick chuckles with a sense of doom. "I forgot to tell you: looks like our mom is working with The Mom," Eli says. He offers to talk to the teacher who set up the schedule, saying that she tries to act like a hard-ass but is really okay. Rick points out another area of interest on the timetable: Eli and Grace. Eli chuckles over it and says, "She's cool. I don't mind working with her." "You two are already sleeping together, from what I hear," Rick teases. He gets an elbow in the gut.
Meanwhile, over at Manning Manor, Lily's studying the timetable over a sizzling skillet of ground beef. She spots the love match, asking, "Is that...?" Grace pretends to be bummed about working with Eli, saying it makes her really uncomfortable, but the teacher in charge of the schedule is "totally mean and will kill [Grace] if she asks her" to change it. Uh huh. A plume of smoke billows from Grace's corduroys. Lily sagely advises her to look at it as a "life lesson." And I think we all see where this is going: Lily's going to choke on those very words in five...four..three.... "Oh my god!" she mutters, moving the schedule closer to her eyes. "I'm supposed to work with his ex-wife?" she stammers. Grace is eating from a Chinese take-out container and mumbles around the rice, "Mmm, I was waiting for you to see that." Lily plasters on a bloodless smile and grits, "There's no way." Grace insists that she can't change it, and Lily demands that she do so. Grace pleads for her life, reminding Lily of the terrifying teacher and the advice to take it "as a life lesson." Lily cops out and says that she's older than Grace; she doesn't need any more life lessons. I know. I laughed so hard I think I bruised a rib. Grace points out that it's only an hour, and Lily absently mutters for her to call Zoe to dinner. Grace accepts this change of subject as acquiescence and hugs Lily gratefully before leaving. Lily tugs at her lip and stares at the schedule like it has a code she needs to crack.
The second Grace is gone, Lily casts a sly look over her shoulder and heads for the phone. She starts griping and moaning in Naomi's ear about the schedule before we cut to Grace's room where, somehow, Grace is also on the phone with one of her friends. Pardon me while I pick this nit: I've never heard mention of a second phone line at Manning Manor, especially since Grace and Lily are often fighting over the phone. What gives? Anyway, Grace is clearly ecstatic over the thought of being confined to a three-by-three booth with Eli.