I want to start off by saying that there is not a single character on this show that I would not slap joyfully across the face. Thank you. Thank you for letting me get that off my chest. And now on with the recap.
John and Matt are outside, having some convoluted discussion about Heather. Dopey's in a tizzy because Heather has left him a note saying she wishes to speak to him. Being the presumptuous, moronic twit that we all know he is, Matt automatically assumes that Heather wants to get back together with him. Yeah, that's it, Dopey, she can't get enough of your grimy hair and sparkling conversation. John is harassing Matt, who wants to stay home and wait for Heather to come back but doesn't want anyone to know that's what he's doing. John convinces Dopey to get behind the wheel of some sort of vintage convertible while John gets in the back seat. The convertible belongs to John's uncle, so why Dopey would be driving it is a mystery. I missed the first few seconds of the show, so maybe they explained it then. Somehow I doubt it, though. Before Matt starts driving, we get an endless close-up of him loading up a CD. Hey, it's just like watching The Truman Show! Except when I was watching The Truman Show, I didn't feel like crying tears of despair over the dialogue and plot. Anyway, since someone went to such effort to product-place the CD, I'll help out by mentioning that it's Riding With the King by B.B. King and Eric Clapton. Now I'll just try to forget that, though, since I really like both musicians and would rather not associate them mentally with this show in any way. Oh, wait a second. I just figured out why Dopey's driving. Gwen pointed out that on cover of the Riding With the King CD, Eric's driving while B.B. lounges in the back seat. Wow, isn't that clever how they copied it on the show? It's a good thing the cover just had a black guy and a white guy on it. If there'd been, say, an Asian guy too, the producers would have had to scramble to find an Asian character. Or maybe they would have been even more offensive and just brought back that older Japanese woman from the interment camp episode last season. So anyway, Dopey drives along while John air-drums in the back seat. That's cool, as far as I'm concerned. Less dialogue. I hope the choice of title track from Riding With the King isn't supposed to refer to Dopey in any way. Because I don't think there's any such title as King of the Losers, is there?
Dopey's not concentrating so hard on his driving that he can't keep an eye out for situations in which he can meddle. Why, there's one now! Okay, I can't legitimately claim I know much about teen fashion or current music or even slang more recent than 1990. Really, I can't. But even I know that the sight of Simon wearing baggy, baggy pants and a big chain necklace, while hanging around a street corner with a bunch of other clean-cut-looking kids who are shuffling their feet and listening to music that kind of sounds like Eminem, is not cause for fear or shock. No, it is cause for profuse and sustained guffawing. Ow, my stomach hurts now. You know, maybe my disbelief has something to do with the fact that I live in Canada, and while there's a group of teens who dress like Simon's little buddies and listen to Eminem and hang around my apartment building, they're always holding the door open for me and offering to press the elevator button for my floor when my hands are full of bags. Ooh, scary, huh? Naw, it's probably more that Simon's friends look totally harmless and unscary. So Dopey stops the car and gets out to drag Grandmaster S away from his homies. After Dopey and Simon ask each other what's wrong, Dopey says, "When did you start hanging out with guys like that?" He points to Simon's little gang. I suspect the director told the guys to look "tough." The look they come up with, though, is more of a "perplexed." Maybe the director actually asked them to figure out the atomic weight of chromium. It doesn't help that the ringleader kid is sporting goofy, badly spiked hair and a big bandanna headband that makes it look like he got lost en route to a Flashdance audition. Simon says he's just listening to some rap with his friends. Of course, he looks over at the token black cast member, John, who refuses to back him up. John adds that the music Simon is listening to is a "perversion of rap." Dopey tries to get Grandmaster S into the car, but Simon just tells him to mind his own business and walks away.
Opening credits. Yup, there's RevCam dancing with the tin cans in front of his eyes. Is someone deliberately trying to piss me off? Oh no, I can't worry about that now. I have to rewind the tape because...because...it's vomity Robbie, and he's not just a guest star -- he's in the opening credits! Oh, I knew I might get punished for some of the cheaper shots I've taken at this show, but I never dreamed the punishment would be this awful!
Dopey and John pull up in front of their Swingin' Bachelor Pad. Matt hurries out of the car and starts walking toward the building. Then he comes back and opens the door to let John out of the car. See, it's a two-door car, and even though it's a convertible, John couldn't just crawl over the door. I don't know, I didn't understand that either. John and Dopey talk about how Simon is trying to find his niche and be cool. Dopey opines that Simon will never find a woman who will like him if he's "blasting music that talks about beating women." That's weird -- for once, I agree with Dopey. John informs us of his plans for the rest of the day. Dopey spaces out and completely ignores him. John reclaims the Dopester's attention by asking him a question about himself -- something to do with whether Matt is going to hang around waiting for Heather. I decide to completely ignore them until John leaves. Dopey starts folding some laundry. There is a knock at the door. For some unexplained reason, this sends Dopey into a rage. Instead of answering the door, which is about three feet away, he calls out, with great exasperation, "Who is it?"
It is Eric, who replies, in falsetto, "Pants." Dopey says, "Pants who?" Oh, great, it's like a knock-knock joke. I haven't heard a good one of those in, well, ever. Maybe this one will break the pattern. Are you ready for the punchline? I hope you're sitting down and not drinking anything at the moment, because this might be really, really funny. Ready? Okay, then RevCam says, "Pants Daddy." Wait a second, that's the spot where the punchline belongs. Why are they saying stupid shit like "Pants Daddy"? That doesn't even make sense! Not only do they attempt to serve us the half-witted skeleton in the closet of the joke world, the knock-knock joke, but they can't even get that right? My disgust knows no limits. Ugh. I'm glad I've got all that disgust handy, because I'll be needing it when I see that Eric has brought over some dress pants that he calls "big-boy pants." Hey, that would make a passable name for a porno movie, wouldn't it? SuperMom has been shopping for pants, nothing but pants, for the entire family. Isn't there some neurological disorder that makes you want to do that? I thought I read about it in one of Oliver Sacks's books. So Annie thinks Dopey needs some dress pants to wear out on dates. I am so glad my mother has never taken such an active interest in my love life. Dopey appears to have some neurological disorder of his own, one which makes him fantasize that Heather actually wants him and then go on and on about that to RevCam. When he's done with that theme, Dopey warns Eric about Simon's new dangerous friends and bad taste in music. A totally disjointed conversation results. I suspect the longed-for effect is "funny." If you've been watching this show for any length of time, you won't be surprised that it falls far short of that mark. Either this scene has been edited to shit by a highly unskilled editor, or some writer snorted an entire gram of coke about one minute before hammering out the dialogue. Once the sad supply of "jokes" has been exhausted, Dopey hustles his dad out the door rudely. RevCam leaves right after saying, "I'll see you in church." It almost seems like there's a note of sarcasm in Stephen Collins's voice. Maybe it's his way of paying back whoever made him say his line, the incredibly stupid one where he asks Dopey if he's waiting around for Heather to come by. Just shut up already with that fucked-up excuse for a plot! I don't know how much more of that I can take. If we're all lucky, maybe Heather's been hit by a bus and she won't even be coming over.
Ruthie and Lucy are in line at a record shop when Simon's bandanna-ed Flashdance friend steps up to Lucy. He says to Lucy, "Mm, look at you. You look like you need a man." There's a pause in there that the closed captioning mistakenly says is bleeped out. Unless you're watching the captioning, you'd never know, because Flashdance's head is turned, so you can't even see that he's saying anything other than what you're hearing. This makes it a little confusing when Ruthie says, "I think he called you a bad word, a really, really bad word." Lucy just looks stunned and uncomprehending, giving Flashdance the opportunity to say, "The little one knows what I called her sister, but the sister don't [sic] know. Or maybe she know [sic] it [sic] true." His dirtbag friends are highly impressed by this not-so-witty repartee. Lucy actually has a good comeback when she disgustedly says, "'She know [sic] it [sic] true'? Look, you ignorant little -- what are you, a pimp? Get away from me!" Flashdance complies, but slaps Lucy's ass as he walks back to his friends. They congratulate him heartily, now that Lucy isn't threatening him.