RevCam creeps down the stairs to the CamKitchen, where Annie is channeling all her psycho energy into doing some sort of paperwork. Eric interrupts her frantic scribbling to ask what she's doing. It turns out she's grading papers. She tries to make it sound like it's an incredibly important activity, but I don't think anyone's fooled. After all, teaching CamMorals to Ruthie's classmates is not exactly going to make the world a better place. Quite the opposite, in fact. RevCam says something weird about how she obviously doesn't have time for visitors. Annie agrees. She's so busy imparting her wacko morals to the unfortunate little girls that she doesn't even have time to clean or cook today. RevCam can't help, since he has some "church thing" he has to do. He goes on weirdly about the visitors again, but he's interrupted by a knock on the door. Oh, look -- visitors! It's Annie's father and stepmother, Ginger. Annie takes a moment out from her incredibly important work to greet them and say that it's a nice surprise to see them. RevCam's not so surprised, though, since apparently he's known about this visit for over a month and either neglected or forgot to tell SuperMom. RevCam looks sheepish while Annie glares at him.
Today's Opening Credits Timewaster takes place in the CamKitchen, with Annie sulking ostentatiously while preparing tea. RevCam obviously feels bad about forgetting to tell her about the visit, but Cruella is not going to cut him any slack for that. She's more polite to Ginger, at least, when the older woman comes in to apologize. Looking incredibly tense, Annie mentions her lame-ass essay grading again and says that after she's done screwing up her students' morals, she will spend time with Ginger and her dad. Ginger, however, is not planning to stick around. With more enthusiasm than is becoming, she explains that she'll be visiting her sister "up north," for some rest and relaxation. She's just come by the CamPound to foist the old man off on someone else for the weekend. A car horn is heard, and without even looking outside, Ginger announces that it's the cab she'd ordered to take her "up north." I wonder if she means the north part of Glenoak, because if she's planning to take a cab to some town a few hours away, wouldn't the fare be, like, hundreds of dollars? After Ginger leaves, Cruella accuses Eric of conspiring with Ginger to hide something from her. I don't know where the hell she got that idea, but I don't care. I just wish she'd go away, because she frightens me. RevCam insists no one's hiding anything from Annie, but she doesn't believe him. She retaliates by ordering him to clean the house and cook dinner, all while taking care of her father. What a lovely visit that's going to be for Gramps! I know I'm always charmed when I get the opportunity to watch someone clean and cook for hours. I'm sure it's the kind of hospitality most people adore, in fact.
At least no one's making Grandpa listen to Robbie's singing. The viewers are not as lucky. Neither is Dopey. He's trying to read while Robbie dances and sings something in Spanish. We can't hear the original, since he's listening to it on headphones, but I'll bet it's one of Joy's crappy tunes. Seeing Robbie dancing while sitting in bed is one of the funniest things I've ever seen on this show, but Dopey wrecks it by throwing some pink stuffed animal at Robbie's head, then treating him to a lecture: "We're roommates, and roommates are supposed to be considerate of each other." Ding ding ding! Dopey's the first character to use this week's theme title in a sentence. How exciting! Or not. Out of the blue, Robbie accuses Dopey of not liking Joy. Well, who does? Dopey claims he doesn't have a problem with the little songbird, but Robbie keeps pushing the issue, until it turns into what may be the stupidest fight in the history of time. Robbie insists that he doesn't care what Dopey thinks; Dopey says Robbie does care. That's the entire subplot, in a nutshell. And it's quite tedious, actually.
Robbie storms off and runs into Lucy in the hallway. She asks if he's okay, and he launches into a speech about not caring what Dopey thinks. Lucy thinks he does, which is ridiculous. Does anyone who's not a Teen Beat subscriber care what Dopey thinks? I didn't think so. Mercifully, they don't go into it any further, once Robbie tells Lucy that Jeremy called. You mean Ron Jeremy? Because that would be cool. No, it's just Lucy's ex-fiancé Jeremy. She expositionally repeats the ex-fiancé part a few times, for all the viewers who may already have forgotten about her romance of the century with three-guest-star-appearance Jeremy. Yeah, that guy. Robbie tells Lucy that Jeremy has something important to discuss with her and that he'll call back. Lucy's still in a tizzy when RevCam walks up and asks her to baby-sit Grandpa for the day. Her excuse? She has to sit by the phone and wait for her loser ex to call. Jeez, 1952 much? Her grandfather's not getting any younger, you know; Jeremy's sure to be a blight on humanity for many decades to come. Amazingly, though, Eric accepts her excuse as valid. He also accepts Robbie's excuse: "Girlfriend trouble." Oh, come on, writers. We viewers make the effort to wade through your crappy show every week. The least you could do is put forth even a smidgen of effort toward creating decent plots, okay? At least Dopey's studying for an exam, which is somewhat of a valid excuse, though it's still a little hard to believe that he can't take a few hours to spend with his grandfather. Come to think of it, none of the kids have even greeted the guy. Sure, the CamPound is a big house, but you'd think somebody would have figured out by now that Gramps is inside it and gone to say hi to him. Lucy nixes RevCam's idea of having Mary take care of the old guy, since Mary is "in a daze." While that mental state is surely nothing new for the stupid skank, I think they're just using it here as an excuse to free her up for her very own idiotic subplot, which we'll get to all too soon. Lucy wishes Eric luck in finding someone willing to spend time with Grandpa, and flounces off down the hall. I assume it's to take a shower, since she's carrying a towel. You'd think she may have gone downstairs to at least say hello to her ailing grandfather, but I guess things just don't work that way when you have good, solid family values.
RevCam tries once more to palm off his father-in-law on one of the kids -- Simon, this time. Simon's all excited about getting his learner's permit, which RevCam had promised to help him with today. Okay, it's understandable that shit happens, and sometimes you can't honour your commitments, but RevCam doesn't even have an apology for Simon. He just says, "I need you to stay here and watch Grandpa and Ruthie and the boys. Oh, and if you could take care of dinner and pick up around the house, that would be great too." RevCam tries to slink off without any explanations, but Simon won't let him. And rightfully so. Don't waste too much energy feeling sorry for Simon, though, since he's about to get all bratty again. He sings us a sad tune about how manly he's been -- which, of course, makes him come off as a whiny baby. RevCam still doesn't apologize; he just weakly offers to take Simon to the DMV the first chance he gets. This time his escape attempt is successful.
Grandpa's waiting for him out in the hall, though, and he's insulted that RevCam's trying to find him a baby-sitter. Eric insists that Simon wants to hang out with him, but Grandpa's skeptical. After all, he may have Alzheimer's Disease, but his hearing seems okay, and since he's been standing right outside Simon's door during the screaming match, it was probably a little hard to believe that Simon volunteered for the job. RevCam brushes off Grandpa's protests and leaves, grimacing rudely before he goes. Grandpa opens the door to Simon's room to find the boy staring glumly at his desk. Not even when Grandpa says, "Okay, kid, entertain me," does Simon see fit to greet him. Not even a simple "hello." Having always wished I could have been fortunate enough to know my own grandfathers, I have to say I am truly appalled.
Upstairs in the girls' room, Mary is sitting on her bed, reading a letter, while Ruthie plays a spirited game of kickball with Mary's laundry. Lucy is looking for the phone. I hope she's planning to call someone who will come over and properly dispose of the dreadful T-shirt she's wearing, the one emblazoned with the words "so fine." Hey, I'm all for people developing self-esteem, but is there really any way a dumb-ass t-shirt's going to do that? Lucy nosily asks Mary about the letter she's reading, but Mary just says, "It's nothing," and gets up to leave. Ruthie tells her she needs to clean up her side of the room, but I think that first Mary needs to pull her pants up. They're cut so low that if she bends over, we'd all be subjected to a severe case of plumber's crack. I don't feel like going blind this week, thank you. After all, that almost happened already when I first saw Lucy's t-shirt. Ruthie hoists the Theme Mallet by talking about how "inconsiderate" Mary is, but Lucy doesn't care. She just wants to find the phone so she'll be ready and waiting for when Jeremy calls and wants to get back with her. Yes, she actually thinks that's what will happen. Hee. She offers Ruthie ten bucks to find the phone. You wouldn't think that someone who has no visible means of income could afford to toss around money like that, but apparently, Lucy can. It takes Ruthie about ten seconds to find the ugly see-through phone, and it takes Lucy another ten seconds to decide that she can't wait any longer to speak to Jeremy. She will call him herself. Ruthie advises her not to, telling her she looks "desperate." No, no, Ruthie, can't you read her shirt? Lucy is "so fine." In any case, Lucy takes the advice not to call, though she defiantly points out that she's not actually taking Ruthie's advice. It's all very confusing, and not particularly entertaining -- except when Ruthie mentions "all the losers" Lucy dates. At least someone's calling a spade a spade. This all turns into a totally contrived fight, with Ruthie trying to get Lucy to admit to taking her advice, which Lucy stubbornly refuses to do. It's about as bad an excuse for a plot as the one with Robbie and Dopey fighting. Ruthie storms off, with Happy in her wake. When Happy's back is turned, someone dubs a track of her barking once. It's totally pointless, although it probably makes the other actors depressed that Happy gets all the best lines.
RevCam arrives at the Cardiac Care Unit of the hospital. An orderly inappropriately asks him if he's nervous. Oh, but I forgot that this is Glenoak, where orderlies practice medicine. Well, at least Dopey tries to. Since nobody on the show seems to have the slightest idea of what an orderly's actual job description is, perhaps this guy will be treating RevCam, in addition to leading him to the proper room. Hey, he's a renaissance man. Eric is just an annoying man.
Annie is down at the library, taking a break from essay grading to call RevCam. She doesn't make any effort to keep her voice down, but since the pay phone seems to be in the middle of a reading room, the patrons are probably used to a lot of noise by now. However, they're probably not used to the histrionic vocal force of Annie yelling at Lou, who is unfortunate enough to pick up the phone in the church office. When Lou tells her that Eric isn't there, Cruella confines herself to a demure and ladylike, "Eventually, I'm gonna find out what you and my husband are up to. And when I do, both of you are going to be in a world of trouble!" She then slams down the phone, as Lou cringes and sighs.
Mary's down at the Glenoak firehouse, trying to see the fire chief. He's got a secretary/bouncer who guards his privacy extremely well. I'm not sure that's strictly necessary, but maybe he's got hordes of groupies who are always trying to get his autograph or something. Mary keeps insisting that she has to speak to him, and I have to laugh when she keeps getting rebuffed. Finally, she sits down in the reception area and announces that she will wait to see the chief, despite the fact that his secretary has already told her the chief won't want to speak to her. Why this woman doesn't just call someone to haul pushy Mary out of the firehouse is beyond me.
Simon lets Lucy know that he's going out with Grandpa, Ruthie, and the twins. Lucy prissily asks if RevCam said they could leave, which prompts Gramps to deliver a pretty good smackdown. It's even sort of funny when Ruthie joins in, saying, "I took a vote, and Sam and David don't want you as their older sister either." It's funnier still when she adds, "And Happy doesn't like you." I could have done without the dumb twins piping up with, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," but I'm hoping the show will get cancelled before the brats are old enough to have many real lines. As everyone else troops out, Ruthie stays back to try to get Lucy to "apologize for being so inconsiderate and rude." The girls oh-so-maturely make faces at each other, and then Ruthie says, "Point, set, and match. How does it feel to be beaten by an eleven-year-old?" How she got that, I'll never know, because really, there are no winners here. Only losers. Sad, sad losers.
Dopey is trying to study in the kitchen. Wait -- does he have his textbook upside down? Just kidding. Robbie and Joy come in, which annoys Dopey -- and most everyone who's watching, I suspect. Matt asks for some privacy to study, which leads to another lame fight. Joy tries to break it up by saying she and Robbie can find someplace else to hang out. What, someplace more exciting than the CamKitchen? Is that even possible? Robbie makes the mistake of telling Joy that Dopey doesn't like her. Was that necessary? It gets worse when Dopey says, "That's not true. I don't like the two of you. I know you think you're in love, and that's great, but it would be nice if you could find someplace other than our house to share your love." Ouch -- talk about rude. Joy diplomatically leaves the room to watch TV so the guys can "settle whatever [they] need to settle." Darn. I guess that means there will be more scenes with Robbie and Dopey fighting.
Down at the Glenoak DMV, Simon is the proud owner of a learner's permit. He thanks Grandpa for taking him to get the permit. At least someone is finally being polite to the old man. Gramps tells Simon he can drive them home. That's nice of him, but is it really such a good idea? I remember that my first attempts at driving were not exactly expert. Even before I got my learner's permit, my dad used to take me out to drive where everyone else in our neighbourhood learned to drive -- in the parking lot of the Catholic school. I can't imagine RevCam's been doing the same with Simon, so this would have to be the boy's first time behind the wheel. And he hasn't even taken driver's ed, with that driving simulator thing that they have -- or as we used to call it, the "Stimulator." Is Gramps delusional, in addition to being forgetful? Or maybe he just doesn't like Ruthie and the twins very much and doesn't care if they die. He settles the issue by getting into the passenger seat. Still, Ruthie tries to stop Simon, arguing that he shouldn't be driving unless Annie or Eric are in the car, since that's how it was for all the other kids. The logic of that escapes me, since all Simon needs to drive is to have a licensed driver in the car with him, and old or not, Gramps does qualify. I'm rooting for Simon here, until he has to go and wreck it all by making up some stupid stuff about how RevCam would be in the car if he'd honoured his promise to bring Simon to the DMV. He really works my nerves by saying, "I shouldn't be punished for his inconsiderate behaviour, should I?" Oh, shut up, Simon. At least Ruthie calls him on it and says his bizarre justification doesn't even make sense. Come on, writers -- just end this scene already. You've already dropped the theme word into it, so what are you waiting for?
Lucy's holding up the ugly see-through phone receiver and thanking the operator, saying she was just checking the line. She starts to hang up, then decides against it, asking the operator if she has a boyfriend. I see some wacky hijinks on the horizon!
Simon's driving home, and there's a cop cruiser riding his ass. It's almost impossible to miss, but he doesn't even notice until Ruthie points it out. He starts looking back at the cops nervously. Grandpa admonishes him to keep his eyes on the road, but Simon's too freaked. Ruthie suggests that maybe the cops are suspicious since he's only driving about ten miles an hour. He wants to pull over -- even though the cops don't even have their lights or sirens on -- but Gramps tells him that since he hasn't done anything wrong, he should just keep driving. Grandpa is right, actually, but that doesn't make Simon any less nervous. Ruthie says she has "a bad feeling about this." I'll just assume she's referring to this entire subplot.
The cops are a couple of goofballs, one of whom is suspicious of Simon, since the car he's driving allegedly fits the description of a stolen car they'd just heard about on the bulletin. When he says he wants to tail the car, he makes it sound like he's on some kind of super-important assignment. My husband put himself through school working as a security guard, and this cop reminds me of a nerd he used to work with, who tried to get Peeter to call him by the special code name "Eagle." Peeter used to torment him by "forgetting" the code name and calling him "Beagle" or "Seagull" instead. Hey, when your job consists mainly of listening to tenants complain about other tenants not scooping after their dogs, or fetching patio umbrellas that have blown off people's balconies, you have to liven it up somehow.
Let's go to the library, shall we, for some more madcap antics from everyone's favourite psycho, Annie. She's phoning Eric's office again, although this time Lou is smart enough not to pick up the phone. After letting it ring for a while, Annie snaps, screaming out, "Eric where are you?" Isn't it refreshing to see how much respect she has for this house of learning? That's just one of the reasons why she's so excellent and believable as a teacher.
Where is Eric anyway? He's still down at the cardiac ward, listening to a doctor explain that some woman's heart is okay. I guess I really should have figured out from the beginning that this woman is Ginger, but I'm embarrassed to say, I didn't see it coming. Maybe that's because I keep forgetting that the best doctors in the country are in Glenoak. At least that's what the writers would have us believe, since any tertiary character who needs medical services always ends up in Glenoak. The town is so small as to only have two restaurants, yet it's got better doctors than Phoenix, which is where Ginger lives. But the writers' special magic makes us believe in the power of Glenoak, right? Right?
Ugh -- Robbie still wants to duke it out with Dopey in the CamKitchen. After all, Joy told him to. Dopey's not interested in resolving any differences, though he's not averse to insulting Robbie, asking him if he always does what Joy tells him to. When he comments that it's obvious who wears the pants in their relationship, Robbie says, "Yeah, it's Joy. And her pants are tight and pink, so I do whatever she says." Lovely. He's quick to add, "Because I love her and I respect her opinion," in case you didn't get a sense of that from his comment about her pants. Robbie remarks that Dopey only thinks of him as a boarder. At first I thought he said "moron," and I was all set to agree, but he definitely said "boarder." Joy comes in and sees that they haven't finished fighting, so she says, "I guess I better find another movie to watch," and leaves. Hey, wait a second! her pants weren't pink, they were black. Maybe Robbie has some bizarre form of colour-blindness. I think it's smart that the writers are giving Joy so few lines this week. I only wish they had done the same for Dopey and Robbie.
Mary is still trying to see the fire chief, and still not having any success. She wants to bully him into letting her into his firefighter training course, even though he's already sent her a rejection letter. She thinks she deserves more CONSIDERATION than a letter. Her sense of entitlement about that is baffling.
Glenoak's finest are still tailing Simon. Paranoid Cop wants to pull him over and search the car, even though his partner points out that the plates don't match that of the stolen car. Paranoid Cop brilliantly suggests that the plates may have been switched. Maybe if he consults the secret decoder ring he got in his box of Lucky Charms this morning, it will tell him what to do.
Ruthie helpfully points out that the cops are still following them, so Gramps tells Simon to "step on it." Simon complies, taking off with a squeal of the tires. Now, I'm not sure why accelerating from ten miles to thirty over the course of five seconds would cause the tires to squeal like that, but I never did all that well in high school physics.
The cops are totally excited by this situation. It makes me wonder how dull life in Glenoak really is. In the small town where I grew up, there was very little crime. That's a good thing, of course -- unless you're a kid who wants to party down by the creek. The cops had so little to do that they were always sure to catch you. To put it all in perspective, here in Toronto -- which is still low on crime -- you can walk down the street with half a beer in one hand and a joint in the other, and you have a pretty fair chance of not getting busted. The fact that these Glenoak cops are so frantic about a car that's been driving slowly and then speeds up to normal makes me wonder if they spend most of their days policing jaywalking infractions.
Seeing that the cops have put on their lights and siren, Simon wants to pull over, but Grandpa won't let him. Grandpa's excuse (other than his obvious senility and/or stupidity, of course) is that Simon has not done anything wrong, so he shouldn't pull over. Even though the police obviously want him to. Even though there are now three cruisers behind them, all flashing their lights. The writers cut down on the crappy dialogue they have to churn out by having the loathsome twins randomly repeating words like "Police, police, police!" It's hard for me to see how anyone could think that's a good idea, but I used to live in a university residence where most of my floormates would gather around the TV every Thursday night to laugh uproariously at the antics of that little girl on The Cosby Show, so maybe this type of crap does appeal to some viewers. Gramps thinks this is a good time to take a nap, giving Simon the perfect opportunity to pull over. Does he take it? Considering there's another twenty minutes of show to fill, no.
Joy's changing channels in the living room, but every channel has footage of the big car chase. That's pretty funny, especially since Simon is still driving slowly enough to make it look like he's leading a parade. Lucy comes in and tells Joy that she thinks she wants to get back together with Jeremy. She came to this decision after talking to the telephone operator. Why the writers decided to have that take place off-camera is a mystery, but I'm happy with the decision. The girls turn their attention to the car chase on TV. Lucy notices that the car looks really familiar, so she frantically calls over Dopey and Robbie. Since this is Grandpa's rental car, and Lucy never even said hello to the man himself, I'm not sure she would recognize a car as nondescript as this Plymouth Concorde, or whatever the hell it is. Has she ever actually seen the car before? Oh, well -- if it gets us out of having to listen to her discuss Jeremy, I'll suspend my disbelief.
RevCam's watching the same chase footage from a hospital waiting room, and he thinks the car looks familiar too. At least he's actually seen the vehicle before, but that's still pretty ridiculous. More of a tip-off might be the fact that the newscaster describes the "suspects" as "an elderly man, a teen who is driving, and three children." RevCam slowly repeats the newscaster's words to an extra who's standing to him. I'm convinced this extra could not look any more bored if he tried.
Not content with annoying the hell out of the library patrons with her screeching, Annie goes down to the church to yell at Lou for a while. Finally Lou breaks down and tells her that Eric is at the cardiac ward, but that he didn't want Annie to worry. Annie really seems less worried than just nosy and belligerent, but maybe that's just my impression.
RevCam's still listening to the newscaster, who is now saying that the car involved in the chase "was rented to a Charles Jackson, who flew in from Phoenix this morning." You'd think even RevCam would have figured it out by now, but in case he hasn't, here comes Detective Michaels to tell him about it. Okay, how did Michaels know to find Eric here? And why does he need RevCam to come with him? Wouldn't you think getting Simon to pull over is a job best handled by -- oh, I don't know -- THE POLICE?
The CamKids are all gathered around the TV, riveted by the not-very-exciting low-speed car chase. Lucy is so enthralled by the action -- what little of it there is -- that when Jeremy calls, she tells him she'll call back and then hangs up on his ass. I don't know why she couldn't have talked to him and watched the chase at the same time. It's not like much is happening on the TV screen. One could say the same of my TV screen, really.
With Gramps asleep, Ruthie is trying to get Simon to pull the car over. He still refuses. Just how stupid is he? Pretty dumb, since he gives this as his reason: "No, because as soon as I pull this car over, my life is over." He follows that up with the assertion that since he is a guy, if he can't drive, his life truly will be over. How very enlightened of him. Just as he's commenting that the CamRents may never even find out about this incident, Detective Michaels pulls up beside him. RevCam's sitting in the passenger's seat, telling Simon to pull over. Did you want to hear about the twins repeating "pull over, pull over"? No, I didn't think so. RevCam keeps yelling at Simon to "pull over," while Simon just looks confused. This whole scene is so dopey that it's actually funny -- especially when Gramps wakes up and notices what's going on. Even though Grandpa didn't think Simon should stop the car when there were three squad cars chasing him, somehow RevCam's word carries more weight. That probably tells you everything you need to know about Glenoak. After some more bumbling, the Keystone Kops order the car's occupants to get out of the car with their hands in the air. Grandpa refuses, on the grounds that he's done nothing wrong. Personally, I think telling his grandson not to pull over when a whole line of cops are after him constitutes doing something wrong, but Grandpa's old and senile, you know. Ruthie refuses to get out of the car, but she's young and senile. For some reason, Simon still isn't getting out of the car, which gives me some hope that the cops will go even further overboard and shoot him.
Annie shows up in the cardiac ward to find that Eric has just left. When she hears that he was only with someone who was having tests done, she asks, "Who? Who?" like a big, dumb owl. Of course, this is obviously none of her business, but the nurse still lets her know which room the patient is in. When she finds out it's Ginger, she's upset that nobody told her, but she's reined in some of the craziness from before. She looks like she's about to lose it again, though, when Ginger points out the TV screen, which shows Simon getting out of the car.
Detective Michaels holds up his hand to keep the Keystone Kops from firing their weapons. Overkill, anyone? There's more of it as Simon not only gets out of the car but lies facedown on the ground. I hope this isn't a foretaste of David Gallagher's future -- you know, that whole child-actor/crime thing. He is pretty rebellious, what with those earrings and all. Simon looks up at Eric and says, "Hi, Dad," while the camera pulls back to reveal a whole whack of police cars and a helicopter flying by. I guess this finally answers the question of where the show's production money goes. We all know it's not going toward acting or writing, but I'll bet it's expensive to rent a helicopter.
After a commercial break, the show comes back with a man in a uniform walking into his house through the front door, to be greeted by a blonde woman. Since we've never seen these people before -- and since the man bears an uncanny resemblance to Larry Hagman -- at first I thought I'd accidentally switched the channel and was watching some bizarre, warped version of Bewitched. I'm not so sure it's a great idea to come back from commercial with characters that nobody recognizes, but that won't stop the fine scribes at 7th Heaven. It turns out that this guy is the fire chief, and Mary has wormed her way into the house to speak to him. It must be the Camden stalking gene that allowed her to work some sort of spell on the chief's wife, since I find it hard to believe that the wife would be so charmed by Mary's delightful manners that she would let her into the house and ask her husband to "hear [Mary] out." Mary manages to be offensive, even while simply introducing herself: "I'm Mary Camden, and I'm just asking for a little consideration." Way to get his back up, Mary. I suppose, though, since the Theme Mallet has only been wielded about seven hundred times this episode, that another reference to the episode title was a little overdue. The chief says he spoke to Mary's old supervisor, and while he said she worked hard, he also told the chief about how Mary got involved with that hunky firefighter dude and left the program without notice. Mary spews some garbage about how she "was born to be a firefighter," in an attempt to rewrite show history yet again. She also insists that the chief has to give her a chance. No, he doesn't, you moron, so just quit it with that entitlement bullshit. The chief natters on for a while about the importance of responsibility for a firefighter. He tells her, "You're just not responsible enough to be a firefighter." Well, that's pretty obvious, but it's still nice to hear someone say it. It's not so nice to hear him tell her, "As I look at you with your low-rider jeans and your French manicure, I don't think you want to be a firefighter as much as you want to hang out with firefighters." He's probably right about that, but it's still sexist and inappropriate. While Mary sulks, he talks about the nobility of firefighters some more. All true, but after September 11th, who doesn't know that? Making herself look even more childish and irresponsible, Mary asks him what she's supposed to do with her life. He doesn't know, and he doesn't care. Nor should we. !
Back in the CamPound, Joy is asking, "Are all ministers' families like this?" Thank God, no. I grew up living door to various ministers' families, and they've all been pretty nice. It's true, there was that one boy who used to ride his bike down the street while wearing a bucket on his head. He also used to urinate in my mom's flowerbed, but at least he wasn't a stalker. Robbie uses Joy's question as a dig against Dopey, who does not consider Robbie to be a member of the family. After delivering a seemingly endless soliloquy about how the guys are lucky to have each other, Joy leaves. She has inspired Robbie to express his admiration of Dopey. Dopey's not won over, though. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Robbie's heartfelt plea was delivered about as woodenly as if he'd been ordering pizza.
Lucy calls Jeremy and tells him how disappointed she was when he didn't stand up for her against his parents. Despite that, though, she wants to get back together with him. This revelation is met with silence. Finally, Jeremy says, "I don't want you back." The revulsion in his voice makes me howl with laughter. So if he doesn't want her back, what does he want? The engagement ring he gave Lucy. The fact that he needs to sell it to buy sheet music makes me laugh even harder. When Lucy hangs up the phone, he smiles, looking almost evil. What a jerk. I love this guy.
Ruthie comes in and tells Lucy that the police let Simon off with just a warning. She asks if Lucy called Jeremy. Lucy says, "He called me, and I called him back. And I shouldn't have." Well, actually, Lucy, since you told him you'd call back, you really did have to call. It's one of those extremely basic etiquette things the writers don't seem to understand. Lucy apologizes to Ruthie, and the girls share a hug. Ruthie asks why Jeremy called, and Lucy explains about the engagement ring. When Ruthie asks if Lucy is planning to return the ring, Lucy charmingly sneers, "He'll have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands." Ruthie wrinkles up her nose to imply that this statement was cute, rather than repellent. I think Lucy's statement clinches the fact that the writers know absolutely nothing about etiquette. There are probably some legal issues involved, too, but since the Glenoak legal system seems to operate on RevCam's whims, Lucy probably doesn't have to worry about that.
Grandpa walks into Ginger's hospital room. I'll bet he's not expecting the lecture he's about to receive from Annie, who really talks down to him, while Ginger looks on and smiles vacantly. I'm not overly crazy about Gramps, but I do respect him when he orders Annie to go home so he can spend the night with his wife in the hospital. He also lectures Ginger about treating him like a child and keeping him in the dark about her health concerns. When she says she just didn't want him to worry, he says, "Poppycock!" thus making him the first person in this millennium to utter that word. It has sort of a fun ring to it, and I'd like to take this opportunity to challenge the writers to make it the title of a future episode. I'd love to hear everyone saying "poppycock" at regular intervals. It would be a hell of a lot better than listening to them all talk about consideration.
Back in the CamKitchen, Simon is trying to explain why he acted as densely as he did. He does a fairly decent job of taking responsibility for his actions. Eric explains that he and Annie are letting him off the hook because they know how hard it was for him to be caught between trying to do what Grandpa told him and trying to do what he knew was right. It's pretty unexpected, but it's always nice when a shred of sense creeps into the show. Simon thanks them and leaves.
Annie tries to tell RevCam that she is "stronger and more focused than [she's] ever been." I'll bet the library patrons she was harassing earlier would beg to disagree. She tells RevCam, "Never lie to me again, even if you think you're doing it to protect me." Well, actually, Annie, he was doing it because Ginger made him promise not to tell anyone. I know this show is always rewriting history, but how bad is it when they have to rewrite history from the beginning of the same freakin' episode? RevCam apologizes, even though he didn't need to, and Annie accepts his apology self-righteously, as if it's her due. Either RevCam genuinely has no self-esteem left, or he's just trying to keep Psycho Annie from emerging again. He even asks, "You're really going to let me off the hook that easily?" When Annie nods graciously, he looks nervous. I'll bet he's wondering if there's a severed horse's head on his pillow. Because there probably is, you know.