You Only Live Once

S01E01

Sarah and Robby are lying on her bed, and Sarah says what every woman says when she's a whiner and needs more attention: "I cried when I hung up the phone." And Robby does what every man does when a whiny woman who needs more attention says something stupid like that: he makes a stupid face and playfully hits her. In an interview, Sarah speaks directly to the camera as if it's Robby and talks about meeting him at the beach and how she looked at him and felt this spark. "A f*****g spark," she says in an awed tone. "Everything in the world is so much more beautiful when I'm with you," she recalls saying. Ew. Double ew.

We return to the bedroom, where Sarah is stating that she wants to teach Robby how to do laundry. "It's pretty pathetic that I don't even know how to do laundry," says Robby. "You don't even know how to make your bed," retorts Sarah. Does this moron have a mother? Oh, wait, he must. Because that's who's doing all his laundry and making his bed and making sure he has enough money in his checking account and waxing his car...step on the clue train, Sarah. This here's a mama's boy. Robby then tells Sarah about a nightmare he had where he was in a war and he got shot, and he screamed out to his shooter, "You can't kill me because I'm gonna marry Sarah." And Sarah, in full-on martyr mode, says, "That's not true, Robby. I guarantee we're not gonna, like, end up together." And instead of responding the way Sarah wants him to, i.e. "Oh, of course we are, silly. You know I love you and adore you and we'll be together forever, my little snooky-ookums," Robby just sighs and looks all frustrated, like Sarah missed the entire point of his nightmare or something. We're back to Sarah's interview and she's saying, "I can't think about you leaving. You're all I really have in life. My father, my brother, my lover. Everything. I do love you." And then Robby throws himself onto her and basically mauls her. And we mercifully go to commercial before I heave Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Crackers all over my nice IKEA furniture. I just really hope that Sarah develops a sense of self-worth before the season's over or I'm going to have to do something drastic like, I don't know, KILL HER.

After a preview of another potential stinker, The Cell, the show comes back with school alarms and grunge music blaring. A montage of all the kids getting ready for another day of school. We see Anna and Kiwi walking down a hallway. Then Kiwi's doing his video diary in his kitchen. "The most exciting thing in my life right now is finding a college I can play football at or being with my girlfriend," says Kiwi. Way to underachieve, sporto. The phone rings and Kiwi wanders off, only to return stating, "It's my girlfriend. I'll be back in one minute." We see Kiwi playing air hockey with a blonde girl we can only assume is the aforementioned girlfriend. Kiwi says in a voice-over that when he met Rachel (I guess that's Blondie's name), he thought she was a real cute girl, and that they started talking and he got her phone number. At this point, I'm lighting my four hundredth American Spirit and declaring in a loud voice, "SHE'S GOT DARK FUCKING ROOTS!" To which Hank4 responds, "Yes, darling. But does that make her any less of a person?" And, sadly, in my book, it most certainly does. I have to say I'm fairly bummed that Kiwi would choose black-rooted Rachel over exotic Anna, but maybe I'll get my wish by the -- HOLY JESUS THEY'RE MAKING OUT IN A BASEMENT! Uck.

Before I can perform a singular "wave" action in honor of Mouth's mum, Mouth is back again on the screen. "Watch porno," he says, his hands opening up and his fingers waggling at the screen. "Rent porno movies. Get porno magazines. Porno porno porno."

It should be noted that every time he says "porno" he performs that same finger waggling at the screen. I wish I could reach into my television and tape his hands to the side of his head a la Munch's "The Scream." "Do whatever the hell you want," he continues. "Go pick fights. Stay out all night. Go look at stars. Hang out with friends. Go do what you want. Be reckless. Go to concerts. All that stuff. These are your teen years. And what are you sitting at home having to do? Homework."

Thus ends the public service announcement for irritating teens, and the American High intro sequence begins.

We're sitting in a car as it drives down a suburban street. Edgy grunge music plays. Edgy, grungy writing makes up the title "American High." Edgy, edgy, edgy, the credits seem to say. And where are we? HIGHLAND PARK, people. A lovely little North Shore village in Illinois. Oh, yeah, the North Shore is alllll about edge. Then we're confronted with a barrage of various high school images -- lockers, football fields, laughing kids in the hallway, classrooms, chalkboards -- all thrown at us in the same edgy manner. The main characters are periodically introduced by a picture, along with their names in that same edgy writing across the bottom of their portrait. The intro ends and the show kicks off.

Some bully pushes a smaller kid against some lockers. I have no idea who the bully is, but I'd wager a guess that it's that pesky Mouth again. We see a close-up of "JUNIORS SUCK" written in chalk on the pavement. Good to know some things haven't changed since I matriculated at Lake Forest High. Then we get a little mini-docu-montage of a few main characters spouting single defining sentences into their video cameras. The character known as "Scott" says, "Being a kid gives you an excuse to screw up." The character identified as "Brad" says, "Being a kid is not defined by age." Thank God, I'm thinking, because I just turned thirty-one and don't act a day over seventeen. Then the character "Anna" does this sort of porn star imitation into her video camera, apparently because she had nothing to say that sounded anything like a declarative sentence and the producers really just wanted to include a shot of her flipping her hair in a pre-orgasmic manner. "Kaytee," the resident "artsy chick," bleats out the simplistic "Play play play play play." I'm noticing an alarming amount of repetition, which leads me to believe all these kids have some form of mass Tourette's or something. Our video diary moment comes courtesy of the girl known as "Sarah": "You wanna grow up so quick but when you're older, you just wanna be a kid again." Thank you, Dr. Joyce Brothers. Then Mouth jumps up and down on a trampoline and some girl named "Tiffany" delivers our last video vision. "I don't know if I'm gonna be here tomorrow or not," she says. "So I'm gonna do all I can to have fun."

Welcome to American High.

We then see a kid who greatly resembles a young spider monkey, sitting on a sofa and sucking on a helium balloon. He manages to squeak out, "Hello my name is Robby," and Robby's personal segment is on its way.

As various pictures of Robby in a wide array of sporto-gear flash across the screen, Robby himself gives a voice-over commentary about how, on the outside, he's captain of lacrosse and soccer and how he's probably perceived as a jock, but on the inside he's "gotta lotta love flowing through me." Ew. We're then riding shotgun with Robby as he drives to school and wonders out loud, "Know how many times I've, like, been down this street? I was just thinking about it the other day. Probably, like, a million or something." Way to go deep and long, Robert. The camera then performs a sort of drive-by outside Highland Park High School, and then we're in a classroom where some discussion of an unmentioned book is going on. Robby has apparently been asked to give his assessment of what the chosen book's central meaning is. Robby responds, "Sex in jail is crazy." All his buds laugh. "That's what I learned from that book," says Robby. "Watch your rear end if you're in jail." What in the hell book are they reading anyway? The Shawshank Redemption? The Making of the HBO Drama "Oz"?

We quickly cut to a close-up of some girl's butt as Robby reaches out for it from behind his video camera. Let's meet "Sarah," Robby's long-suffering girlfriend, shall we?

Robby talks about his relationship with Suffering Sarah as adorable pictures of them spill across the screen. Robby says that they have a crazy relationship and that they've been involved for two years (craaaazy!), and that he's definitely in love with her but that your first love is just "killer." Yes. Yes, it is, Monkey Boy.

And then Sarah's standing outside somewhere talking to some creepy-looking hippie-ish teacher guy. Or maybe he's just a homeless drunk or something that wandered onto the campus, because he's clutching some little bottle and I can't tell if it's water or vodka or lighter fluid. So we start listening in on their conversation, and I realize that this guy's a total nutter. He says to Sarah, "I heard you were going out with Robby again." Sarah sort of reluctantly says "yeah" and looks away, as if searching for an immediate exit. And then Mr. Spanky says, "Yeah, I saw Robby in the bathroom today and I said, 'So, you seeing anything of that redhead?' And he said, 'Yeah'." Hello? Does anyone else find this scary? What kind of teacher (if that is indeed what he is) confronts students about their love lives at all, let alone in the bloody bathroom? What, is he in there just lurking, waiting for some unsuspecting kid with an actual social life to enter so he can start grilling them about their dating status? Who IS this freako? Anyway, Sarah just laughs the laugh of the seriously afraid and says, "Oh, yeah, well, we got into a fight this weekend." Mr. Spank-o-rama looks all concerned and says, "Oh, really? Over serious stuff?" And Sarah freakin' ANSWERS him! I just thank Christ I didn't go to HPHS -- I'd have to tell Señor Spankster that no, I wasn't seeing anyone and that yes, I did believe that Simon Le Bon and I were simply made for each other.

So, after the insane-pedophiliac-teacher encounter, Sarah's being interviewed about her Robby thing. And she says something that sends chills down my spine. "When I met Robby," she says, "I was pretty much this flat thing of clay and Robby basically molded me into the person that I am today." WHAAAAT??? I almost choke on my cheap Chardonnay. She goes on to say that she's only seventeen and that she's met the love of her life and that Robby's, like, her life. Okay, Sarah needs to read a little Ayn Rand and see a few Michelle Yeoh movies and get a fucking clue. Note to Sarah: Beware all-encompassing declarations that involve words like "love" and "life" and "clay" -- they can only get you into trouble and increase your years of therapy tenfold.

We move onto a quick photo montage of Morgan the Mouth skateboarding and generally doing his favorite thing. That is to say, nothing. Then Morgan's giving us a look at his room, which he states is "basically all high-school rooms." Uh, not unless you're a Bavarian pig-dog, Mouthy-mouth. As he pans around his room, we see posters for Blade and The Crow, tons of electronic equipment, a bed that looks like it's NEVER been made, and a backpack, which Mouth claims he'll probably never touch. He sweetly shares with us his freshman-year picture, where he pretty much looks like a young Marilyn Manson, and then films himself in his mirror, running over his day-to-day wardrobe. This consists of baggy pants, a tight t-shirt and, joy of joys, occasionally a hat. News flash, Mouth -- you've just described the general outfit of every average teenager in America.

Jump cut to Mouth standing in his kitchen, staring down at what can only be described as a lawn gnome scribbling in a notebook. Mouth shakes his head. "That's so sad," he says. "You're doing homework." The lawn gnome looks up, and I figure out that this must be Mouth's little bro. Gnome says, "Yeah. I pass my classes." Way to be sassy, little bro! Mouth then declares, "Yeah, but I have fun in life." Gnome stares Mouth down and spits out, "Yeah, but I don't get Ds." Man, I like this little smart-ass. Mouth says, "But I have fun in life. I get to be a kid, Duncan. What do you get to be?" Snazzy little Duncan-Gnome says, "A kid." To which Mouth responds, "That does a lot of homework." Way to belabor a lame point, Mouth. Gnome says, "Yeah, 'cuz if I don't do it, I fail." And Mouth delivers what might be my favorite line of the evening, "Yeah, but at least you fail having fun. FUN!" Heh. Heh heh.

We're now in another room of the house -- I'm not sure where. All I know is that Mouth is sporting a humongous furry tiger suit, complete with ears. I'm trying to determine whether Mouth has a side job handing out Kellogg's Corn Flakes on street corners when I hear another voice speak off-camera. "You look like Tigger," a distinctively older male voice says. This has to be Mouth's father. And up until this point, I'd decided that Mouth had sprung fully formed from a pool of Puck's Real World expectoration. Mouth tries to talk up the tiger suit, saying it kicks ass and that everybody loves it. No, Mouth, everybody doesn't love it. Everybody loves that you wear it, because they certainly never would, and they get massive giggle-attacks watching a spastic doofus like you walk around sporting it. Mouth's dad then tries to get him to commit to family pizza night, but Mouth'll have none of that and instead would rather drive around with his buddies whilst wearing the lame-o tiger suit.

As Mouth tools around in his dad's car, we hear him talking about his level of maturity. "So many people say I'm immature," he says. "'How old are you' and s**t like that." Mouth's then on a sofa, talking. "I'm gonna be a kid for as long as I f*****g can." ("Yes," says Hank4. "The world needs immature ditchdiggers too, Mouth.") We then see a couple of kids in a public park or something, setting off fireworks. They walk through alleyways lighting firecrackers and tossing them, and I think we even see Mouth setting himself on fire, which leads me to believe that either he's spontaneously combustible or irretrievably stupid. Mouth speaks again in voice-over: "I'm looking for thrills in life. I figure you only live once and who gives a f**k. You suffer the consequences. You blow your arm off, you realize okay, now I only have one arm, I realize not to do that again." Realize what, Mouth? You realize not to blow your other arm off, or you realize not to reattach the old arm and blow IT off again? I think I've just changed my mind. The "blow your arm off" line is definitely my favorite line so far. As the boys continue burning fireworks, we hear police sirens, and right before commercial we see Mouth being questioned by the cops. "Oh, no, officer," he says, "we're good kids. We're just getting rid of these." Good strategy, Mouthy. Cops aaaallllways fall for that one.

After a commercial break that contains a preview for quite possibly the worst movie ever made, Coyote Ugly, and some new website called "Bolt" which sort of looks like "American High" but somehow not, we launch into some kind of "we're at school" locker-closing montage. Then we see a "sporto" montage involving Robby playing lacrosse and some geeky band members. And then it's Kickin' Kiwi's turn for super-stardom.

We're in the football locker room as the football players wander around listening to rap music. Kiwi has a little voice-over action. "Who am I? I'm Kiwi. Nothing special. Just a regular guy. Nothing comes easy to me except for sports." He then engages in that all-important pre-game activity of butting heads with other players. In an interview, Kiwi says, "The thing about being a kicker is that I have one shot at it. One shot." Switch to Kiwi's kitchen, where his mom is in the process of shaving the letters "KIWI" into the back of Kiwi's hair. In the KITCHEN, mind you. Did I mention they were in the KITCHEN? Remind me never to eat over at Kiwi's house. But I have to give snaps to Kiwi's mom. How many mothers do you know that would shave their kid's name into his scalp? Pretty damn cool. Kiwi then has the requisite star-jock walk of fame down a school hallway. By the way the other students slap Kiwi's hand and cheer him as he cruises the hall, you'd think he was an athlete of Jordan-like proportions or something.

Kiwi's then talking to Anna, one of the other AH stars. As he talks to her, we hear him say in a voice-over, "I have, like, this really close friend. Her name's Anna Santiago." The camera then takes a good, long look at Anna, and she's absolutely beautiful. As Kiwi observes, "She's beautiful and everything and all my friends are like, 'Mike, ask her out.' But we're just too good of friends, I think, to go together." Uh-huh. Right, Kiwi. I'm willing to bet that you two will be kickin' it within the season. Trust me.

Then Kiwi and Anna have this conversation that I can barely understand, either because they're both speedily mumbling and using incomplete sentences or because their mics just aren't functioning properly. About the only thing I can pick up on is the mention of someone named Paul and Anna saying something like "don't ask me to Paul-bash," and I'm led to believe that Anna's got some guy working in the wings and that Kiwi knows about it, and then there's some sort of flirtatious hit to Kiwi's arm by Anna, and then they head into a deep, intense discussion of Kiwi's love life. I know it's deep and intense because there's a lot of usage of "like" in their sentences.

Kiwi states that he's kind of going with this girl from Deerfield, and Anna asks him if they're, like, together or what? And while she asks this, she looks down at the ground and smiles at her shoes as if there are nude pictures of Ricky Martin on them or something. Kiwi then asks Anna if she likes to hear a guy say things like "I like you" and things like that. He's so eloquent, that Kiwi. Anna responds that, yes indeedy, she sure does like to hear that, but that it depends...and she leaves off the end of the sentence, which makes me think she's about to finish it with "...on who's saying it." Mmm -- verrrry cagey, Anna. "So," says Kiwi, "you like to hear a guy say 'I like you' a lot." Anna says, "A girl wants to be pursued." Anyone else out there think that Kiwi's going to come to Anna for free girl advice until it dawns on him that the one with all the sage wisdom is the one with whom he should actually be?

We then transfer to Anna's little segment, introduced by a montage of Anna talking on the phone wearing an adorable little white tank top and a black bra with the straps hanging out. Methinks Anna's going to receive many a mash note due to this series. In an interview, Anna says, "One part of me wants a boyfriend so badly. I miss companionship and friendship and someone to tell me I'm important and someone to tell that they're important. I want to be able to care for somebody too." Get ready, Anna. Everyone wants that. It ain't easy to find in the average American high school, baby. Anna and Kiwi do this little cool handshake thing in the school hallway, and Kiwi says, "I'll call you." And Anna says, "I don't want you...you know...say you're gonna do something...because you never do..." Spoken like a true girlfriend, Annie. A cute guy comes up and hugs Anna from behind, and Anna casually says, "Hey, Tony!" and I'm thinking that the only reason Anna doesn't have a boyfriend is because she's too hung up on Kiwi to notice anyone else. Kiwi promises to come over to Anna's after football practice, and apparently the school day is over.

Robby is walking to his car after school, and we're riding shotgun again as Robby's phone rings. He picks up and says, "Hey." There's a pause and he says, "Well, what do you want me to say?" In a voice-over, Robby apparently quotes Sarah, who must be the person on the other end of the phone. "'I was looking for you after school. Why weren't you there?' She's like freaked out because I'm leaving year. And she's upset because I'm not spending enough time with her." Robby then hangs the phone up in frustration and says, "I don't understand girls at all." And you never, ever will, Robby. ("Pull the cord!" screams Hank4. "Reach on!!")

We then see Sarah sitting alone in a pristine apartment, with the phone lying on the table in front of her, looking all forlorn and pathetic. I'm assuming her phone conversation with Robby has just ended. Sarah wanders around the apartment while her voice-over describes her lack of human companionship. "I really don't have anyone," she mumbles. "My brother's at school and my mom's boyfriend has an apartment down in the city. So she'll make dinner for me sometimes but she's never really home in the night." Excuse me? You're seventeen years old, you have little or no parental supervision, an apartment all to yourself and a hot boyfriend? What the fuck are you bitching about, girl? (As Wendy points out to me, "That's every high schooler's wet dream." Wendy claims that if he'd been living in a situation like that in high school, he'd be getting stoned and watching videos every damn night and loving every minute of it. "Quit yer bitching," says Wendy. ["Roger that, Wendy. My mother wouldn't leave me alone to get a carton of milk, for god's sake." -- Sars])

Meanwhile, back in Robby's car, he's going off about his relationship. "I love her and she's awesome and I'm gonna miss her. The only thing wrong right now is I don't have enough independence." Really, Robby? Just wait until you're thirty. You'll get independence out the ass. Robby then shows up at Sarah's place, and after he's entered, she headlocks him and lugs him inside. Can you say "clingy"?

Kiwi and Rachel are kissing like they're chewing grape Bubble Yum in some poor jock's basement, and all I can think is, "Sweet Mary above, let the parental units return ASAP." In a voice-over, Kiwi asks the question, "What was our first kiss like?" and we switch to Kiwi and Rachel both sitting in front of a video camera, with Kiwi sporting a retarded knit cap and Rachel showcasing her ebony roots. "Weird," says Rachel. "I was like, 'What is he doing?!'" Rachel then goes on to explain that Kiwi did some crazy things with his tongue, and Kiwi announces that it was his first real kiss. Rachel says, "Well, now you have an excuse." And I almost, kind of, not really, like her.

Then Kiwi is walking through the library with his arm around Anna in a fraternal, but not entirely un-sexual, manner. Kiwi confesses to Anna, "She said she was falling in love with me." He says he was stunned and shocked and then says, "Immediately I thought 'Anna. I had to talk to Anna that night.'" Hmmm. Uh, Kiwi? Run down to the corner store and plunk down a couple bucks for a book of the bleeding obvious, will you? If your would-be girlfriend says she's falling in love with you and your first response is, "I have to call Anna," then I'd say you might want to be shifting your focus away from midnight-rooted Rachel.

Kiwi and Anna are then in the hallway, and Kiwi asks Anna, "What do you think I should do? I mean, I couldn't say it back. I just couldn't." And then he refers to an episode of Seinfeld where they talked about how if you say it, you better mean it, and if you don't respond immediately when someone else says it, you probably don't feel it, lending credence to my theory that all the answers to life's questions can be found in episodes of Seinfeld. Anna says that saying you're falling in love is different than saying "I love you," and that she's not sure what he should do, and that she'll have to think about it and get back to him. Oh, reaaaaallly, Anna? That might suggest to an outside observer that you might need to reexamine your little "thing" with Monsieur Kiwi, no? So, Kiwi says he'll call her, and Anna says, "If you think about it, sweetie." Wow. Anna's really mature -- I didn't start using that condescending "sweetie" thing until I was much older.

Kiwi writes "Call Anna" on his hand and hightails it over to multi-colored Rachel's house while expounding in a voice-over that "things are going strong" with Rachel. But while he's discussing Rachel's upcoming test in her living room, we see Rachel looking slightly dejected as she glances at the oh-so-obvious "Call Anna" on Kiwi's hand. Switching to Anna's room, we watch her pace as she says, "I want it not to mean anything, but...it's okay to be spending a lot of time with her. If I had a boyfriend, I'd be spending a lot of time with him. It's understandable." Then Anna stops, looks around her room as if searching for a reason to live, and says, "Hmm." Oh, yeah. I know just where this is going.

We return to the illustrious Mouth as he's watching his dog take a leak in the backyard. "You pee like a girl!" he shouts at the unfortunate pooch. In his video diary, Mouth states, "I want to leave a huge mark on this world that says Morgan Moss was here." And then we see Mouth doing karate moves in his giant tiger suit, and then drumming really badly. Hey, Mouth? You wear that tiger suit one more time and you'll have left a mark on this world the size of Texas, baby. I'm not wrong about this. Mouth says he wants to become a big time actor/comedian/band member/race-car driver/chartered accountant/big waste of time and that he wants to have, like, fifty thousand careers. There's no doubt in my mind that Mouth will have fifty thousand careers. One right after another.

The action switches to the kitchen, where Mouth is handling a cucumber and wondering out loud if there's K-Y jelly on it. After his father explains to him that they put wax on them (really, why did he even bother? I would have just walked away at that point), Mouth engages in the charming act of simulated monkey-spanking as his father looks down at him in bemused horror. "The older I get, the harder it is for me to lower myself to your level," he says. Amen, Daddy. Mouth then says in a video diary that his greatest fear is failing and not succeeding in life. Welcome to the human race, Mouthster.

Our (and, thankfully, almost final) moment is the all-important football pre-game. The football coach, who looks just like Louis Gossett, Jr. in An Officer and a Gentleman, spouts the most insultingly ignorant pre-game pep talk that I've ever had the misfortune of witnessing. "We're lucky in America," he says, "because we haven't fought any wars on this soil other than the American Revolution and the Civil War." Uh. Anyone else remember the history books talking about the Spanish-American War? How about robbing the Native Americans of their land and the wars that ensued there? Anyone recall those little insignificant facts? ("Gee," says Hank4, reaching for his beer, "I always heard that football was preparation for war, but I never realized to what extent.") Anyway, the coach charges his little neo-Nazis to rise to the challenge because tomorrow there's a war. Sis. Boom. Blah.

Anna and Rachel are standing near a white Volkswagen bug, talking about Kiwi. Anna asks Rachel if everything's okay, and Rachel says she's concerned that they haven't fought or anything yet. Um. Haven't they been going out for, like, A MILLISECOND? Give it time, Skunk-girl. Anna keeps pressing for information, and I get the feeling that she's just waiting (or hoping) for Rachel to say that things are going badly. That Anna, she's not transparent or anything, nooooo. Rachel won't give up the goods, and it's pretty obvious that although she wants some info from Anna regarding Kiwi, she's not a dumb-ass. She's sensing Anna's impending interest. Or maybe I'm just paranoid.

We cut over to the football game. I won't go into detail on this event, seeing as I attended my fair share of high-school football games and they're all pretty lame and annoying. Unless, of course, you're in high school at the time, and then it's the major social event of your life. We hear Kiwi say that his greatest fear is that he's scared of losing field goals. Did I already say "Way to underachieve, sporto"? Lather. Rinse. Repeat. So it's a tie score, and the all-time leading kicker runs out onto the field and kicks the winning goal, causing the announcer to gush, "That's the Mike Langford we all know and love." Oh. So "Kiwi" is just a nickname. Thank Jesus.

And then we're on a beachfront with Robby and Sarah. Sarah says, "I wish I could walk on water." Robby responds, "I bet you could. If you really wanted to do it, you could." Awwww -- Robby, yer so romantic. Making your girlfriend believe she's our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Just kiss her and shut up. So, anyway, Robby's carphone rings and he launches up to get it, and for some bizarre reason, Sarah looks all dejected like Robby's secret girlfriend was calling up to tell him to meet her at the Motel 6 for a little S & M action or something. Instead, it's someone telling Robby that a letter arrived for him from University of Colorado in Boulder. Since this could mean he's been accepted, Robby tells Sarah that they have to go home right this minute and find out. Once home, Robby gets the letter and goes up to his room to read it.

In Robby's room, I'm completely appalled to find that he has leopard-print sheets on his bed. This guy is dropping Sarah the first chance he gets -- these are the sheets of a boy who believes he's a "playa." Anyway, Robby opens the letter, and the good news is he got into his first choice college. The bad news is that Sarah pulls that ever-present pouty face, and we hear her say, "With all my heart I want him to go to college...but part of me wants to be that selfish bitch that says, 'Stay home with me.'" And then she says she's scared to let him go and that she wants to go back in time. I wish she would go back in time too. To that time before she met Robby. And then I wish she would hook up with a bunch of actors and poets and artists and learn how to be creative and wild, or hook up with some brainiac students and learn how to figure logarithms and mix hydrogen with helium or something like that (can you tell I was a crappy high school student?). I wish she would go back in time and hear people tell her how pretty and sweet and nice she is -- before she had to meet Robby and hear him tell her those things and think that he's the only person who thinks all those things about her. But mostly, I just wish she would go back in time so she might miss being in this show. Cuz I'm about ready to send her some self-help books that'll make her drop Robby like a smokin' tater.

On that note, and Sarah's pathetic final video diary mo-mo, the first episode of American High comes to an end.

episode: We meet Brad, the ultra-out teen who also happens to be Robby's best bud. We check out guitar-strummin' Kaytee and her whacked-out parrot-lovin' mother. And we catch up with Mouth and find out that maybe all his annoying tendencies stem from a real affliction and that maybe, just maybe, he has a heart of gold. Or maybe he's just a wanker.