You know, I'm sitting here on a rainy Saturday afternoon with a bowl of coffee and a freshly lit American Spirit, and my brain is still fried from last night's PS2 extravaganza over at Wedge's. I mean, five hours of "Onimusha" and "Zone of Enders" and "SSX" and then a new game called "Cookies and Cream"...I can't see straight. I still have my glasses on and I've only been awake for two hours. I think I left my lungs on Wedge's classic garage-sale sofa along with my left retina.
I tell you all this not so you'll think to yourselves, "Wow, that Regina's a bigger geek than we ever imagined," but to clue you in on one simple thing: this recap may be a little weirder than usual. That's all. There may be frequent flights of fancy and intermittent sidebars that have absolutely nothing to do with the recap itself. I cannot stop this. I've been deeply saturated in several make-believe 3-D worlds for the past five days and I'm not sure I've returned to the planet we know as Earth quite yet. Be patient. And get me some more coffee.
The kitchen of Casa de Morgan. Pops "I'm Not Evil, I'm Just Drawn That Way" Morgan is casually chatting about his mother and her visit to the gynecologist. "That's fuckin' disgusting," spits Mouth. "Grandma visits a gynecologist? Why would you even mention that? Especially at the dinner table?" Pops tries to reasonably explain to Morgan that you don't stop seeing doctors when you get older; in fact, you have to see them even more frequently. But, see, this isn't why Morgan's aghast/disgusted/disturbed. See, he's of the mind that there hasn't been much action in Grandma's, er, "area", so what's the point of going to see an, ahem, "area" doctor? Pops says that women go to see gynecologists whether there's action or not.
And that's when Morgan's mother completely loses her mind and giggles fanatically like Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. Morgan takes this opportunity to phone 911 and have his all-too-frightening mother committed to the local psychiatric hospital.
I wish.
And on to the montage/theme/students-I-don't-know section. As the title of this episode would suggest, the central vein of this week's ep is "Home Is Where The Heart Is; Or, At Least, It's Where You Have a Bed And A Toothbrush And Cable TV."
Allie tells us that home is what you want it to be. Home is where you want it to be. Home is where your dog is. Home is where your duvet is. Home is where -- shit, what's my address? Damn. I have no idea where home is. Better get a map...
It would seem that, for Allie, home is really where her mother is. Whether they're crying/screaming/laughing/throwing things/kicking the dog. Unfortunately, Allie's other home is where her father is. Never mind that her father is a cheating, lying, shoe-buying, other-woman-impregnating dicksmack.
"I found out, two days ago, that my dad is getting married," Allie says. There's one word you're forgetting in that sentence, darlin'. And that word is "AGAIN." He's getting married AGAIN. To the woman he cheated on your mother with. "Again" is not a long word, Allie, but in this case, it speaks volumes. "This is kind of a problem," she continues, "and actually a wonderful thing at the same time." Dude. Nuh-uh. No way. No, my father never cheated on my mother; nor did he ever leave her for another woman. So, you know, I can't really relate to Allie on an empathetic level, but...I'm not so sure I would be able to refer to my father's upcoming re-nuptials as "wonderful." I'd be more likely to refer to my father's upcoming re-nuptials as "a major travesty" and then tell my father he's a shit and then go, you know, get some coffee or something.
Speaking of which, where's that coffee I asked you to get me? Huh? I'd like a little service around here. Hank4's off playing golf (in the rainhee hee...fuckstick) and I have no one to wait on me. So you'd better get off your asses and get me that coffee. Pronto. Before I have you killed.
Philanderer's Palace. The Other Woman is busy making her special pierogies for Allie while Father Fickle carts around his secondary offspring. Allie gets along with The Other Woman, and this really impresses me because I know for a fact that I'd be spray-painting her clothing and knifing her tires without a second thought. Allie tells us that it's hard for her, because she constantly gets put in the position of having to choose between her parents, a statement which just about every child of divorce can relate to.
Hallowed Halls of High School. Kaytee and Scooter are discussing Scooter's inclusion in Kaytee's little coffeehouse band. "You won't let me play for you," says Scooter. "You don't wanna, like, commit," says Kaytee. "You have a problem with commitment." Get it? The whole show is about home and parents and divorce and COMMITMENT. See? See how the editors neatly wrapped the theme around the existing footage? SEE?
Some other day (I know this because Kaytee's wearing an entirely different outfit and Scooter's nowhere to be found), Koffeehouse Kaytee is jamming with a bongo player and some Dungeons & Dragons drummer. And don't email me all, "Dude! Don't knock Dungeons & Dragons, okay? D&D rocks! In fact, me and my friend Scuz are playing it right now. Dude -- you're an ogre. You don't have any special powers yet. No, you can't cast the spell of Undying Bad Taste. That doesn't even exist. DUDE!" I'm serious. This kid just looks like one of those guys who locks himself in his parents' basement with eight pair of dice and two of his pimply friends and emerges, twenty years later, to become a writer for The X-Files. See? Even D&D kids grow up right. I'm just sayin'.