The hallway at Winslow High School. That is, it turns out, the school's name. I know this only because I visited the website, not because anyone ever mentions the name of the school. Harvey "Loose" Lipschultz and Scott "Anthony Heald" Guber come striding out of Scott's office in mid-conversation. "Where are they now?" intones Anthony "T-1000" Heald, with the steely gaze and stiff posture that will have me making Robert Patrick and Terminator 2 jokes for the rest of the season. Also, that is a question one will no doubt be asking about much of this cast fall. Anyhow, it turns out that, in a show of solidarity against the unfair undergarment mandate imposed upon Dana "Ho-lita" Poole, none of the girls in Harvey's class are wearing bras. Principal Steve joins the purposefully-striding brigade in time to catch this, and asks, "Is Dana Poole wearing a bra?" I'm not sure why that matters, since Steve's little gambit has clearly backfired. Anthony Heald points this out, morphing his liquid metal hand into a finger pointed squarely at Steve-arino. Harvey says, "Yes, but it's one of those giant push-up kind. It's a mockery!" Principal You've-Gotta-Handle-This tells Lipschultz he's gotta handle this, and when Harvey takes issue with his tone, he reminds us that he is the Principal. "I'm the Principal," he says, "I'm entitled to a tone." Harvey says, "Is it because I'm Jewish?" Oh god. Okay, not all old Jewish men are obsessed with perceiving anti-Semitism everywhere. Only some of them.
Left to their own devices again, Anthony Heald tells Harvey to try a different tack with his students, and "inspire them to wear a brassiere." Then he absorbs several rounds from Arnold Schwarzenegger's shotgun, and melts into the linoleum floor.
Luckily for the cameraman, the conversation crucial to the plot happens nearby at this exact moment. Milton "No Re" Buttle spots Internet-savvy student Cheryl Holt "from the blue" at her locker, and goes to confront her about mean things on her website. (My girlfriend: "Who's she supposed to be? Daria?" Heh.) I'm just alarmed that it's episode two, and they're already recycling plotlines. It may be disguised as "continuity," people, but it's not; continuity implies forward motion, and this is the same scene again: "It's parody." "No, you crossed the line, Cheryl. Freedom of expression does not cover vulgarity." Um, yes it does. Anyway, blah blah, he looked up the law, and her parody would have to have artistic value, and apparently it doesn't, so he's going to get an injunction. Personally, I always thought the obscenity law said something about legally obscene material being "utterly without redeeming social importance." By contrast, "artistic value" is a pretty subjective measurement. Furthermore, parodying authority figures has fairly self-evident social importance, because whether or not one has the right to do so is a good litmus test for whether or not one is living in a truly free society. But: Whatever. Milton wants his injunction. Cheryl snots, "Oh, right, you're going go out and hire a lawyer on a teacher's salary." Wow. Smack her. Anyway, just as Milton is about to show Cheryl what obscenity really is, Principal Steve grabs him by the arm and drags him down the hallway. To get Steve on his side, Milton shows him Cheryl's latest travesty. It should be noted, incidentally, that neither now nor in the first episode does Milton have his computer connected to a phone line, or indeed to anything at all, when he looks at the website. I suppose it's possible that he's downloaded the material to his hard drive, but why would he do that? Especially because it appears that this time Cheryl has created an animation depicting Milton defecating into his own mouth, with the caption, "Milton Buttle reloads for his lecture." Nice.
This time, we get opening credits. Which contain the worst opening-credit music ever. I mean that. The music sounds like something George Harrison might have composed while hungover, using the sitar sound and the automatic drum function on one of those small keyboards from the 1980s. The cacophony of vaguely instrumental noises that results has an utter lack of any discernible melody, which seems to parallel the tangled mess of plot lines on the show, which also has no discernible "melody," if you will. Okay, so that, too, was my girlfriend's observation. Whatever.
The Office. Steve. Daria. I mean, Cheryl Holt. She wants to cite some case law at him, but Principal Get-That-Cartoon-Off-Your-Website wants her to do just that. She disagrees with him about the vulgarity of the feces-eating she's displaying, and I think she's actually in the right, legally. But it's realistic that she wouldn't get away with it, and I think that Steve is right when he tells her she's destroying her own dignity as well as Mr. Buttle's. She's all, "I'm a journalist." Oh, whatever. If she's a journalist, then so am I. At least I get paid for writing fluff. I'm most interested in this scene, though, by the following credit flashing across the bottom of the screen: "Main Title Theme by Thomas Newman." Theme? What theme? More like: "Main Title Noise Pollution fiendishly emitted by Tone-Deaf No-Tone." I love his work. Uh, not. Cheryl leaves.
The secretary, whose name I forget, it's Lydia or something, comes in and tells Steve that the superintendent wants to set up a meeting. Which, if I'm not mistaken, she also did at the end of the episode. In fact, she runs down all the possible things the superintendent might want to discuss with him, thereby recapping all the plotlines that remain active from episode one: Harry Senate shooting blanks in class, Steve beating up the school bully, crazy Ms. Hendricks, the vulgar web thing -- hey, don't they know people can just sign up for the mailing list here at MBTV?
Harvey Lipschultz's class. He is giving his inspirational speech on the topic: "Resolved: Wear A Damn Bra." This speech is so odd that, what the heck, here's all of it: "All through history, when men look at women, they want to have sex. Now, G-d [hey, he's Jewish] did this on purpose, to ensure the survival of the human species. And he also gave women lumps, known as breasts, to inspire in man the penile urge to procreate. Now, this was very good for mankind, but not for womankind. Now, how could she succeed in this world, and how could she be respected for all her values, when men just want to mount her? Research eventually showed that it was those dangling bouncing breasts that cause special excitement to the man's blood flow. It was determined that the brassiere could stop this dangling, bouncing motion, the man would be less likely to objectify the woman, and she would have a fighting chance at equality. You must harness your bosoms, in order to squash the discrimination by the male gonads. This country can never maximize its potential until you can achieve equality. That's why I must make a rule, right here, and right now: wear a bra, for the good of the country."
pg 13) of 14
Teacher's lounge. Marla and Lipschultz. They are suddenly the best of friends. See, remember what I said above about good writers starting scenes as late as possible? Well, in this case it's cheating, since these two hate each other, and cutting to a point after they've resolved all of their differences, without showing us how they did it, is just weird. But that's what he does. Marla is saying, "You can't be declaring yourself blacker than midnight, and I can't be whipping out my mezuzah. Point is, we have to help each other, Harvey." And he says, "Maybe you can start off by helping me to understand: why do all the black kids hate me?" This is very funny to both of them. Ha ha ha. Freeze frame on them holding their bellies, wracked with spasms of laughter. Not really, but basically. Way to staple up a loose end. Anyway, Harvey spots Cheryl Holt nearby and heads over to her, calling her "Karen" for some reason. Then, when she turns around, he says, "Oh, it's you." She tells him that she hopes he knows she means no offense, and he seems amenable: "My granddaughter Karen, who I thought was you for a second, is just as mischievous with her computer. You two would probably get along." Cheryl says, "Does she go here?" Oh, poor Cheryl. Little does she know that Harvey is essentially pulling a Columbo, lulling her into a false sense of security by pretending to be bumbling and senile. He says, "No, she lives in Waymouth, hardly ever leaves the house, always with her computer. Knows how to make those virus things, that make the websites crash. I know very little about those things. But she wouldn't stop at anything." Sinister pause. "Look at me, Ms. Holt. Study this face. You don't see Milton Buttle here, do you?" Cheryl slinks away. Marla pats him on the back: "All right, Harvey." Actually, I liked this scene a lot. Did not see it coming. Well done.
Steven's office. Steven. Ice-pack. Still not funny. Lauren "Does The" Davis "Ever End Around Here?" comes in. "Does the day ever end around here?" she says. She offers to buy him a beer with Marilyn, and he declines. "You can't live in this office." Actually, it's nice. He could. But he says, "I promised myself I'd be out of here by ten o'clock, and I will keep that promise. If memory serves me, I have a daughter at home." Uh oh. Neglected Principal's Daughter story arc, coming right up. Lauren apologizes for biting his head off over the fingerprints, and offers to explain her personal affront to it: "Three siblings. Two are doctors, the other's an investment banker. And to my parents, I'm the one who didn't make anything of herself." I know parents like that. Not my parents, thank god, but I know plenty of parents like that. It sucks. "I can still hear my father's words," Lauren is saying when my waning attention returns to the show, "'What a waste, Lauren. You are so smart. You could actually be somebody.' Something we battle every day is disrespect. We get it from the kids because it comes from the parents. And look at what we make!" Steven interrupts the pity party: "You know what your problem is, Lauren. You don't have any idea how powerful you are. Things you say in that classroom some of those kids are going to remember fifty years from now, even if you've forgotten by the sound of the bell." Blah blah, my siblings only care about money, and are unethical, so how come I get fingerprinted? Oh. God. SHUT. UP. HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO HEAR THIS CONVERSATION? "Do you like being a teacher?" says Steven. "I love it," says Lauren. "Then what are you complaining about?"