Props to Wing Chun and Glark for living in Canada, where I may soon have to move.
First, we get a warning that tonight's episode will contain frank discussions of sex, and as a result, parental discretion is advised. I'm excited.
Scenes from episodes, sort of: Harry pretends to have a gun; Cheryl Holt gives up the soccer team scam; Steven tells Anthony Heald about the cheating; Milton Buttle looks like a fool on the Holt 45 website; Harry talks to his class about STDs; Coach Kevin slams the school's lack of sex ed; Anthony Heald makes Malcolm White look at him until further notice. Okay. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but I have never before seen the sequence in which Mr. Senate talks about STDs, or the one in which Coach Kevin decries shoddy sex ed. They obviously exist, on a cutting room floor somewhere, but they never aired. I mean, am I wrong? I think I would know, having watched the episodes one, two, and three dozens of times, in slow-mohair.
Winslow High Auditorium. Some students are performing a sketch lampooning the faculty. "They won't make eye contact, Steven," says one, in a dead-on impression of Scott "Anthony Heald" Guber. "I can't get my hair unclenched, and Lauren Davis won't date me." The student dressed as Principal Steve, who I think may be a girl, has a bald-cap, a fake goatee, and an ice-pack on his head, but looks more like a Fu-Manchu villain than Chi McBride. Ms. Souter watches the sketch from the house, fidgeting nervously. She's probably thinking, "First I'm conducting the orchestra, then I'm teaching English, now I'm directing skits. What is my frigging job?" A student who vaguely resembles Milton Buttle comes on stage and says, "My head is up a horse's ass again. It makes me want to poop in my own mouth and then lecture." Not very clever. And not nearly as good an impression as that kid doing Anthony Heald. Give that boy a prize. A student playing Marla Hendricks runs across the stage screaming, "Crazy for Cocoa Puffs!" until faux-Steven slams her against the lockers a la his attack on Malcolm White. I guess they couldn't get the rights to the actual cereal catchphrase. Anyway, Ms. Souter yells cut, and asks the students if they think the sketch is too nasty. "No!" they all yell in unison.
Speaking of the nasty, Lauren Davis comes down a stairwell and peeks out a window for some reason. She spots a girl getting off her knees in front of some guy, and from the looks of things, she wasn't buffing his shoes. Unless that could be a euphemism for oral sex. Lauren sputters vaguely, trying to find the right combination of outrage, incredulity, and disgust. But instead she drops her books, startling the two students, who see her and run away, the male participant pulling up his pants as he sprints around the corner. I have no jokes about this sequence per se, but I bet you that it will inform many of the jokes I come up with for the rest of the recap. And, no, Sars, you don't spell "fellatio" with a K. ["Dammit." -- Sars]
Opening credits. I really think the guy who wrote this just let a cat walk across his keyboard, and mailed the result to Fox.
Commercials. Hey, do you think they put Dark Angel opposite Angel on purpose on Tuesday nights just to confuse people? What's up with that?
Students arrive for another crappy day at Winslow High. What will happen before the final bell rings? Way too flippin'-flappin' much, is my guess.
The teacher's lounge. Lauren is telling Ms. Souter about the sex act she watched through a window last night. Which is kind of pathetic, isn't it? They're young women, in the prime of life! Shouldn't they be swapping their own experiences? That's the scene I'd prefer to watch, anyway, but that's just me. Marilyn is all, "Susan Potter and Peter Nelson? But they're running for Senior Class President against each other!" Well, they were on the same side last night, I guess. Lauren says, "Well, they were on the same side last night, Marilyn." Dammit. Anyhow, Lauren thinks the kids should be suspended, but Marilyn reminds her that the election is in two days. Suspended for what, exactly, might I ask? I guess it's not the sort of thing you want happening on school grounds, but they're both minors. Indecent exposure? Technically, perhaps, because it's a public building, but they weren't really in public; it was after the school had closed, and if Lauren hadn't happened by that window no one would be the wiser. And large public high schools have bigger problems. This one sure does. My verdict? This is a non-issue. Forget about it. Then again, there's the whole running-for-president thing that makes all of this a tad suspicious.
"Marvelous" Harvey Lipschultz comes in, demanding to perform in the second act of the show rather than the first. What show? I guess the one the English teacher/conductor is directing. "Last year, you put me in the first act, the audience wasn't even warm yet!" Man, is he ever strange. "I haven't even selected the order yet, Harvey," says Marilyn. Harvey pulls out "last year's review. Women screamed as though I were a Beatle." Marilyn asserts that this is because Harvey is scary when he sings. "I've had the biggest ovations twenty years running. You put me in the second act!" When Harvey's gone, Marilyn turns to Lauren and says, "Somebody has to tell him." Tell him what? It turns out that the faculty suspect that the students cheer so fervently for Harvey's annual performance (which turns out to be a rendition of "If I Were a Rich Man") as a joke. "Does he look like a Beatle to you?" argues Ms. Souter. Lauren disagrees, blah blah blah what-he-doesn't-know-won't-hurt-him-cakes.