Homage to Blair Witch again...please make it stop...
Okay, is it written into Puck Lite's contract somewhere that he starts every damn show? He's totally the star, here. Anyway, Mama Puck Lite is snarking at Puck Lite about failing gym. "How can you fail gym?" she says. "You have to die to fail gym. You have to break both legs. Gym! That's like failing lunch." Puck Lite snaps back, "I'm good at lunch. I'm at level one lunch." Heh. Heh heh. Mama says she doesn't have to do anything but stand there and make tuna, because Papa Puck Lite is going to kill him. Then Puck Lite is doing his video diary. "If we're ditching classes, we know we're gonna fail. We shouldn't have somebody rubbing it in our face...you think we're stupid?"
I love him.
Thirty seconds of edgy intro later...
Robby, Anna, Allie, and Kaytee and some of the other kids all go off in their video diaries about how school sucks and how they hate it and how they all feel pressure to not fail. Hence this episode's title, I guess.
This is our first meeting with Allie, resident Grateful Dead lover and so far the single smoker on the show. Allie tells us that she is just returning to Highland Park from an extended self-made school hiatus. Allie's parents are getting a divorce and she lets it get to her, and it apparently makes her want to ditch school a whole hell of a lot. Within ten seconds of our introduction to Allie, she gets called to the principal's office, ostensibly because of her "elective" attitude toward attendance, but really I think it's because she's wearing tie-dye and it's, I dunno, THE YEAR 2000!
Then Allie's fighting with her mother on the phone, and she really looks exhausted. In a voice-over, Allie says that her mother pretty much lost everything and that they're going to have to sell their house and move into an apartment. I don't blame Allie for ditching school. I'd ditch it too. And probably start drinking heavily by the train tracks.
Allie tries to pull the old "I wrote the paper, but my dad's computer ate it" trick on her teacher. He's so not buying it, but he lets her off, probably because she looks like a forty-five-year-old divorcee with a heroin habit. Puck Lite is in class with her, and he's scrawling on a piece of paper "I love Salima," and Salima's there too, spreading her Puck Lite-love on the chalkboard. Puck Lite says that everyone tells them that "this is just puppy love." But Puck Lite believes that Salima is the best person for him and that he doesn't want to lose that. Awwwwww...gack.
Allie and her mom then walk down the hall, and Allie's trying to argue her idea about the whole year off thing. Her most compelling point is, "I'm sorry. There are people who are thirty and forty years old going to college." Yes, Allie. They're called high-school dropouts. Oh, wait. I took a year off before going to college. Shit. Better check my attitude at the door on this one.
Puck Lite and Salima are hugging and kissing in the hallway. Ew. In his video diary, Puck Lite tells us that Salima's not doing well in school and that "technically, her parents, they don't want us seeing each other." And then Salima's talking to some teacher about her grade -- OH NO! IT'S CREEPY BATHROOM-STALKING PEDOPHILIAC TEACHER!! RUN SALIMA! RUN!!
So Puck Lite's filling in his buddy on his "emotionally destructive relationship" and how they can't see each other ever again. Puck Lite's friend waxes suicidal and tells this story about some couple who went into a garage, closed the door and turned the engine on and died. Together. Puck Lite, in truly one of his finest moments, just looks at this kid like he's got antlers sprouting from head and says, "F**k it! I'm not gonna kill myself! I've got, like, a whole twenty more years to my life!"
Uh-oh. It's the big game and Kiwi's getting nervous. "Every time I walk out on that field, I'm scared I'm gonna miss," he says. You should be more scared of that terrifying mascot you guys have, Kiwi. What the HELL is that mangy red-haired freak? We catch a glimpse of Kaytee doing her best imitation of a band geek while waving gigantic cymbals above her head. Then the score is tied and we're late in the third quarter, and Kiwi hauls ass out onto the field while his harem cheers him on. I'm fairly pleased to see that his girlfriend (no, not Anna, the other girlfriend...right...that one...over there) is sporting a kerchief on her head, thereby allowing me not to witness her bad root job yet again. So Kiwi makes the big kick and, well, he blows it. Anna practically has a heart attack while kerchief girl looks sort of bemused. God, she's ucky.
Kiwi goes home and talks to his mom in the kitchen. She tries to pump him back up again by telling him he's too hard on himself. "What can I do?" Kiwi questions her rather testily. "There's nothing I can do!" Mother Kiwi has all the answers. "You'll take a hot shower," she says. "And then you'll have something to eat. And you'll feel better." Mother Kiwi then goes ballistic when Kiwi's answer to the question "How many eggs do you want?" is the apparently unacceptable "Four." "Excuse me!" says Mother Kiwi. "Four eggs? Michael, do you know how much cholesterol that is? I don't think you can eat four eggs!" Of course, she goes on to fix him only three eggs. That one missing egg is going to make all the difference, Mother Kiwi. His cholesterol just sank to an all-time low with the subtraction of that one egg. Right.