Bustin' Out

Yes, my cold is still present and accounted for. No, I'm not still on medication. Yes, I've switched to vodka. No, not with tonic or soda. Yes, with orange juice, you know, for the vitamin C and all. No, this recap probably won't be as detailed as the last one. Yes, Hank4 sucks ass. No, you may not know who Hank4 is. No, I don't care. No, I hope he doesn't live through the week. Yes, I may be the one who kills him.

Ahem.

In the little prequel to the opening credits, we see poor divorce-ridden Allie's mum bitching about how Allie's not really going after the Ivy League, the beautiful-yet-misunderstood-overachieving Anna fending off her Princeton-pushing off-screen mother, the financial-aid-seeking-yet-underachieving-bad-haircut-having Pablo listening as a counselor tells him to get on the ball, and everyone's favorite doormat-with-astonishingly healthy teeth, Saran-Wrap, going on about how impending separation from Robby the Roadster is scaring the shit outta her.

Off-screen during the black-n-white expo screen, Puck Lite's sad excuse for a father is berating him about shooting paintball guns off in the backyard, and Puck Lite is arguing that they're biodegradable and therefore, you know, cool and stuff. Daddy Lite doesn't give a damn, because they're all over the bloody backyard and this makes him a mite klimpy (tm Sandman).

Fade in to Puck Lite pointing his paintgun at his parents and stating, "Say what a nice child I am. On camera. Now!" Mama Lite succinctly and sweetly says, "You're a jerk." Daddy Lite says, "What, at pain of death? Are you kidding?" And they're both sitting at the kitchen table with full beers, smoking cigarettes. And THEY'RE bitching about HIM? It's not even dark outside and these two fuck-its are hanging out in their kitchen practically BEGGING me to go all social services on their asses. Shoot them, Morgan. SHOOT THEM NOW. I'll even provide you with an airtight alibi, dude. Seriously.

"I can't lie," says Papa Puck, "in front of the camera." "Don't you wanna have some fun in your life?" "I'm looking forward to having fun after you're gone," says Father of the Year. "Asshole," says Mother of the Year. After Puck Lite's stepped out, Daddy Lite, face in palm, articulately says, "Um." Mama Lite says, "And Job thought he had it bad." What? What'd she just say? Job had to endure the wrath of a God that purportedly loved him, not an intense and scattered kid with ADD and an overactive mouth. Shut up, Mama Lite, before I come over there and kick your beer-swilling ASS. I may kill her before I kill Hank4. ["Seriously. My parents sat around drinkin' and smokin' in the kitchen all the time but at least they thought we were the greatest things since sliced bread. The hell?" -- Sars]

Two seconds of abhorrent edgy credits later...

up? Anna. Sitting pretty by the lake, hair a-flowin' and perfect skin a-glowin'. Gee. I wonder who chose this location for Anna's little interview. Nobody's grooming her for a future as a network anchorwoman or anything. "I am," says Anastasia, "I am ready to leave my home." Make way for Anastasia's personal segment.

Anna's in her kitchen, filling out her Brown University application as her mother hovers over her all, "This is what I've been waiting for! For you to fill out college applications! It's like, I can decide what college I would want to go to." She then turns to Anna's father and says, "Does anything come to mind for you, Abe?" Anna's father, who has a slight accent that I can't place, says, "No. I've never been to Rhode Island. At all." Then we get a close-up of Anna's eyes, which so obviously say, "Oh, drop dead, Daddy."

Okay. Just got back from running yet another dry cycle for my darks which, apparently, have decided to soak up half of Lake Michigan and not let it go for the duration of one forty-minute cycle. Oh, and some dipstick from somewhere else in the building has decided to take over the one remaining dryer by placing their articles of clothing within and placing a large Bloomie's bag on top and then NOT PICKING UP THEIR DRY CLOTHES UNTIL JANUARY. Fucker. I know who it is, too. It's this guy who lives across the courtyard who doesn't seem to own a laundry hamper or laundry basket, who carts his dirty whatnots around in paper bags and then overtakes a chosen laundry room and then hovers over said laundry room like a post-apocalyptic vulture in case any poor unsuspecting tenant should try to remove his wet and/or dry articles from a particular machine in order to do their own laundry. Whatever. I mean, WHATEVER. At least I got me some more vodka...

So Anna's sitting at the kitchen table still, and her mother-without-purpose fidgets nearby. "Am I making you nervous, Anna?" she asks, flitting about and touching Anna intermittently with little bee-feelers. "Yes, no, I mean," Anna sputters, wishing she were in London having pints with Ewan McGregor and his penis. Oh. I mean, I wish I were in London having pints with Ewan McGregor and his penis. My bad. "You want me to help you?" Freakmama asks. "I'm standing here helping you..." Freakmama realizes that since Anna looks like she's about to have a nervous breakdown, she should back off, and does. "Okay. Okay, I'm done," she says, searching around the kitchen for something to buff or polish.

Anna gets up from the table and walks over to her mother, her astonishing hair all piled up on top of her head like a digital TV cable ready for connection. "That's more than he's talked to me all year," she says, referring to her verbose, multicultural father. "You know what I'm sayin' there?" "Right, but," says Freakmama, "we kind of feed into negative situations when we give people dirty looks." What are you, Queen Elizabeth? Why are you using the royal "we"? Huh? HUH? "Oh, stop," Anna retorts. "You know that's not fair." She grabs her keys and heads toward the door. "It's just best not to show negative thoughts on one's face, that's all I'm saying," says Freakmama. That's it. I've decided that Anna's mother is a Stepford Wife. She just putt-putts through the house, cleaning every possible surface, trying to make it perfect for The Man Who Says Little, never uttering a word out of turn nor an expression that might be found distasteful. "Well, I thought it was best," says Anna, fighting off the hypnotic Stepford laserbeam eyes of her robot mother. "Well, I know that he did not," says Stepford Freakmama. Anna looks back through the slamming screen door as if to say, "Yes, I know you know that he did not. I know this because you've lost the capacity to think for yourself since The Man Who Says Little sucked your brain away. I'm going to get a Slushee. Later."

Anna escapes the danger of the Stepford and walks down toward her car, saying, "My parents were never really on good terms. Junior high, my relationship with my father got really rocky and now, my father and I don't talk at all anymore. And I get really sad when I think about, like, not having a relationship." Switch to Anna, back on the beach, throwing rocks into the water. "And it's weird to think about, like, in ten years, when I'm getting married, you know, who's gonna walk me down the aisle?" she says in VO. Word. My father died of cancer two years ago this past January and, even though I'm not even remotely interested in getting married, you know, EVER, I think about missing the chance to have his hilarious white-haired head and curmudgeonly heart not walking me down the proverbial aisle. It's something that every girl out there dreams of, even if she doesn't particularly care about marriage. ["Yeah, it's true. I don't believe in that nuptial tradition at all -- it's like the man is giving you to another man as property -- but if I get married, I will need to stand in the back of the church with my dad and make fun of people to soothe my nerves while my dad is all 'I can't believe you made me wear a tie on a SATURDAY.' Aw, dads. Anyway." -- Sars] And, down on the shore, Anna becomes a member of the "Regina LIKES You" club when she turns to the camera and says, "I have to learn how to skip stones one of these days," and chucks a non-skipping stone at the water. Yeah. I kinda love Anna right now. But I've also been an emotional wreck for the past two days and I'm drinking my third vodka and OJ. Heh.

"Dad?" says Allie in a switch-cut from Anna, talking to her fuckwick of a father on the cordless. "I can tell you that, I would not drop out, but, if you're saying that, like, drop out and move out, dude, I'd move out and I'd still go to school. And I'd still do my shit." Let's greet Allie and her personal segment, shall we?

Over a series of still shots of Allie (a trademark of the show, as far as I can tell), Allie tells us in VO, "I really just can't wait for college. Cuz I'm just waiting till I burst. Where you've still got these strings to your parents but, slowly, they're being cut." Allie then bids the Fuckwick adieu and hangs up the phone. The phone rings, and the machine picks up, and the Fuckwick starts leaving a rambling, pseudo-parental message about her being on her own and shit, and finally Allie walks down the hallway and picks up the phone. "What? No. I'm not taking my car. Yes. I am going out tonight," she says. Her conversation with him continues as her VO explains, "My mom, my dad got divorced and, it's hard. It's confusing. And for me? Anything I can't make logic of...tears me apart." Back in Allie's bedroom, she's still talking to the Fuckwick. "If you wanna call the cops on me, go ahead. It's your choice," she says tearfully, hanging up the phone. In an interview, Allie says, "I just find myself at a loss, cuz," she starts crying, "I feel like...I'm kinda what's left of the marriage, you know?"

Wow. I mean, wow. And not in any sarcastic kind of way. Jesus. Really. Shit. I hope she's okay now. I really do. I really, really do. Okay. Where're the tissues? No. I'm not kidding. Shut up. SHUT UP.

Oh, thank GOD the Roadster's on the rampage. He takes me right outta this emotional ditch I've dug for myself...

Roadster's walking through his kitchen, and his mom asks where he's going, to which he responds, "To Sarah's." Shocker. "Why?" says Roadster's mom. "Mom! I have no homework --" "Robby, you're not going out every night!" says Mother Roadster. "Why?" questions Roadster again. "I have no homework --" "Well, you're not...no. You're not going out every night," says Mother Roadster. "This is not...uh...uh...going out every night." "Mom!" says Roadster. "Robby!" says Mother Roadster. "I've worked hard for three and a half years to where I wanna --" "Robby, you didn't work that hard so don't tell me that." "Mom. I'm gonna do what I wanna do," Robby says, parading off to his SUV.

God, I hate recapping dialogue.

Roadster drives off and expositions about how his mom cares about him so much and that she's worried about him going off to college and letting him go and how it's hard for her to handle. In an interview with Roadster's mom, she says, "As a parent, I give him a lot of leeway. I don't want him to hurt himself in any way."

thing we see is Allie, getting out of a car, telling the driver that she'll be right back. Then she's running toward her building. In a voice-over, we can hear Allie telling her mother that she's sleeping out tonight and her mother telling her that if she (Allie) leaves the apartment, she'll be very sorry that she (Allie) chose to handle it that way. I don't really know to what she's (Allie's mother) referring, but I can only assume that she means the entire divorce situation. I really don't know, because during this entire voice-over conversation, Allie's just running up to the apartment. "I am telling you, right now, if you leave this house -- sit DOWN -- you're making a major mistake, Allie," says Allie's mom. "Okay," says Allie in voice-over. And then we see Allie slamming out of the apartment with bag in tow; the conversation with her mother never actually appears onscreen.

Allie storms out of the building, screaming, "You can't get to me, Mom!" Allie gets into her friend's car and says, "I'm really sorry but, she cannot control me like that." She goes on to say that they can be the best of friends when things are good. Allie feels like she's some horrible person but really, she's not. "I do everything for her!" she says. "And she thinks everything is against her!" Allie tries to talk about it more but, you know, she really just wants to shove her mother up against a wall and say, "IT'S OVER. IT'S WAAAAAAAY OVER. MOVE ON!" Okay. Maybe that's just my own deep psyche coming up and telling me the same thing but, you know, WHATEVER.

thing we know, we're with Roadster and Saran-Wrap, and Saran-Wrap is all going off on Roadster's mother and...okay...I could document this conversation but Roadster's slurring his words, and I don't really like him when he's with Saran-Wrap so I'm not even going to bother putting this down on paper. Or even web-paper, if you know what I mean. Shut up. SHUT UP. God. ["AndSaran? Don't diss the mom. It's bad form. Just stay out of it." -- Sars]