Previously on Get Real, Mitch finds a building. Meghan finds out she's popular. Kenny finds out Rebecca wants to do it.
In the School Without Classes, Meghan walks over to a blonde boy and declares she likes the second of the two pictures he's mulling over. They are his passport pictures. He's planning a trip to Egypt. He tells her he's envious she's not planning on going to college, and that she can do whatever she wants. A female teacher passes out papers. Meghan's hair tuck is pulled back with a tiny braid, so I can't tell what she's feeling, but it looks like she's flirting with the blonde boy. He has dimples and short hair. Is he the guy from last week? No, I don't think so. He's a different member of N'Sync. He begins to reminisce about "back when [they] were together" and how they planned trips to Ireland and things like that. So, he's an old flame of Meghan's. He likes to lick his lips before he smiles. He makes a sex joke and she eye-rolls that he always was a "horndog." "Well, that's what attracted you to me in the first place," he lick-smiles. "Today's discussion," the teacher begins. "Recycling Shakespeare. Who can give me five movie titles?" A dozen hands go in the air because they loved 10 Things I Hate About You. ["I may have almost bought that DVD last weekend. I'm not saying for sure." -- Wing Chun]
Cut to a man diving in a pool. "Diving is dangerous," we hear as we pan across a row of people dressed in wet suits. Young boy with buzzcut, seemingly harmless elderly woman, young squinty blonde girl, large furry red-headed man, Alanis Morissette-type girl, and Cameron sans sleeves. See? He's so cool he can hack up his wetsuit. The instructor is going on about how deadly diving is, and how you have to pay attention. Meghan voice-overs a reminder to us that Cameron has wanted to be a professional diver since he saw a Jacques Cousteau documentary as a kid. Hey, Get Real writers: This is only your sixth episode. I remember four weeks ago when it was episode three and we had to hear this exact story. Either put it in the "previously" or trust that we have a sense of memory. Thank you. Love, America.
We see a man's face. He says, "I loved every minute of high school." Slow pan to the right...slow pan to right...silence as we pan...finally...to Mitch: "And I couldn't wait to get out." There's a high school reunion coming up and they both plan on attending. At this point I'm not listening to the dialogue because there is a huge nameplate in the front of the screen that says "Jacob Perryhill." That's the high school guy's name. Apparently they were both on the same football team, blah, blah, snore. We pan around to behind this guy's desk and the shelves are covered in trophies and plaques won in high school football. That's pretty depressing. But he doesn't know that, so he's snorting and chuckling away in his pathetic reality. "Good to see you again, Mitch," he says. "You too," Mitch says like a gangster. He suddenly is talking like Tony Soprano, and I can't figure out why. Jacob Perryhill says from behind his huge nameplate that although it's been nice talking to him, the loan for the new building has been "kicked back."
Mitch leans forward and continues to talk about money like he's a made man. "Well, dat, dat, dat'th impothible. I neva mithed a payment. On any-ting." They discuss money for a few more minutes and then Jacob says he'll sign off on the loan so it'll be all taken care of. As he scribbles his name he says, "So you and Mary are still together?" "Oh, yeah," Mitch says, like he loves and cares for his wife. "Twenty good years. You?" Jacob is currently between wives. Jacob pulls some joke about him having a better football record than Mitch and Mitch gives him that smile that he usually reserves for his wife that says, "I'm talking to an asshole." Jacob walks away for us to pan into Kenny walking down a sidewalk worrying about having to do it with Rebecca. He tells us he's heading over to her house to have sex. He's scared. He rings the doorbell. Rebecca opens it. She's wearing a tight blue shirt and some sort of jackety thing. He says, "You ready?" She says, "Yeah, let's book or we'll miss the previews." Kenny tells us this was just a "dry run." PSYCHE! Fade to white and opening credits.
We return to see Meghan holding some sort of cross on a string. She looks up and smiles. "I didn't know you were religious," she says. "Nah," replies the teacher who was passing out papers when Meghan was flirting with the blonde. "Remnants of my college Goth phase." Meghan begins her mandatory voice-over to explain any new character, character development or plotline: "Julia LeSalle, my favorite teacher ever. And when the school board tried to institute a dress code, she burned the school board charter. That won her a few fans. Julia is one of those rare adults that talks to you and not past you." As Meghan voice-overs this, she is neither looking at us, towards us, or even cares that we are here. Meghan gets uncomfortable because the conversation is somehow not about her, so she remedies the situation: "So, um, can I run something by you?" "You bet." "Um, I was thinking of going to Europe fall," Meghan says to the surprise of us all. Apparently six months of discussion with Mary isn't changing her mind about not going to college, but three minutes of flirty-talk with a blonde has her getting malaria shots and choosing which backpack color would look best with her Ibook. "Thinking of going or going-going?" the teacher asks. "I don't know, my mom's going to have issues," Meghan says, nominating her for the Understatement of the Year award. "Because?" "Well, she says she's accepted me [sic] not going to college, but I still think that there's this secret hope in the back of her head that I'll come to my senses," Meghan says without breathing. Julia tells her that she wishes she took more control of her life when she was Meghan's age. She wasn't strong enough to stand up to her parents, so her rebellion "alas, was limited to heavy makeup, Bauhaus albums, and yes, Gothic trinkets." She wishes she had done fun wild things. "Like backpacking across Europe." Julia tells Meghan to ask Mary. "Who knows? She might just surprise you," she says. I hope Mary surprises her with a machete.
Victor complains about the cafeteria food. Victor. Come on, guys, you remember Victor, Kenny's best friend? Yeah, he was totally in episode one, he got that really cool "you killed Kenny" line? Okay, in episode two he was feeling really dissed by Kenny because of Rebecca? And then...well, we haven't really seen him since except for like a brief moment in the third episode, but here he is again and it's like we never left him. Rebecca tells Kenny she's going for ice cream. "But first," she confronts him, "name one thing you like about me." Kenny explains to us that this is a game she plays where he has to immediately tell her one thing he likes about her. It reminds me of high school games I played. I'm surprised, however, that Meghan doesn't still play this game with everyone she knows. Kenny tells her that he likes the way her nose crinkles when she's being sarcastic. She tells him that's too easy. He tells her that he likes "how cool [she] was to [him] when [his] dad's friend died." She nods as if to say, "Yeah, I know. I totally rock." He gets a kiss for a reward, and she puts her arms around him and hugs him. She walks off, and Kenny turns around to go back to Victor's table. Kenny marks the "nose wrinkle" thing off a list he's keeping in his pocket titled "Things I like about Rebecca." "Yeah," Victor says, "this list thing? Sickening. But the girl? Yeah, props to you, man." Kenny reminds Victor that he's supposed to be getting the sweet loving in two days. Victor asks if it really was her idea. Kenny says it was. Victor tells him it'll probably never happen and that Kenny will wuss out. Kenny blinks sixty-three times as he tells Victor that Rebecca "is so definitely the one." "You hit that," Victor gestures towards Rebecca, "and I am officially your disciple." I can think of a few things I'd like to hit.
Elizabeth and the Good Doctor are talking about San Francisco. He's made arrangements for two, but she's worried. She's worried about the "sleeping arrangements." The Good Doctor, named Chris, wonders if he's crossed the line. She tells him she'd love to, but she's "got baggage." Chris tells her that "once you're sixty, either you have baggage, or you're dead." She laughs and holds his hand with her non-ring wearing hand. "Oh, what the hell." She says. Attagirl, Elizabeth. Don't trust your instincts. Just stand by your man.
Mitch and Mary are in full fight mode. "So, what are you saying?" Mary says as she quickly walks around in the World's Largest Kitchen. "Do you wanna just blow off the reunion completely?" Mitch follows her stride. He tells her that they can't do that because they live locally, so they have to put in an appearance. She asks why he's being "such a drag" about this. She really liked their ten-year reunion. Mitch says, "Something about reunions makes me feel like I have to justify my life." Exhale, exhale, exhale. "I saw Jacob Perryhill yesterday," Mitch spits out with disdain. Mary's head pops up and her neck cords start to heave and become sexually aroused. "He's my loan officer, do you believe that?" Mitch continues. "Who?" Mary says unconvincingly, but Mitch, of course, doesn't notice. "You're kidding right," Mitch says as he continues making something on the kitchen counter. "Jacob Perryhill. Star fullback to my, uh, not-so-spectacular halfback. Number twenty-one. Voted most likely to turn anything he touches into gold. You cannot tell me you don't know who Jacob Perryhill is." "Vaguely," Mary spits out, "we ran in different circles."
We shoot into a flashback. It's the same under-the-bleachers location as in episode one where Kenny fought the bully. Some discarded pom-poms are on the ground as we pan over to a girl in a bra on her back as a guy in a football jersey climbs on top of her. "Oh, Mary," we hear without emotion. "Oh, Jacob," comes the monotone reply. "Oh, God," comes my response. They open-mouth kiss to the bum-chica-bum-bum music playing in the background. Flash to white to Mitch saying, "Well, he seemed to know you." Mary looks up like Hester Prynne but doesn't say anything. "He said to say 'hey'," Mitch sneers. Mary exhales and says, "Oh, the curse of popularity." I guess we know where Meghan gets it. Mitch bitches about how the reunion is going to be just like sitting in Jacob's office that day, trying to jump through hoops and spin his life into the right direction to make other people happy. "Mitch, you are being such a guy here," Mary says, which doesn't really make any sense, but I assume she's still fantasizing somewhere, so I won't blame her for what's coming out of her mouth. Hee-hee. I just made a bit of a pun. Sorry. Mary tells Mitch to not let his work define his life. "You're forgetting all the great things you've got going for you. Mitch, you look great --" and they both laugh. "You've a beautiful home, three incredible kids, a dog who likes to eat garbage..." I guess there's a dog somewhere. Who knew? Mitch pulls Mary into his arms and says, "Yeah, well, I got one other thing over Jacob. I got you." Mary's eyes widen as she says, "Im-him." And her brain flashes back to the girl and the boy screwing under the bleachers. She looks towards Mitch as if to say, "And I never had it as good since."
Back in the We Forgot To Write Cameron A Plot plot, Cameron is underwater with the other scuba divers. He thinks it's like flying. But he notices that the breathing sound is loud. The equipment is heavy. He freaks out, swims to the top and throws the mask off his head. He's gasping and splashing in the four-foot end. The instructor holds Cameron and tells him he's okay.
Flash white to a yearbook shot of Mitch. It's supposed to be Mitch, but it looks nothing like Jon Tenney. Meghan and Kenny call him Greg Brady and then they find "Marcia." Under Mary's high-school picture, which looks nothing like Debrah Farentino, it says "Master's Degree. Travel. Learn About Life." The picture, for Karen Pit, it says "Acting Major." Hmm. Oh, well. Tra-la-la. Meghan carpe diems and says, "So, you wanted to travel, huh?" "Yeah, still in the cards, I hope," Mary says. Meghan tells her that Julia thinks she should take a couple of months and backpack around Europe and use her college fund to pay for it. Mary's neck cords spasm so mightily that Kenny is forced to jump up and exclaim that he thinks his bed is on fire. He leaves. Mary and Meghan argue about money and responsibility. Meghan tells Mary that Julia said "obsessing over the future ruins the present." "Oh," Mary says, "does Julia also do bumper stickers?" "Why do you always have to belittle?" the pot says to the kettle. Mary says she's happy Meghan's on a first-name basis with her Lit teacher but it doesn't give Julia the right to butt in on Meghan's life. Meghan growls that her and Julia are friends. Every week there's a new best friend. "Trust me, the last thing I need right now is another parent," Meghan brats out. She gets up and leaves to a thunderous five-note Get Real jingle. Mary cocks her head to the side like the RCA dog. Fade to white and (finally) commercial.
Fade back in as Mitch picks up the Truman Yearbook, sits down and opens it. He sees a picture of Jacob Perryhill. to Jacob's football picture is written, "Mary, Everyone else will be compared to you...Jacob '21.'" Mitch looks at us in an EXTREME CLOSE-UP. "Knew him...vaguely?" he smirks. Mary is sitting the guilty cross-legged-hands-tugging-on-shirt pose on the bed as she tries to get herself out of this one. "Actually, uh, uh, uh, a little more than vaguely." Exhale. Mitch is sitting in another room and they are practically leaning out of their chairs to talk to each other. "Well, gee honey," he says, "my imagination and I have gone way past 'vaguely.'" Mary explains through "uh"s and exhales that it was her junior year and "way before" she and Mitch got together. She's trying to tell him what happened, but she keeps flashing back with that porno guitar to the boy and girl under the bleachers. "He was my first," she says. Mitch's smile is frozen on his face. "'First'? First what?" He stands up and walks towards her. "First kiss?" "Sort of." "Sort of? Sort of how?" This is an old acting exercise that I used to do in class where you would repeat the last thing you heard and then you'd add your line after it. "Sort of kept going past that," Mary vaguely explains about the boy she knew a little more than vaguely. Mitch is sitting right up right to her face as he says, "Give it to me in baseball terms." "Inside the park home run." The piano begins to play the Marriage In Crisis song as my left eyebrow crooks up. Inside the park home run. Does that mean she went all the way but she didn't have an orgasm? Wait. Maybe they went all the way but he pulled out. It doesn't matter because Mitch is about to become seven again. Mary starts. "Oh, honey, I know this is the last person you wanted to hear this about, it just happened so long --" "Hey, old news," Mitch says. "Really. Goodnight." "Don't 'goodnight' me," Mary starts up, "Please, let's talk about this." "What? There's nothing to talk about. I thought I knew my wife. Turns out I don't. I'm fine with it." Mitch's gangster lisp is back. "Don't shut down on me, Mitch." Mary is shaking on the bed. Mitch walks down the hallway. "I said I'm fine." Mary exhales. "Nice." She throws the yearbook to the side. She puts her head in her hands and looks far away.
Kenny is sitting with his arm around Rebecca. She asks him to start playing the Name One Thing You Like About Me game. Her legs are in his lap. He likes the way she wears her earrings. She gives him his kiss like a good little Pavlov dog. In walks Rebecca's dad. He's a big army guy with a big army outfit on. He wears his army hat and carries that "I'm not a good dad" suitcase. Kenny stops kissing Rebecca and tries to pull away from her because her dad's in the room, but she keeps pulling him closer to her. She tries to talk to her dad about her test scores, but he's too busy opening a bottle of Bad Dad Beer. Rebecca introduces Kenny as her boyfriend, and Kenny tries to goat boy that he's just a neighbor. Rebecca's dad starts walking towards them like he's going to be protective of his little girl, but he just says, "Don't use the phone, I'm going online." He's late for his chat on #BADDADZ. "He is the dream dad," Rebecca sarcasms to Kenny.
Back in the Office of Constant Office Hours in the School Without Classes, Julia, Meghan and Blonde Boy are boxing up Julia's things. Blonde Boy asks Meghan why she looks so bummed. "I had another fight with ma-mah," she says as if she's Pip. Her hair is sad. "The usual?" he asks. He tells her that she's got just a typical mother-daughter relationship going. She tucks her hair back while he's talking. Even her hair interrupts. "Nice, I've been reduced to a cliché," she says. I hate her. He's quiet for a moment, I assume planning on which words to use to tell her to stick her fat head up her ass, but instead he keeps that 'N Sync lean going as he says, "Nothing about you is a cliché." Oh, barf. Cue that damn five-note Get Real jingle, oh, Jesus. Wing? Wing? Can I stop doing this now? Nobody cares about this damn show and I feel like I'm in a personal hell! I am hitting my head on my monitor right now. I have just puked up all my food. GET ME OUT OF HERE! Wing?
Everyone has abandoned me. I'm losing it, people.
Blonde boy walks out, tells Meghan he'll see her in trig and Meghan think-talks to us that four months ago she had a million reasons why she absolutely had to break up with Dan Royce. "So why can't I remember a single one?" she asks while her hair looks at us pleadingly. Fade to white. It matches the color my hair is turning. ["Oh, sorry, Pamie. I was asleep. I promise, you only have to do this until the show gets cancelled. I'm sure it won't be more than one or two more episodes." -- Wing Chun]
Fade back to the Oh Shit -- Cameron! Plot as those five notes repeat over and over. Cameron isn't going to go back in the water. He doesn't understand how he could have freaked out down there. He's good at everything. "Oh, I bet he'll say, 'Nothing like that has ever happened to me before,'" Eric says. Cameron doesn't say that, but he does say, "I don't get it. You know, normally I'm good at this stuff. I motocross, I ski, I board..." The instructor tells him that diving isn't a jock sport. He tells him to give it another chance and that he won't let Cameron go in the ocean until he's ready. "Trust me, dude, I'm a pro, okay?" Okay, dude. Cameron says he's done with diving.
Fade to Mary on her laptop as the five-note Get Real jingle swells yet again. Cameron walks in carrying all of his scuba gear and looking bummed. He asks Mary to get the door for him. She asks how the lessons went. He says there won't be any more lessons. "And the reason for that would be?" Mary asks, proving the writers didn't learn their lesson last episode. Cameron gets all feisty and beats Mary over the head with his enormous ears until she opens the door for him. What? You don't care what really happened.
Fade to white to Elizabeth's answering machine. The doctor is saying that they missed their flight, so he's going to go home. He's worried about her. She's lying on her bed, frozen.
Kenny is rooting around a drawer pulling out condoms and pornos. "You're going through Cameron's sex drawer," Meghan barges in. "Oh, God. That's gross." This coming from the girl who invites Kenny in for her baths. "He'll kill me," Kenny says. "Please don't tell." Meghan is searching for her Ethiopian Cross that she wants to give to Julia. She finds it and then sits down to have a sex talk with Kenny. He asks her what her first time was like. "Whoa!" she says. "Presumptuous, party of one, your table is ready." I say, "Kevin Williamson, party of one, your royalty check." He apologizes, and tells her that he's really confused because now there's this girl that just wants him and only him and not some football player and now he's rooting around in Cameron's things for a condom. Cue the sensitive five-note Get Real jingle. He admits that he's scared. She tells him that she did come close once to doing it. Flashback to the blonde boy. She says that he would do stupid little things for her that she liked, like giving her a phone card so she could call him when he went off to soccer camp. "Phone cards," Kenny echoes for no reason. Dan and Meghan are kissing against a tree. She jolts back and pushes him away and fastens the one button that was opened on her shirt. He's wearing his shirt in such a way that it looks like a toga and his hairy chest is half-exposed as he gives her a questioning look. "I don't know, I just couldn't go through with it," Meghan tells Kenny. "I wasn't ready." They broke up a couple of months later, so she's pretty sure she made the right decision. Kenny asks how you know when you're ready. Meghan reads from the book of Hallmark and says that she likes to think that you could be miles away from the person and just close your eyes (as Kenny closes his eyes) and you can still hear the sound of their voice and picture the color of their eyes. Oh, barf, barf, puke. "Are we talking love here?" Kenny asks. "Yeah, maybe, I don't know, I don't know. At the very least, make sure you really care about each other. Um, until I come up with a better plan, it's, it's what I'm holding out for." Close up on Kenny as we have a Very Special Fade To White.
Apparently no matter how bad your "diagnosis" is, logging on to a chatroom at ivillage.com will make the whole thing seem small and silly.
Back at School Without Classes the bell rings, signaling the end of the not-really-lit class. Julia gives the homework assignment. They have to read some of Kate Chopin. "And that means reading it, Spicoli, not just highlighting it so it looks like you did." (Okay, she said "Scolari," but what difference does it make?). Meghan gives a "Stupid people are funny" laugh as she tucks her hair behind her ear to convey, "He's coming right over! Dan walks up to Meghan wearing a very similar sweater to the one he's been wearing all week. He asks if there's a question on earth that she doesn't know the answer to. She asks if he's jealous. He calls her a show-off. He stops her. "Wait a minute," he says, with a serious look. "Hair check." He tucks her hair behind her ear. HAIR CHECK? I run out of my house down the street begging people to tell me it's all a dream. It's all just a bad dream. It didn't just happen. I get back to my house, stick all of my insides that I puked up back inside my body, take two valium and get back to the show. Meghan is ga-ga over Dan and thinks he's the most gorgeous person on the planet. Their little cute-as-a-Hummel moment is broken by Julia who asks the two of them to the cool-teacher party that she's having that evening. "Nothing major, just burgers and Tom Jones. You guys in?" "Could be cool." "I'm there." Meghan skips down the hall happy as a popular-little-non-pregnant-no-best-friend-in-dead-dad-turmoil teen. She knows that the party is the best place for the two of them to talk, hook up, "or something," she says to us. Slut.
Kenny is walking around without a neck. Don't worry, he does this all the time. Right now his neck is gone because he's got a pocket full of condoms. Right now if someone needed condoms, he could give that person one. He's got six condoms. Is that enough condoms? Condoms, condoms, condoms. C is for the climax that you'll have. O is for the orgasm they'll cause. N is for the -- he sees Cameron walking down the hall. He knows that Cameron must know that he stole the condoms. He asks Cam, "So, how's it going with those scuba classes?" Puberty voice on "scuba." Cam's nostrils flare, he turns around and says, "Walk away or die." "So he doesn't know about the condoms!" Kenny celebrates as he walks away. "He's mad at me anyway. Works for me."
Elizabeth "I left my diaphragm in San Francisco" Green barges in to the Good Doctor's office with two tickets to see Cabaret. She entices the doctor with the possibility of getting spat on by Teri Hatcher. Oh, see, that's a little inside humor because Teri Hatcher is Jon Tenney's wife. Don't you guys feel special for being in-the-know? Elizabeth's skin peels back tight against her face as she offers the doctor dinner and the play as he tosses the tickets back at her. "I'm flattered, Elizabeth. that was very well rehearsed," he says. D'oh! Doctor Feelhorny is mad because he lost all that money on the arrangements and now she's just ignoring the whole situation. He walks off and won't talk to her.
"So are we going to run into any other surprises tonight?" Mitch "Honesty and Openness are my best traits" Green says to Mary as she prepares for the reunion. "What?" Mary slams a drawer. "Well, I figured you lied about being a virgin when we met..." "Hold on, Mitch, I thought you were fine with it." "Yeah, well, I guess I'm not." "Just to set the record straight I never told you I was a virgin." Mitch just keeps Jacob Perryhilling until it sounds like she slept with the entire band. Mary calls him on the fact that this was twenty years ago. Um, hello? Issues? He yells that she's a liar, liar pants on fire and then sticks his thumb in his mouth and wets his diaper. Mary asks if this is how he wants to start the reunion. He calls her a fatty, fatty poohead and then pulls her hair. I hear Jacob's name a few more times as Mitch complains that Jacob is going to be there looking at Mary thinking "Hey -- been there, done that." I roll my eyes this time since Meghan isn't around to do it. Mary has an epiphany: "This is not about me and Jacob, is it?" "No?" "No, think it's about you, Mitch. You just can't seem to get over yourself. Mitch. You're insecure about your new business and you're dumping it all on me." Mitch stomps off with his fingers in his ears singing "I CAN'T HEAR YOU! I CAN'T HEAR YOU! GIRLS ARE STUPID!" while Mary whispers, "Mitch, I'm on your side!" Of course she is.
Cameron is on the Pouting Bench as Elizabeth tells him to scoot over. She asks why he quit scuba. He wonders about her psychic ability. She says if he was enjoying it he'd be bragging all over the place. "It's the first time I ever just choked, Grandma," Cameron says, proving Eric's earlier prediction correct. They've pulled the Homicide camera out for this one and the scene is all jumpy. Long silly scene short: a subtle comparison is drawn to Cameron's fear of getting back in the water and Elizabeth's fear of getting back in the sack. Cameron says "chicken-ass." Elizabeth reminds us that Cameron wants to be an oceanographer. She tells him he's gotta go for it if he really wants it.
Cut to the cool teen party in the cool-teacher's house. She's got Pottery Barn all over the place and each room in the house is a different cool-teacher color. Cool strummy music plays. A girl is talking to Meghan but Meghan is looking over the girl's shoulder as she talks so she can stare at Dan fixing a burger. S.E.L.F.A.B.S.O.R.B.E.D. She leaves the talker and walks over to lick-grinning Dan so that I have to hear the following dialogue: "Severe party, huh?" "Totally." "Yeah, Julia pretty much rocks." "Testify to that." I immediately dial 911 to ask how to put my eyeball back in my head after I roll it so hard that my eyelid turned inside out and popped my eye right out of my skull. They tell me to stop watching Get Real immediately. I tell them I have no choice. They tell me good luck and may God have mercy on my soul. Meghan and Dan are trying to figure out why they broke up. It was her fault, she knows it, he knows it. He lick-smiles. She tries to ask him out and he stops her to say he's seeing someone else. She says that's great. So great. Fucking great. So happy. Who's happy? Dan's happy. And if Dan's happy, who's happy? Meghan's happy. Happy, happy, happy. Her dialogue just becomes a dolphin singing a tune. He thanks her and walks away. She looks down and blinks two times to see if she could squeeze any tears out. Nope. Fade to white.
It's the reunion. A giant banner reads "Class of '79." Okay, Get Real fan, let's do a little math, shall we? We know the following facts:
- Mary was pregnant with Meghan when she was her age. (episodes 1 through 5)
- Because of this, Mary had Meghan and married Mitch right when they got out of high school.
- Meghan is seventeen. (episodes 1 through 3)
- If Mary was pregnant at seventeen, that would mean that she had to have the baby in the fall of '79.
- If Meghan was born in the fall of '79 it would make her twenty years old.
- If Mary had Meghan seventeen years ago, she would have had Meghan in 1982, three years after graduation.
- If Mary had Meghan in 1982, she would have been at least, the very least, twenty-one.
- If this is the case I can't believe we've been reminded over and over again about Mary being pregnant with Meghan when she was her age.
- This show will be canceled by the spring of 2000.
Mitch and Mary walk in and Mary talks about the good party planning that went into the reunion. Mitch takes the pacifier out of his mouth to say, "I'm guessing you're going to want to save the first dance for Jacob." "Don't start, Mitch." Exhale. "Whatever." Exhale. "Later." They go in two different directions.
Kenny is now on his way to Rebecca's. "Boogie Oogie Oggie" plays in the background. He walks up to the "Door of Manhood" and rings the doorbell. Rebecca is wearing a blue tube top and invites him in. He whimpers and shuts the door. Fade to white to commercial.
Mary is hobnobbing with people while Blondie plays in the background. Her friend is on her third marriage. Mitch's friend got divorced after he came out and he found a partner. Mitch asks where the lucky guy is. "I dumped the ungrateful slut," he laughs. Both friends ask Mitch and Mary how they are still married. "They say the key to a good marriage is good communication," Mary stumbles. "What makes any marriage work?" Mitch asks. "It's, um," "We communicate, and all that," Mary lies. "It's about trust," Mitch pretends to be a different person.
Cameron is standing above the pool in his wetsuit cut-offs. He is taking a special after-hours class, which I can only assume is at about nine at night, since the reunion is going on at the same time. His instructor gives him a mask with a microphone and a speaker. Cameron is nervous and tells him he can do it. Cameron is waiting until he's ready.
Elizabeth is still waiting in the doctor's office. He asks if she's got Rent tickets now. She tells him she told Cameron if he really wants something he's got to go out and get it, so she's there so she's not "branded a hypocrite." She decides to tell him the truth. She's afraid sex will end their relationship. She hasn't had sex in eight years. Even though her husband died a year and a half ago, after forty-five years of marriage...sometimes the sex dies in the good relationships, too. "In the end we were friends. Just friends." The doctor asks what that has to do with him. She says she never thought she'd be facing these things again. She tries to tell the doctor how she likes being with him and going places with him, but she's having to struggle over the five-note Get Real jingle that is imposing on the scene. He tells her that they are fine. She exhales.
Mitch walks up to Mary at the reunion and tells her he's ready to leave whenever she is. She says they've only been there an hour. She tells him to stop sulking. She was looking forward to this night and instead, she says, "You have succeeded in making me feel like hell." Her neck cords pop out and slap him in the face. "Thanks," she says through a strained smile and she walks off.
Meanwhile, Kenny is giving Rebecca the cornerstone of any Fourteen-Year-Old Foreplay: the backrub. He asks her to name one thing she likes about him. She comments that he's turning the game around as she turns to face him. "Um," she thinks. "You're nice." Yeah. Great. Thanks. "And," she says while grabbing his hand, "you're just...totally..." she places his hand on her left breast, "Kenny." Oooookay. Kenny executes perfectly that fourteen-year-old touching a first boob exhale that comes out in little shivers like it's fifteen degrees outside. The five-note Get Real jingle quiets long enough for Kenny to put his hand over Rebecca's eyes and ask, "What color are my eyes?" She asks if he's serious. He says, "Yeah." "Brown," she says, in a way that says, "Uh, what does this have to do with my boob?" "Yours are hazel with little yellow flecks, but they look totally green when you wear that aqua sweater with that hole in the left shoulder." Rebecca looks at him like "Earth to Old Navy, I'm still not naked," as he continues. "And um, mine are blue." He takes his hand off her and looks down. She exhales. He exhales.
Meanwhile at the Late-Night Cool Teacher Party, everyone is sitting on a couch playing a game where Dan is giving clues about famous people and they have to guess who it is. There are no visible teams. "Nine Inch Nails guy." "Uh, Trent Reznor!" Julia walks over to Meghan at the other end of the room and asks if she's okay. "Yeah," Meghan says. "It's just guy troubles." "Uh...Howard Stern's producer," Dan continues. I wonder what game would have Trent Reznor and Gary Dell'Abate on it. "Bababooey!" the girl in the front shouts. "No, I need his real name." They are stumped. "You guys used to be close, huh?" Julia asks Meghan. Meghan asks how she knew. "A good teacher pays attention to her students. So does a friend." She tells Meghan she's beautiful and Meghan rolls her eyes and exhales. Dan asks one of the players who founded Microsoft and she says "Gates! Bob Gates!" and he says "Yes." Julia goes on about Meghan's qualities and tells her it's Dan's loss. "Last name rhymes with a coffee drink." "Gary Latte!" "Dell'Abate! Gary Dell'Abate!" Julia shouts to the players. "Amateurs," she says to Meghan. "Come on, let's go kick some ass in this game." Meghan smiles as Julia makes it into the Cool TV Teacher Hall of Fame, moving Mr. Cooper and Mr. Kotter over a notch.
Mitch walks out of the reunion pulling his name tag off his lapel. Cue drunk and reeling Jacob "Good Lovin'" Perryhill. Mitch calls Jacob a cab and takes his keys away from him. "You're a lucky guy," he says to Mitch. He puts his arm around Mitch's neck and bourbons in his ear, "Mary is sooo hot!" "You know what, I do know about you and Mary, you know? In high school," he says to Jacob. Jacob jumps back about thirteen feet and says, "You do?" There's this "Is Mitch going to punch him?" moment as Jacob explains that Mary wasn't just a "conquest" and that he really dug her. Mitch is summoning his Tony Soprano as Jacob says he wished that he had hooked up with Mary and then maybe he could have "skipped all that damn alimony." He does the drunk giggle as Mitch is not amused. The cab pulls up as Jacob pulls Mitch in by the neck and says, "But you? You got there first, dude." He snorts. "I got there first? Whoa. You counting backward?" Jacob tells him that he tried to get Mary back their senior year, but after she had met Mitch she wouldn't look at him anymore. Jacob gets into the cab and it drives off. Mitch looks around as we fade to white.
Cameron is underwater at what must be 11 PM at the Y, and he keeps himself from freaking out by imagining there are huge fish in the pool with him that he can swim right up to. A giant puffer fish is staring at Cameron and I so wish it will attack, but it doesn't. It just fades away. Cameron struggles, comes to the surface and screams "Yes! That was so awesome!" "Hey Cameron, you did it, man!" "Actually, I, uh...I did. I'm going back down."
Kenny and Rebecca are holding hands sitting on the couch. The camera jerks back and forth to their faces as they talk. Kenny asks, "So, why me?" Rebecca exhales and says, "Have you ever seen one of those nature films where the flowers grow in fast motion?" He says, "Yeah, it's called um, time-lapse photography." We get a close up of Rebecca's tummy as she says, "Yeah, well, that's me. I live in time lapse. And my dad, who incidentally couldn't care less that I even exist has dragged me to thirteen schools in the last ten years. I'm just another thing he packs up when he gets transferred." "Harsh," says Kenny. "Well, I just don't have time to waste wondering, 'Oh, does he like me or does he like me like me.' Trust me, you just want to cut through the clutter and tell a guy that you're willing to give it up." "You do realize that we aren't having sex tonight," Kenny says. "That's cool," she says. We watch her hands fold and unfold in front of her naked tummy. "I am naming one thing that I like about you," she says. "You make me feel that I'm the most important person on the planet." They kiss on the couch and hold hands. Wow. They did it. They wrote an actual scene. Never mind that Rebecca's been doing it since maybe she was eleven. Never mind that they didn't stop playing this strummy guitar throughout the entire thing. Rebecca and Kenny had an actual scene that wasn't insulting, didn't show boobs, and no one said "dude" or "download." Can I get an "Amen?" ["Amen." -- Wing Chun]
Mary is at the reunion. She looks around and Mitch walks in. His voice is softer. He tells her that he's been a jerk. "I just poured Jacob Perryhill into a taxi and I experienced what they call a 'moment of clarity.'" He exhales. She exhales. He figures out that when she and Jacob -- "Try 'did it,'" Mary offers -- that they were just kids and they were all kids and those kids don't exist anymore. He was jealous over exhale. Exhale. He looks around and sees everyone split up and alone and through it all, in spite of it all, Mary has been there for him. Christopher Cross hits a high note as Mary tears up, tells Mitch that being so jealous is a turn-on and starts to walk him to the door. "Well, now, see, here you're reinforcing my despicable behavior," Mitch says as he puts his arm around her. She just giggles. Oh, Mitch, you knew she'd do that. You got her played like a deck of cards. Go, enabler, go.
Cue a Dido song. Mitch and Mary are driving home as Mary is suddenly drunk and asking Mitch who his first was. He tells her it was her. She's the only person he's ever slept with. "You were super-jock-love-god," she says to our amazement. This gets her all hot and bothered, and she slurs for him to pull over. He does.
Meghan leaves the party and says goodnight to Dan as he gets in his car and to Julia on the doorstep. She drives by the "If the Lexus is Rockin', Don't Come Knockin'" and realizes that she's forgotten to give Julia the Ethiopian cross. She turns around and once again passes coitus maritus. She drives her Jeep Cherokee back to Julia's.
Elizabeth is in a dimly lit room with the Doctor. They kiss and he begins to unbutton her shirt.
Kenny and Rebecca walk out of her front door as Officer Baddad steps out of his car onto the driveway. He looks taken aback. Kenny gives the officer a look that could kill and leans down and gives Rebecca a soul kiss.
Mary and Mitch are having it hot and heavy.
Kenny breaks his kiss with Rebecca and says, "That'll get his attention." He gives the officer a raised eyebrow and walks right past him. Rebecca curls around the post in front of her house and lowers her head in her best "Lolita is Caught" pose.
Dido continues as Meghan walks up the stairs to Julia's house. She tucks her hair back to show she's excited to speak to Julia. "Are you still up?" she asks. "Who is it?" Julia shouts, and we see through the door window Julia buttoning her blouse. Meghan prattles about how she forgot to give Julia something, but then she looks through the window and sees a pair of men's shoes by Julia's bed. Julia shuts the bedroom door. She looks to the left and sees Dan with his shoes off. "Oh, my God," she thinks. In a very strange shot Dan is sitting on the chair looking guilty and staring at Meghan through the door as Julia leans against the closed door of her bedroom looking guilty as she pulls back her hair with one hand and fastens her blouse with another. Meghan looks through the window at the two of them for a second. She turns around and drops the cross which shatters on the pavement.
Mitch and Mary are in full thrusts with Mary on top and breathing heavy. Mitch's hand is on the back of her neck driving her up and down. We hear a phone ringing. Pan up to a bedroom. Cut to Meghan on a pay phone crying and saying, "Come on, Mom, I really need you." Pan across the bedroom to Mary's cell phone sitting on the bureau. "Hi, I can't come to the phone right now because I'm having my monthly drunken sex with my low libido husband, so leave a message and I'll call you back." Meghan lets the cell phone ring fifteen times (and it never really goes to voice mail) and she hangs up blubbering without tears. Cue the Get Real title card without the gospel singers as the show closes.
Tune in week to answer the following questions: Will Cameron find love in the water? Will Kenny decide he was crazy for saying no and go back to Rebecca's house for sweet loving? In a house with three laptops, six bedrooms and eight phones, why doesn't Meghan have a cell phone? Kenny has a cell phone. Will they ever tell us to "Get Real" again?
Well, anyway, FOX says week Meghan threatens to expose Julia and Dan's relationship. She gets bratty as Julia and Dan plead for Meghan to call off "her war." There's a lot of tucking of the hair. Move over, Dawson's Creek, there's another teacher-student relationship about to be exposed.