Last week: Oh, you know. The usual. "We call Bobby 'The Great Believer,'" "Meet Courtney Benedict, the toothiest girl in the world; her dad, the Money-Grubbing Whore; and Grace, the Worst Mom in the Whole Wide World Who Hits Her Kids When She's Really Peeved."
Speaking of, it was brought to my attention that I somehow forgot to mention last week that Grace slapped Jack. I don't know how that happened. How I forgot, I mean. She slapped him because she is terrible.
THE FUTURE: Dennis Morgenthal (Sen. R -- Missouri 2033-present) yammers on and on and on and on about how Bobby had "the eyes of a child" and people thought he was innocent, but he wasn't and blah blah blah blah. I appreciate the voices from THE FUTURE as a viewer, but heavens, are they tiresome to recap. When you type them out -- or listen to them and then decide not to recap them at all -- you realize that most of these talking heads are saying...well, very, very little. And what they do say is almost always divorced from what's going on in the present day. So they're interesting as a glimpse into the future but not particularly illuminating as to what's going on in the majority of the episode. And I think the writers are going to write themselves into a corner with them and I'll bet you five dollars that six weeks from now -- if the show is still on the schedule -- they will become incredibly minimal.
2004. McCallister Manor. Grace is presiding over a very dull meeting of her university's Young Democrats society. Bobby sits to her on the sofa, covering himself with dozens of Kerry/Edwards pins. Is he seven years old? Seriously. He's at least thirteen. Wouldn't he rather be holed up in the study reading a comic book or something? Anyway, one of the Young Democrats is yammering on about their plan to distribute Kerry/Edwards buttons. "Somewhere Abbie Hoffman is weeping," Grace mutters to Bobby, the Infant Miracle Child. Somewhere, Abbie Hoffman is crazy. And dead. Just a warning, by the way: this episode -- and Grace herself -- is very much about how Today's Generation Is So Disaffected and Why Aren't We Having More Sit-Ins, WHY? WHY? To which I say, shut UP to Grace and all your like-minded Boomer brethren. Maybe the younger generation is disaffected because lots of you Boomers won't shut up about how fucking great you were when you were our age and how it's never going to be like that again and it is implied therein that we might as well not try. Maybe we're disaffected because you spent your college years protesting and now you just tried to run me over with your enormous gas-guzzling SUV and so we feel like you've turned into a bunch of hypocrites, so it's hard to feel inspired by what you say. Maybe we ARE out there voting and signing petitions and talking about the issues and you just don't notice it because you're still too busy talking about yourselves. I'm sorry: this is clearly a hot button issue for me. My parents are Baby Boomers and they're totally great. They're both staunch Democrats -- as am I, full disclosure and everything -- and we talk about politics every single week. They have never referred to me or my peers as "disaffected," because I'm not. I vote. I'm wearing a "Vote" t-shirt right now. I read the paper. I watch the debates. But maybe I am involved in politics because my parents explained their reasoning and their history and their points of view to me with respect for my intelligence and my innate willingness to want to make my life better, instead of huffing about the kids today and how fucking lazy we all are. Maybe you made my generation lazy, Boomers. Since you are our parents. Did you ever think of that? ["YEAH!" -- Wing Chun] Man, Episode 2 and I am already filled with rage. Nice.
Anyway. Striped Shirt is still talking about buttons and Grace, of course, speaks up. She delivers a self-serving speech about how the younger generation has abysmally low voter turnout and why, why aren't we more fired up? Why? Why, sweet God, please tell me why? The college students look bored. A kid suggests that they send out a mass email -- because kids today are too dependent on the devil internet, don't you know? -- but Grace wants a protest! They should protest low voter turnout! She yells and yelps and the kids look bored and this is whole speech is, frankly, bullshit. I'm currently working on a political reality series and we have a ton of cast members who are my age or younger and who are fucking fired up. I appreciate the sentiment -- I really do -- but I don't think having Christine Lahti screaming at me to vote over the TV is going to make me want to vote, especially since she's the MOST IRRITATING CHARACTER ON THIS SHOW. Hell, I am all about the voting. I have voted in every election I have been eligible to vote in -- even the little ones. But wouldn't it be a better message, in the election year, to have someone who is not an enormous pain in the ass deliver this particular message? Like maybe someone on another show? A show where I like any of the characters? Maybe Tyra Banks could do it? Besides, how, exactly, how do you protest low voter turnout? Not that I don't see it as a problem, but I don't know if it's something that you protest, the way you protest, say, The Man. Because the people who aren't voting are all in their respective homes, reading a magazine or something. Their lives aren't directly influenced by something like a sit-in. Are you going to sit in front of their front doors? Because if they're going out to vote, they might just want to stay home, anyway. Recently, I was reading about a woman who increased voter turnout in her voting district by a crazy amount -- like 500%. She didn't do a protest. She did extensive and educated voter reach-out. So, SHUT UP GRACE. Grace then wonders where everyone's rage is, and they all just stare at her. Hey, Grace? Over here? I am full of rage! "Didn't you ever read Ginsberg?" she asks, before going off on a whole new long boring haranguing speech -- every scene in this show features a monologue for Christine Lahti, in case you haven't noticed -- about how they're college students and they should be awake all night debating shit and you know what, Grace? The Beats are kinda dated as a reference. They might turn off some of your crowd, actually, because they kinda hate women. So. There you go. Grace continues yapping about how her college experience was "a stoned haze of political exploration," and don't they wish theirs was, too? Everyone stares blankly at her. "Okay. You'll see," she announces. Grace sends Bobby upstairs -- over his very vocal protests -- and goes ahead and, yes, lights up a bowl for the kids. Because you know what gets people really fired up? Weed. Grace, if you wanted to light a fire under them -- and I sympathize, I do, because I really want people to get out and vote in this election -- give them something that doesn't make them want to eat an entire case of Pringles and then take a nap. Can I suggest speed?
Upstairs, Courtney and Jack are lying on his bed doing their Chemistry homework. He's doing a lot of staring at her, and he's clearly going in for the tonsil hockey when Bobby slams into the bedroom. Courtney greets Bobby very cheerfully for someone who just lost out on the opportunity to make out with Jack. Bobby quickly explains that he was exiled from his mother's Tirade Against the Youth. Jack sort of tries to get Bobby to leave, but Courtney insists that he can totally hang out. Jack asks if the students are still there, and Bobby tells him that they are. A light goes on in Jack's eyes and....
...Jack storms downstairs and breaks up the pot party. This poor kid is really forced to be the adult in every single situation, isn't he? Grace, stoned, protests. Jack is doing the whole "nothing to see here, move along, move along" as he escorts the college students out of his home. Grace squeals that she'll see the kids at the "Moonlight Address." Courtney comes down the stairs and tells Grace that her dad says "to say hi." Grace makes a face. "Oh, well, that's...courteous," she says. Jack apologizes neatly to Courtney for the end of their study session, and I think one of the reasons I find him so dreamy is because he is so mature and responsible. I feel like if we got caught in a tornado or something, he could protect me. This is clearly a concern here in Los Angeles. Courtney tells him something I don't grasp because I have been hypnotized by all her teeth. She makes Julia Roberts look like she hasn't lost all her baby teeth yet. Grace tells Courtney that she'd really appreciate it if she wouldn't tell the president of the university that she was giving her students illegal drugs. Courtney gets it, she says, and takes off.
Jack gives Grace quite a look, once they're alone. Bobby watches from the foot of the stairs. Jack thought she was going to give up the weed. "It was one joint. The equivalent of a glass of red wine," Grace yells. She needs something stronger than pot to chill her out. Maybe an animal tranquilizer. Bobby looks sad as Jack continues to lecture their mother, who tells him that when she was in college, she was, like, naked and high all the time, and it was great: "Kids today are so mechanical and cold." You mean, like, your own kid? Who has to be the adult in every situation because of your behavior? Jack informs her that she has a problem, and she whines that she won't do it anymore, and Jack wisely reminds her that she said that last time: "And I got kicked off the team because my little brother bought your pot to school." Grace promises faintly that this time she totally means it: "I give you my word." Jack spits that he doesn't know what that's worth. Grace sarcastically wonders if he'd like a "signed affidavit." Well, I feel like he'd probably like to get to be the child in this relationship. Man, I hate Grace more than I ever hated Dawson. And it's only Episode 2. Everyone storms off, except Bobby, who makes his Sad Puppy Face.
Senator Talking Head from THE FUTURE blah blah blahs nothing about nothing until we finally get to the reveal: Bobby was a Republican. Oh, Gawd, no! The horror! We should probably go out behind the shed and kill ourselves right now.
Credits.
FUTURE Marcus tells us that he remembers the day Bobby told Grace he was a Republican: "It was like coming out, you know? Coming out of the closet. As an ax murderer." Oh, Marcus. I wish you -- either present or future version thereof -- had more lines.
Present day. Grace is buzzing and fizzing around her office, helped by her extremely able assistant -- let's call her Sassy Black Assistant, because that's the cliché she clearly represents -- who tells Grace that her shoes are ugly. I love Sassy Black Assistant. Grace reads a memo and then loses her shit when she reads that Peter Benedict "cancelled the Moonlight Address." Cue a long endless speech from Lahti -- yet again -- that I don't really feel like recapping, mostly because she's such a line hoarder. She has, like, nine speeches in every scene. It's tiresome. Why doesn't anyone -- other than me -- tell her to shut it? I've decided that I won't stand for this kind of shameless line hoarding and I plan to ignore anything she says that exceeds four lines in a row. The speech ends with Grace stomping off to see the Money-Grubbing Whore in a total huff over this cancelled academic snorefest. "I'd buy a ticket to that," Sassy Black Assistant mutters as Grace storms off. I wish she was Jack's mom. I imagine Jack does, too.
Speaking of Jack, he and Marcus are at school, discussing Jack's attempt to make the transition from "friends" to "romance" with Courtney. He feels that you have to very slowly make that crossover, whereas I feel like you should just grab the person and kiss him or her. Life is short. Especially yours, Jack, just so you know. So you should probably get on that. Marcus agrees with me, telling his friend that he had better get a move on it. At this point, Bobby pops up and says something I can't hear because the sound mix is really bad in this scene. Jack instructs Bobby to make himself scarce at lunch and tells Marcus to act as his wingman. Poor Marcus. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Marcus says he can't: he has to go to the pep rally: "I'm sorry." He adds something about the relay team that I can't hear over the sound mix. Turn down the Ambient Warner Brothers Soundtrack, people. At any rate, Jack looks pleased.
Over at the university, Grace storms into Peter Benedict's office, yipping about how very very wrong he is to cancel the Moonlight Address, and man, is she scary. "The usual salutations are just too banal for you, aren't they, Grace?" Peter retorts calmly, bless him. She goes off about how the Moonlight Address is all about, like, the sanctity of the trees, or something likewise ridiculous. "Okay, I'm just going to kick it off. Good morning, Professor. You're looking wonderful. Please have a seat," Peter says calmly. I am a little in love with him. Grace's mouth hangs open, and then she sighs. "Hello President Benedict I hope this morning finds you well," she speeds. "It's going very well," he chirps in response. "And you?" They speed through additional pleasantries-- it's very funny -- for about a second, until Grace cracks and she starts yelling at him again. Grace, this is your boss. I know you have tenure and whatnot, but this really seems like bad workplace form. In response to Grace's Diatribe About The Horror of the Loss of the Sacred Moonlight Address, Peter calmly responds that he doesn't like speeches, and then asks if she got "that hi" he sent her. He was just wondering about "the hi." Grace retorts that she got "the hi." Why didn't she respond to "the hi"? "I thought you'd be a stickler for etiquette," Peter tells her. Grace rolls her eyes. "In those situations not calling for eighth-grade diplomacy, I am," she said. Um, like, when would that be? When are you ever acting more mature than your youngest child? For that matter, when are you ever even being polite? Grace is about to continue when Peter is called into a meeting. He gets up to go. Grace snaps that she needs to know if he's reinstating the address. He doesn't think so. He needs to focus on, you know, keeping the university out of bankruptcy. "If it means that much to you, take it up with the speech committee," he tells her. Which is meeting the night. At a restaurant. And it's just him. Because haranguing women are HOT. Grace looks gobsmacked yet again as Peter leaves her on the steps yet again.
FUTURE Marcus informs us that Grace hates the Republicans and kept saying that it was "so wrong." At first, he thought she meant the EGJnolegghlz3q15y. Sorry, I fell asleep. I'm over this whole Tracing A Young Man's Ascendance To The Presidency thing already. Anyway, Grace thought the Republican party was "wrong for Bobby." Wow, color me shocked.
Speaking of Bobby, he's zoning out in the lunch line. Courtney skips over and snaps him out of it. She is so toothy, I kinda can't get over it. Pretty girl, too much teeth. She drags him against his will to a table where she's set up camp with Jack. Bobby throws Jack an apologetic look and makes some noise about wanting to eat inside, but Courtney will have none of it. "Hi Jack. I just ran into Courtney and she really wanted me to eat with you guys so I'm just gonna eat my sandwich and I'm gonna go, okay?" Bobby then spits out. Jack says nothing. In the background, the pep rally kicks off, the cheerleaders scream, and Courtney launches into her weekly Diatribe Against The Evil That Is School Spirit. "If you're not one of the Stepford Cheerleaders, what is there to do on the weekend?" she asks. The Stepford Cheerleaders would be an awesome show! I want to recap that! ["If you don't write a treatment for The Stepford Cheerleaders so you can start pitching it around, I will be extremely disappointed in you." -- Wing Chun] Bobby tells her that people pretty much hang out at the Rock and Bowl. Courtney thinks this sounds like wholesome fun. "Do want to go?" she asks, and Jack perks that he could totally pick her up. "Yeah, right, in your Mustang, I hope," she snorts. "I'll just meet you guys there. You're coming, right, Bobby?" Bobby looks uncomfortable, and, behind them, the pep really kicks it into high gear. Courtney is pained by the cheer in the air like and, yes, stomps off. Jack looks pained. Oh, Jack. Move on. She's not the droid you're looking for.
McCallister Manor. Grace is putting on her lip gloss in the bathroom, and she and Jack have this whole thing where he's trying to open the medicine cabinet and she needs the mirror and whatnot, and eventually, peace is brokered in the McCallister Master Bath. "Where are you going?" Jack asks. Grace: "Committee meeting." "Dressed like that?" She makes a face at him. "Where are you going?" she asks. Jack: "Bowling." "Dressed like that?" she snarks. Grace has been putting on her lipstick for literally minutes, daubing at her lips over and over again. It doesn't take a woman that long to put on lip gloss! If they wanted her to be taking a long time in front of the mirror, the EYES take the longest, what with the lining and curling and mascara-ing of lashes. Duh. Everyone knows that. "Who you going with?" Grace wonders, and makes her surprised face when Jack tells her he's taking Bobby. "Something wrong with that?" Jack asks, and storms off. She is still dabbing at the exact same spot on her lips.
As Courtney helps Bobby, Jack is greeted by a high-voiced girl hanging with "the team." She's known best to me as Dee (formerly Bo) Vine of Drive Me Crazy. They chat, Dee reminding him that just because he's suspended from the team doesn't mean he can't hang out with them anymore. "Are you babysitting?" she asks.
Over at their lane, Courtney asks Bobby who Dee Vine is, and Bobby explains that Jack and Bobby dated until Dee dumped Jack for the quarterback of the football team. "I probably shouldn't have told you that," Bobby adds.
The Senator from the FUTURE pops in at the point and says a whole bunch of stuff about how, in the future, the Republicans thought Bobby wasn't conservative enough. That bite has nothing to do with either the scene prior to it, or the one following it. Unless by "conservative," the Senator means "discreet."
So, Grace shows up for dinner with Peter, still in a huff thanks to the really boring lay-off subplot. Poor Peter Benedict. He's got a better chance of nailing his dead (crazy?) wife than he does this woman. She launches into -- say it with me -- a long, high-strung speech about the firing of her assistant, and he informs her that he had to "cut the fat." Grace: blah blah blah we're well over the four-line maximum, Lahti, so shut it. "Did you consult anyone?" she inquires. Peter points out that he consulted his entire advisory committee: "I just didn't consult with you." He then informs her that the university had been having serious financial issues even before he was hired. "Our financial situation, of course, being paramount," Grace sniffs. Peter points out that if they want to educate people, they really do have to...you know, keep the doors open and stuff. Grace launches into some more Self-Righteous Blather, which Peter cuts through by reminding her that she has both email and a slew of TAs. She doesn't need someone to print out her emails for her. "She's not just a job function," Grace says. "But her job has lost its function, so I fired her," Peter says, and then tells Grace that he gave everyone a very generous severance package. "Did you know that? By any chance? Grace?" he asks. Grace hems and haws that maybe she didn't know all the details. Peter makes an irritated face and tells her that he had the crazy idea that "dinner with an intelligent woman would be the perfect antidote to a crappy week of firing people." Grace makes a pleased face and opens her menu. "But now I've lost my appetite. So I'm just going to go. You stay. Have a nice dinner. At least I know you'll enjoy the company," Peter finishes and stalks off. Chalk up one for the money-grubbing whore.
Bowling alley. Jack and Courtney flirt weakly, and Jack finally has to resort to sending Bobby over to buy them some Cokes so he can finally get some time alone with The Teeth. When he's gone, the Rock and Bowl people kindly turn down the lights and crank up the make-out music and all the teens start groping each other. Jack finally, finally, finally moves in to kiss Courtney, and she absolutely disses him. Like he tried to set her on fire. "Did I do something wrong?" Jack asks. "Yeah, maybe you did," Courtney snaps, moving over to put on her shoes. She brusquely informs him that they're just friends. Jack tells her, confused, that she was totally sending out signals. She points out that they were mostly "go away" signals -- you know, like inviting his brother along. Speaking of Bobby, he's sadly watching Jack and Courtney from the Snack Shack. Jack's mouth hangs open as Courtney ties her shoes and snips that she has to go, and that she doesn't want a ride. She then does the Courtney Stomp out of the room and away from Jack and Bobby.
The Senator from THE FUTURE says he warned Bobby that the Republicans were going to screw him over in the primaries, but Bobby didn't want to hear it and the Senator felt real bad about that. "Like you would for a brother." Like Bobby presumably feels for the moded, corroded Jack, whose booty, from the look on his face, just exploded in the face of Courtney's denial.
The present-day Bobby goes to the principal's office. He says the principal's name like nine times, and I don't catch it once thanks to his terrible mumbling. Anyway, Bobby needs to talk to the principal. On a personal matter. Maybe about how he needs a haircut? Bobby needs one, I mean. Not the principal.
Cut to Grace lecturing her students about "intellectual capital." Her students seem attentive. Not one kid is doing the crossword. I must say, Grace is a terrible pain in the ass as a person, but she's an engaging enough public speaker. Probably because of herpropensity to yell. Peter Benedict enters the lecture hall at this point, and Grace loses her train of thought. She closes class by giving the students a very vague assignment about "tracing the intellectual thoughts of the last century," and this would have been on their syllabus, I assume, so I don't get why she's yelling this assignment at them like it just occurred to her off the top of her head. Eventually, of course, the kids trickle out and she is face to face with Peter.
Peter and Grace shuffle around for the bit before beginning to bicker about him storming off on "their date," and Peter points out that he didn't want to date her; he just didn't want to hate her. And now he does. Well, he didn't say that exactly, but you can see it in his eyes. He does tell her, however, that he's been reading over the Boring Moonlight Addresses, about which I could not possibly care less. "You were right, they're inspirational," he says. And he wants her to give the address this year. Every year, someone from the faculty can do it. "Someone more inspiring that I am," he sort of smiles. "Casting a pretty wide net. My Aunt Millie is more inspiring than you," Grace brats. Peter is like, you know what? Fuck you. And he starts to go. "Okay. Just out of morbid curiosity, who was your second choice?" Grace asks. Peter sighs that it was her, or nobody. Grace's face melts a wee bit at that. Women love to hear that from cute men. Unless it follows the question, "Who's going to clean out the garage?" Grace tells him she'll do it, as long as he doesn't have to approve her speech beforehand. "I won't abide censorship of any kind!" she yelps. Peter rolls his eyes. "I'm a Republican, not a Communist. Say whatever you like," he says. That line was so awkwardly phrased, and all to get in the fact that Peter Benedict is a Republican. She clutches her pearls over his tragic, tragic Republicanism. Grace, he's a Republican, not a Nazi. Simmer down. But she agrees to give the address. "Good," Peter says. "And if it had been a date, so what? Would that have been so terrible?" Grace says nothing, so he turns and goes.
Principal Mumbles's office. Jack has been called in, yet again. This can't possibly go well. Now, it appears that Bobby has told the principal the truth about the pot thing and now Jack is in trouble for covering for him, and the principal is thinking about executing them both, or something equally horrifying. Way to go, Bobby. Jack manages not to strangle his brother then and there, and assures the principal instead that Bobby is just trying to make Jack feel better about being off the track team and that this is what he's lying about. And Mumbles buys it.
So, this is the part of the show where Jack storms through the high-school hallways and yells at Bobby for being so dumb and ruining his life. You know, just like last week, except that Grace isn't there, so no one gets slapped this time. "You're my responsibility, dumb-ass," he spits, telling Bobby that he hates having him around because he makes everything worse. "You can never help, so just stay out of everything," Jack screams, before storming away. Bobby looks teary and sad. I would feel really bad for Bobby if his saintliness wasn't being shoveled down my throat at every turn. Yes, it is mean to yell at a sweet dorky eighth-grader. But it makes it worse when the sweet dorky eighth-grader is a legitimate pain in the ass, because then your audience feels all weird and uncomfortable because it makes them mean and horrible if they're relating to the yelling person and no one wants to feel weird and uncomfortable and mean and horrible while watching The WB.
Courtney from THE FUTURE pops up here, and blathers about how this primary -- remember, the one they're talking about in the bits from THE FUTURE? The bits from THE FUTURE totally disappear from my short-term memory mere seconds after I watch them -- got really personal, and the pollsters were asking all these hypothetical questions about how they'd feel if they found out that Bobby had a family member with a drug problem, or some illegitimate kids or killed a man or used to be a woman. "It wasn't Democrats making those calls. It was Republicans. His own party. I watched them devour him whole," she says, shaking her head.
Speaking of drug problems, Grace is home, listening to John Hiatt's version of "Have A Little Faith in Me" and smoking a joint. Bobby gets home all worked up over the Jack fight, and stumbles into the den to talk to his mom. She tries, but she can't hide that she's high. Bobby is clearly disappointed by her drug-addled attempts to relate to him, and looks even more stunned when she starts giggling as she pats a place to her on the sofa. She then waxes poetic about the song, and chuckles about how they used to listen to it all the time, and make cookies! "We should do that again soon!" she chirps. Poor Bobby grits his teeth and nods. At last, Grace grasps that he's upset about something. "You're doing it again," he says. Grace immediately looks sullen, like a child. "Can we talk about this later?" she asks. "Just tell me what happened with Jack." Bobby almost stamps his foot. "He hates me now and it's all your fault!" he tells her. Thank goodness she's operating at her full mental faculties at the moment. Bobby then adds that he really doesn't want to talk to her when she's high. "I'm still me! Look!" Grace says, and stands, spreading her arms. "I wish you were someone else," Bobby says -- predictably -- and runs out of the house and down the street.
FUTURE Courtney notes that Bobby was, like, really totally sad at the end of the California primary, you know, because of how mean the Republicans were and stuff. "It felt like the end of everything. And for a while, it was." Okay, seriously? These moments from THE FUTURE? Could they tie in more with what's going on in scene? Because right now, they are so tenuously connected, it's hard to follow the threads. I get that when Jack yelled at Bobby and his mom was high, maybe it felt like the end of everything to Bobby, but that's not a really visceral example of something that could make an eighth-grader feel like everything was over, mostly because the majority of eighth-graders are already pissed at their mothers anyway. It feels like the end of everything when your first love breaks up with you, or you're in a terrible fight with your best friend, or you have to change schools. Not when you have a fight with your brother, even if he is cool.
Anyway. Present-Day Bobby shows up at Courtney's house -- which is a different house than the one in the pilot -- and meets a quizzical Peter at the door. "You're not a date, are you?" Peter asks. He is relieved that Bobby is not, and lets him upstairs. Do you get it? Because they get married in the future? If only Peter knew!
Meanwhile, Grace and Jack are driving around town looking for the little pipsqueak. Well, Jack is driving because Grace is still too stoned. He suggests that they try Courtney's, since Bobby likes talking to her so much. Grace groans. "Okay, just stop avoiding the inevitable and go ahead and yell at me," she says. He says he can't. She tells him she's really sorry she got too high to drive. Jack says this is all his fault anyway, because he totally snapped and screamed at Bobby. Jack is totally the only adult in this family, by the way He probably faked his own death to get away from these people. Also, I hate Grace. I had to put that in there. I hadn't said it in several pages. "He's so irritating, but he's so..." Jack begins. "He's so good," Grace sighs. Yes. So we have heard. He doesn't appear particularly, unusually good to me, though. Shouldn't he at least be rescuing kittens from fires or something? "It's hard to raise someone who's a better person than you are. Thank your lucky stars you only had to learn that lesson once. I had to learn it twice," she tells him. Jack looks over her, amazed that she just told him that Bobby is better than he. Oh, Grace. Shut up.
Talking Head Senator from the boring, boring FUTURE. He says he offered Bobby a Vice-Presidential position on his ticket, even though it was regional suicide. And despite the fact that we learned last week that the position had basically ceased to exist. ["And despite the fact that Senator John Heard told us at the top of the show that he and Bobby were both Missourians, and you can't have both candidates on a ticket from the same state, which even I know, and I am Canadian." -- Wing Chun] "And he said, 'I'll get back to you,'" the Senator chuckles. "Worse decision I ever made. And the last one that ever mattered." You guys? Bad news. Apparently, in the future, we're all going to be talking in pretentious sound bites.
Up in Courtney's bedroom, Courtney's future husband tells her she needs to date his older brother. Because Jack is totally cool and really self-sacrificing and always takes out the trash! Courtney makes this face like she's thinking about how she does really hate to take out the trash. "Jack is really cool. I just don't think it's that simple," Courtney explains. She likes Jack and all, but she doesn't want to date anyone. "My mom died last year and ever since then, it's like nothing really seems all that great anymore," she says sadly. Bobby tells her that his dad left them. "Do you miss your mom?" he asks. "Yeah, every day," Courtney says, her voice breaking. Poor toothy kid. "I miss my tattoo," Bobby tells her. What? Oh, he misses his Dad, too. "Which is weird, because I never met him. So you must really miss your mom." Well, that was rather thoughtful of him. There's a knock at the door: it's Peter, who tells Bobby that his family is downstairs.
Bobby heads downstairs to find Jack waiting for him. Jack is like, way to go. "Is she gonna kill me?" Bobby asks, looking at Grace, who is loitering by the car, trying to make herself smell less like pot. "Not unless she hugs you to death," Jack tells him. "Are you gonna kill me?" Bobby asks. "Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow," Jack smiles, and sends Bobbyoff to the car. Grace hugs Bobby, hard. Sweet moment. Maybe you should stop smoking so much weed, lady. Courtney comes down and talks to Jack for a quick sec. He apologizes for putting the moves on her the other night. "That was lame. You were right," he says. Courtney shakes her head and tells him she'd like to be "there," but she can't. Not yet. Because of Her Dead/Insane Mom. "Maybe if you give me a little time. I'm not saying you should wait for me or anything," Courtney offers. But Jack says "it's cool. I'll be around." They smile at each other, and he joins his family in a group hug. Nice. Whatever. I hate two-thirds of that family anyway.
FUTURE Courtney: "It'd been a while since Bobby suffered a loss like that. But if you thought that it would weaken his resolve, you didn't know my husband. For a day or two, he was defeated, but then..." Then, he started getting letters from the people. The people love Bobby! We all love Bobby! Love Bobby! Love him! "That's how the movement began. That's the irony. The Republican party tried to stamp him out, and in so doing, they created him." You know what? I kinda like this old broad. I still don't buy her as Courtney at all -- physically, they are too way different, including different colored eyes. But she seems sassy. And I appreciate a little sass.
Oh, God. I forgot about the stupid Moonlight Address. Anyway, Grace gives this long, "stirring" speech to the assembled, in what is like Christine Lahti's fortieth monologue in this two-episode-long series. "You will fail here. All of you. College is not the culmination of your high-school career; it is the beginning of your adult life. Only it's a slow, sweet beginning that blah blah blah blah blah blah four-line rule." Peter Benedict looks moved, while I get up and go into the kitchen and slaughter a cow and grind the beef and grill a hamburger. When I come back, she's still talking about how failure shapes you and bliddey blahdey Chicken Soup For the Freshman Soul. "Embrace the new person you're becoming," she says, after about twenty more minutes of monologue. "This is your moment. I promise you it is now. Now! Now! Not two minutes from now, not tomorrow, but REALLY NOW." Then she breaks into "A Moment Like This" from the first season of American Idol and I'm a bit embarrassed for everyone concerned, especially Christine Lahti, but even for myself. "Own that! Know it!" Grace continues, sobbing at the power of her own fucking speech. "Have a Little Faith In Me" swells in the background. Jack and Bobby and the extras try to look moved.
Senator from THE FUTURE. So, if anyone cares, Bobby became an independent. "I guess this was his way of turning me down," the Senator says, adding that Bobby just caught on fire with the public and totally kicked his ass. And "Have A Little Faith In Me" was his theme song. And, verily, it was good: "That's a heck of a campaign song. And McCallister won it, then and there. He won it in that very moment." Well. That's great. I couldn't be happier for him.
Meanwhile, in the present, the family makes cookies. Or maybe they're pot brownies. I don't know.