Previously: Elispa is smitten with a guy big on distressed leather. Despite their buses passing in the day, they remain ships passing in the night. Jill resolves to ask Jack out, but reconsiders when he finds her applying her tongue to Anchormatt's tonsils. Later, Jack tells Jill that she and Matt are "pretty serious," and he counters with news of his impending date with Allison, Esquire. Jill's eyebrows face off against Jack's eyebrows in a duel to see which ones can most closely approximate French accent marks.
The camera gazes at Jack from the depths of a washing machine. Her hair, which she has apparently styled with a salad spinner, is badly in need of a dryer sheet. While loading her lacy unmentionables into the machine, she is interrupted by Jill, who leans suavely on an adjacent washer. She scolds him for sneaking up on her and he says, "I know. But I could say the same to you," then launches into a soliloquy on how before she moved into the building he thought he was happy and in love -- until he heard the strains of her siren song -- which, as we later discover, was written by Queen. Need I say more? Jack says, "I am more than happy to discuss your apparent identity crisis or whatever, but you'll have to be a little more specific." Jill scraps specificity for soul-smooching, hoisting Jack on the dryers for the PG-13 clinch we all saw on the previews. Jack helps him strip off her purple gauze shirt to reveal a dazzling white under-wire Wonderbra. She says, "Finally! Because like for so long I've been --" but Jill muffles her babble with his lips. Jack then reclines erogenously with her head over a washer opening, perhaps to investigate the hair-styling potential of the spin cycle. Cut to a blindingly bright scene of pale white folks lying in sunlight under ecru linens. Jack has just thwacked Anchormatt during her steamy Jill-centric dream sequence. It dawns on me that even in her dreams, she's annoying. With bad hair. And ugly clothes. But I digress. "Bad dream?" asks Anchormatt, who, unclothed, still looks like the Arrow Shirt Man. Jack withdraws her hand from his chest as the full import of the dream sequence sinks in. "Could it be," she seems to be thinking, as she stares ceiling-ward in her black negligee, "that I'm attracted to the man with whom I trade combative wisecracks on a daily basis, a man who, though devilishly handsome and physically proximal at all times, is unattainable due to certain established -- though serially resolvable -- obstacles? Because if so, this is a circumstance unheard of in all of film and television history, not to mention the romantic comedy genre from Ernst Lubitsch to Howard Hawks to Nora Ephron. No, I simply can't believe it." Roll credits. As manimal noted, Justin Kirk inexplicably appears in a wife-beater and boxer shorts. Jack collapses on a bed of teddy bears with Jill. But sadly, he won't be springing for her feminine protection unless she cures those frizzies with Finesse.
Still under the spell of her dream, Jack gazes out the window of Cloudia's Café. Elispa flounces in and offers a penny -- or more -- for her thoughts. Jack claims she's thinking of her laundry, but the anvil-bludgeoned audience knows better. Elispa prattles on about a new scheme for snagging Mr. E while Jack fails to point out that a cruller has gotten caught in her partial updo. None the wiser, Elispa confides that she's thinking of placing an ad in The Village Voice personals section. Jack reads a couple of uproarious, acronym-fraught examples and concludes, "These people are not normal. What does YPG mean?" I believe it means "You're a Post-operative transsexual masquerading as a Girl." At any rate, Elispa flips to the Voice "Bulletin Board" and reads a random posting with hyperbolic enthusiasm. Launching into the second example, addressed to "the curly-haired blonde on the corner of Thompson and Bleecker," Elispa bubbles to the end of the passage -- an invitation to "meet me where this whole thing started tomorrow night at 9" -- before realizing that a plot device has arrived by Express Mail with her name on it. She and Jack erupt in an aria of ear-splitting shrieks. The sassy punk barrista boy (Cloudia, I presume) drolly asks, "Must we squeal?" But the girls keep right on screaming, forwarding the show's thesis that women are excitable ninnies whose whole lives revolve around catching men.
After a blistering bout of tantric sex that thankfully occurred off-camera, Barto puts his pants on -- but not before we get another gratuitous, uncalled-for shot of his boxers. Evidently Justin Kirk's career is sponsored by Jockey -- and it shows. Ferret-Face lies dormant in her burrow. Sensing movement, she asks Barto what time it is. "Noon," he says, slipping under the cedar shavings for another sick-making snuggle-fest, though he claims he has "anatomy lab in twenty-five minutes." Isn't that a little redundant at this point, Dr. Deepak Grope-ra? And don't you need a veterinary degree to study that kind of anatomy? I'm just asking. Ferret-Face coos that she "only [needs] half that," proving that she is approximately 1/35th the woman Trudie Styler is. "Where did you come from?" Barto asks, though he could just as easily check her tag. "Downstairs," she responds, going at him like a dental drill. Barto disentangles himself for class and Audrey asks if they still have plans for the night. "I got [sic] study group," Barto says, somewhat furtively. Just after he leaves, the phone rings and the answering machine picks up, revealing that Barto's parents have invited him to dinner plus one, "but Constance is still waiting to see how many people to set for." Ferret-Face scurries to the phone in the patented sex-kitten uniform of a man's unbuttoned oxford, her pointy little features contorted with astonishment. Back at the Habitrail Hideout, Ferret-Face is grousing about Barto's non-invitation while Jack folds laundry and Elispa tries on clothes for her Mystery Date. "He obviously doesn't want me to meet his parents," she says. Our ferret friend had better wake up and smell the bitter brew that it's the rare man who's eager to confront his parents with news of his interspecies love connection. Jack feebly defends Barto before admitting that it "doesn't look good." Elispa flounces into the room holding a black strapless something-or-other and asks, "Can I pull this off? I mean, what kind of pants would you wear with this?" Ferret says, "Okay, it's a dress," in a double-duh tone of voice. Shocked, Elispa goes back to the drawing board. Seeing as her current costume includes a scoop-necked leotard, orange crocheted sweater and military fatigues, we can safely assume that sartorial success will not be hers tonight. Jack suggests that Ferret-Face just ask Barto about the dinner, but FF objects that "that would just put him on the spot, and he obviously doesn't think we're at the point yet where we should meet each other's parents." Elispa returns in her turbo-frump get-up and asks with manic intensity, "Should I look like I tried, or like I didn't try?" FF emerges from behind the breakfast bar and says, "You're getting ready to meet a man who places personal ads -- I think it's a sure thing." They all chuckle at her witticism and proceed to the living room for a Folger's moment. Except they're drinking tea, which annoys me, because if I'm going to vicariously enjoy televised beverage consumption, I'd like it to be heavily caffeinated or toxically alcoholic. At least for the purpose at hand. Ferret-Face, resplendent in a lycra top depicting a sand sculpture of Vishnu, stares moodily into her mug of herbal whatever. "Why aren't we at that point yet? I mean, why shouldn't I meet his parents?" Okay, addendum to the first part: because you're a ferret and their building has a no-pet policy. Don't make me tell you again.
Cut to Barto in the Bachelor Barn. His choppily applied shaving lotion makes him look like a cut-rate department store Santa. "Because I feel like I should spare her," he explains to Mikey, who is pumping iron, and Jill, who is gathering his laundry. "He's right," Mikey says. "I've experienced the Zane disapproval factor." "But you were seven," Jill protests, and Mikey says, "I was the financial aid kid at the fancy private school." While I list all the fancy private schools in New York that would give financial aid to a dullard like Mikey -- on the fingers of no hands -- Barto says, "Aw, they didn't even know that then, they just thought you were weird." "Oh yeah -- the poodle thing," Mikey responds, cryptically. Jill looks momentarily disturbed. "In the eyes of Dr. and Mrs. Zane," Mikey pronounces, "Some things just don't mix: religion and politics, martinis and hot dogs, precious sons in med school and blonde shiksa-dancers . . ." This seems to be a clever expository ruse to inform us that Barto's family is Jewish, though when they later appear they are the WASPiest TV WASPs since Mr. and Mrs. Howell on Gilligan's Island. Perhaps the producers thought mentioning Judaism in passing might defray the affirmative-action suits they're facing for having the honkiest show on television. Barto concludes that bringing FF home would be comparable to "leading a lamb to slaughter." Jill reminds Barto that "Audrey is pretty damn tough," and suggests that he let her make her own decision. I'd like to add that if slaughter is a viable concern, Barto could just keep Audrey in her carrier. But I guess they could still jab her through the breathing holes with a variety of small sticks. Barto runs out just as Mikey moves on to The Pectoralizer. Jill asks about "the poodle thing," but Mikey isn't telling. The clear implication is that Mikey had a yen for bestiality in his youth -- isn't that a gas? That irrepressible scamp! He's not just a dolt, he's a perv too! Barto and Audrey collide on the stairs and she blurts out that she heard his mother's message. "If you don't want me to meet your parents, that's fine. Just don't lie to me about it," she says. Barto spins a Gordian knot, saying she'd have to meet them in order to understand why he doesn't want her to meet them. "They're your parents. Of course I want to meet them," the ferret volleys. Barto buckles and invites her to the dinner, causing her to bear her pointy teeth and bark, "Pick me up in thirty!"
Even though she spent her whole last scene folding laundry, Jack is back in the laundry room. And what do you know, it's Jill, her friendly neighbor from upstairs. "Laundry on a Saturday night?" he says, and Jack officiously says, "Laundry and then Matt. I always do my laundry on Saturday because Sundays are way too busy in here and I like everything to be clean for the week." Monica Geller, anyone? Minus the ratings and any comedic timing? I think so. Jill accuses Jack of having "a little phys-ed teacher inside her brain with a clipboard and a whistle." He launches into an exegesis on his laundry habits, which involve waiting until everything's dirty and he has a date with Allison. Jack, mesmerized by Jill's sudden resemblance to foxy, testosterone-addled Dream Sequence Jill, says, "Oh, my God." She then refuses to tell Jill what she was thinking and he says, "You were definitely thinking something. It was a humdinger, too." A humdinger? Clearly these writers have their fingers on the beating pulse of today's street slang. Either that, or Jill took ESL classes from Barney Fife. Jack coquettishly slaps Jill with a pair of her dirty pants, and he looks like he likes it.
Barto and the eternally French-braided Ferret-Face sit in the back of a cab. "So wow, we're really going to do this whole parent thing, huh?" FF says, throwing her arm around a squeamish-looking Barto. Meanwhile, Jill stuffs clean laundry into a bag while Jack looks on in horror. She exhorts him to fold it or "it'll cool all wrinkled." Apparently the gym teacher in her head has a time-share with Mrs. Tiggy Winkle. Jack drops a quarter and chases it across the floor, shutting the laundry room door in the process. Jill walks over and they regard the sign that says, "Caution: riotous shenanigans ahead." On closer examination, it says, "Do NOT close door. Handle needs repair." Jill reaches for the handle, which comes off in his hand. Jack starts screeching like an early victim in a slasher film, forwarding the show's thesis that women are hysterical sissies who panic at the slightest provocation. "Help! We're stuck in the laundry room," she shouts at the door. "Which is only now beginning to scare me," Jill says, looking justifiably alarmed.
Cut to Elispa, walking the streets in a coat she has woven out of walrus-hide. She approaches the corner of Nowhere Near Thompson and Bleecker, only to find a gaggle of poodle-permed blondes milling around checking their watches. "God, what am I doing?" she says, shocked that she's not the only delusional sap in a city of thousands. In a further instance of gritty urban realism, she holds up her arm for a cab and one instantly materializes. She gets in and the driver turns around. "So where to?" he asks, removing his knit hat. Cabbie and fare stare raptly at each other. Oh, and by the way, the driver is Mister E. "I'm Jonathan," he says. "I'm Elisa." They are able to speak freely, because unlike just about every cab in New York City, there is no bullet-proof shield between the front and back seats. Mister E says his shift is over, but asks whether she'd like to accompany him to his other job. "Sure," lisps Elispa, baring her gums.
More knee-slapping monkeyshines with Jack 'n' Jill. She makes futile, girly efforts to budge the door while he smirks in the background; he takes out his cell-phone and it dies as he's dialing; they have a charged conversation about cell-phone charging, wherein it's revealed that Jack always keeps hers fully charged, but just when she needs it most, it's in the charger, hardy-har-har.
Across town, Barto and Ferret-Face emerge from their cab to be greeted by a gold-tasseled doorman named Jimmy, who calls Barto "Junior" and says, "When one door closes, another one opens." Barto rolls his eyes and says, "Jimmy's been telling the same joke my whole life." Naturally, Jimmy hangs on his every word, because all doormen and elevator operators in Manhattan live to be patronized by the trust-fund progeny of their buildings' snooty inhabitants. When they get off the elevator, Ferret-Face is amazed to discover that there is only one apartment to each floor. I in turn am amazed that she has chosen a skintight, midriff-baring top and a flare-sleeved, fur-collared coat as suitable parent-meeting attire. They ascend the lavish staircase to the strains of classical music. Barto's parents appear and tell FF to call them "Jonas and Louise." She says she has the same Degas print they do, and Louise says, "Actually, that's the original." Reeking of self-congratulatory smugness, they usher the chastened ferret into the dining room.>Another superfluous laundry room scene. Jill really looks like a man in need of laundry in his orange jersey and gray Wrangler cords. He stands on the dryers, banging on the overhead pipes. Jack continues to panic, mewling, "What if no one comes? We could starve. Or dehydrate. Or freeze to death." "Or we could just skip all that and kill ourselves," says Jill, and I wait in vain for them to serve up the Jonestown Punch.
Meanwhile, Elispa follows Mr. E into his other workplace, which is a crunchy alterna-café of some kind. Ferret-Face stabs disconsolately at a mesclun salad while Barto's parents grill her on her background, managing to mention their distaste for The New York Post and their season tickets to the Met and New York Ballet in the process. Back at the coffeehouse, Mr. E takes the stage and morphs into a folk soul brother, mumbling a mournful ballad about "learning how to begin again." This guy's demo must be in circulation on the East Coast, because the same song surfaced on Dawson's Creek this week. Cross-cuts between Elispa's limpid eyes and Mr. E's tricky chord changes. Jack, having screamed herself hoarse, slumps in a naugahyde chair while Jill retrieves items from the snack machine. He introduces their dinner options in a British butler's voice : "I do suggest that we start with the Corn Nuts for salad. We shall then move on for the main course to Snicker's. With a Frito garnish. But the big question: is this a white or red soda meal, madam?" The marginally amusing moment is ruined when Jack snaps into Donner party mode, insisting that they ration the Fritos and parceling them out one by one. "This isn't 'Nam," Jill says, making me wonder if someone from a slightly better show commandeered the TelePrompTer to write his lines for this scene. They have a back-and-forth about how worried their respective dates must be. Jack wistfully mentions her foiled "reservations at Brio's." Jill says he "hates reservations," preferring to "play it by ear." He chides Jack for being anal, suggesting that she "let the unexpected happen." "You just don't understand me," she says and Jill says, "It would be really boring if I ever did." Actually, fellas, I've been paying attention, and it's really boring any way you spin it. Get together, don't get together, it's all just so much Caroline in the City to me. But carry on, by all means. And pardon me while I refill my Nembutol IV.
Barto's parents conduct a routine evisceration of Ferret-Face, reaching into their kit bag of classist mind games and pulling out: a casual mention of some tri-lingual debutante who used to attend Dalton with Barto; a derisive interrogation on FF's questionable origins; and an implication that FF is high if she thinks she has a future in the arts. Status-crazed "Call me Louise" points out that "after Radcliffe," she knew "the arts weren't for me, much too risky." Ferret-Face, Lord of the Dance that she is, feels that "if you're passionate about something," et cetera and so on. Louise persists, asking what FF will do when she's washed up as a dancer. FF guzzles the fine Chateau-Neuf-du-Pape and says, "Well, actually, I thought I'd snag a young medical student and get him to marry me before he realizes what a lowbrow loser I am." J'accuse much? Barto smolders inscrutably, and "Jonas" squirms palpably.
Too bad you can't go to a rave these days without some joker tossing a Hyundai into the mosh pit. I for one just don't have the spine to go out anymore.
Elispa walks into her apartment with Mister E and removes her coat, the better to reveal the bib she is wearing in lieu of a blouse. She dorkily asks if he wants something "to eat, or drink!" prompting Mr. E (or Jonathan, if you prefer) to ask, "Do I make you horny, baby?" But the closed-captioning claims he just says, "Do I make you nervous?" She replies in the affirmative and he says, "I don't mean to." "It was just -- the thong," she continues, and for a second I think we've missed a Skinemax interlude before I realize this is Elispese for "song." Jonathan hands her a line about the song being written for her, then jokes, "No, wait, it was for another girl I bumped into on the street who I haven't stopped thinking about since." Elispa gestures randomly and giggles, admitting, "This is weird -- I don't know what this is." If she's referring to her top, I think I can definitively say that it is a black chiffon lobster bib. Anything to help out. Charmed by her girlish dithering, Mr. E crosses the room for some face-touching and lite smooching, but forget about foreplay, because Elispa abruptly leads him to her frilly floral boudoir. This rash move prompts me to notice the TV PG D advisory in the corner and wonder, "Is this material suitable viewing for my dog?" The dog doesn't let on that she's seen anything, but the day I notice her giving it away at the dog-park.
Aerial shot of Jack swaddled in quilts on the dryers. Jill dozes behind a makeshift partition on the naugahyde chair. I'm reminded of my friend Ema's insistence that naugahyde is a fiber composed of dead naugies. Jack says she can't sleep; Jill offers a "bedtime story," then launches into a yarn about some sexcapade from his past. Jack deters him in favor of the slumber party favorite, Truth or Dare. I settle in for the inevitable progression toward S'Mores, Twister, and Spin the Bottle, along with the hasty resolution of the tedious "will they or won't they" plot. Jack picks "truth" and Jill asks, "How did you lose your virginity?" "I had sex!" says laugh-a-minute Jack, guffawing at her own witticism. Jill offers the tale of his own deflowering at the hands of "Debbie Halen," an arts-and-crafts counselor, at summer camp when he was seventeen. "I took her on a canoe to see the constellations," he explains, and I'm guessing that this fumbling teen seduction on an unstable canoe probably ended much like Chappaquiddick. Conforming to the established theme of Jack as the Felix to Jill's Oscar, Jack's First Time Story is characterized by extensive planning, contraception way in advance, and reservations on prom night at a "very romantic hotel." Free-wheeling "play it as it lays" Jill asks, "Have you ever done anything that you didn't have to wash, fold, discuss, ration, or reserve ahead of time? Have you ever done anything spontaneous? In your whole life?" Wimpy crybaby Jack asks, "What was that noise?" and leaps shrieking onto Jill when he suggests it's a "giant rat." Jill commends her on her sudden spontaneity and they lie down back to back on the chair after one last cursory "eek" from Jack.
Ferret-Face scuttles along the eternally Christmas-lit streets of the Jack & Jill sound stage. Oh, and Barto's there, too. They have a spat about whether FF's antics with Barto's parents were justified. Turns out Ferret is at peace with Jonas and Louise; it's Barto's non-engagement policy that's at issue. "I don't know who that was sitting to me at dinner tonight," she says, and I'd just like to note that he was in fact sitting across from her, but what's one more dropped ball to a team with nothing on the board? She goes on, "I mean the strong, outspoken guy that I fell for suddenly had nothing to say, and no idea how to stand up for himself or anyone else." Hello, excuse me? Hi. Would it be too much to ask for the writers to occasionally watch the show? Because unless it's in the NC-17 scenes that remained on the cutting room floor, Barto registers somewhere below oysters on the "outspokenness" scale. Thanks for listening. Carry on. "Believe it or not, I can accept your parents," Ferret drones, "But I don't accept that guy. And I don't care what your parents think about me. I care what you think about me. I don't even know why you brought me." Um, because you forced him to? Barto suffers this lecture with a very stoned look on his face, and shows no alteration of expression when Ferret storms into the building without him. He looks glumly about the dry-ice befogged streets, wondering where he can get more weed at this time of night.
Cut to the skyline of some generic metropolis. Portentous anthemic power pop blares as Barto walks the streets in a tight neoprene shirt and determined expression. "I was born a fortunate son," the soundtrack whines on his behalf, "Mother gave me all the fear and attention." Ferret trudges blearily down the hall of the Habitrail Hideout toward a whistling kettle, then notices the blinking message light. It's Anchormatt, checking in to say he's "officially worried" about Jack. Ferret wrinkles her needle-nose in dismay, while unbeknownst to her, Jack and Jill lie entwined, his-'n'-hers Converse All-Stars and all, several floors below. And wouldn't you know, Jack has turned to face Jill "in her sleep" and gotten her hand stuck inside the collar of his t-shirt. She seems predictably alarmed, as the soundtrack booms, "I've got the soul-search hunger. You've got the deep heart desire, but we try to deny we were perfect from the start . . ." Hey, if by "perfect" you mean "lame-ass," this song could be about the show's eponymous duo! Against all expectation, Jill rolls over and embraces Jack "in his sleep" just as she makes efforts to extricate herself. Even more shockingly, she gets up anyway, pausing to cover him tenderly with a towel! The soundtrack informs us that "there is no hiding... from the world inside," as Jill looks up at Jack's retreating figure with a sly grin on his face. Across town, Elispa "Why Would He Buy The Cow When He Can Get The Milk For Free" Cronkite wakes up to an empty bed in her Laura Ashley Hideaway. I look over and see my dog sniffing the ass of a mutt I've never seen before. Elispa attempts to smother herself with a floral pillow while I ponder the mystery of how my dog buzzed this other dog in without a footstool and opposable thumbs.
Warning: the following scene contains instances of such insufferable acting and dialogue that it will wear down the resolve of Simon Rex's biggest fan. Stoosh, I'm talking to you. Turn back here or prepare to forsake Mikey forever. Mikey tosses a Nerf football to Barto, expressing incredulity that Ferret told off Mr. and Mrs. Barto. Barto smirkingly says, "Yep," then gravely adds, "I never should have brought her. It was a big mistake." Always there in the clutch, Mikey says, "Listen, bro, you're looking at this the wrong way. You've got to think of last night as if it were a lemon drop. You put one in your mouth, it's way too sour, your face gets all [puckers face] and it's totally wrong? But if you keep sucking, eventually you'll get to the good stuff . . ." When you think about it, that last sentence could be the subtitle to Simon Rex's unauthorized biography. Barto absorbs this torrent of non-sequiturs with a look of grave concentration on his face. Clearly, Mikey is his relationship sensei. But wait, Mikey's still making noises that sound like human speech! "You've just got to get to what was sweet and lemony about last night!" he says. And you, I say telepathically to Simon Rex, have just got to get yourself an agent who doesn't loathe you. Ferret-Face storms in, and Mikey throws her a surprise pass with the Nerf ball. An opiated look comes over Barto's face and he says, "Hey." Ferret reveals that Jack went to do her laundry last night and never came back. Acting out the animus of Agentus Rex, she punctuates this sentence by nailing Mikey in the stomach with the football. Now that Barto thinks of it, Jill isn't around either, despite numerous messages from Allison. The three chums look at each other with varying degrees of dumbfoundedness, but Mikey only succeeds in looking dumb.
Jill retrieves garden tools from the storage area, the better to bang on the pipes some more. Jack joins him and their banging suddenly conforms to the bass line of "We Will Rock You." Jill starts singing the lyrics and Jack chimes in, adding percussive sounds such as "chicka chicka unh," and somewhere in England, Freddie Mercury rises from the dead so he can kill himself. After quite some time, they taper off and make "I don't know you" faces. Jack sits on the dryers and employs a cute wittle voice to tell Jill, "Thank you." So cute is it, in fact, that I start stockpiling fertilizer to build a bomb to blow up the world just because she's in it. "For what?" asks Jill, blatantly smitten with her puerile antics. "I dunno," whispers Kewpie, and Jill says, "You're welcome." But she goes on, asking Jill if he thinks "things would have turned out differently" if they'd met "sooner -- or later?" Just as Jill considers the question, there's a knock at the door. The ferret has followed her nose to the basement, and Jack shrieks at her through the door. Ferret informs her that Matt is "worried sick" and Jack tells her to call him while Barto summons the super. Not to be outdone, Jill tells FF to tell Barto to call Allison. While FF busies herself with this task, Jill says, "Well, looks like we're not gonna starve or dehydrate or be organized to death by Jack Barrett." She says he didn't answer her question and he says, "Well. You didn't ask it at a good time, did ya?" They stare urgently into each other's eyes until the scene mercifully ends.
I'm all for Wessonality, but Summer Sanders be damned -- I just don't want hot oil in my HAIR! Is that so wrong? Am I a freak that you should mock me? Perhaps I can defuse your ill wishes with some Certs. After all, it's the naked man's freshmaker.
Jack hurries to the door in a rhinestone-studded vermilion dashiki. Anchormatt is slumped against the doorjamb in a zircon-encrusted muu-muu and mink turban. But perhaps that was the absinthe talking, because when I look again, he has on a gray London Fog trenchcoat and a rollneck sweater in muted tones. He calls Jack "my little captive," and they stagger around embracing in a manner that might be cute if it weren't so utterly repulsive. Anchormatt asks, "Was it scary?" and Jack says that Jill was there so at least she wasn't alone. Nonplused by this information, Anchormatt suggests that they spend the rest of the day "outside in the park." Jack circumflexes her eyebrows and baby-whispers, "Cool." He mentions their reservations at "Lena's" and Jack says, "Oh, great," executing a plié of infantile excitement. As I speed-dial Dr. Kevorkian to ask if he makes house calls, Jack reflexively announces her plan to pack a bag for the day, then remembers Jill's lesson and resolves to be spontaneous. Anchormatt supports her decision, causing her to leap impetuously into his arms. From this point forward, I feel compelled to watch the show through a rifle sight.
Elispa pours out her troubles to Mikey, whose role in @bar must be structural, or else he would move occasionally. "I schlept with a total shtranger," confides Elispa. "I must have been inschane!" Mikey props her up by saying that she knows Jonathan's first name, so he isn't technically a stranger. Quoth Elispa: "Well, I know it's crazy. But I can't explain it. It's the whole mystery thing. Him showing up in the cab, the way he sang to me -- it was like this hyper-reality. And I guess I convinced myself that something like that can happen and still mean something." Mikey says, "We've all done it, Elispa. Even without the song. We're horny. We're lonely. Mostly, I think we're optimistic." Clearly our simian friend has been dipping into the Lao-Tse again. Or the oeuvre of the guy who wrote Booty Call -- I always get those two confused. At any rate, he speaks the truth. Because Mikey knows from relationships, even though the closest relationship he's had in this show has been with a bar rag. "He didn't even say goodbye," says Elispa. Mikey gives a look that says he suffers for the sins of mankind. "I feel like such a fool," she adds, and Mikey answers, "I don't know anyone who's less of a fool than you." "Thanks for saying that," she says dismissively, and heads for the door in her black velvet Johnny Cash get-up. Mikey nods as she leaves, then says with a rueful head-shake, "I'm not just saying it." I don't know about you, but I think he likes her -- hey Mikey!
Ferret opens the door to Barto in more of his slate-gray Structure-wear. The French-braid elves have had their way with her again, and she wears a midriff-bearing wrap top over harem sweatpants. Barto tells her she was right about who he is with his parents. "You did something at dinner that I stopped doing years ago," he says. Unfortunately for his character's credibility, he goes on: "You called them on it -- the subtle posturing, the maneuvering, the criticism -- and you rose above it and hung there in the sky like the Goodyear Blimp -- and it was awesome." "And it was awesome" -- isn't that from the Old Testament? Ferret-Face looks shyly pleased to be compared to a commercial dirigible. She asks Barto why he doesn't challenge his parents anymore. "Because it always leads to . . . because I've given up, I guess. Because that's who they are." FF points out that Jonas and Louise pay his med-school tuition, and Barto says, "There's that." She says she's forgiven his parents, but expects more of him. He caves to all accusations and explains, "I wasn't worried about how you'd like them, I was totally worried about how they'd like you and I didn't want you to come because I never wanted them to like someone so much in my whole life." Feisty Ferret says, "I'll win them over. Let me at 'em," and Barto, looking like he just took a huge bong hit off-camera, leans in for the inevitable make-up kiss.
Jack and Anchormatt hail a cab, which in this cinema verité masterpiece stops even though its "off duty" light is lit. I can tell by the look on Jack's face that this scene is going to give me an itchy problem rash. And in no way am I disappointed. The badly mustachioed driver asks where they're going, prompting Jack to rattle off the following information: "We don't know. We're just winging it. Flying by the seat of our pants." And with those two statements, the cliché index for this episode becomes hazardous. But listen: she's still talking. "We were going to go to Central Park but we ended up going to the Guggenheim, and we were going to spend the whole day there but then we got in the mood for the Strand, and now we're thinking Thai, but we could end up doing Italian! We just have no idea!" For the love of all that is sacred, will you please. Just. Shut UP. During this interminable monologue, Jack looks delighted with herself, Anchormatt looks enthralled, and the driver scans his phrasebook for the sentence, "I asked for a destination, not an autobiography, you prattling slag." "I know," says Jack, "What's your name?" as I perk up in ghoulish fascination to learn how she'll annoy me . The driver says his name is Yuri, which is also the name of a Russian dwarf hamster I had my freshman year of college. But this coincidence doesn't stop Jack from saying, "Okay, Yuri. You decide. It's your call." Yuri mumbles something about "turistas" and heads Bronx-ward in search of a shallow grave to bury these suckers in. Or at least that's how it would go down on Law and Order, and any number of other bearable shows.
Jill, Allison, Christmas lights and dry ice. Jill chides Allison for not putting out an APB when he didn't show for their date. "For all I knew I was being stood up," she says, laughing nervously. "Oh yeah, the old 'stuck in the laundry room' story -- works every time," he jokes, but his impetuous humming of "We Will Rock You" tells us that, indeed, his thoughts are elsewhere. When Allison expresses her distaste for said anthem of J 'n' J's laundry-room adventure, two things happen: Jill ups the ante on the Eyebrow Olympics, going for a double-tilde, but achieving only an inverted breve; and Freddie Mercury exhumes himself yet again to spend some royalties on a stiff drink. Which I suppose is the only kind of drink the undead can have.
Elispa walks angrily toward the coffee-haus where Mr. E strummed her life with his words. She looks in the window and sees him conversing with a gaggle of sycophantic grungeniks. Sensing the laser-like beam of her wounded gaze upon him, he emerges from the café and they have a scintillating exchange wherein Elispa tries to establish that she's not a skanky ho, while Mr. E intimates that there's something terribly wrong with him. "I'm not someone that you walk out on," she says, as if that decision were up to her and not the person doing the walking. Bottom-feeder of platitudes that she is, Elispa snaps up the bait on his whole "don't touch me, I'm damaged" line. "Just out of curiosity," she says, "why don't I want to get involved with you?" "Because there's stuff -- aboot me," he falters, revealing that the first skeleton in his closet is an ill-concealed Canadian heritage. He then hums the chorus of "I'm not the person you're looking for" and deflects all her helpful suggestions about what he really means: "You're with someone?" No. "You have a fatal disease?" Nein. Possibilities he doesn't decline: lapsed priesthood, switch hitter, dead spouse, IV drug user, Witness Protection Program, and alien origins. Take your pick. I for one called it correctly in the forums, but you'll have to wait on manimal to tell all in the recap. But wait, Elispa is still talking, chiding Mr. E for not "sticking around [to find] out how horrible we both are." Now there's a dance of seduction as done by a master! He buys it, saying, "I'm not -- horrible." Elispa, resmitten, smiles gummily and Mr. E offers his full name: Jonathan Alter. "Elispa Cronkite," she says, and they shake hands while my dog checks the tags of her new squeeze, a dissipated spaniel whose issues include abandonment anxiety and fear of commitment.
Cut to a close-up of The New York Times. Finally, things are starting to get interesting! But just as I've assembled my magnifying apparatus to read the articles on the front page, Jill folds the paper down to reveal Jack in a tank top tighter than a sausage casing. "I'm sorry to bother you, but do you have any sugar?" she says. "No, but I have mace," Jill fails to say, opting instead for, "Sugar, light-bulbs, paper clips, tweezers, blah blah blah -- we both know why you come here. I'm not saying I don't like it, okay, I'm just saying let's not pretend anymore." He gets up and moves toward her with alarming speed. "We're past that," he says, "I mean, we've been . . . to the laundry room. No turning back." Jack's eyebrows execute a quick grave and acute accent combo, but he's on her like naked on a nudist before the judges can make their decision. They're interrupted by a husky voice saying, "Luuuke, I am your faaaather," but I must be hearing things since the closed captioning says it's just Allison calling Jill's name. Dream Sequence Jill explains to Dream Sequence Jack that "it's Allison," causing real-time Allison to croak, "Well, who else would it be?" And if you didn't think Allison was spooky before, this scene will seal the deal for ya. Suffice it to say that she looks embalmed and sounds like an emphysematous Tom Waits. Jill squashes his puffy face into the pillow and his blank stare seems to say, "Could it be that I'm drawn to my sassy, ubiquitous neighbor, who's wrong for me in so many ways but in other ways so right? Because if so, I'm presented with a conundrum unexamined by any entertainment medium in the entirety of showbiz history!"