Previously: Jack and Jill stand in a greenhouse and have sex, which accounts for the WBhouse effect, a previously unexplained scientific phenomenon where terrible TV shows suck all the available oxygen out of a room; Mikey meets "his match" in Lucy, scary-eyed roommate of featherheaded Belinda. Belinda gives up Mikey so he and Lucy can get together.
Jack and Jill stroll down a sunny street in Make-Believe Manhattan, and Jack asks if Jill’s her boyfriend. He asks if she’s his girlfriend. They negotiate terms, which boil down to: toothbrush privileges at the Ferretorium, they get to eat off each other’s plates at dinner, and be affectionate in public for Jill; standing Saturday-night date (unless the Mets are playing), they speak once a day on the phone, and he has a picture of her in his room for Jack. They continue to "renegotiate" terms in ostensibly cutesy terms, and dicker over whether the picture of her has to be framed (I’d argue for soft-focus or up-close here, fella) -- otherwise, no toothbrush. Then, as they cross the street, in mid-traffic, Jill sweeps Jack into his arms and kisses her romantically, in a move that makes my otherwise cynical heart palpitate with romantic frissons. Also, it makes me gag.
Cue credits. Much romantic wailing.
Barto and La Ferretessa, Gack and Land-Fill are having an oh-so-cute-and-romantic dinner atop their roof. They’re all wearing parkas. They’re freezing. Audrey snaps, "Whose idea was this again? I’m freezing!" Jack, her amazing acting chops and visible star-power making those airwaves shimmer with charisma, coos, "We’re not freezing, We’re enjoying the night air." Barto sucks a strand of spaghetti while looking malevolently at Jack. In fact, he and the Ferret look like they’re both auditioning for an episode of When Animals Attack Crappy TV Stars! Jack continues, "We’re enjoying this, people!" Jill pipes in, "We can go in the greenhouse," while Barto slyly says, in his best deadpan, "Yeah. I heard it’s pretty hot in there." Ferret snickers behind one paw. Jack and Jill look affronted and shocked. The cleft in Ivan Sergei’s chin is big enough to float pool rafts in. Jack gets angry that Jill told Barto, while Jill tries to weasel his way out of it. Audrey wonders why it’s a big deal, since Jack told her. Jill asks, wounded, "You told Audrey?" and Jack says that’s different, since she tells Audrey everything -- not All Everything, but Some Everything, which of course means that they are swapping dick trivia about their erstwhile boyfriends constantly. Audrey spies some available prey on Barto’s plate that he pushes aside with a fork and says, "That’s for me," and then takes a shaving of what looks like Parmesan cheese off of it. Jack sees the exchange and says, "Oh, Barto, I’m so sorry, I forgot about your rubbery food thing." Barto turns to the Ferret and says, "J’accuse!" and slaps her across the face with a white glove, demanding satisfaction. Well, not really. What he does is say accusingly to Audrey, "You told her about my rubbery food thing?" Audrey says, "It came up." Barto asks how. Jill confides that it’s a genuine fear, but not as bad as Barto’s fear of escalators. The Ferret is astonished that he never told her, and Barto snipes, "Obviously, I didn’t need to."
Jack, having watched many a Friars’ Club Roast and well-read in Robert’s Rules of Order, taps on her wine glass with a fork. She then says they need rules. They all agree they need Intercouple Sharing rules, and Barto declares they need to be more respectful. Ferret and Barto’s eyebrows share a littlemoue of whatever. After a moment of silence, Jack asks, "So, Barto, is it scarier going up or going down?" and as someone who has had the same fear, I am now going to mentally slap Jack across the face with a white glove and demand satisfaction. The Ferret involuntarily laughs, and Jack whinnies at her own joke, opening her equine jaw and exposing her T-Rex-esque choppers, so much so that I expect the goddamned Millennium Falcon to fly out.
Close-up of Jill’s Pottery Barn alarm clock ringing. Jack and Jill are lying in bed. Jack turns off the alarm and hops out in a pair of raspberry-colored pajamas. Jill tells her God invented a snooze button for a reason. He then asks, "Weren’t you naked the last time I saw you?" but Jack tells him he fell asleep and she put on pajamas, since she doesn’t sleep naked, ever. Ever? asks Jill. Jack reconfirms. A nation sighs in relief, forever spared the sight of Jack and Jill doing their own version of The Crying Game. Jack asks what Jill is doing today. He lists all the stuff you never get to do when you’re working. Jack, in a fit of anal-retentive glee, lists off stuff she’d like to be doing: alphabetizing CDs, bleaching the sink, getting a physical, and getting all new socks. Jill makes a "what the fuck?" face, and Jack makes a "whoops, revealed too much of my neurotic-yet-lovable self too damned soon!" face. Jack accuses Jill of making fun of her in his head; he, with a big Sexomatic Eyebrow Curl, says he was actually doing something entirely different with her in his head. Yes. Probably putting her in a leather daddy outfit and renaming her Bruce. Anyway, Jill mimes reeling her in towards the bed. This show is officially consigned to hell for using a mime reference. Jack sets the timer on the clock, and a brief argument ensues about how dumb that is and how Jack can’t be late for work. They start making out.
Someone’s bare torso with the head cut off appears in the center of the frame. Yep, it’s Barto, who apparently has a "I must appear shirtless twenty times in each episode" clause in his contract so that his man-breasts can get as much exposure as possible. Barto hollers that he can’t find his sweatshirt. Audrey brings him her bathrobe so he won’t get cold while looking. Audrey is leaving early for the studio, but tells Barto she will call him later that afternoon. They kiss, she leaves, and Barto, wearing Audrey’s bathrobe with what I think is a duckie on the breast pocket, apparently is enjoying the softer side of Sears (tm Buffy) as he snuggles into it and says, "Hmm. Fuzzy."
Jill washes dishes in the Ferretorium’s kitchen sink. He spies a pair of rubber gloves and puts them on, just as Barto walks in. An awkward moment of "Hey! We’re two ultra-masculine straight stud types caught in an awkward moment of enjoying getting in touch with our feminine sides, but only because of our girlfriends" occurs. Then they make out. Juuuust kidding.
Lucy and Mikey sit on the kitchen counter of Lucy and Belinda’s apartment, discussing how chocolate chip pancakes are the best, since they’re a "scam on the parents," i.e., dessert masquerading as breakfast, clearly demonstrating the Seiko Phenomenon (tm Olivia Goldsmith), i.e. that using the same shampoo, wearing the same kind of watch, and liking the same movies do not constitute true love, although, hell, it’s probably all Mikey can do to breathe and walk simultaneously, so I shouldn’t be too rough on the guy for being taken in by superficial similarities. In this scene Simon Rex is also showing off his gym-sculpted man-breasts. Mikey asks Lucy what she looked like when she was little. "Oh, I was hot," she says, drolly, enormous alien-lantern eyes flashing with what is supposed to be whimsical humor. Mikey ducks his head and laughs, obviously charmed by her rapier wit. A cowlick raises itself on the side of his head. It looks like it’s trying to escape. "You are one funky bird," Mikey says. Lucy says, "Thank you," and they start to make out. Belinda walks in, spies them, and with an enormous, goony grin that emphasizes the avian-like configurations of her face, chirps, "Oooh! Don’t mind me, I’m getting some yogurt." Mikey asks if she needs a spoon, and she rolls her eyes and says, "Hello! It’s for my fa-aace!" Mikey and Lucy look at each other. Mikey says, "How about we go in your bedroom and close the door for a while?" Lucy says, "O-k-a-y," raising and lowering her eyebrows about three times with every overenunciated syllable. Wow, in its own weird way, that was pretty impressive.
Wearing a CoolMax bra and tiny braids, the Ferret brings in the noise AND the funk at the dance studio, but misses a grand j’ete or something like it. The dance instructor, looking like an extremely shoddy version of Isadora Duncan, hollers, "Who the hell let weasels in the studio?" Well, not really. She tells Audrey that if she’s not here to dance, to get off her floor space, and Audrey mutters apologies, then screws up again. She clears out while the Dance Nazi barks out more instructions.
Elispa, obeying an "Everybody in Orange" Gap commercial that only she heard, and Flack, wearing a lovely gray ruffled peasant blouse she stole from Stevie Nicks in her more subdued years, wander down the halls of Not Necessarily the Newsroom while Elispa bemoans the fact that she has rats in her apartment, and says she’s staying at Jonathan’s while he’s away for a week at a gig some friend got him in Philly, but she’s w-o-o-o-onely. Jack says, "So you’ll stay with me and Audrey!" and they do the "are you sure/no, it’ll be fine" mazurka until this obvious plot point has been driven home into the minds of the viewers with the subtlety of fingernails on a chalkboard. They both agree that it won’t be weird at all, even though Gack has just started boning down with Jill and Elispa used to do so. Oh, yeah.
@Bar. Mikey is telling Jill how much he and Lucy have in common, and that they "even use the same mousse!" while Jill says, "I didn’t even know you used mousse, and frankly, I was happier that way." Mikey confides that Lucy is taking him to a book party that night, which is a big step, since meeting the coworkers is sort of like meeting the parents, except "not so related." Mikey rhapsodizes some more about how he might even want to call her his girlfriend (although of course the big dip hasn’t asked her if she wants to be his girlfriend, a mere bagatelle, I’m sure), he doesn’t even want to leave after they’ve had sex, and that he’d even let her stay over at his place, "if I had a place," and Jill accurately discerns that Mikey hasn’t told "Ground Control to Major Lucy" that he lives at home with the ’rents. Mikey looks trepidatious and bluffs with, "It hasn’t come up yet."
The Ferret stops in a squat-and-gobble type store, where she loads up on an assortment of mismatched foods and eats out of a bag of Chee-tos. She then grabs a pregnancy kit and sets down her cart as she stuffs Chee-tos in her frighteningly puffy lips. In a clever move by the make-up department, the Chee-tos and her lipstick are in the same range of corally-orange. The Ferret composes herself as she walks down the hallway, then makes a visible effort to "look normal" as she enters the living room. Blech and Swill are sharing a plate of spaghetti. Jack urges Jill in her best kittenish manner to do the Lady and the Tramp thing with one of the noodles, but Jill says that while he likes her, that’s never gonna happen. Ferret looks properly horrified as she sits by Barto and Barto says, "Uch. Thank God." Jack sucks up her spaghetti noodle, and she and Jill kiss. Jack asks how Jill’s day went, and he describes a nice day of leisure: going to the gym, seeing two movies, and buying new socks. The Ferret, apparently possessed by Jill’s parents, asks if maybe he might want to think about getting a job. Jill says he’s not worried. Jack chirps perkily that she used to give herself a list of goals and deadlines when she was looking for a job, just to give structure to her week. Jill says that he does have goals, that he wants to see that new Bruce Willis movie before it leaves the theaters, which is sort of a back-handed attempt at WB synergy, because The Whole Nine Yards had barely been out in theaters for a week at that point, and implying that it’s gonna tank and be out of the theaters very soon is not super-complimentary to your equine costar. I’m just saying. Anyway, Jack offers her help in proofing Jill’s résumé and so on, but Jill flatly says, "No," lending a definite chill to the air. He mutters something about getting some CDs and leaves, as Barto looks uncomfortable and Jack looks abashed.
"Did I do something wrong?" Jack turns to Barto and Audrey. Barto says no, that Jill is just stressed. Jack says that Jill seems totally not stressed. Barto says that Jill’s in denial, and that it’s tough for guys, and that he doesn’t mean to be sexist in any way shape or form, Audrey says that’s "noted for the record," but then Barto places his misogynist foot in his oafish mouth by saying, "Guys tend to define themselves through their work," while Audrey says flatly, "And women don’t," in a tone that clearly signals Watch It, Buster. Barto tries to defend himself. Knock at the door. Elispa enters. Barto says that traditionally, men are the bread winners, and they want to be able to care for their families, and that it’s a "control thing." Ferret asks if that means he doesn’t want his wife to work. Barto says it’s not that he won’t want her too, but that he wants to make enough money so she doesn’t have to. He then admits that when he was young, he liked having his mom home when he came back from school, and implies that he would expect the same from his wife. Elispa then grunts like a Clan of the Cave Bear extra and pounds her chest. Jack laughs with an extreme heartiness that really is not in proportion to the funniness of the joke. Barto acknowledges Elispa’s rhetorical hit by going on to say that when he’s done hunting and skinning the bears, he wants to return to the cave to find his cave-chick barefoot, pregnant, and whipping up the best bear-stew in town. He then reaches over and grabs Audrey by the hips and sort of shakes her, as if he were a British nanny. Audrey looks distinctly unamused.
Pounding bad techno music. Mikey and Lucy wander through a fabulous book party straight out of a bad Bret Easton Ellis novel (as if there were any other kind). Lucy motions to the fellow in front of them and says, "That guy wrote an entire book about finding God through colonics." Mikey mutters that he doesn’t think God is in his colon. Lucy admonishes him to "be nice." They meet your standard parody of Le Artsy New Yorker, who wears a black turtleneck and yellow-tinted glasses. Or, he might have jaundice. Either one. "Stefan," Lucy says coyly, and does air-kisses. Lucy apparently got ahold of Sharon Stone’s hairdo from The Muse for this scene, and really, the hair holds its own against Angela Featherstone and Simon Rex both. Lucy introduces Mikey and Stefan. Stefan confides that he’s working on a biography of Abraham Von Byron, the man behind Still Life With Fishes, and Mikey says that the world does not know enough about that man -- or his fishes. Stefan does standard New York Queer drawl and says it was fabulous, and he and Lucy will talk. Lucy then informs Mikey that they’re done and can go back to his place. Mikey tries to throw her off, but she will not be thrown.
Jack and Elispa stand in the bathroom as Jack takes an industrial mop to her enormous Stonehenge teeth. Elispa asks if she and David had a fight, and that she can tell because Jack’s got that look on her face. Then she says, "Oh! I know! He disappeared on you, didn’t he?" and then outlines Jill’s behavior while Jack looks more and more perturbed. Which for Amanda Peet means she wrinkles her brow more, since "looking perturbed" would involve some cognition. Elispa then tells Jack that he’ll apologize even if he didn’t do anything, and that it’s one of his better qualities, and his reappearance is usually accompanied by a wide range of peace offerings, ranging from freshly picked flowers to Pop-Tarts. She then says, "I once got a carrot," and kicks over the bathroom trash can by mistake. Audrey’s preggers test falls out. Jack grabs the box, and she and Elispa have a rushed conversation consisting of prepositional phrases, in which they wonder if Audrey has confided in Barto, and whether they should look at the test or not. Jack dumps it (again). She waits until Elispa leaves the room and then rummages through the garbage to take a gander at the test. It’s negative. "Thank God," whispers Jack, but then a voice calls her out into the living room, and while she drops the pregnancy test in the trash can, she leaves the cardboard box propped on the toilet lid.
Lucy and Mikey wander up to Chez Jillefsky. As they open the door, there’s a biiiig close-up of Jill’s fanny on the ladder as he does something to the ceiling. Mikey then communicates to Jill via bugging eyes that he should scram so Mikey can continue to con Lucy into thinking that he’s an independent adult. As Lucy compliments him on the apartment, Mikey can no longer contain his guilt and confides that he’s doesn’t live there, he actually lives in Brooklyn with his parents. Lucy says, "Cool," as Mikey lists off various reasons why it still makes sense, then stops and says, "That doesn’t bother you?" and Lucy says, "I’m not like that, Mikey," convincing me that she is, no doubt, an alien being. So turned on by her total acceptance of his living status is Mikey that he hoists her onto the counter and they start making out, and all I gotta say is that Jill is one helluva friend to let Mikey, whom I’m sure carries enough new disease strains to qualify as a test tube for the CDC, do the freak-nasty on his kitchen counters.
Cut to Jack vacuuming as Jill walks up behind her. Jill says he’s sorry for disappearing on her. Jack says, "If you’re stressed about the job thing," but Jill interrupts and says he couldn’t be happier as Elispa makes up the couch behind them, unabashedly listening. Apparently making weird "O"s with her mouth is part of Elispa’s eavesdropping technique. Jill offers Jack a frosty can of product-placed Coke. Jack says, "Is that for me?" with a look of horror. Jill says, "It’s a peace offering. And a thirst-quencher!" "Thanks," mutters Jack. They both turn to see Elispa, who chirps, "Hi! I have rats." Jill looks freakified. "She has rats," Jack repeats. Jill gives her a fake grin. Elispa chirps, "’Night!"
Cut to Jack and Jill grinding on her bed. Why is Jack wearing pink in every boudoir scene? ALL RIGHT, she’s supposed to be a girl, we get it! Jack, mid-grope, hands Jill a strip of condoms. He stops and looks at them, stupefied, and says, "I only have one" (I’m still not sure whether I was amused or horrified by that line), and Jack says, "I was thinking we could layer," and "You can’t be too safe." Jill asks if something’s up. Jack says a coworker got pregnant, and that was enough to freak her out. Then Jill freaks out and asks if was Elispa or her. Jack breaks down and confides it was Audrey, and that Jill can’t say anything to Barto because Audrey doesn’t know she knows. Jill then says, "I’ll wear them all." But then Elispa knocks, enters, and asks where the extra towels are. Just as Dreck and Roadkill start conversing again, Elispa knocks, enters, and asks if it’s okay to watch TV. Jack, doing company manners proud, says, "Go right ahead!" Jill says, "Who needs condoms when you’ve got an ex-girlfriend sleeping on the couch?" and we can hear Elispa exclaim through the door, "Ohmigosh, my favorite movie!"
Barto eases his arm away from the sleeping Ferret very carefully and creeps into the bathroom. Once again, he is shirtless. As he raises the toilet seat, he catches sight of the First Response pregnancy test and pauses, obviously adding two and two together to equal one pregnant Ferret.
Jill furiously saws the legs on a table even. Barto walks up. Jill gives the table the attention Joan Crawford might give to unclean floors. He then lists a whole list of chores he’s got to get to that show he’s clearly ultra-butch, and that he’s been watching This Old House. Barto cuts him off by announcing, "Someone’s pregnant," and confides his discovery of the First Response test to Jill. Barto says the more he thinks about it, it has to be Jack, since Audrey would tell him, but he catches sight of Jill’s facial expression and then realizes it was Audrey. Jill tells Barto that Jack told him about the test, and it was Audrey’s, but that it was also negative, and he’s sure Audrey will tell Barto.
Lucy and Mikey sit at an outdoor café and Lucy is yapping about how "it would never work on her," and Mikey says it does, and then Lucy tells him to give it his best shot. Mikey looks to the left, then swivels back in his best Rico y Suave move and says, "So I’m having a tongue-tasting at my apartment. You wanna come?" He actually said that. HE ACTUALLY SAID THAT. Someone actually wrote those lines down on paper and thought it would be a good idea for a human being to say them on a camera for a nation-wide TV program. Humanity is doomed. Lucy simpers, realizing that the downfall of Western civilization is nigh and her kind can overrun the earth to conquer America, lowers her lids on her big alien-headlight eyes, and says, "Okay. So it would work." Yes, it would. On someone who had washed down a pound of Roofies with her vodka. Mikey asks what they should do now. Lucy says they should probably order, but Mikey had more "what do we do now" steps in mind, say, like going to a B&B.
Just then, Elispa walks up and says, "Hey Mikey!" They buss each other on the cheek, and Mikey introduces Elispa to Lucy as "one of his favorite people in the world," whom he introduces to Elispa as his girlfriend, and confides that they’re going away to a B&B together. Lucy expresses delight in meeting Elispa, which includes elongating her neck. Elispa goggles in astonishment and says, "What have you done to our Mikey?" They all giggle fakely.
Camera pans up bookcase to Jill as he destroys what I believe is a toaster and dusts the Venetian blinds, cleans some more, and watches TV. Some plaintive music about how tough it is to be an urban slacker sings his three off-key notes of disillusionment.
Looking dazed, Jill wanders the street of Absolutely Not NYC, looking as if he’d just been released from a POW camp, or perhaps his contract for this show.
Close-up of a hot dog as Jack unzips her enormous grin at Jill over "the best hot dogs in New York." Jack says she has to start back already, while Jill asks if she can be a little late. Jack says no, she has "so much work to do," while Jill, projecting not at all, says, "As opposed to me." Jack, astonished, says, "No!" and then asks if something’s wrong. Jill says that nothing’s wrong, and that nothing’s what he did all morning, and what he’s going to do all afternoon, and as Ike Turner possesses him, Jill completely overreacts and asks is that enough for her to know, and is she going to ask him what he’s done every day, and it’s really annoying. Jack murmurs that she didn’t ask him anything. Jill mutters that he knows.
As the Ferret and Barto jaywalk, Barto asks if there’s anything wrong. The Ferret says no, and asks him if anything’s wrong, both of them denying the possibility that there could be wrongness with anything. The conversation gets more uncomfortable as Barto walks the Ferret to the door of Dance Fever, or whatever the heck her studio is called. The Ferret says again that They’re Fine, and that if Barto has a problem, he should just tell her. Barto tells her that her class is starting.
Jill, playing basketball. Mikey walks up, holding a newspaper. He bursts into tears and tells Jill, "It’s true -- I never learned how to read! I’ve been learning my lines phonetically! Just like how Abba learned their songs!" Oops, sorry. I mean, he walks up holding a newspaper and Jill asks if he’s up for a little one-on-one, and I’ll pass up the joke here, because I’m trying to keep this recap PG-13. Mikey says he can’t, he’s looking for his own apartment, and that he called Lucy his girlfriend, in front of her even, that he’s never felt this way about any woman before, and Jill says he’s never heard Mikey use the word "felt" in a sentence before, which I’m sure is not true, because most of Mikey’s conversations probably contain the phrase "and then I felt her up" at some point. Mikey then launches into his whole "I’m a Changed Man Because of Her" speech about how Lucy makes him want to "move forward." In a voice of breathless astonishment, Jill says, "Good for you!" and Mikey says, "Wish me luck."
Yoga class. The yoga instructor walks among the prone students as they chant "Auhmmmm" and stops over Jack, who’s on her cell phone. He says, "Cell phones are not a part of yoga," and Jack says she’s sorry, she was just checking her messages. Jack and Elispa go into a varying series of yoga poses, which provide a backdrop for Elispa lispering advice to Jack about how Jill’s withdrawing into himself because he doesn’t like to burden people with his problems until he’s figured them out, and that the more anyone tries to help him, the angrier he gets, and that Jill just needs his space. Through varying snorts, eyerolls, and lipcurls, Jack manages to communicate to the audience that she is fed up with Elispa’s meddling, or that she has distemper. Finally she hisses, "Elisa!" to halt the Lisping Dear Abby’s advice, and the yoga instructor says saccharinely, "Anger is not a part of yoga!" Elisa asks if Jack is mad at her. Jack says she is, and is about to say why, but the yoga instructor tells them to take "deep, cleansing breaths." They both inhale and exhale like panting huskies on the Iditarod. Elispa asks why. Jack then tells Elispa she doesn’t want a sneak peek at the answers, that Elispa’s being Jill’s ex-girlfriend is like the back of the book where the answers are, and that she’s a cheat sheet for the relationship, and that Jack wants to experience everything for herself and Elispa’s not letting her do that. Elispa, angry and hurt, says, "Sorry." Jack says, "Elisa," and Elisa says, "No, I won’t say a thing." I’d like to say one thing: Elispa is a big, meddling, clueless dumbfuck, and if there’s any sense of justice in the world, the ASPCA will come along while she’s in Downward Dog and cart her off to the pound where she will be mercifully put to sleep. Gah!
The Ferret is drinking coffee at an outdoor café. Barto walks up and rattles a chair to get her attention. She looks up, happy, until she sees him glaring at her forbiddingly, and he starts telling her off for not telling him she thought she might be pregnant. He asks if she was going to tell him. Several lines of dialogue ensue, but basically the Ferret says she doesn’t know if she’d have told him, and that one of the reasons was that the conversation of the night about Barto and his views on marriage scared the bejeezus out of her (duh) and that they’re clearly what he wants out of life and she doesn’t see any of that as being part of her future. Barto, his Marlene Dietrich eyebrows bristling, says that the issue is not about the pros and cons of marriage, but of her not being able to talk to him, but the Ferret says, mais non, it is, it’s about them wanting different things, maybe not now, but later, and she didn’t realize that until the other night, and she got scared. Barto points out she thought she was pregnant before that conversation ever took place, so obviously they have bigger problems than that. (I don’t know -- I think being unable to communicate and having completely different life goals are both problems of fairly equal stature.) The Ferret says she knows. Barto gets up and shoves the chair in a classic Method Actor move and walks away. The Ferret touches her begloved finger to her upper lip, either wiping away snot or trying to cover her bicuspids, either one.
Jack comes into the apartment only to be confronted by an angry, snarling Ferret wearing a grey fishing cap (she doesn’t wear a hat outside, but she wears one indoors? Maybe this ferret is a little meshuggenah), who tells her off for telling Jill something so tremendously personal about her, and that she didn’t confide in Jack because it was her, Audrey’s, personal business. Jack tries to save her ass with the "I Love You So Much It Justifies Snooping and Gossiping" speech and says that it’s hard being friends with the Ferret, because not only is it tremendously hard to get a seat in a good restaurant when you’re with a snarling predator, but that the Ferret doesn’t ever want to talk about anything and it makes it hard for the people who love her, and that they feel useless. The Ferret is having none of it and simply says accusingly, "How could you have told him, Jack?"
scene, Jack yanks Jill out of Chez Jillefsky into the hall and tells him off for telling Barto Audrey’s not-so-secret secret, and that Audrey’s furious at her, and that she’s furious at Jill, and that she betrayed Audrey and he betrayed Jack, and that when he comes by later to apologize, she doesn’t want a lousy soda.
Jill and Barto sit on their couch. "Sorry, dude," they say, one after the other, totally cutting each other’s line readings. Barto goes on about how it’s hard to know what he’s angry about because there are so many things, and are he and Audrey supposed to break up over this? Jill shakes his head nein. Barto says, "But she’s right, what’s the point of going through with this when it’s not going to work out?" and Jill points out that you never know what will happen, and that "tomorrow might not even come." He tells Barto to be in the moment. There is a pause. Barto asks Jill, "So what did you do today?" Jill and Barto stare at each other.
Mikey at computer. @Bar. He pretends to know how to type. Lucy In The Sky With Her Alien Kind wanders up, Sharon Stone’s hair still sitting on her head and clearly uncomfortable on this show. She’s wearing two coats. Mikey springs up, happy to see her, and asks her to come view his apartment choices tomorrow. Lucy says he should really just pick the one he likes. Mikey says he wants her to like it, since "you’re gonna be hangin’ out there," accompanied by lascivious eyebrow-waggles. Lucy, blinking like Lou Reed post-heroin-binge, says, "Mikey, I’m not gonna help you pick out your apartment." Mikey is stunned. He asks What’s Up. Lucy says that maybe she might’ve sent Mikey the wrong message, and that she’s feeling too relationshippy, and it’s not what she wants, and it’s not him, she doesn’t want a relationship with anybody, and she thought they were on the same page with that. Mikey is hurt. He demonstrates this by leaving his mouth open. She asks, "Am I wrong?" and Mikey mutters, "It’s fine. Forget about it. No big deal." Lucy says, "Mikey, you’re a really great guy and you’re going --" "To make some girl real happy, yeah, I know, I’ve given this speech. A lot," Mikey says, cutting her off. Bitter much? Lucy gets up and gives him the Kiss-Off, literally and figuratively, whispering, "Friends?" "Yeah, sure, friends," Mikey says, and Lucy walks away to return to her pod. Mikey crumples up the apartment ads.
Elispa, sporting flattened Farrah-wings, is on the phone with her landlord: "Are you kidding? I’ve still got rats and you’re gonna raise the rent? What’re you gonna charge the rats? Hello?" She shakes her head in disbelief as Jack walks toward her. Elispa informs Jack of her housing woes. Jack says she’s sorry -- about everything. Elispa says no, SHE’S sorry, and that Jack was right, she was being such a buttinski, and she’s not going to interfere again. (Beat.) Unless Jack asks. Or unless it’s an emergency. Or unless Jack’s way off-base. But ha-ha! Elispa is kidding! Whoo, pardon me as I pick myself off the floor. Jack grins, exposing her teeth so widely that one could screen a movie on them.
Mikey plays the Basketball Game of Broken Hearts while some other two-note crooner croons his song of despair.
Elispa and Mikey sit on the stoop as Elispa tells Mikey that it’s Lucy’s loss, and Mikey says no, it’s his, and that it really hurts. Mikey says moving out is pointless now, and Elispa says no, he’s ready, and that Lucy was just a catalyst, and to trust her, since she doesn’t use the word "catalyst" very often. Mikey smiles, and says he did see some cool places, including one place Elispa would’ve loved. Elispa reads the description and loves it, except that it’s a two-bedroom, and too expensive, and Mikey agrees, "Yeah, that was the problem," and Elispa gazes at him speculatively and says, "This might be a stupid idea . . ."
New scene. Close-up of two white candles being lit. Jack opens the door to reveal a candlelit dinner for two and Jill stirring tomato sauce. "Wow!" she says, as Jill holds a wooden spoon of the sauce up to her mouth. Instead of tasting the sauce, as a normal human would, she engulfs the entire bowl of the wooden spoon in her mouth, and it looks uncannily like the whales at Sea World when they used to troll for plankton. They kiss. Smacking noises are heard. Simultaneously they say, "I’m sorry." Jill says he shouldn’t have told Barto, and Jack says she shouldn’t have told Jill, and they both messed up. Jill goes on to say he’s sorry for blowing up at her, and he’s projecting because he doesn’t know what he’s doing with his life, and that after he got what he thought he wanted and it didn’t make him happy, he feels like every decision he makes has to be "it," but he’s not sure what "it" is. Jack says she doesn’t think he should kick himself because he doesn’t know what comes , and that maybe "this, what you’re doing right now," is what comes . Jill points out he’s not doing anything, and there’s nothing he can do now. (Couldn’t he try and look for a job? As I recall, he’s only made one visible attempt to hunt for employment. Is all I’m saying.) Jack tries her best to look poignant and loving and Jill says, "Want a Tums?" He actually says, "What?" and Jack says mistily, "It’s just funny, because when I look at you I see there’s nothing you Can’t. Do." Jill peels his teeth back in a squarebox smile and goes puffy-eyed. Jack says huskily, "Did we just have our first fight?" and Jill says, "That would be the day we met." Jack reveals those big domino-sized teeth of hers and says, "Can you stay over?" and Jill says, "Ahh -- can’t. Mets are playing tonight." Jack pouts oh-so-prettily, in much the same manner Mr. Ed would when Wilbur declined his advice, and Jill says, "It’s not even baseball season, you are so easy!" and Jack coos in delight and they kiss. Again.
Cue the Melancholy Music of Misunderstanding. Barto sits on the roof as chimney sweeps dance behind him. Except for the last part. The Ferret, responding to special hand signals, bounds up to join him. She takes a seat beside him and wraps her arms around her knees. Her hair is up in another fabulous ’do and is wrapped with a headband made out of those car-seat-wooden-bead things. ["I hate to admit it, but I kind of liked her headband." -- Sars] "I was just at the library looking for you," she says. "Well, that explains why you weren’t at dance class," Barto says. He pauses, and then, borrowing Ryan O’Neal’s (lack of) acting technique in Love Story, says, "I’m not ready to lose you yet," and the Ferret squeezes him in a death grip around the neck, which I think is supposed to pass as a "hug." "Me neither," she chokes out. Barto, breathing very heavily says, "But we have to fix some stuff. You have to talk to me, Audrey. When things are happening to you, I want to feel like they’re happening to us. I wanna be there for you." Audrey says that he IS there for her, but that she’s just not used to it. Barto says sternly, well, get used to it. And as for the future -- Audrey says, "It’s too far away." Barto says that it may change. It’s true, Audrey whispers, and then with impish glee says, "You may." Oh, those lovable rascals! They hug, and over Barto’s shoulder, Audrey giggles with the weird rat-a-tat sound of bullets, lips pulled back over her canines in a suspicious way that usually precedes an actor’s morphing into a half-beast, half-human a la An American Werewolf in Paris (the original), and if I were Barto, I’d get a cross and some holy water, pronto. Barto shakes her some more, in a loving manner. I think.
Close-up of notebook and pen. Jack is scribbling away, head at the foot of the bed. Jill, on his back and lying the opposite way, asks what she’s doing. Jack replies, "I don’t wanna forget any of the details." Of what? Jill asks. "Our first fight," Jack says dreamily. Jill asks that has it ever occurred to her that while she’s writing down something that’s already happened, she could be missing something that is occurring in real-life action time. Jack, playing dumb (not a big stretch) says, "Like what?" and Jill pretends to like kissing girls some more.
week: Jack and Jill struggle with saying "I love you," and the rest of the gang weighs in.