As Joan and Judith emerge from a classroom, someone on the PA is saying something about returning a teacher's desk within twenty minutes. Pranksterism is alive and well at AHS. Joan's elated to see that she got an A+ on her test. Judith, always preoccupied with more important matters: "Cool. Do you think I should put purple streaks in my hair?" Nope, as a matter of fact, I don't. Joan's completely dumsquizzled: "I got an A+ in Economics!" Judith: "I was in reach of a B…ish. Purple and red?" Nope, and nope. Joan: "I didn't even know you could get 105. I'm more than perfect!" Judith: "I don't really matter right now, do I?" Joan doesn't hear that; her face lights up when she sees Adam. She hustles over to him, hugs him, and squees about her grade. Adam: "No way!" Judith: "I shot a moose in the cafeteria." Heh. Joan: "I am such a genius!" Adam: "Oh, and my mentor at the studio wants me to help him out on his anti-drug ad. Me, an actual layout!" Joan kvells: "How cool are we?" Adam says he has to go because he promised to have a rough design by the end of the day. As he zooms off, he says, "Hey, Judith." She replies, "Oh, am I here?"
She catches up with Joan, who's wandering along in a daze of self-congratulation, and asks, "Do you have any idea how insanely adorable you guys are?" Joan: "Mmm. It's noxious. Sorry." Judith chuckles, "Are you kidding? Maybe I can borrow him sometime. You know, when you're not using him. I'd leave a deposit." Oh, please don't go there. I'll leave a deposit, and it won't be the shiny jingly type. Joan: "He doesn't even have time for me anymore. We're like yuppies but without the money or the kids or the hypocritical drug position." Judith: "I'm going to go hang out by the boys' locker room before gym!" Sounds…like a plan? She takes off. As Joan rounds a corner, she runs into Mascot God, who commends her on her A+ and raises his beak. Joan: "Thanks. You didn't, like, pull any strings for me, did you?" Professor Frink: "God should have his beak down. It's funnier if she talks to the bird head." Mascot God assures her it was her own doing: "It feels good to do a good job, doesn't it?" Joan says economics is very complicated: "But I just, I got it, you know? Adam Smith -- very cool dead guy. He says economies function best when based on self-interest. Kind of gives you a moral head-butt, huh?" "Moral head-butt"? God rains on Joan's parade a little: "It's easy to establish economic principles on paper." Joan: "Are you saying it was easy to write this essay? 'In an economy run by self-interest, the invisible hand of social justice will feed and clothe everyone.' Look: she wrote 'great' with two exclamation points and a happy face." Mascot God wants to know what she's going to do with all her knowledge: "The trick is putting it into action." Joan wonders if God wants her to start her own country. Mascot God: "Start a little closer to home. Maybe make sure…" He raises his megaphone and barks into it: "Everyone gets a piece of the pie!" Joan seems to care less and less all the time about who notices her when these sorts of things go on. Remember how freaked out and insecure she was early last season, how worried she was about calling attention to herself or seeming like a weirdo? And even this season, it seems like she's readjusted to having God talking to her a little too easily. She wrestled with it in the first couple of episodes, but now things are much the same as they ever were. Anyway, Mascot God takes off, pumping his megaphone as a sort of Godwave, and Joan comments, "Way to make an A a bummer…God."
Girardi kitchen, dinnertime. In case you’d like to know what's on the Girardis' chalkboard, it's a grocery list (chocolate milk, shampoo, dishwashing liquid, coffee, and pickles) and a note for Joan that Adam called. And a little flower. Aw. As the table is set, Helen tells the family about how they've set up the church basement so it looks like a real clothing store, except that everything's free to the homeless. Joan: "Charity compromises free market capitalism. Wealth of Nations, chapters 2-4." Kevin: "How come I'm sensing this is gonna lead back to your A?" Joan corrects him in a trilling tone: "Plu-u-u-u-us!" Luke: "If the free market works, how come there are still families living on the street?" Will wants to know how come the Bakers can sue them. Helen suggests, "Maybe it's in wealthy people's best interest to clean out their closets." Joan thinks: "Of course…that way they have to buy more things and contribute to the economy! And people who don't have clothes get a job, and then they can afford to buy clothes for themselves. Everybody gets a piece of the pie. I'm in. I'll help with the drive." Helen: "Seriously?" Joan: "Yes. Mom, it would be pretty silly of me to have all this knowledge and not use it for the benefit of society." No one says anything; her family is giving her a range of dubious and skeptical looks. Joan, irritated: "What?" Kevin just shrugs. Joan tosses her head slightly. Family members can be such buzzkills. Theme song.
Joan's helping sort clothes at the church; Helen and Lily are there. Joan notices a tattoo on Lily's arm and asks, "Is that a sailor?" Lily smiles: "Hot, huh? He, uh, waves when I flex." Joan: "Mom, if a nun can get one…" Helen: "Ex-nun. Very ex. Sort." Lily: "People have been doing body art for 4,000 years. It's very spiritual." Helen: "Oh, [I] like how you're helping. Thank you very much." Joan: "A belly ring!" Helen: "Sort." Lily asks Joan, "What are you in for?" Helen says Joan just wanted to help. Lily figured it must have been the community service aspect of some sentence. Joan says she has skills in economic theory: "I just finished Wealth of Nations. You know Adam Smith, right?" Lily: "The sixth Beatle?" I can't tell if Lily's pulling her leg or not. Neither can Joan: "No. Eighteenth-century money stud. He, like, totally blew away Benjamin Franklin with this --" Lily's suddenly reminded of why she hated school. Joan looks around, disappointed that there aren't more clothes. Helen says it's a small church, and they can only do so much. Joan: "You know, expansion increases returns. Why don't I open up a branch at school?" Helen wonders if Joan has time for that. Joan thinks so, and she starts naming places she'd put bins -- the hallway, the cafeteria: "Oh, two near the gym: the cheerleaders never wear anything twice. I'm gonna go talk to Chadwick." She takes off. Lily asks Helen, "Has she ever been drug tested?" Helen just smiles like the idea's crossed her mind more than once.
Kevin wheels through a hallway and runs into Beth and some guy. She introduces him to Pete, explaining that she and Kevin went to high school together and that Kevin writes for The Herald now. Pete: "My client was nowhere near the scene of the crime." Kevin, to Beth: "Knock off a bank?" Beth says it's embarrassing: "Open container violation. I walked out of a party with a beer. That's not on the record, is it?" Kevin smiles and shakes his head. Pete says it's a pretty splashy headline: "College Student Drinks Beer." Yep, that's right up there with "Recapper Rolls Eyes And Swears." Kevin: "Could be my Pulitzer." Pete's beeper goes off and he firms up plans to see Beth at 9:00, adding, "Be there or I'll double my fees," before he goes. They watch him go and then Kevin gives Beth a questioning look. Beth explains that Pete does standup at a club called The Laugh Riot and she promised to check out his act. Kevin: "Remember the prom when I made you laugh so hard, Coke poured out of your nose like you were a soda fountain?" Um, ew. That sounds attractive. Also implausible. Beth laughs and says she ruined her dress. Kevin: "You said no one ever made you laugh like me." Beth doesn't know how to respond to that. Kevin just beams at her adorably. She says she's late for poli sci: "It was good to see you again. Say hi to your folks." As she walks away, Kevin jokes, "Oh, and watch out for the long arm of the lawyer." Frink: "That's a stretch, dude." Yes, I groaned too. Why shouldn't you all suffer along with me?
Will comes into Lucy's office. Her hair looks a little better here. Also, everything's not completely blue, thanks be. It was hard to follow this scene on the first viewing, because as soon as Will knocked on the door, Frink commenced some Jabba the Hutt-like growling. I think he has suspicions about Lucy. He actually does Jabba's voice fairly well -- at least as far as I can tell from clips. I've never seen a single Star Wars film. (That might get me fired if Glark reads this. Not to mention how sulky Frink is about that fact.) Will apologizes for being late, saying he had a personal thing and he should have run it by her. Lucy: "Relax, Will. That's an order." Professor Jabba: "Jabba knows everything." Would a woman in her position, commanding what is almost certainly a predominantly male force, wear as many cute, tight little cardigans as she does? She adds that she knows about Kevin's lawsuit. Will: "Excuse me?" She says it's her business to know about her people: "It could affect job performance." Professor Jabba: "Where's my money, Solo?" Will apologizes again, saying he had a meeting with his attorney. Lucy says that's not what she meant: "Look, if there's anything I can do to help…" Will assures her he can handle it. She says she went through a nasty divorce: "I know how important it is to have support at work." Will -- somewhat nervously, if you ask me -- notes that she still wears her ring. She laughs that off: "To fend off the guys at the supermarket. You ever been in the frozen food section at night? They should serve martinis." Me: "Martinis? What?" I have no idea what's going on, thanks to the running Jabba commentary. Frink, normal-like: "She's trying to be human." Then he's off on something else, in a robot voice: "Humanizing attempt not working. Refine focus. Bzzt! Bzzt!" Honestly, it's a good thing I don't have to recap these on the basis of my first viewing. I would have no idea what the hell is going on. But all this is just to keep me from thinking about this Will/Lucy thing, which I hope is not any kind of thing, especially not the kind that would require a slash or an ampersand or a plus sign, but which I'm starting to be afraid is indeed something in that realm. I hope it's all a red herring. Anyway: Will thanks her for her concern and starts to leave. She's all, "No problem." He suddenly turns and blurts, "It's stupid, we could have sued the kid who caused the accident, protected ourselves from all this." Lucy agrees: "Self-defense." Will says Helen didn't want punish him: "Thought knowing what he'd done to Kevin was enough." Lucy think Helen sounds like an amazing woman. Will confirms this. Lucy: "Maybe we could all get together sometime." Will nods and leaves. He can't understand the singed smell in her office. That was never there during Roebuck's reign.
At school, Luke sneaks into a locked room within a larger room. Grace is close behind. It's a room full of animals in jars of formaldehyde and insects in boxes and whatnot. I guess it's a storage room. Grace, looking around in wonder: "Dude, it's like a pet cemetery in here." Luke chuckles: "Lischak gave me the key. Science student of the year does have its privileges." You mean, apart from shagging Lischak? Grace: "This is so the beginning of a Stephen King novel." Luke asks her where she was last night: "I IMed you, like, a thousand times." Grace explains, "Oh, my mom was in rare form. Doing her Judy Garland act. Lots of singing, lots of falling down. Me putting her in the shower." Wow. So she's a theatrical drunk. That always compounds the potential for embarrassment. Grace tries to sound casual -- indeed, it's interesting that, now that Luke knows, she's managed to get this comfortable talking about it -- but Luke looks serious: "Where was your dad?" Grace: "He works late so he doesn't have to deal. It's their little unspoken bargain: as long as she's sober at temple, runs her meetings, and has everybody snowed, she…" Luke looks troubled. Grace: "Don't look all simpy, I'm used to it." Luke suggests talking to somebody. Grace: "Why? I'm almost out of there." Luke says it's two more years: "That's fifteen percent of your life so far." Grace gets impatient: "The test is on Thursday. Let's cram." They sit down and Grace says, "Dark matter, black holes, lay it on me." Luke starts talking apathetically about black holes, and interrupts himself to say, "You know, you don't have to be embarrassed to talk to me about this." Grace resorts to Plan B: she kisses him. Frink: "Ooh, I saw tongue." Grace, as flirtatiously as possible: "How's that for gravitational pull?" Luke just looks worried. Frink: "He's thinking too much. Kid's not normal." Grace starts kissing him again. Luke stops fighting it.
Speaking of not normal…here's Friedman now. He's putting up posters to sell his laptop for $425. Judith comes down the stairs, freezes when she sees him, and darts into a nearby room where Joan's sorting clothes. She's got a hood -- just a hood -- on her head, and is marvelling over a particularly fugly pair of pants in Lilly Pulitzer colours. Can't stand wild patterns in frooty-tooty colours. As Judith starts unpacking a bag she's brought in, Friedman arrives: "Soft, the fair Judith…halfway through the fourth act and it's all for you." Judith just avoids his gaze and shakes her head. Friedman persists (I should make a macro for that): "Come on, look me in the eye and tell me you're not impressed." She looks right at him and tries to intimidate him into backing off with a challenging expression and raised eyebrow. But Friedman just gulps a little and says, in a totally genuine way, "You have really pretty eyes." Judith doesn't know what to do with that. Finally, she just screws up her face and says, "Don't be sincere." Joan smiles to herself. Friedman backs out of the room, saying, "In the words of the immortal bard: 'I'll be back.'" That's one of the worst Schwarzenegger impressions I've heard. Judith looks like she's finally realizing she's going to have to make good on this date. All I ask is that she use her influence to convince him to get rid of the dickies. Joan: "Wow." Judith: "Persistent. I'll give him that." Joan: "Mm-hmm. Like a cold sore." She thinks their clothing haul isn't too bad for the first day. Judith pulls a bright red leather jacket out of a bag: "Holy crap. Look at this! Someone gave away an Italian leather coat. Feel it." Joan: "Wow." Judith: "Some homeless person's gonna get this?" Judith says she knows a vintage store that would pay a lot of money for it. Joan gets a bright idea: "We sell the coat and use the money to buy, like, five more for the homeless!" She gasps. "Oh, I'm so gonna end up, like, a millionaire one day." Judith guffaws, "Good plan," as Joan holds the coat up to her. At the door, Friedman's sneaking another peek at Judith.
scene: a good-sized vintage store. Tinny strains of "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" by the Pet Shop Boys. (Sorry, didn't like hardly anything about the eighties, especially the music. The whole decade was a cultural and political nightmare I'm still trying to forget.) But it's a good choice for this scene, nonetheless. On their way in, Judith warns, "Rudi's touchy, so let me do the talking." Joan: "Where do you meet these people?" Judith: "Community service, driving school, group…I lose track." The guy behind the counter is a Poor Man's Vin Diesel (tm Gustave). I'm totally expecting him to be God, but he's not. PMVD: "Judith, dear. How was Camp Bad Girl?" Judith: "Crazy Camp this time. This is Joan. We brought treats." PMVD: "I trust they're not hot..." Judith replies, "That was a fluke, man. These were her aunt's. She died last week." Joan's face pretty much gives away the lie. PMVD looks at her suspiciously and says he lost an uncle last week: "We'll take good care of you, okay?" He pulls out the red leather coat and says, "Wow! Your aunt had good taste." Actually, from the look of that coat, I'd say her aunt was Michael Jackson. "Silk lining…how's thirty bucks sound?" Joan: "Thirty bucks? For my aunt's coat?" He says he has to make a living too. He barely looks through the rest and says, "A hundred for everything." I highly doubt any vintage store owner would buy anything without looking it over much better than that. Lots of things appear fine at a glance but have tears, missing fasteners, broken zippers and stains that can't be removed. You really have to inspect secondhand stuff. Joan turns on the emotion: "She used to read to me in this coat. I won't take less than $150!" Judith smiles slyly to herself. PMVD thinks about it and considers Joan's resolute expression and finally says, "Well, in honour of your aunt's memory…" He shakes Joan's hand. Joan and Judith smile at each other. They couldn't be more pleased with themselves. "I've got the brains, you've got the looks / Let's make lots of money." Which one has the brains, now? And it's not such a bad idea to sell stuff -- especially the sort of impractical stuff that not only won't keep anyone especially warm but would probably get a homeless person beaten up and robbed for their coat -- in order to buy more appropriate things. But Joan's just gone about it in all the wrong ways.
After the commercial, Joan and Judith are at a tattoo/piercing establishment. Judith's in the chair getting her navel pierced. There's a gigantic skull on one of the counters. Joan, who's watching, says, "This is so out of the textbook. We bought five coats from the Army-Navy, increasing the volume of people who got clothing." Judith points out they had $36 left over. "I'm loving the economy." Can you really buy five decent coats for $114? I haven't been in an army surplus store since my peace movement days (hey, where do you think you get gas masks for protests?), so I dunno. Judith makes ow sounds. The piercer says, "I told you not to move." Judith rationalizes, "The money's the incentive that keeps us going, right? I mean, the people who run big charities get paid." Yeah, but the ones who are on the up-and-up account to their donors with annual reports and budgets and audits and crazy shit like that. Judith asks how her piercing looks. Joan: "So good!" She touches Judith's navel jewellery delicately. "My mom would kill me." Something tells me your piercing's going to be the least of your problems, girlie. Judith: "So? Who's helped more homeless people: you or her?" Joan struggles: "No way." Judith, who must have lost her pitchfork somewhere between "community service" and "driving school," insists, "You deserve this." Joan bites her lip and glances around at all the enticing tattoo flash.
Joan and Judith emerge from the tattoo parlor. Joan's got her hands on her navel. She comments, "I didn’t know it was going to itch this much." Judith pauses at a clothing rack out on the sidewalk and says, "Belly shirts. Gotta show off the pain. Let me surprise you!" She darts inside. Joan scratches herself a bit and then wanders over to a sidewalk vendor (HITG! Iqbal Theba) selling sunglasses. Nice to see some more ethnic diversity, God-wise. He comments, "So you've really become an entrepreneur, Joan." Joan smiles: "Five coats for one: that's four more homeless people that'll be warm now." Sunglass God says it's very impressive. Joan says it makes her feel powerful. He muses, "Money can do that to people." Joan suddenly sees some sunglasses she loves: "These are sweet!" Sunglass God: "Don't put your fingers on the lenses." Joan sees the $95 price tag: "Who has that kind of money for sunglasses?" He replies, "To some people that's not much at all." Joan thinks this is some kind of hint: "More. You want me to do more, right? If there's no growth, the economy goes into decline. Decline means more cold people. I am so all over this! Hey, what's your markup on these puppies anyway?" He smiles and shakes a warning finger at her. Joan puts the glasses on and flips her hair around.
Laugh Riot. The club, not the episode. I'm mystified that it's not spelled Laff Riot. Isn't it some kind of law that comedy clubs have to employ kooky orthography? Pete's onstage doing some stale old material about lawyers. Kevin arrives; Beth's surprised to see him. Kevin: "I was voted class clown. I gotta keep my chops up for the reunion." Reunion? He graduated, like, two years ago. Who goes to a reunion two years after high school? Whatever. Don't mind me. I'm one of those people who wouldn't go to a school reunion for all the VWs in Germany. Beth seems annoyed: "This isn't funny." Kevin: "The audience likes it." Beth gives him a look. Pete ends his act with yet another weak money-grubbing lawyer joke. Beth asks Kevin, "Are you…jealous or something? Because we haven't gone out for, like, two years. And you dumped me, remember?" Kevin sighs: "I know. Wanna get some coffee…or dinner…or an apology?" She says she's kinda busy at the moment. Kevin: "So this is a date." Pete comes over and asks if he totally sucked. Kevin: "No, man, you were hilarious." Pete thanks him and says, "Kevin, right? From The Herald?" Dude, you just met the guy earlier today. Kevin's wearing the same clothes, for heaven's sake. Why the dopey dialogue? Kevin says he's not writing a review: "I'm just checking out the competition." Yeah, Beth's feeling comfortable, in case you were wondering. Pete: "You're a standup, too?" Kevin: "Well, I'm more of a sitdown." Ba-dum-bump. Pete, who is not especially funny (nor possessed of much of a memory) but is clearly too nice for his own good, invites Kevin to join them for something to eat: "We could compare notes." Kevin declines and tells them to have fun. Beth nods; she obviously can't wait to get out of there. Kevin watches them go.
At school, Will's brought Helen lunch. "I felt like seeing my wife. That's not a crime. I know these things." Helen: "Hmmm…last time you brought me lunch at work, I spent a month packing dishes." Must have been a hell of a lunch. Will promises they're not moving. Helen asks, "Then what? You're going to be working vice and you're afraid you might meet someone?" Is that a hint? Are they trying to prepare us for something? God, I feel paranoid. I don't want to see one of them have an affair, but I might buy it if it were very carefully developed and substantiated. But I just don't see that happening with Lucy. Also, what's with Helen's push-up bra? She's wearing one of those highly structured bras with really stiff cups that totally show through thin T-shirts. I see so many women walking around with these showing through their clothes and it doesn't look as good as they think it does. They should stop it. Pick a more appropriate bra or a different top. Will tells her he wants to countersue the Bakers. Helen's dismayed: "And you thought an egg salad sandwich would change my mind?" Will: "Look, Helen…I know you're a better person than me. I know you have all this faith in the goodness of people. But do you really think the Bakers are suddenly going to realize how selfish they are, or the judge is going to see the light and throw the case out?" She replies, "Hey, don't patronize me. And don't use my faith to treat me like an idiot. You think I don't know how greedy these people are?" Will says they'll have to dig into the kids' college fund, or maybe even sell the house. Helen: "I just hoped we wouldn't have to become like them."
Joan empties a donation bin at school. Adam catches up with her. She says she called him six times but kept getting voicemail. He says he called her back but her mother said she was sorting clothes: "Are we ever going to get to see each other?" Joan: "Now works for me. You wanna go roll around in the clothes?" Adam can't; the guy at the studio needed his layout an hour ago so he has to go to the computer lab and use the graphics program. He asks her to keep him company. She agrees, but then suddenly remembers she can't: "Chadwick wants everything sorted and out of here or he's going to call the whole thing off." Adam: "All right, as soon as I finish this project…" Joan says the clothing drive won't last forever. They kiss (Adam says "mwah" -- that has to stop) and agree to talk tonight. He takes off as Judith comes up and asks how Adam liked the belly ring. Joan forgot to show him. Judith says they'll have to make an appointment to see each other: "That's what my parents do: 11:00 to 11:04 -- conversation and sex." Joan: "Ha!" Judith spots one of Friedman's posters and asks, "What if Adam had Friedman's laptop?" Well, I'd venture to guess he's suddenly have quite the collection of latex pictures. Joan reads the ad: "Four twenty-five? Forget it." Judith says she found a T-shirt from Bowie's first tour in one of the donation bins: "Do you know what Rudi would pay for that?" She argues they have lots of stuff: "All we have to do is…what is it? Um…expand and conquer." Joan: "Of course -- move beyond the school. Put bins in a few stores…the bookstore. Half the money buys more clothes for the homeless, and then they get the clothes we don't sell." Half the money, now? Uh-huh. Judith: "And we keep half the profits." Joan: "For Adam's laptop! Then he can work wherever he wants." Judith: "Get some free time with his honey." Joan: "Plus increase his productivity and make him even more valuable to his boss. Everybody wins! Hey, did you see those Guess sunglasses the other day?" Judith did. Where you two are headed, those are just going to melt right on to your faces.
Luke slips into the science storeroom. Grace is there already. She greets him warmly: "No sucky-face yet, bone rack. We have a physics midterm in two days, and I know less about Planck's constant than that lobster…" She gestures toward the jars: "Or is that two frogs?" And -- "bone rack"? That seems a little harsh. Oh, dear. Luke has a pamphlet. That doesn't bode well. He hasn't said anything yet. He hands her the pamphlet saying, "That's not why I'm here." Grace takes the "Facts about Alateen" brochure. Frink: "This is so After School Special." I want to argue, but at the moment, I've got nothing. Grace is mad: "You blabbed about me…to a roomful of freaks?" Luke says he got it at the public library: "And they're not freaks. They're kids, like us." Grace: "Dude, have you been inhaling the formaldehyde? There's no way I'm doing this!" Luke: "Go to one meeting." Grace: "I've been through it all, Girardi. There's nothing new they can tell me." Luke says she's been through it alone: "It doesn't have to be that way anymore." Grace dismisses the subject by handing the pamphlet back to him.
Helen and Lily are shopping -- guess where? At Rudi's Vintage Togs. Or Rudi's: The Only Vintage Store in Town. Or whatever it's called. I believe the UnNun shops there, but Helen, not so much. Yeah, sure, Lily probably dragged her along. The contrivances in this plot only get more severe, so why nitpick here? Helen tells Lily about the countersuit. Lily, holding up an outfit: "Good. Does the colour make me look like a corpse?" You can't tell whether she thinks that's a bad thing, or if it's the effect she's after. Helen: "Maybe this isn't the best place to talk." Lily: "Retail therapy, Helen. Don't underestimate it." Helen: "So you don't think countersuing seems sort of…" Lily: "Human?" Helen throws up her hand: "I'm just so angry all the time, every second, every minute…I…don't want to be this person. Aren't we supposed to try to be as good as we possibly can?" Lily: "Oh, you want to be a saint?" Helen: "You are so hard to talk to." What'll you do if she ends up being your daughter-in-law? Lily: "Hey…don't take your anger out on me just because I have a delightful personality." Helen claims she doesn't want to be a saint. I don't buy it. Lily: "But you're thinking about letting these people take your house and toss your family into the street so that God can pat you on the head and tell you how selfless you are! Look, I know that God says the poor will always be among us, but I don't think he would want us to get poor by being stupid." Rock on, Sister Boogie Board.
Helen: "You know, I was going to try to get you to stop smoking, but now…I don't really care." Lily pulls the red leather coat off a hanger and holds it up, saying, "Well, too bad you're not human, because you would look great in this." Helen smiles and says it's beautiful as she tries it on. PMVD, having spotted his mark, wanders over to say, "A steal at $150, dear." Lily's outraged: "A hundred and fifty? What are you smoking?" Whatever it is, she doesn't ask for any, at least not in front of Helen. PMVD: "It's Italian leather!" Helen tells Lily it's okay, she didn't really need the coat anyway. Not to mention: it's just not that great a coat. It has a quilted collar and gold buttons (blecch. Hate gold buttons, or gold anything, really) and while it's probably very good quality, it's not exactly blowing the doors off fashion editors' offices. Lily: "No, if there's anyone who needs fine, Italian craftsmanship, it's you." Helen smiles. "If you, uh, let me borrow it sometime." I really can't see Lily in this coat. Helen turns to PMVD: "I'll give you ninety dollars for it. Take it or leave it." PMVD counters with $120. Helen's annoyed: "You know, I'm already being ripped off by somebody who paralyzed my son, so I don't need anybody else trying to make a buck off me because he thinks I might be vulnerable." PMVD holds up his hand: "Fine, fine. $90." He wanders away. Lily: "Saint Helen the bitchy. Hmm."
Kevin's in his room, practicing his material in front of a mirror. "Sometimes…when nobody's looking…I used the non-handicapped toilet. But then I feel guilty." Behind him, Joan quietly starts to come in, but Kevin doesn't see her. When she sees Kevin before the mirror, she backs out and watches from the doorway. He continues, "It's really not so bad being in my position: nobody ever yells, 'Down in front!' And uh, I don't want you to think my equipment is all broken down there…the chair reclines…" He demonstrates as Joan bursts out giggling. Kevin wheels around (literally), startled. Joan: "What are you doing?" Kevin: "What? Nothing. Why are you here?" She says she has to ask him a question. Kevin points out, "You were laughing!" Joan: "Yeah, that's because you're sick." He asks if she thinks it would be nuts if he tried open mike night at the comedy club. Joan sits on the bed: "I had a question, remember?" Yes, we remember. It's all about you. She flops back on the bed. "Then we'll get to Shecky Girardi." Ooh, a cultural reference outside Joan's narrow experience. Kevin sighs, "Fine." Joan absent-mindedly scratches her navel as she asks, "So, um, if a girl did something really crazy cool for you, you know, like bought you something totally expensive, something that you really needed…would you freak?" Kevin's distracted by her scratching: "Is that what I think it is?" Joan raises her head, glances down, and then sits up, exasperated with her carelessness. Pulling her shirt around her, she says, "No. Yes. It…if you promise not to tell." Kevin: "You did that for Adam?" Joan: "No! Well, maybe." Kevin makes a little gesture of equivocation with his hand and asks, "Is that what he…uh, needed?" Joan: "Could we please just focus?" Kevin agrees. Then he wheels forward, asking, "What happens if I pull on it?" She flies off the bed: "Oh, Kevin, forget it!" Aren't brothers great? Kevin says he would say no to the gift: "If he really needs it, it'd take away his manhood, and it'll shrivel up." Oy. I wish I had a buck for every time I've wished I could just be cryogenically packed away and thawed out once "manhood" isn't such a flimsy construct. Joan: "What will?" Kevin gives her a meaningful look. Joan wilts a bit: "Oh, God." Kevin says it's not Adam's fault: "It's what happens when girls do stuff for us we're supposed to be able to do for ourselves." Joan: "That's too pathetic to be true." Kevin starts citing evidence: "Family vacations: how many times did Mom drive?" Joan argues that this is going to change Adam's life, and hers. Kevin relents: "All right, then, do it. But make him feel like you didn't really do anything." Joan wonders if she's supposed to lie. Kevin: "It's that, or, uh…" He hunches his shoulders up and starts to wither to one side. Joan: "Okay, I got it! Don't need the visual." As she leaves, he calls, "Hey, what about The Laugh Riot?" Joan says she'll be there: "Just don't shrivel up if you don't get all your laughs." These two almost always have really good scenes together.
Joan's following Friedman through the halls, begging. There's a sentence I don't want to write again. "I have $250 cash!" Friedman, clutching his laptop, says the software alone is worth that. Uh-huh. And the laptop's only worth $175? Seems unlikely. Frink points out that it's the same laptop he has (which, by the way, cost about four grand -- Canadian -- two years ago). He's considering that a shout-out. He adds, "Hope it comes with an adapter. It's only got two hours of life." He spots Judith lifting a bag of clothes and zooms over, saying, "Strain not thy lithesome frame, fair Ophelia…" Joan grabs his arm and says, "Hah! Stay, Droopio." Friedman hangs by the bin as Joan grabs Judith and asks, "Any more treasure?" Judith: "Just ratty sweaters and some tighty-whiteys. Who donates old underpants?" Who knows? Wouldn't knowing be worse, somehow? Joan tells Judith she doesn't have enough money to buy the laptop: "He's gonna put that thing up on eBay in an hour." Judith reassures her: "Chill. He'll cough it up for me." Joan: "Judith, it's Friedman. He's the ebola virus in tube socks." Hee! Judith: "You get to spend more time with Adam; I get to knock the rust off my flirtation skills." There's rust on those? I don't even buy that there's dust on them. Whatever. She's being awfully nice about this. Joan shrugs and gives her the money. Judith prowls over to Friedman. She totally reminds me of someone here but I can't figure out who. "Listen, Shakespeare, you want to make Judith happy, don't you?" She touches his hair gently. "Couldn't you cut JoJo here a break on that computer of yours?" She keeps fiddling with his hair. Friedman's falling apart at the seams: "But she -- she doesn't -- uh, she doesn't --" She strokes his arm and says, "My, you have such a…big…laptop." Oy. What was that headline? Oh, yeah. "Recapper Rolls Eyes And Swears." Honestly, is even a high school horndog like Friedman going to fall for this when it's poured on this thick? I feel sure she could have conned Friedman out of his laptop with a third as much BS. Friedman stammers orgasmically. God, I need a shower. I need to exfoliate several layers of skin. Judith wheedles, "If you deny JoJo, you deny me…" Friedman hands over the laptop, still incapable of normal speech, and makes like he's going to caress Judith's hair. Judith presses the money into his hand and kisses him near, but not on, his mouth. She sallies back to Joan, triumphant: "Girl's still got it." Yeah, that was hard. Friedman stands there frozen in the hallway.
Will's practicing his putting in his office when Lucy comes along: "Well, somebody's in a good mood." Will smiles: "Setting a bad example? Sorry." As Will gathers up his balls, she says she was starting to think he didn't know how to smile. He tells her he convinced Helen on the countersuit: "I probably shouldn't celebrate…but after rolling over for so long…" Lucy says an explanation is unnecessary. She offers her help again, but Will thinks they're fine. She says she's just mentioning it because she has a friend in Chicago who found out some things. They discuss Mr. Baker's company, which makes shipping containers. She's discovered -- through friends here and there in securities regulation -- that there were tax irregularities when Baker and Burke went public, and Andy's father is suspected of cooking the books to avoid taxes: "His partner threatened to report him. Why else would a man walk away from a business after twenty years?" Well, I can think of about a dozen valid reasons, but never mind. She adds, "And I'll bet he might walk again, if he knew you had this." Will has an incredibly serious expression as he takes all this in. He asks, "So all this just came up in a conversation with old buddies?" Lucy replies, "Hey, I'm a cop. How many times do you get a chance to squash the bad guy before he hurts some good people?" Well…not to put too fine a point on it, but I kind of thought that was the job. You don't always get to prevent all harm but you can prevent lots of further harm. Will: "time…you should talk to me first." Lucy: "Yeah…but you woulda just said no." Seriously, what is her deal? I can't help but think, along with several forum posters, that the similarity of her name to Lucifer isn't accidental.
Adam opens his locker to find a laptop tied up in a glitzy red ribbon. As he puzzles over it, Joan jumps out of a nearby classroom and says, "Surprise!" She explains, with a kiss and hug, that it's a reward for being the best boyfriend on the planet. Well, it's about damn time she noticed. Adam looks dismayed. She quickly adds, "It's a loan! It's not a gift." Pay no attention to that red ribbon. She claims she talked her parents into getting it for her. Adam: "I thought you hated computers." She says she finally decided to join the rest of the world: "And you can borrow it. Which means you can work wherever you want, like…in places where I am." Adam's not convinced yet: "Are you sure you're not gonna need it?" She says she won't need it as much as he does: "It'll help you be more productive, which means the ad campaign will be better, which means more kids will stay away from drugs, which means they'll be better citizens and contribute more to society." No doubt. Adam: "Chah, I just wanted to not get fired." Joan: "And you won't get fired." He tells her this is amazing, and thanks her. Joan looks down the hall and sees her mother skipping down the stairs wearing the red leather coat. She walks up to Joan and asks if she wants a ride over to St. Agnes. Joan doesn't answer but manages to finally choke out a question about where her mother got her coat. Helen: "Vintage store with Lily." Seeing Joan's uneasy expression, she adds, "Hey, I haven't had a new coat for three years and it's secondhand." Joan says she has to return it: "It's way too Freaky Friday." Adam: "I think it rocks, Mrs. G." Joan smacks The Best Boyfriend On The Planet on the arm and stage-whispers, "Not helping." Helen thanks him. Adam: "Sure. And the computer is way cool, too." Helen doesn’t know what he's talking about, of course, but Joan grabs her and drags her off before she can find out. You can tell Adam's still not completely buying the whole laptop story.
Helen and Joan arrive in the basement of St. Agnes. Helen, of course, is still wearing the coat. If you haven't been able to figure out this entire plot from the minute Joan and Judith hatched their little plan, I can't help you. Lily notices the big bag of clothes Joan's brought in and comments that she's amazing: "How are you at changing water into wine?" Joan scratches her belly -- and her shirt's riding up, so you can see the bandage -- and Lily asks, "Somebody get pierced?" Joan hushes her and looks around to see if her mother heard -- but Helen's busy with stuff. Joan asks Lily how she knew. Uh, the bandage over your navel? Lily says she can't get through a metal detector without a SWAT team surrounding her. Given that she has to no visible piercings, she must have a fair number of not-so-visible ones. "You been using alcohol?" Joan says she has, but it won't heal: "It's oozing and gooey." Lily, brusquely: "Yeah, been there. It's the price of freakdom." It might also be the price of an $18 navel piercing. I don't know what the going prices are in the US, but I think around these parts, you can expect to pay $25 CAD for the piercing and at least $25 CAD for the jewellery at a reputable place. ["My nose ring was $50 USD for the pierce and $25 for the steel ring." -- Sars] Please, don't go to bargain basement body artists, people -- even if you're not paying for your piercing with ill-gotten booty, and have no reason to fear your piercing will become infected as punishment for your moral turpitude.
Behind them, an older man -- who strikes me as a H!ITG!, but I can't actually place him -- compliments Helen on her coat: "It's very unusual." Helen smiles. He continues, "I bought one just like that for my wife on a trip to Milan. She passed away last month." Helen says she's sorry. Old Plot Device: "Our daughter donated it at school. It's for the homeless. You can't cherry-pick donations." Joan notices what's going on and starts to freak. Helen asks, "Are you accusing me of stealing?" He doesn't say anything. Joan says, "Mom? We should probably go. I have to study…" Old Plot Device isn't giving up: "Her name's Ellen Sanders. Her initials are written on the label." Lily comes over to lend support: "She bought it at a vintage store." Helen removes the coat and says, "It's okay, Lily." To the man: "I didn't take your coat." She looks at the label, and sees a monogrammed "ES" sewn there. Everyone in the room is listening and staring now. Joan doesn't know what to do. 'Fessing up and saving her mother's reputation doesn't appear to be on the list of options that she's considering. Helen: "I am so sorry. I don't know how this happened." Old Plot Device: "Yeah." He walks off. Other parishioners look at her -- dismayed, shaken. Helen's humiliated and baffled. Joan still doesn't say anything. Frankly, as bad an idea as the whole scheme was, I can understand it and maybe even forgive it -- but this? Letting someone you love take the fall for you, being there to witness her stewing in the juices of confusion and humiliation and still not sacking up? That's appalling. Joan, your mother is twisting in the breeze, there. If she were a terrible sack of shit, I suppose I could see your not caring. This, I just do not get.
After the commercial, Judith and Joan have gone to The Only Vintage Store in Town to try to buy back all the clothes. Joan: "We need my aunt's clothes back. It's an emergency!" PMVD: "I thought she died." Judith claims Joan's uncle is really mad. PMVD wants $500. Joan's outraged: "But you only gave us $400!" Let's see: they got $150 the first time, and had $36 left over. That's $114 spent on five coats for the homeless. time (or times) they must have gotten the balance -- $250 -- which is exactly what Joan told Friedman she had for the laptop. So…they pocketed $286 and spent $114? Nice. Thank God for the "invisible hand of social justice." What is it, a fist? PMVD: "It's called capitalism, dear. I'm entitled to something for my trouble." Judith: "We were helping the homeless." PMVD: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice -- oh, no, not her." He looks toward the door. Joan sees her mother barrelling in, and she and Judith dash aside and pretend to be looking at clothes before Helen sees them. She holds up the coat and asks PMVD, "Where did you get this?" PMVD rubs his temple and mutters, "Why'd I take my eye mask off today?" He turns to Helen: "It belonged to her late aunt." He points to Joan. Helen turns around. Joan's shoulders sink before she turns to face her mother. Helen: "Oh, God." Joan says it's not how it looks. It's not? I'd say it pretty much is. Joan admits to selling the clothes. Judith: "But we sunk all the money back into buying clothes for the homeless." Man, Judith just has no compunction. Joan says they bought five times as many clothes. Helen: "And you didn't keep anything for yourselves?" Judith shakes her head innocently. She doesn't even have a passing acquaintance with the truth, that girl. Joan, typically, equivocates: "Well…not much, anyway…" Helen's really pissed: "What did you take?" Joan: "Nothing!" Helen glares. Joan: "Almost nothing. I mean, we were supposed to take something for incentive, you know, like Adam Smith said." Man, Helen is madder than I've ever seen her: "Oh, shut the hell up about Adam Smith!" PMVD: "I really wouldn't cross her." Helen asks where the money is. Joan says it's "sorta gone." Helen: "Sort of." Joan confesses about the belly rings. Yeah, Helen's real impressed with that. Joan adds, "We got a laptop…for Adam." She quickly adds, "Rove," so her mother doesn't go off again about Adam Smith. Judith contributes that they got a really good deal on it. Joan swears they didn't hurt anybody. Helen says people have stopped donating clothes. Jeez, that was fast. She continues, "They trusted us! That man gave us his dead wife's coat for the homeless, not for you! And not for belly rings!" Man, sometimes italics are just so…inadequate. Helen sighs. She doesn't know what else to say, and she rushes out. Joan's eyes are filled with tears. Even Judith manages to look mildly chastised. I can't be arsed to find an ounce of sympathy for them.
Some church somewhere. Luke and Grace are at an Alateen meeting. Okay. That? Is just not gonna fly. I could buy that Luke might have been able to convince her, but to jump from presenting the idea to a totally resistant Grace, to this scene a few days later, with no explanation of how he persuaded her to do this, is just silly. That's exactly the scene we needed to see, and it's not here. What did he say to her? What did he promise her? Did he make some kind of bargain? It's just moving too fast, and I feel like the writers are cheating a bit and even rushing the storyline -- perhaps to get us somewhere good, faster. But I don't want to just get someplace. I want to experience the process. I want to actually walk over the terrain, not breeze over it in a small plane. That, to me, is what puts this in After School Special territory. Feh. Anyway. One guy is sharing the story of his alcoholic father. Grace is sitting to him, legs wrapped tightly together (like the bottom half of Garudasana, looking impatient and uncomfortable. She whispers to Luke, "This is just too weird, Girardi." The guy to her sits down and the facilitator asks, "Anybody else?" A whole lot of faces look in Grace's direction in a kindly, receptive way. Frink: "One of us…one of us…" Grace uncoils herself and stands up, somewhat reluctantly: "Hi, my name is Grace." Everybody: "Hi, Grace." She continues: "Uh…nothing leaves this room, right? Because I will hunt you people down." Heh. That's the Grace we know and love. Luke looks around, slightly apprehensive about Grace's approach, and shaking his head almost imperceptibly. She hesitates a long time before saying slowly, "My mother is an alcoholic." At that, Luke reaches over and threads his fingers through hers. Grace doesn't freak. She turns her head to look at him, and says, "And this is…" Frink: "Say it! Who's your daddy?" Luke looks like he can't imagine how she's going to introduce him. Grace concludes, "My boyfriend…Luke." Wow! A qualified squee. I'm still annoyed about the skipped-over parts. Grace gestures subtly for him to stand up. Everyone says hi to him, as he stands up to her, stunned.
Joan comes to Adam's shed. She finds him working on the laptop; he wants her to check out a funky font called Buddha Bold. Joan says she has to take the computer back. Adam: "Sure. I'll just work on my stuff later." She tells him there isn't really going to be any "later." He closes the lid and asks, "Jane, what's going on?" Joan: "I am so sorry, Adam." He suddenly points at her and says, "Your stomach…it's leaking." She looks down and says, "Oh, yeah. I got my belly pierced, only it's infected, and if I take the bandage off, then my belly button will come out with it." Girl has an even worse grasp of biology than she does of ethics. Adam looks both intrigued and concerned: "Are you okay?" Joan puts her hands to her head: "No. No. I hate -- hate -- economics." She confesses she bought his computer with clothing she stole from the drive. Adam's mouth is hanging open as she claims, "I thought I was doing good, but I got all caught up, and then it was, like, this interstate crime spree, except…well, I stayed here." Adam's quite incredulous: "You stole from the homeless?" Joan: "Yes. I am a horrible human being." Adam makes me love him even more: "Yeah." He barely laughs.
Joan: "Well, you weren't supposed to say that!" Adam: "Jane, you…you stole from the homeless." Joan: "O-kay! I think we've established that!" You really are not in a position to be snappish, missy. She claims not to know how things "got so nuts," and says she wanted to help him: "You have school and you go to work and you have to take care of your dad and we miss each other." He gets up and walks over to her and puts his hands on her arms: "Jane. Jane, look." Joan, tearful: "Just don't say anything perfect, okay? I can't take it right now." Adam: "We already have so much. I mean, sometimes more than we need." Way not to be perfect, Adam. Joan sighs, "Just don't." She shakes her head and says softly, "Don't." She walks over and collects the laptop -- hey, maybe he'd like to copy that file he was working on to a disk? -- and walks out.
Girardi house. Helen asks Will how they went from a countersuit to blackmail. Kevin's right behind them as they sit down on the couch. Will says it's not blackmail. Helen: "You said we could get represented on a contingency basis, not have to lay out any money." Will agrees, but says that if the jury decides against them, they'd have to pay the Bakers' legal fees, too: "This is our safest option." Kevin: "Since when is going nuclear safe?" Will: "They'd do it to us." Helen: "So you want us to go from being them, to making them look virtuous? This isn't like you, Will. How'd you even get this information?" Will's defensive: "Now it's wrong to try to protect my family?" Kevin says Helen's right: "If the Bakers are our moral compass, we're pretty lost. Countersuing, that's enough." He takes off.
Joan and Judith are lying on Joan's bed. Joan's fiddling with her infected piercing. Karma's an itch, eh, Joan? She says she gave the laptop to the church, along with all the money she had: "But I still feel like the bottom of a birdcage." Judith: "Your mom freaks me out. She didn't call my parents." Joan: "Mmm, that's because she knows guilt is a much more effective weapon." Judith says if her parents found out, they'd make it all about them: "Drag us back into family therapy. A cigar is never a cigar in my family." Joan: "Sorry. This is all my fault." Well, I think Judith bears some responsibility -- she's the one who planted the idea about selling the clothes. Judith responds, "Yeah, like I go out of my way to avoid trouble." Joan finally gives up and removes her navel ring. She holds it up and looks at it: "What were we thinking?" Judith looks at Joan's stomach: "That looks nasty. It's gonna scar." Joan: "Tell me about it." Well, since you opened that door…I can't resist quoting these Bible verses: "But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." (Timothy 6:9-10; italics mine.) Heh. Gotta love it.
At The Laugh Riot, some bald guy who's really not funny is doing standup. The whole Girardi family is there. I know there was some grumbling on the forums about how Joan ought to have been grounded or whatever, but I think that, even if she were, her parents probably deemed it sufficiently important for them all to be there to support Kevin that they would have suspended her sentence temporarily. The comic onstage says, "I almost had a psychic girlfriend once, but she left me before we met." Luke emits a wheezy laugh. He's the only one. He actually stamps his foot lightly. The comic, pleased to have gotten even this one laugh, decides to run with the paranormal theme: "All of those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand." Man, that's a hoary one. Luke's getting quite a lot of comedy mileage out of it nonetheless. I guess if you're sixteen you might not have heard it before. Helen and Will look at Luke like they're not sure they brought the right kid home from the hospital. The guy finally gets off the stage to very weak applause. Man, that guy sucked. While I have you here, let me recommend a highly worthwhile comedy show: Allah Made Me Funny. I know, I know: you're thinking, "Muslims? Yeah, they're all about the comedy." But Frink and I saw it last spring and it was freaking hilarious, and I don't find most standup comedy even remotely amusing. It's not just for Muslims, either. If they tour near you, I think you'd be well-advised to try to see it. I'm just saying. The MC announces that they'll be back soon with Kevin Girardi. Joan enthusiastically ruffles his hair. Will: "I don't know, Kev, I don't want people laughing at you." Kevin points out that that would kind of be the idea. Helen says to Will, "You've always thought that he was funny." Will: "This is different. I don't know why he has to do it here." Kevin waves to Beth, who's just arrived. Joan remarks to her father, "Pretty clear now, isn't it, Dad?" Beth says hi to them. Helen: "Joan, why don't you go get us some refills?" Joan, rarely short of attitude: "Oh, because I screw up, now I have to be your slave?" Helen: "Yeah, it's one of the joys of motherhood." Seriously: Shut it, Joan.
Joan goes over to the bar, where the lousy comic is drowning his sorrows. Now you just know this guy's God. She orders three Cokes, a Diet Coke, and a Sprite. The guy says to her, "It's a comedy club. Shouldn't you be smiling, Joan?" Joan: "Yeah, my life is a Will Ferrell movie." Comic God: "Well, it's always darkest before the dawn…and if you're planning to steal your neighbour's newspaper, that's the time to do it." She doesn't laugh. But she does smile: "Finally. Something you're not good at." You can see why they had to make God a bad comedian. Do you want to be the poor sod who has to write killer material for God? He points out that her brother liked him. And I'll bet Luke scored major brownie points for that. Also, it was nice of God to go on and suck right before Kevin's debut. It'd be hard for Kevin not to be better. Joan tells Comic God, "I was using what I've learned. Isn't that what you wanted me to do?" He hands her a dollar bill and asks her what it says. Joan reads: "In you we trust." Comic God: "You stopped trusting. You wanted more…and more…" Joan: "So money is the root of all evil." He points out that the correct quote is that the love of money is the root of all evil. She asks a good question: "Why didn't you just make everybody rich?" He thinks briefly: "How you see the world…how you deal with it…that determines your real wealth." Joan sighs, like that's just the sort of mini-sermon she was afraid she'd get. Her drinks arrive as the MC is announcing Kevin as "the last comic sitting." Comic God waves and tells her, "Enjoy…"
Kevin arrives onstage to warm applause and reaches up to grab the microphone. He begins: "Um…a lot of new comics worry that their routine is going to be a car wreck, but, uh, I already got that out of the way, so we can all relax." Jason Ritter is really, really good in this scene: he's absolutely nailed the right mixture of nerves and bravado. Kevin's comedy is promising, but not so slick or professional that you sneer at the idea of him being new to this. He continues, "See, my best friend drove me into a tree, and now he's suing me for a million dollars because…he's depressed." Kevin has everyone's attention, partly because they're not sure at all where this is going to go or how dark it's going to be. You can sort of feel the tension: should they cut him more slack because he's in a wheelchair, or is that patronizing? I actually really love things like that. I love darkness and ambiguity. Kevin claims to feel really bad for Andy: "But it is also kind of like the United States suing Hiroshima, like… [whiny childish voice] 'Hey! You ruined our bomb! That was our favourite bomb!'" That gets some laughs. "But, even if he does win…I got the last laugh…I still have six of his CDs and I am not giving them back!" Big laughs. "I don't understand that, though…what about money makes people so crazy? I mean, how much do really we need? I make money, because I rent out my handicapped plates. One guy was such a moron, he, uh, he got out of his car with a white cane." More laughs. Will seems to be genuinely enjoying himself. "I also make a lot of money outside Starbucks. I'll just be sitting outside. You’d be surprised how many people throw their change into my latte. And I save a bundle on shoes. I mean, one pair is gonna last me the rest of my life. See, there are a lot of benefits to having no feeling below the waist. The party games, for one: there's 'Let's Freeze Kevin's Legs!' Then there's…let's see: 'Pin The Tail On My Ass.'" Okay, he's not Jon Stewart, but he's got potential.