Episode Report Card Deborah: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT "Can You See Them / See Right Through Them"
By Deborah | Season 2 | Episode 14 | Aired on 01.27.2005
Friedman's at his locker when Luke comes down the stairs with a huge smile: "Look! I got my license, dude, I did it!" Friedman: "Yeah, baby!" They hoot and jump up, bumping their chests together. Grace is on the stairs behind them, watching this display with a grim expression: "So you did it, huh? Who cares about the polar ice cap melting? You just pack the penguins in your car. You can all do a drive-through for a burrito grande." Luke: "Can the preamble, Grace. If you're gonna do it, just do it, okay? I am a gas-guzzling, smog-spewing tool of a corrupt oil-based economy. So just break up with me! Because I am never gonna live up to your expectations." Grace is slightly dumsquizzled: "Dude, you've endowed me with entirely too much power." Luke: "But, you said…" Grace: "I say a lot of things. I'm just a simple anarchist trying to get through my day. You do your thing, I do mine." I love Grace. Friedman is thinking, "Dude, that is so hot," but wisely chooses not to vocalize that thought. Luke: "So you'll ride with me?" Grace laughs: "Yeah, right. Let me go get my fur coat." As she brushes past him, she touches his shoulder and says quietly that she'll meet him in the biology closet at 3:00. Luke stares after her, asking Friedman, "What just happened?" Friedman: "Who cares? Shotgun!" They run out.
Overhead shot of various toilet stalls. Joan's in the last one, hiding from this year's barnacle. Didn't they learn anything from Iris? No one likes a barnacle. Someone knocks on the door and Joan says it's taken. The knocking persists, and Joan points out the other stalls are free and asks for a little peace. Under the door we see little pair of orangey-red boots with fringes and we hear a familiar voice: "I'm all about giving you peace, Joan." Joan bangs her head gently against the wall and laughs silently to herself before reaching over to open up the door. There's Little Girl God, who's really growing up fast. Little deities do that, don't they? One minute they're all drooling and pooping themselves and the next thing you know it, they're smiting people and turning them into pillars of salt. Where do the millennia go? Joan throws up her hands: "God isn't familiar with my right to privacy?" Uh, you're not familiar with the concept of omnipresence? That's the creepy thing about God: there is actually no privacy. Well, one of the creepy things. Little Girl God: "Things must be pretty bad for you to seek solace in a bathroom stall." Joan says she's gotten to know the life she saved, and it's creepy: "She won't leave me alone." Joan tries to close the door, but Little Girl God pushes it open: "She looks up to you. She needs a hero." Joan: "Why? She's already been saved." Joan comes out of the stall. Little Girl God says some people can't see their own lives: "They live in a kind of darkness. They think that the only way they can see is by using someone else's light. That's what she's looking to you for." Joan whines that she can barely see herself. Little Girl God knows. Joan: "Nice. You know, a little pep talk every now and then wouldn't kill you." Little Girl God says she's doing just fine. Joan: "So how do I make her see? What do I make her see?" Little Girl God just walks out with a Godwave. I notice in this scene that although Joan and Little Girl God aren't dressed at all similarly, they're wearing the same unusual colour scheme: orangey-red, a purpley-fuchsia, and browns. Joan gives a snarky little Godwave back.
Auditorium. Lucyfer, Joan, The Duff, and Price are all onstage. Lucyfer presents a certificate for outstanding public service to Joan and gives her a little embrace. Will watches warily. Everyone applauds. Nine West (I don't know if that's Gabby or Elle, so we're back to that) leans forward and says something to Brian. Price thanks everyone for coming and as people stand up to leave, he says to her, "Very uplifting, Ms. Girardi. An oasis in the desert of your permanent record. Well done." Joan: "Excuse me?" Price: "Well done." Joan: "Once more?" He starts to leave the stage as Brian starts asking questions: "[The Duff], there were other witnesses at the scene who said the vehicle was never in any danger of hitting you? Is that true?" Price tells him not to waste the sheriff's time: "I'm sure that the streets of Arcadia are teeming with felons." Hee. The Duff says Joan pulled her out of the street. He asks her to verify that she saw that the SUV was going to hit her. She says she heard tires squealing. Joan tells Brian the car was going to hit her. Brian: "But if you didn't actually save her life…" Joan says she didn't ask for "this whole fiesta." She says she was just there and The Duff was going to get hit. Helen pipes up: "That was the account written up in the Herald." Brian: "By your son. Do you consider that to be objective journalism?" Oh, now we care about that? Chah, whatever. Do you consider that bright yellow sweater vest over the blue shirt to be a non-eyesore? Also, way to wear the school colours, dweeb. Kevin, who's also there -- with his poufy new hair that makes him, no joke, at least two inches taller -- says, "Dude, I checked all the facts." Lucyfer pats Joan on the shoulders, saying, "I think we can move along here. This is a celebration." Brian wants The Duff to definitively say that Joan saved her life. Good gravy, who really cares? It's not like an entire political party stole an election leading to someone who was never actually elected being in office for eight years while he freedomizes the world. Everyone looks at The Duff. She stands there like Bambi, caught in the bitchface glare coming from Gabby and Elle. She caves, of course: "I don't know, it happened so fast, and…" Joan: "[The Duff]…" The Duff points at the bitches and says, "Ask them…they were there, I guess they would know." One of the other reporters -- and there seem to be some there apart from Kevin; I mean, my God, is there absolutely nothing else going on in Arcadia this afternoon? -- says the driver of the SUV said there was plenty of time to stop. Will points out that this is because The Duff could sue him. Another reporter asks Will if he doesn't think it's a conflict of interest to get his own police department to give his daughter an award. Lucyfer says firmly that it was her call. Price tells them they're done and everybody should get back to class. Joan, listening to the mild bickering that's going on, turns to The Duff and says, "Tell them!" The Duff just gives her a "can't help you" look and walks offstage. You know, it's not like a better actor would have made this weak, implausible storyline much better, but at least it wouldn't have hurt to try that.
After the commercials the Girardis are at the kitchen table. Joan's reading a news story: "Questions Arise About High School Hero." Helen says it's ridiculous and that she's cancelling their subscription. Man, if I did that every time someone wrote something I didn't like, there wouldn't be a magazine or newspaper left in the world I could read. Kevin: "Don't look at me, it's not my byline." Helen: "How can they print such garbage?" Luke: "Well, technically the article's true. Questions did arise." Will tells her not to worry about it. Joan: "'Don't worry about it'? Everybody thinks I'm walking slime now!" Kevin says he tried to get them to kill the story: "But they said I wasn't being objective." Joan says they could have talked to the coffee cart guy: "He saw!" Kevin says that was in the first piece: "This is the new angle for the follow-up." Joan gripes about her life being an angle. Luke: "Classic case of yellow journalism. Sensationalism unclouded by fact." Joan claims she's going to school with a bag on her head. Will says she's not any different: "They are." Joan tells him she hopes she didn't get him in any trouble with his boss. Will tells Joan not to worry about that.