Episode Report Card Deborah: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Duffening II: Electric Boogaloo
By Deborah | Season 2 | Episode 15 | Aired on 02.10.2005
Kevin and Lily are on their date. She's explaining surfing to Kevin, and how the paddling against the waves is the worst part: "You just gotta climb back on, just to get bashed again!" Kevin: "Sort of like dating." Lily chortles: "Oh, really? I haven't done enough to know. No, right now, it's more like, 'the shoes looked cute in the store, but then they hurt my feet.'" Freud would have a field day with that metaphor. She asks about his hobbies. Kevin: "I play golf, some, and, um…I have pretty high maintenance hygiene." O…kay…? Talk about a date-stopping comment. He smiles weirdly, and I can't tell if he made the comment out of some kind of nervousness, or because he's not liking the date and wants to put her off, or because he's testing her threshold for his situation because of what happened with Beth, or what. He's rendered Lily speechless, though, which isn't easy. He continues, "Which is a gross thing to say on a first date. Or any date. I'm sorry." Lily tries to soldier on: "No, at least you haven't talked ad nauseam about your last girlfriend." Kevin doesn't say anything, suppressing something akin to a smirk. Lily: "That was coming?" He shakes his head. Lily says she's sure he really got around -- when he could get around. Kevin tries to deflect that without saying anything. Lily: "You broke a lot of hearts?" Translation: "How long before you break mine?" Kevin admits, "A few. One in particular. But, uh…she got me back." Lily asks when that was. Kevin looks at his watch for a moment and says, "Oh, um…three weeks ago." Lily: "Well. As long as it's not fresh. I mean, should we even be doing this?" Kevin thinks so; he says he had to get back in the game: "And, um, you asked, and I like you, so…" This is so not someone who's interested in being your ticket back into "the game," Kev. Lily: "I asked?" Yeah, this date's completely off the rails now. Kevin: "You did everything but send a car." Lily: "Oh, okay. Well, um…I've had about as much fun as a girl can have in one night." She gathers her things and gets up. Kevin implores her to stay, apologizing and promising he'll be charming: "I'll be ebullient, even. I feel the ebullience coming on." Lily, pulling on a cute leopard coat: "I've never liked cleanup committee." Kevin: "Look, I was horrible to her, okay? I have some residual guilt. You of all people should understand." Lily: "A quick story before I go, okay? Um, the reason I became a nun is because after the second time I stole money from my blind grandmother to run away from home to join a surfing colony, I decided that I was such a horrible person that no normal remedy could save me. Thinking you're the worst person in the world is no different than thinking you're the best. It's giving yourself a place in the universe you haven't earned." You go, girl. Boy, does Kevin ever need to hear that. She grabs her bag: "Thanks for dinner." Hmm. That might be the end of my little daydream of Grace and Lily as super-cool sisters-in-law. Unless Joan and Grace hook up. I'm just saying.
It's night time. Joan's with Roger at the bookstore -- which she really seems to have the run of -- and she's reading the last verse Byron's "When We Two Parted" in the most halting, monotonous, uninspiring way: "In secret we met-- / In silence I grieve / That thy heart could forget, / Thy spirit deceive. / If I should meet thee / After long years, / How should I greet thee?-- / With silence and tears." Well, that's subtle. Joan groans: "Honestly, how much worse are the Backstreet Boys?" Yeah, they're definitely mad, bad, and dangerous to know. Roger says she's taking it out of context: "And reading it like you're on Nyquil." Great, now I'm forced to agree with The Skeeve -- whose current bowling shirt looks like it reads "God" -- I swear. It's probably "Joel" or "Joe" or something, but it looks like "God." Joan: "But they're so seriously dull!" She wants Roger to just tell her how to write the paper. Roger: "And let you miss the point of Byron? Couldn't live with myself." Joan reminds him the last time he tutored her, he told her this was just a game. Roger: "Well, this is different. Look, there are very few things worth learning about, and poetry happens to be one of 'em." Frink snorts: "Please." Me: "Could you just not be an engineer for, like, five minutes?" Roger, whose shirt does in fact read "Joe," urges her, "Think of it: people devoted their lives to putting beautiful puzzles of words together. Byron, for example, was a lord. Wealthy man. He could have done anything with his life, but he devoted it to this…and a few bacchanalian orgies." Joan laughs. Roger finds a poem and moves next to Joan to read it, while she watches him out of the corner of her eye, wondering what's going on: "'She walks in beauty, like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies; / And all that's best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes." Frink: "Woo-oo-oo." Me: "Shut up." Joan: "Well, when you put it that way…" He tells her that poetry is the only language worthy of love: "Except, of course, the physical language." Joan seems uncomfortably squirmy. He asks if she's okay; she says she's fine. He asks if there's "trouble in paradise," meaning her relationship with Adam. Joan claims they're great. He then tells Joan about his high school girlfriend and how sure he was that they'd get married, and how they made plans to go to college together. Joan, troubled: "Did she die?" Heh. Roger says she met someone else, but he was already sort of seeing someone else -- I'll just bet, Skeeve -- and it fell apart after graduation. Joan thinks that's terribly sad. Roger shrugs it off, saying it's just high school: "It's not supposed to last forever." They sit there in nervous, awkward silence for a bit until Joan decides she should be getting home. Roger offers to drive her, but Joan insists she loves the bus, and she has to lock up anyway. Roger presses her a little about whether she's sure, and then finally skeeves off. Joan watches him go. Honestly, what does she see in that guy? He's a dishclout to Adam. Actually, The Skeeve would probably make an excellent Paris in a modern rendition of Romeo and Juliet: pretty, a bit vapid, with a thing for the child bride.
After the commercials, it looks like Mrs. Gross is back, because we see a woman with a mole the size of Connecticut on her chin. Imagine you're named Mrs. Gross and you have a huge mole on your chin. Would you…become a teacher? Especially a high school teacher? Seriously, now. She surveys the class, which is taking a test. Joan lapses into another daydream.