Episode Report Card Daniel: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Sum of All Tears
By Daniel | Season 1 | Episode 3 | Aired on 06.15.2002
Then we watch Cecile and Tim decide that since their romantic dinner for two isn't going to lead to any rumpy-bumpy, they're going to barge in on Jason and Rebekah, and Rebekah annoyingly, loudly, says, "Hey, what's up!" and Rebekah voice-overs that they discussed when to do the "first kiss" thing, so I guess Tim and Cecile haven't kissed yet and there's Cecile sitting on the bed explaining that she would never push anybody faster than what he's comfortable with which is a big fat lie since we all saw how she admitted that if Tim hadn't made a move she was going to boot his ass out of there. Of course, she apparently never told Tim that, and in sort of the same manner, she's using this ridiculous discussion to put pressure on Tim, like her statement about not pressuring Tim was obviously for his benefit but she's making like she's speaking hypothetically, which was annoying but not as annoying as Rebekah then saying, "And Tim, what do you think about that?" and Tim lies there on the bed not saying anything and I find it hilarious that both he and Jason are sitting there looking like they'd rather be anywhere else. Rebekah -- getting no response from Tim -- just goes, "Yeahhhh." In an interview, Tim says that he "definitely" feels pressure. Yeah, no kidding. Then we're forced to witness Rebekah getting even more specific, saying, "All in all, do you like her or not? You going to kiss her or what?" and she is practically yelling at the top of her lungs here and Tim is explaining in an interview that he's not sure of his feelings and doesn't want to give the wrong impression.
And can I ask at this point why it is that women (some women, not all, but never men) think that the best way to deal with a guy who's feeling pressure in a relationship is to put more pressure on him? And thank god we don't get that kind of behaviour so much once we're out of school and, one hopes, acting like adults (which excludes the participants on Bachelorettes in Alaska, I suppose) because I can't think of anything more annoying than your potential girlfriend's girl friends putting pressure on you, like this one time when I was in university in Halifax and I met this girl we'll call "Samantha" at a party and she was really cute and was actually the sister of someone I was going to school with and we were hitting it off well but I was also at the time working on another girl who didn't happen to be at the party and so my friend and later roommate Ian basically told me to let him have a go at Samantha since I was supposed to be getting together with this other girl, so I agreed and let him do his best. Unfortunately for Ian, Samantha kept ditching him at the party to keep talking to me, which had him grumbling afterward. But shortly after that, I found out that this other girl wasn't actually interested in me, so I kind of wished I'd talked to Samantha a little more. And a little while after that, a group of us was going to see a midnight showing of Dazed and Confused and I agreed to go but when my friend and later other roommate Nevin came to my dorm room to get me, I'd changed my mind because the Oilers game was on and when I told him I wasn't going he just said, "You have to come," and I didn't feel like arguing so I said okay. And when we got down to the quad where the group was waiting it was a nice surprise to see that Samantha was in town and was coming to the movie too and we spent most of the walk there and afterwards in the pizza place talking and it was really nice and it was much later that I'd found out that the whole point of the group excursion was to get us together, like Samantha was coming in to town and she asked her sister to set something up where she could see me again and thus the group excursion to Dazed and Confused and why Nevin said "You have to come" when I tried to beg off and how when I walked out of my dorm Samantha saw me and said, "There he is!" and actually turned around to be all nonchalant so that I'd have to notice her. And so the next day I was disappointed to find out she'd gone home (which was just outside of Halifax) but I got her number from her sister and then of course the Big Question became "Will Danny call her?" since I didn't call right away and this was a small school where pretty much everybody knew everybody's business and so Samantha's sister's friends (who were my friends as well) all took great delight in hounding me to call her. Like, we'd be in the cafeteria and they wanted to point out that Samantha and I could talk on the phone all we wanted since her hometown was close enough that long-distance charges wouldn't apply since this was before long-distance competition opened up and forced phone companies to offer unlimited long-distance packages but my friends bugged me with these really annoying oblique conversations among each other but for my benefit, like, "I just talked to my friend in Vancouver yesterday." "Really, Vancouver? That's a LONG DISTANCE. You know what isn't a LONG-DISTANCE call, though? Where Samantha lives!" and then they'd crack up laughing while I studiously ignored them and I'd like to point out that none of my guy friends tried any of that nonsense. And then Samantha's sister happened to come into the dining hall, and since the women were getting great mileage out of this "long distance" garbage, they all started laughing when they saw her, and she got upset and said, "Are you bugging Danny again? Don't, because if you do he'll never call her!" at which point I had Had Enough so I stood up and said, "I don't care if they bug me, if I want to call her I'll call her and I don't care what anyone says!" and I stomped out of there, much to the great amusement of the table and most of the dining hall but it was okay because I'd already finished eating. And I did call Samantha but it was despite the pressure, not because of it, and in the same vein I'd like everyone to remember Rebekah's little pressure cooker here a little later on in this episode.
How weird is it that I should actually be relieved to switch over to Sissie's cabin but after watching Rebekah in action, I am relieved, as some jaunty acoustic guitar starts up, taking us over to Sissie's place, where we get grainy night-vision camera work, with Brent golly-gee-whizzing that he can't believe Sissie's actually interested in him and Sissie is snuggling while holding a plastic bottle or something, like, what is that about, and she says, "Why wouldn't I be, though?" In an interview, she says she's not really keen on intimacy "in this situation," and I guess she means "on camera," which is probably the most sensible thing I've hear her say yet, and she says she really wants to know someone "wholeheartedly" first and thank god she managed not to refer to Brent as a "hunka burning love" again. More self-doubt from Brent as he says it's been two and a half years (since what he doesn't say, but I guess since he's been divorced or had sex or maybe both), and he assumes that Sissie must think he's an "idiot" for not making a move yet, but of course Sissie, the president of the Brent Beatification Society, says it's "sweet," whereas I think his insecurity is quickly moving from endearing to annoying. In an interview, Brent says this is the first time he's felt the "flame" since his divorce, and it's been a couple of years since he's even been on a date. In an interview, Sissie admits that it's hard not to think about gettin' bizzay with Brent since he's so "physically attractive" and you realize that her earlier claim that she wants to wait was just so much "rationalize whatever he says or does" behaviour from these supposedly empowered bachelorettes. Extremely annoying over-the-covers?-under-the-covers? debating-the-sleeping-arrangements thing between Brent and Sissie. Sissie says, "Do you want to stick one leg out?" and I have no idea what that even means and I hope to god it was not a euphemism. In an interview, Brent says that if sex is going to happen, it has to be the right time, and they both have to agree, and finally someone is expressing -- however implicitly -- reservations about this sex-life-in-front-of-the-cameras nonsense. It looks like they agree to let Brent sleep on top of the covers with Sissie underneath, and they coo something about being on their best behaviour.