Props to Sars (who promised me that the last recap was good even though it wasn't funny), and to Key Grip, who has already shamed me with his wicked awesome recap of Cruel Intentions.
Because this isn't the pilot, there are now real opening credits, only every scene is from the pilot. And even those few scenes make it very clear that the show is brilliant -- funny, smart, heartbreaking. Really, really good.
The camera pans across a skyscape as "space-y" music plays and a narrator says some astronomical shit about the distance from our solar system to the nearest star. As I've already said elsewhere, the one thing I don't plan to do this summer is learn, so I'm just going to gloss over all those "facts" and "science." As the camera pulls back, we see that the skyscape is part of an educational film being screened for a classroom of high-school sophomores who are working hard to dramatize how little they care. Angela "The Muse" Chase sits in the back row of the class with her arms crossed, not paying the screen the merest bit of attention -- no, not even as a token courtesy. AVO says, "I've been kissed three times. No, four times. No. Three times. All of them were people I never saw again." Flames suddenly flare up in front of her face as she adds, "Which I hope doesn't, like, mean something." We see a younger Angela -- back when she had blonde hair -- sitting at a campfire and picking marshmallow goo off a sharpened stick. A slightly older-looking guy comes up behind her and touches her shoulders, and as she gets up and follows him, AVO explains, "One was this counselor at this YMCA camp." Camp Dude leads Angela to a tree. She peers over his shoulder at a sad-looking girl who could be Mary-Louise Parker's little sister as AVO says, "Except he already had a girlfriend." Angela touches the marshmallow to her lips, and CD smiles and wipes at the marshmallow goo with his thumb (ew! Who knows where a camp counselor's hands have been?), then leans in, and suddenly her hair is red, and they kiss (and for her first kiss, it sure looks like Angela knows what she's doing), and then she's back in class, gingerly touching her lips and glancing around herself to see if anyone's noticed her reverie. Strangely, none of her classmates has exactly gone to the trouble of sending out a press release to notify the world that she wasn't paying the educational film her full attention. The film narrator says, "The inner core of the star now implodes violently, producing an explosion of unparalleled intensity," and the camera cuts to the screen to show it. Hear that, Dawson's Creek? That's a worthwhile use of intertext.
As the Angela of the Present walks the hall between classes, AVO says, "One was this usher at my mother's cousin's wedding two years ago." Angela pauses in a doorway, which has become the doorway into the reception. AVO says, "It was a double-ring ceremony," which I imagine is significant though I don't know what it means. A redheaded boy in a powder-blue tuxedo leads Angela through the festivities and into a flower-decked archway. Angela is wearing a peach dress and a crown of flowers, which suggests she was somehow involved in the wedding party -- which is odd, considering that the bride (or groom) would be Angela's second cousin. And I'm fixating on all this because clearly these are the most significant details in the scene. Not. Anyway, AVO says, "He was staring at me all through the ceremony." The usher plants a quick peck on Angela and books. Angela watches him go, looking confused, but as always, AVO's got the 411: "Later, I found out he only kissed me 'cause he had lost a bet." I find this hard to believe; Angela is very pretty; it's not like she's covered in boils or (apparently) smelly or, feet aside, fat. Kissing her would be a privilege, not a punishment. But in TV-land, I guess she's a fugster or something. Whatever.
Back in the hall at school, Angela glances around, wanders, and then stops, leaning against a row of lockers, in order to allow AVO to say, "The third kiss is the hardest to describe. It was this guy I met on the beach last summer. It was Labor Day." (And it is "Labor Day" and not "Labour Day," because she's American.) The crowd of students parts and a silhouetted figure appears: It's a tall man in shorts, with an apparently unconscious girl stretched across his arms. AVO says, as if we didn't get it, "It was the day I swam out too far." The lifeguard sets Angela down on the ground, and sort of crawls over her, only he doesn't go for her mouth from the side of her head, as lifeguards usually do, but rather positions his body over hers -- chest to chest, and face to face -- in what is decidedly a sexual posture (and one which, unless she's embellishing the incident in her memory, is decidedly inappropriate). AVO says, "That was the most exciting one." Their lips touch, and AVO admits, "Except it may not count as an actual kiss, since I was kind of...unconscious." Angela looks around guiltily, and then goes on about her business, while AVO says, "I've never had an actual boyfriend. I don't know if that's normal or not."
Angela catches up with Rickie "Suave" Vasquez and Rayanne "That Rude Girl" Graff. Rayanne seems to be telling Rickie a story about a girl named Dana Odenkirk. She enumerates all Dana's physical attributes so that Rickie can place her, and when he asks, "What about her?" Rayanne says, "Nothing. She just annoys me." As Rayanne complains about Dana's possibly-silicone-enhanced lips, Angela spies Jordan "The Object of Beauty" Catalano over Rayanne's shoulder (his hair much longer than it was in the pilot -- about the length of Daniel's from Freaks and Geeks, only clean), and in an overly animated tone, Angela demands, "Really? You think she did, really? You think she siliconed her lips, REALLY?" Jordan passes without acknowledging Angela. Rickie looks horrified at Angela's metamorphosis, and Rayanne murmurs, "Angela, he's gone. You can talk like a normal person." "Oh, God," Angela moans, and Rayanne says, "You have got to progress to the phase of this. I mean, think of Rickie and me." Rickie presses his cheek to Rayanne's as she asks, "How much more can we take?" Angela protests that she doesn't want to look like she's throwing herself at Jordan, and Rayanne says, "Excuse me. People throwing themselves at people? Is, like, the basis of civilization." Rickie says that Rayanne has a point. Angela smirks, and then turns her head to ogle Jordan, leaning, while AVO says, "If Jordan Catalano is, like, nearby, my entire body knows it. Like one of those dogs that point? I'll keep talking and stuff, but my mind won't even know what I'm saying. I keep wondering if there's like, a term for this." I think it's known as "adolescence."
The Bio teacher who was in last week's episode gives the class some final instructions: "Now, before we cut our hearts open --" Various students start groaning loudly, and the teacher whines, "People! It's a pig heart." She says something about an alternate assignment for students opposed to vivisection, and as Brian "Boitano" Krakow reaches for a heart for himself, and one for his lab partner, Angela, Showcase inexplicably cuts to commercial.
And when we come back, it's the same scene, obviously, because Showcase cut away in the middle, and the teacher is still droning on about what an experiment is. Brian is smiling at Sharon "Sweater Puppies" Cherski, who glares back until Brian awkwardly glances away. He and Angela both pick up their textbooks, and when Angela tries to make friendly eye contact with Sharon, the latter bitterly looks away. Angela sort of shrugs with her eyes. The teacher says that a successful experiment depends on "precision, observation, and clear, concise communication." A male voice shouts, "What?"
Bio class seems to be winding up. The teacher asks to see the hands of the students who'll be handing in extra-credit assignments. Naturally, Brian's hand shoots up. Angela's rubber gloves are all bloody so I guess she decided to do some work after all. Presently, she hears someone hissing her name from the doorway; it's Rayanne, beckoning, with Rickie behind her. The teacher turns her back to write down the names of the extra-credit nerds, and Angela gathers her things and slips out. Sharon (whose hand is also in the air) watches her go, then turns back toward the teacher with an outraged expression on her face. Because Angela's leaving class two minutes early affects Sharon deeply and personally, I guess. Brian watches Angela leave, too, looking mildly disappointed, if not especially surprised. When the teacher counts her, Sharon looks as if she's considering ratting out Angela, but makes the last-second decision not to say anything. The teacher straightens up to count Brian and asks him where his lab partner is. Brian says that Angela "almost fainted." "Ugh!" Sharon says, theatrically swinging her head away from Brian. The teacher accepts Brian's excuse for Angela, and asks him what his extra-credit project is. Sharon disgustedly rolls her eyes. Brian replies, "Controlled release of energy. Construction and use of a volumeter." The teacher suspiciously asks whether he worked on the project alone, or with Angela, and Brian generously lies, "With Angela." The bell rings. Sharon shoots him a contemptuous look. The teacher gives the class brief clean-up instructions, and when Brian takes his tray over to the cart, he runs into Sharon. "What?" Brian sputters, and Sharon snorts, "Like Angela really helped you with your volumeter." Brian insists that Angela is "planning to," and when Sharon doesn't buy it, he asks, "Why would I say it if it wasn't true?" Sharon snaps, "Why would you say she was fainting? Okay, what was that?" Sharon starts ranting about how "some of us actually work" instead of using their lab partners' talents as a crutch, and winding up for the killer blow: "She takes advantage of you, and you totally let her. I pity you." Then Sharon runs off to the pier and catches the ferry to Bitter Island.
In the bathroom, Angela is muttering, "Oh my God." Rayanne says, "Hey, I did it for you! It's a good thing." Rickie backs up Rayanne's claim that "it's a definite good thing," and Angela demands, "Wait, you were there too?" Rickie confesses that he wasn't, but that Rayanne told him the whole thing. Angela opines, "I bet people can actually die of embarrassment. I bet it's been medically proven." Rayanne gives her a reality check: "Hey, worst-case -- you get an out-of-state ID, which you need anyway." Angela squeezes her eyes closed, then asks, "Tell me everything he said." Rayanne and Rickie continue with Rayanne's good PR, and Angela begs them to stop talking about it. Rickie and Rayanne comply, until Angela immediately asks, "How did he act? Did he act bored, or --" Rayanne jokes, "He flopped on the floor, uncontrollably, okay? Rickie had to hold down his tongue --" "And I wasn't even there," Rickie adds. They all crack up. Since I had this type of conversation with my friends well into university, I will refrain from mocking Angela's compulsive need to document the minutiae of the Graff/Catalano summit. ["Dude, I still have them." -- Sars]