Why Jordan Can't Read

Shouts-out to Key Grip, Wendola, and Wing Chun -- and to squirt, for realizing that we'd spazzed and accidentally skipped this ep.

Go, now. Go.

Fade up on "Teen" Angela Chase lying all broodily in bed as AVO intones, "Loveis when you look into someone's eyesand suddenly you go all the way inside, to their soul." Different shot of Angela, expectant now. AVO: "And you both knowinstantly." Shot of Angela laughing flirtatiously to herself. AVO always imagined she would fall in love "nursing a blind soldier, who was wounded in battle." Shot of Angela looking like she might weep. AVO: "Or maybe while rescuing someone in the middle of a blizzard, seconds before the avalanche hits." You know, as a teenager, I had little falling-in-love daydream scenarios just like Angela's; in my case, they came from believing unconsciously that it would require extraordinary circumstances for a man to fall in love with me, and I wonder if that's what's going on with Angela and her Florence Nightingale/St. Bernard fantasies. Just when you think you've caught every nuance of a MSCL episode, there's another one, waiting for you.

Anyway. Angela gazes out her window. AVO comments wearily that she thought, by the age of fifteen, she'd have a love life, "but I don't even have a like life." Girl, get in line. Focus-pull shot through tree branches of the full moon outside.

Cut to the master bathroom at Chase Place; we enter in mediasreeee-ee-eeees (tm Mr. Katimski), with "Fatty Boom" Patty brushing her teeth and "Micro" Graham Chase flossing and asking, "And -- so, then what'd he say?" Patty stares at herself in the mirror and says she thinks she's coming down with something. Graham dismisses this, saying that she's just tired. A mild verbal scuffle follows. Patty notes that she's gained seven pounds, then asks if she seems "bloated" to Graham. Graham wisely opts not to touch that one. Patty asks, "What day is it?" "Thursday." "No, I mean the date." Okay, we've all seen a TV show before, so I'll cut to the, er, chase: Patty thinks she's maybe pregnant.

Cut to a baroque reproduction of some sort of archangel, then swoop down to Angela looking restless in a museum as AVO says, "Field trips are so intense. It's like everybody's been let out of their cages or something, and we're all roaming aroundloose." Rayanne "Frank" Graff and "Darling" Rickie Vasquez fall in behind Angela; meanwhile, the geometry teacher sprints from group to group of students, reminding each of them to "stay with the group," including Brian "Step On A" Krakow "Break Your Mother's Back." Angela makes a snarky comment, then wonders what would have happened if Amelia Earhart had stayed with the group. "Or Diana Ross," Rickie chimes in.

Then Angela pulls Rayanne aside, saying she has to show her something, and she fishes a folded-up piece of paper out of her bra strap and hands it to Rayanne, saying, "I wrote it last night. I couldn't sleep. It contains every feeling I've ever wanted to express about Jordan Catalano." Rayanne glances it over, then begins to read aloud, "'Dear Jordan,'" but Angela shushes her violently and looks around, rubbing her forehead in embarrassment. Rayanne asks teasingly if Angela's going to send the letter to Jordan, and Angela howls, "No, are you crazy?" She says she's proud of the letter, and that she thinks she's finally over Jordan. "So what's in it?" Rayanne asks, then promptly stops listening as Angela launches into a monologue about admitting that she's "overpoweringly attracted" to Jordan but he could have handled things better and he didn't know her at all although he acted like he did and "yeah, I was somewhat obsessed with him, at one time, but, you know, I -- not anymore, because I've, likemoved beyond that" and blah dee blah. Very convincing, Angela. Heh. Not. Rayanne snaps back into focus: "So can I read it?" Angela says yes, then grabs Rayanne's hands and tells her not to show it to anyone. "I won't! Gaah-had," Rayanne snorts, walking away.

Museum montage. Rayanne strolls away, reading the letter.

Sharon "Share Alike" Cherski and Kyle "Coq Au" Vinovich make out in the middle of a sculpture exhibit.

Brian peers around the naked buttocks of a kouros to stare at Angela. She catches him looking; he looks away. She smiles, then covers her mouth quickly, and we see Jordan "Honky" Catalano looking sort of in her direction from another part of the room. Jordan drifts away. Angela, after much ultra-casual hair-toying-with, starts to follow him, but Brian steps in front of her: "Chase. She said to stay with the group." Angela wordlessly slips past him.

Rickie spies around a statue at Sharon and Kyle smooching. A group of elementary school kids giggles at Sharon and Kyle.

Casey what's-her-face and her friend stare dully at a bronze.

Rickie looks distractedly into a glass case; pan over to Rayanne covertly sipping from a flask.

The geometry teacher continues dashing around, trying to herd the students; Angela does the too-casual wander-out-of-the-room thing again to elude the teacher.

Rayanne hits on a museum guard. After he makes to follow her to a more secluded spot, the camera pans over to show Angela's letter to Jordan lying, open and face-up, on a display case.

Rayanne asks the guard if he wants her number. They both giggle. Rayanne: "So, do you?"

Kyle and Sharon make out some more.

Angela shifts from foot to foot in front of a bronze. Jordan sidles up to her, humming what sounds like "Red," and remarks that he's had "this tune" stuck in his head all day. "Whatyou can't get it out of your mind, or something?" Angela babbles, then immediately looks ill and shrugs down into her oversized shirt as AVO grouses, "If only there was a button somewhere that I could just push to force me to stop talking." Ha! I've always loved that line. Because I've lived that line. Jordan says that he could use a cup of coffee. "You drink coffee?" Angela says. So much for the button. Yes, Jordan says, he does. Angela: "With cream, or?" "Black, three or four sugars," Jordan says, looking like he wonders why she's asking. He starts to move off. Angela grasps at a straw to keep him from leaving, bursting out with, "What is that song, is that aCrowded House song?" Jordan smiles obliquely and says it's a song he wrote, and he's in a band now, the Frozen Embryos, "you know, with Tino," and then he says nonchalantly that she should hear them sometime, "we sound okaywell, not really, but" and Angela's whole face lights up and she yammers that that's great and she would love to, and then off-screen Rayanne hisses at her, and Jordan makes himself scarce.

Rayanne comes flouncing into the frame and grabs Angela's arms; she's trying to tell Angela something, but Angela isn't hearing her, saying through grinning gritted teeth that Rayanne "will not believe this," and they both say, "Just listen!" at the same time, and then Angela blunders ahead, telling Rayanne that Jordan just had an actual conversation with her, like, on purpose. Rayanne, very quietly: "Don't hate me." Angela's face falls. Rayanne: "You know thatletter thing?" Angela: "Oh. No." Angela asks accusingly if Rayanne showed it to Jordan. Rayanne, offended: "No!I -- lost it." She apologizes and swears she'll "find it for" Angela, then mentions that, "on the plus side," she met "this really cute guard," not that that, you know, excuses losing the letter "on any level." Angela thinks for a moment, then says pointedly that Rayanne lost the letter, "which means somebody could have found it, and Jordan Catalano was being nice to me, like out of nowhere." Just then, as what that means sinks in for both girls, Jordan crosses the frame behind them, humming. "Oh, God," Angela garbles.

Long backlit shot of Jordan ambling down a hallway, still humming, an unknowable shadow passing all the works of art. Or, you know, whatever.

Back from the break to My So-Called High. The bell rings to signal the end of class, and Brian approaches Angela to ask if she still has his Malcolm X. "Yeah, so," she shrugs, zipping up her bookbag. So, he needs it back. Okay? Okay! Brian slouches off. Angela approaches Jordan, wearing a face one usually equates with an impending root canal, and stumbles in with, "Yesterday, on the field trip? This is gonna sound a little weird, but --" He interrupts her to say that he "almost forgot," digs in his pocket, and holds out the letter to her. Angela just stares at it, frozen. Jordan says he found it at the museum: "You wrote it, right?" Angela, who has on some sort of boxers-over-black-tights contraption of an outfit that makes me cringe for her, makes me cringe about a hundred times more as she babbles that she wrote the letter about someone else (ohhh), she had a boyfriend "last summer" (OHHHH god, that's the oldest one in the book, just STOP, PLEASE), and she "wanted to remember him" so she used Jordan's name because she didn't want other people "to know it was about him, because he, he diedhe's dead" (oh MAN this is SO PAINFUL, please HIT the BUTTON), and finally, mercifully, she trails off. Jordan starts to walk away, then says that he didn't read the letter. Angela snorts sadly, "What, you expect me to believe that?" Jordan sneers that he doesn't care what she believes and makes to go, but Angela keeps at him, saying that it's not likely that he found a five-page letter with his name on it and didn't read it. Jordan tries to blow it off again, then admits that he read "parts of it." "What?" Angela snaps. "You must really think I'm stupid." She pushes past him towards the door. Jordan snarks that it "didn't hold [his] interest," and Angela rounds on him, demanding to know what made it "so incredibly boring," and as Jordan turns away from her, Angela goes off: "Just tell me! Was it, was it, was it -- too emotional, too personal, too many big words?" At the last part, Jordan yells, "Shut UP!" Angela stares at him, furious. Then her eyes soften. Jordan just stands at the window, staring expressionlessly ahead of him, and I must say that I've never understood why he doesn't just leave the room; it's totally out of character for Jordan as written to stay and let Angela work him over. I know they had certain things they wanted to do here, but it's not like Holzman et al. to set it up so clumsily. A rare false step by the writers. Anyway, Angela checks the hallway, then looks back at Jordan and says flatly, "You couldn't read it. [long pause] That's it, isn't it." A moment passes; Jordan admits, in a strange smiling tone, that he's never told anyone before. He turns to look at her and makes a sort of "well, there you have it" gesture with his shoulders.

Before it goes any further, Obnoxious Friend And Real-Life Brother barges in to share a rehearsal-space bulletin. Jordan makes "whatever, whatever" noises and shoos OFARLB away. Angela leans against a desk and picks at her fingernails; when Jordan turns questioningly back to her, she fishes for an invite: "So you have rehearsal tonight?" Jordan equivocates. Angela tries again, saying that maybe she could hear that song he wrote "sometime." Jordan makes slightly more enthusiastic noises and tells her that they've got rehearsal that night at a loft Tino found, like, yeah, we heard OFARLB, so did Angela -- she wants you to invite her, Catalano, so either come across with it or don't, but for god's sake get on with it. Angela asks if she should go to the loft that night. Jordan says, "Well, you knowwhatever," all nervously. Aw. "Catalano! Let's go!" Ah, the siren song of OFARLB. Jordan vanishes into the hall with one last backward look at Angela.

So-Called Bathroom. Angela reviews for Rayanne: "Somethinghas happened." She doesn't knowshe can't explain itbut she understands himin this wayshe didn't even know existed. And it has completely changed everythingeverything. Angela and Rayanne giggle. So does Sars, because she remembers the halcyon days of navet when finding out that a boy had Something Tragic Going On made all of his shitty behavior Make Sense In A Cosmic Way.

Patty shares the fact that she's eight days late with Camille "Goo" Cherski. Camille observes mildly that "it could be pre-menopause." Patty doesn't take this very well. Camille waxes resigned about someday coming to the end of their eggs. Patty gets depressed. Camille tries to buck her up. Patty mentions the possibility of pregnancy and looks queasy.

On the bleachers, Rayanne barges up to Angela and Rickie to announce to Rickie that Jordan invited Angela to watch Frozen Embryos rehearse, which Rayanne herself has wanted to do for ages. Rickie wants to know about "this thing" that changed everything; Angela says that it's not something she can talk about, except to say that it involves the letter. Rayanne, clutching a pudding cup (shout-out to Wing Chun?), squawks that she "knew it," that "he found the letter, it made him want you." Angela doesn't answer directly, just titters and looks down. Rayanne croons, "Angelika, do you know what this means?" "Yes, I do," Angela sing-songs back. Then, after a beat: "What does it mean?" Hee. Rayanne: "It means this is happening. You're happening. You, and Jordan Catalano." Rickie sits silently behind them, eating a candy bar and looking confused, as Rayanne proceeds to take credit for breaking the Jordan-related impasse. Angela shyly thanks her. Rayanne takes off to meet George the museum guard. Left alone with Angela, Rickie awkwardly congratulates her, and Angela laughs that she can't believe this is happening, and if she ran into Jordan she'd probably faint. "You won't run into him," Rickie says authoritatively, adding that Jordan has Shop fifth period Mondays and Wednesdays, "and he never cuts Shop." Angela: "Awkward pause." Rickie explains that he knows that because he used to pass Jordan on his way to computer class. Angela chooses to accept this: "Oh. Right."

Patty and Graham try to figure out when she could have gotten pregnant. Bad diaphragm joke. Graham: well, it's not like we've had that much sex. Patty: what do you mean, we've had loads of sex. Graham: stop eating Nilla Wafers. Patty: "Graham? What if it's a boy?" Graham, for some reason oiling a baseball glove: denialcakes. Patty: fine, forget it. Out of nowhere, Brian: "Awkward pause." Patty and Graham, not expecting to see Brian and thinking he's overheard their conversation: "Stammering." Brian has come over to retrieve his copy of Malcolm X. Angela isn't home; she's at band practice. Patty thinks that Angela's at band band practice, rather than at Frozen Embryos rehearsal, so she questions Brian about band, and Danielle whatever, and Brian says he plays two instruments because colleges like that, and Patty says she can't go into Angela's room without a warrant so Brian should come back later. Danielle: "Clumsy, annoying flirting meant to parallel Angela's attempts to flirt with Jordan."

The loft. Various people loiter. Rickie and Angela sit in the corner, looking bored; Angela has on that sleeveless-plaid-shirt-over-a-leotard ensemble that I absolutely hate. Rayanne stomps over and flops into a chair, bitching that she wishes Tino would get there so that they'd play something, "or at least I could drink more," and she up-ends her empty flask impatiently. Then she takes off to call George again. Angela heaves a small sigh, and AVO complains, "Huge events take place on this earth every day. Earthquakes, hurricaneseven glaciers move. So why couldn't he justlook at me." She rests her chin glumly on her hand. "Hey," Jordan calls out a split-second later, "you wanna hear that song I was tellin' you about?" Angela beams and nods. Jordan launches into the unplugged version of "Red," as follows:

I was goin' nowhere
Goin' nowhere fast
Drownin' in my memories
Livin' in the past
Everything looked black till I found her
She's all need, that's what I said
Oh whoa oh -- I call her "Red"
Yeah yeah yeah
I call her "Red"
Yeah yeah yeah