In Dreams Begin Responsibilities

Don't go, now! Don't go!

Fade up on a sleeping Angela "Give" Chase, who starts awake and stares all disoriented into space as Angela VO tells us, "In the dream I keep having about Jordan Catalano, I'm trying to catch up with him." Cut to a dream sequence filmed in a wash of overexposure light; Angela's in the hall at My So-Called High in her flannel nightie, filmed in color, but most of the rest of the scene is black-and-white. She hurries down the hall in a weird stop-motion slo-mo, peering around corners. Jordan "Scaredy" Catalano leans against a locker, putting Visine into his eyes as usual. Angela sees him. He sees her. A long look. Jordan pushes off the bank of lockers and walks away from her. Angela VO: "But it's hard, because there's something wrong with the floor." Shot of Angela's booted feet mired in a gluey substance. Shot of Jordan walking away in his big lumberjack coat. Shot of Angela. Angela VO: "Sometimes my father is there." Cut back to Jordan, coat off this time; to him is "Candy" Graham Chase. The guys, both wearing plaid shirts, turn around and give Angela an "�and?" look, then turn back and walk away from her; she watches them go and tries not to look worried.

Okay, here's the quick dream-symbol clip-and-save, which I've decided to share because 1) in all the discussions about this episode, which number in the gazillions, I very seldom hear the dreams themselves discussed, although 2) they must serve as more than a device, since they figure in the episode's title, and 3) it's not like Holzman et al. to introduce a symbology like that without giving it some thought. So, here we go. First, Jordan and her dad. Obviously, Angela loves both men, and even idolizes them to some extent, but doesn't trust either of them and feels abandoned by both of them. Just as obvious is her anxiety about separating from her parents. Less obvious: She feels unprepared (the nightie) and frustrated (can't move); dreams that take place at school symbolize lessons that the unconscious is trying to teach the dreamer. The only color that shows up in Angela's dream, really, is red, which signifies passion and/or anger (especially when paired with black, as it is in her nightie). And then there's the funeral, coming up in the paragraph. Death in dreams usually symbolizes�well, death, but metaphorically -- the death of a relationship or an emotional loss of some kind. Funerals, on the other hand, signify eliminating the negative influence of a parental figure, generally whichever parent matches the gender of the dead person in the dream; here, then, it implies that Angela wants to cut ties with her mother, or at least avoid repeating patterns that Patty has perpetuated in the family. Finally, hallways often represent the womb, but I don't think that's at work here. So that's the basics of Angela's dream. Uh, probably.

Moving on. Angela finally gets unstuck from the floor, but Jordan and Graham have vanished, and Angela VO tells us that, sometimes, her great-aunt Gertrude's funeral "kinda gets mixed in" with the rest of the dream. Angela tries to keep walking, but a wind kicks up, and pallbearers cut her off to carry a casket past. "York Peppermint" Patty Chase, kitted out in a filmy black dress, waves and smiles brightly at Angela; Graham stands behind her. Angela, brow furrowed, waves back hesitantly. Patty and Graham beckon her towards them, but Angela shakes her head slightly "no," and her parents make elaborately regretful faces and wave goodbye; Graham pulls Patty away. Angela smiles again, almost thankfully, and rounds a corner as AVO says, "The end of the dream is always the same. I catch up with him." Angela dashes down the hall after Jordan and pulls up alongside him; she's screaming at him about how he "hurt and betrayed" her and how she can never forgive him, and I mean really screaming, arteries bulging in her forehead and everything. AVO narrates this, and adds that "he just stands there, like someone caught in the storm, who's stopped caring how wet he gets." We see Dream Angela continuing to berate him, and as is his way, Jordan leans against a wall, utterly unconcerned.

AVO: "And then I wake up." Cut back to Angela in bed, staring glumly into the middle distance, as AVO says that after she awakens, "the storm of words still pounds through [her] body." Angela flounces angrily out of bed and grabs a robe as AVO observes that "hatred can become like food. It gives you this energy -- you can, like, live off it." So true. She heads downstairs.

In the kitchen, Graham squawks into the phone at "Shallow" Hallie Lowenthal. Danielle burnt bagel blah. Patty is reminded -- by Graham saying he can't talk about "this" on the phone or by Danielle's whining, I don't know which -- of "her entire dream," and Graham says he'll meet Hallie at the "space" at noon, and he hangs up the phone and exposits that "the money guys" have started to get cold feet. "Really," Patty says, concerned, but Graham's rambles on to the effect of "fuck 'em," to which Angela sarcastically responds, "Yeah! Go, Dad!" Her parents choose to ignore that fumarole of bitterness, and Patty asks whether anyone wants to hear about her dream. The rest of the family doesn't, so much -- Graham "meh," Danielle toaster blah, Angela can't find her mitten, flap flap flap. Patty, unbothered, murmurs to herself, "I dreamed about Tony Poul." A second later, we hear "Lion's" Sharon Cherski say, "Seriously?"

and we cut to Sharon herself, slyly asking Delia "Grace" Fisher, "You had a dream about Rickie Vas-quez?" Delia protests that "it wasn't that type of dream." Sharon gives her an "uh-huh" look. Delia: "We were just dancing." Another "shah right" look from Sharon. Delia: "In thisbig vegetable garden. [giggles] I was wearing this dress I saw on The Nanny." (Gardens in dreams mean love.) She stops giggling abruptly and asks how much Sharon knows about Rickie; Sharon pronounces Rickie's name in a thoughtful tone, then admits, "Nothing." Delia points out that he's, like, best friends with Rayanne "Boleyn" Graff, and Sharon is also friends with Rayanne. Sharon quickly and disgustedly puts paid to that notion: "I'm not friends with Rayanne Graff." Delia cocks her head. "I'm NOT!" Sharon snaps, makes several "uch" noises, and stomps off. Delia's like, "Ohhh-kay then."

Restaurant space. Graham is shouting at Hallie that she should have told him sooner. Told him what, you ask? Graham claps on El Sombrero De Exposicin and informs us in a tone of annoyed disbelief that their would-be investors "want [him] out of the picture." Hallie doesn't see the big deal and calls said investors "insecure -- it's normal," but Graham isn't having it and whines at her that she should have mentioned it three days ago when it first came up and blah. Patty comes in; Graham and Hallie stop arguing and look at her, and she smiles hopefully: "Hi. I brought lunch?" Graham snarks, "Great, that's good," grabs his scarf, and announces that he's going out to get some air. Hallie looks blank. After Graham huffs out, Patty shoots Hallie a questioning look; Hallie admits that Graham's right that she should have told him, but it is "unorthodox" for him to run a kitchen when he's never actually worked as a chef, and anyway, all he has to do is cook for them and "they'll be eating out of his hand." Still fulminating, she starts to gather her things to go back to the office "before they fire [her]." Patty frowns, then suggests, too casually, that it occurred to her that morning that an old friend of hers -- "an oldboyfriend, actually," she's at pains to note -- wound up in the restaurant business, and she'd happily contact him for Hallie. "Why?" Hallie grunts. Patty, momentarily at a loss, thinks maybe Hallie would want to speak to someone "who's been through it." Hallie, obviously only to be polite, shrugs, "Sure, I'll talk to anybody." Graham huffs back in to announce that "tasting is believing," and that he'll cook for "these money guys, and that will be that. Right?" Hallie, smugly: "Right." Patty, bemusedly: "Right."

Mr. "" Katimski's classroom. He drones on about vocabulary words and reading about Grecian urns for extra "crediiiiiiit?" while correcting the spelling of "vituperative" on the blackboard. I've always loved that word. Anyway, Jordan stares longingly at Angela, who writes the words down off the board and ignores him. The bell rings. Jordan and Sharon both approach Angela's desk expectantly; when Jordan enters Angela airspace, Sharon eyes him down, then looks away, and Jordan reverts to awkward-pause mode, shifting from foot to foot awkwardly and acting casual as Angela looks up at him silently. AVO: "It's so weird when you see someone you just dreamed about. Like it's gonna show." More challenging looks from Sharon; more rocking from Jordan. Finally, Sharon leaves Angela to dress Jordan down, saying she's going to check out the extra-credit thing. Jordan can't believe they "have to use all those words in a sentence." Angela doesn't respond, instead leaning around him to see the words on the board. "I mean, not all in the same sentence, but, uhstill." Still no response from Angela. Jordan tries again, telling her he's "still doing that tutoring thing," and when he gets no answer, trails off with a self-mocking "yeeeeah." Heh. But he doesn't give up, telling her that there's "a term for" him, and right then, Claire Danes flicks her eyes ever so slightly, and it's a gesture that lasts maybe a tenth of a second but manages to convey "yeah, I've got a 'term' for you, too -- it starts with 'd' and ends in 'icksmack,' so fuck off" perfectly. It's tiny acting nuances like that one that make me wonder how the hell she wound up in shite like The Mod Squad, but anyway, the term isn't "dicksmack," but rather "rudimentary reader with low literacy skills." Jordan reels off the jargon proudly; Angela greets it with another virtuoso eye-flick, this one along the lines of "uh huh fine great now BUH-BYE." Jordan adds that "that kid Brain" looked it up in a manual, but it's finally starting to become clear that Angela's determined to freeze him out, and he stares off to his right, seemingly trying to pull something to say out of the air.

So, another student walks through the foreground, and we fade through the student's fugly shirt to Brian and Jordan at their tutoring session. Brian is giving Jordan his marching orders, something about a story that actually happened to Jordan and using certain vocab words in the story and blah; Jordan is slumped in his chair, chin on forearm, not listening. Brian says something about flashcards and Jordan bursts out with, "I blew it." Brian asks if that's part of the story (heh), and Jordan grumbles that he should forget about the story: "I can't think about some crappy story, my life sucks too much." Brian nods, going for "sympathetic" but taking a hard left at "inappropriately curious," and asks with studied informality, "Yeah, how come?" "'Cause, sheshe hates me," Jordan mopes, adding that he deserves it. Brian nods some more. Jordan asks if Brian knows who he means; Brian uh-duhs that he does. Jordan tells Brian what happened earlier, that he "tried to explain to herthat I was, you knowsorry or whatever." "So what happened?" Nothing, Jordan says. Brian nods again, as if that's what he expected would happen. Jordan adds that he didn't know what to say, although when you look at that conversation as compared to all the others Jordan and Angela have had, he probably said more than he had in their other interactions combined, but in any case, Brian snips, "Say you're sorry." Jordan sighs, beleaguered. Brian stares at him, then asks incredulously, "Wait, you can go up to any girl and get her phone number, yet you're afraid to tell Angela Chase you're sorry?" "So?" Jordan brats. It's just ironic, Brian says. "Well so what?" Jordan defensives. Brian shrugs, prepared to drop the subject, but Jordan sucks it up and admits that he doesn't know what Brian's talking about: "What's 'ironic'?" Brian then proceeds to put generations of English grad students to shame with this trenchant definition: "Umwhen you realize the, like, component of weirdness in a situation." Jordan, a light bulb sputtering to life over his pretty pretty head, sits forward in his chair: "Help me, Brain. H-help me figure out something good to say to Angela." Brian, a little too quickly: "No. Uh-uh. No." Jordan's about to ask why not; Brian tells him that he "did an undefendable thing" and nobody can change that, and it's like he created his own prison and now he has to exist in it. Jordan's nodding all "yeah, that's it," and tells Brian that "that's perfect" and he has to come up with "some more stuff like that," so Brian jumps up and near-shouts that he won't, "absolutely not." Another student shushes him, so he leans over the back of his chair and sputters that "the phonics manual does not cover that type of situation." Jordan, confused: "Thephonics manual?" As Jordan fixes him with an almost flirtatious look -- which opens up a whole new area of inquiry, if you know what I mean, and I think you do -- Brian informs him hotly that he, Brian, "cannot be involved." More quizzical, nearly tender staring from Jordan. Brian: "Whatever you say or don't say to Angela Chase is completely between you -- and her." There's a quick shift in Jared Leto's eyes here, and I can't decide if Jordan decides he doesn't want to argue with Brian anymore, periodor if he deduces from that exchange, finally, that Brian is in love with Angela. Because if Jordan knows that Brian loves Angela, and he uses him to win Angela back anyway, does that make him a complete dick? Does he figure that, if Brian volunteers to help, it's his own problem, not Jordan's? Does he believe, as Brian seems to, that Angela would have no interest in Brian in any case, so it's okay to proceed? It's part of Jordan as a character that he's difficult to read, so I can't say for sure, and I don't know if we'd ever have found out.

In any event, Jordan's all, "Fine, I'll do it myself," and Brian's all, "Fine, you do that," and Brian suggests that Jordan decide what to say to Angela while he does some calculus, and they can just "work independently." Jordan scribbles. Brian opens a book. Beat. Brian leans forward: "What have you got so far?"

We come back from the break to see Rayanne's pink-tights-clad legs, then Rayanne bent over double between them, asking Rickie if he really thinks she's unhappy. "Well, in my humble opinion, yes," Rickie tells her. Rayanne tells him not to say "'in my humble opinion' -- that's Angela talk, that's how Angela Chase talks," and rambles on about how happy and "up" she is, and we see Brian's sleeve in the frame as Rayanne pops upright, then snaps at Brian, "What're you looking at?" "Nothing," Brian snaps back. Rayanne stomps off. "Ignore her -- she's just a naturally happy, up person," Rickie snarks, dialing his locker combo and informing Brian that he put Brian down to sell Our Town tickets. Brian objects, saying that he has "no free time as it is," and just then Delia approaches them -- well, approaches Rickie. Both boys say hi. Delia gives Brian a "nice try" look and asks if Rickie's working on Our Town, and Brian dorks that Rickie's the stage manager -- not playing the part of the Stage Manager, but the actual stage manager. Snorf. Delia ignores him and says that she'd "really like to get involved," and Rickie says they need people to sell tickets while shooting a pointed glare at Brian. Hee. Delia tells him to sign her up; Brian reverses himself with a cheery "me too," and Rickie gives him a "the hell?" look before telling them that he'll let them know where to pick the tickets up. "Good," Delia perks, and heads past Rickie, but not before touching his arm That Way and twinkling, "Bye." Brian waves and calls after her, "Bye, heh heh!" Rickie: "[Whaps Brian in the chest.]" Brian: "Ow, what?" Yet another scene with brilliant timing that I can't accurately convey in the recap, but it's really funny. Rickie snorts, "Oh, you know what," and Brian makes a "yeah, busted" face before informing Rickie that Delia "has it" for him. "'Has it for me'?" Rickie repeats, a gratified smile crossing his face. "What -- that's, like, an expression peoplesay, right?" Brian asks. Rickie beams. "Right?" Brian prompts him. "Yeah," Rickie smirks, walking away. Brian watches him go, frowning.

Angela and Danielle openly eavesdrop on Patty as she flirts shamelessly with Tony Poul on the phone; Patty doesn't notice them. At one point, Angela mouths, "'Tony'?" Yeah, really. So, Camille Cherski gave Patty Tony's number blah blah doodling hearts on a notepad blah blah "I need your advice" blah blah giggle giggle. Patty hangs up and smiles to herself, at which point the girls burst into the kitchen, scaring the shit out of Patty, and start buttonholing her with questions -- who's Tony, why is she blushing, blah.

Cut to the living room, Angela looking over Patty's shoulder at a photo album and murmuring, "Oh my God, Mom, he's cute!" "I told you so," Patty smugs. Angela smugs back that she "can't trust [Patty's] judgment on cuteness." Oh, I don't know about that; Graham's pretty cute. Although that's Angela's dad, sodamn, where did we just go? Anyway, banter about Patty hitchhiking, followed by the exposition that she hasn't seen Tony since high school or "thought about him in years," but she dreamed about him last night, and we cut to Patty's dream.

PVO tells us she dreamed she "was taking out the garbage," and then she realized that "there's someone there." Patty's in a long white peignoir, carrying a large trash bag; her hair is long, and the light in the shot is a pink wash. We pan around to see Patty staring at said someone: "And it's Princess Diana." AVO ribs Patty: "Mom, not another Princess Diana dream." DVO asks if Patty dreams about Di often. We hear all this while watching the dream; Dream Patty hears it too, and she looks annoyed as PVO snips, "Notthat often." Dream Patty lets go of the garbage, and it floats away; DP approaches Di while PVO tells us that Princess Diana "is upset about the divorce" and crying and repeating that "princesses don't get divorced" over and over again. Patty hugs Di and says, "I know," and over Di's shoulder, a motorcycle appears as PVO says, "Andthen I see him. Tony." Tony Poul appears, in ripped jeans and a motorcycle jacket, smoking and leering at Patty, as PVO says, "And I think, wow. He looksjust the same." DP walks over to Tony and sits in his lap. PVO: "And" Cut back to Patty looking pensive with Angela's head on her shoulder; cut back again to DP, macking enthusiastically with Tony, then back a final time to Patty, saying with a smirk, "That's all I remember."

Dream analysis. The pink could mean a need for unconditional love; that's consistent with the character, certainly (Graham said so in so many words, in "The Zit"). The white nightgown means pretty much what you'd expect -- purity, hope, et cetera -- but can also indicate a controlling attitude or rigidity, which is also consistent with Patty's character. The fact that she has long hair is obvious; ditto Princess Diana, mention of divorce, the trash, and Tony Poul himself -- all fairly straightforward. A princess or queen can also mean a spiritual leader or teacher. The motorcycle (or, more specifically, its wheels) represents the circulatory system, and thus the heart and emotions.

Anyway, Danielle asks sulkily if Patty loved Tony more than she loves Graham. "Danielle," Angela snaps, saying it's a stupid question, but Patty puts an arm around Danielle and says it's okay. Danielle says that "that kind of thing gives [her] nightmares," and when Patty asks what she means, Danielle says, "That you and Daddy could get divorced." Angela protests too much that Patty's only seeing Tony for an hour "to talk about restaurants," but Patty says gently, "Angela." Angela comments bitterly that you can still have feelings for someone "even if they're not the person anymore," then falls silent; Patty hugs Danielle and tells her that "Tony Poul is someone that I knew looong, long ago." "'Long long ago,'" Angela repeats teasingly. "Like a fairy tale." Patty frowns but doesn't respond, adding that "he's not who I chose to make my life with. I chose your dad." The way she puts that gives me a twinge every time I watch this scene; it's as though, on some level, Patty feels like she did Graham a favor by choosing him, even though Graham is apparently in the process of choosing Hallie. Anyway, Angela asks if Patty loved Tony Poul; Patty isn't sure. In a faraway tone, she says "it was crazy," that they "really did some crazy and wild things back then." Angela gives her a look; Patty protests, "I did!" before adding quietly, "It's always tempting tolose yourself with someonewho's maybe lost themselves. But eventuallyyou want reality." Angela ponders that. Danielle whatever. Enter Graham, at which point Angela shoots Patty a conspiratorial look.

Later, in the bathroom, Patty tells Graham that she called Tony Poul, he did own a restaurant, now he has a Jeep dealership in Harrisburg, blah bling blee -- long story short, she invited TP over on Friday night, and she's fishing to see if it bothers Graham. It doesn't. Furthermore, he's got other plans Friday -- he has to cook for the investors. "Oh," Patty says, disappointed. God, give it up, Patty.

My So-Called Girls' Room. Sharon is quizzing Angela on Delia's chances with Rickie. Angela's smiling skeptically as Sharon presses her, "So does he everyou knowwith girls? 'Cause she is a real sweetie!" Aw, Sharon. So oblivious. The look on Angela's face says pretty much the same thing; they exit the bathroom as Angela observes that she thought Delia "craved Brian Krakow." Hee. The two girls come up short when they see Rayanne approaching. All three of them stop, not knowing where to put themselves, but eventually Rayanne shoulders her bag firmly and wheels past them, stopping once to look back before rounding the corner. Sharon gently tells Angela to come on, "[they'll] be late for homeroom."