Photo shoot. Jessica kneels in a pool of water as people stand around her fixing her hair and makeup. CreepyPhotog keeps saying, "Beautiful," over and over. Lying.
Town car. Jessica rides with her head in Nick's lap. (No, not like that. That only happens on his birthdays and occasionally when she's had too much Peppermint Schnapps.) She says she's so tired that she's going to go straight to bed when she gets home, as soon as she cleans the "foot jam" off her from everyone standing around barefoot in the pool of water all night. Nick says, "Footjam?," dutifully noting every verbal mistake Jessica makes as the MTV Marketing Department test-markets "footjam" beach towels and playing cards, but in the end everyone decides they in fact do not have another Chicken of the Sea on their hands and they put it to bed. Jessica has even realized that particularly ship has long ago sailed when she responds to Nick's, "Isn't it 'toe jam'?" with a weary "Whatever."
Credits. Theme. Bad singing. Ass-grabing. Calabasas house they can't afford. This I Swear.
House. Day. Crow noises. Nick complains that there is a crow "washing his ass" in their Jacuzzi. Well, maybe if you kept it covered, no crows could get in there. Except for the real smart mutated robot crows, but with them you have a lot more to worry about than just your Jacuzzi's being assed. Nick stuns us all by using the word "migratory." And Jessica isn't even in the scene to make him seem all the more smart by comparison. Who knew?
MamaSimpson and Jessica go on a shopping spree. The Boys With Avids decide to keep cutting away to shots of the boutique's shop dog, because there's nothing that screams, "It's 4:30 AM in Sherman Oaks and we've been locked up here in this windowless room for fourteen straight hours eating nothing but Diet Peach Snapple and Combos, and this is not what I came out to L.A. to do. I'm supposed to be directing indie films and playing Marco Polo in the snow with Mark Ruffalo and Mena Suvari at Sundance right now, not locked in a room trying to make yet another fucking shot of Jessica shopping seen even remotely interesting" like multiple dog cutaways. MamaSimpson wears a scarf, meaning that every single woman in L.A. is wearing a scarf right now. Every single one. That's an amazing feat. Jessica looks at a label called, "T-Bag." She tells her mom that that's something sexual. MamaSimpson reacts with dull shock when Jessica goes on that it's "when you suck on the balls." But from her reaction, we learn that Jessica and her mom talk this way all the time, which skeeves me out. They trade "suck on balls"es until MamaSimpson hides her face in a piece of clothing and says, "Jessica, that's really weird," which I'm not sure is in response to the label name or the act. Jessica says that maybe she's wrong, but MamaSimpson is sure she's right. ["I'd been informed by knowledgeable people -- and a recent episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent -- that 'teabagging' is when one rests one's balls on someone else's head (when the teabaggee is sitting down), and not when one sucks on someone else's balls." -- Wing Chun] "I didn't know it had a name," says MamaSimpson. Hee. And also, ew, because the notion of Creepy Pa Simpson squatting over MamaSimpson in some Alabama shack back in '83.... Sorry.
House. Day. Nick camera-talks that he's getting two videogames delivered for his game room, and that the doorways are too narrow, so the only way to get them upstairs is to lift them over the balcony. A forklift is delivered. The delivery guy tells Nick that he just drops it off. Nick asks for a quick lesson, because he doesn't know how to use it. The guy cryptically says, "That's all I do. I drop it off," which doesn't explain if he could tell Nick but he doesn't want to, or he doesn't know how to do anything but drive it forward. Forklift delivery guys aren't what they used to be, I'll tell you what. A crow squawks.
Shop. Jessica holds up a thong, saying that she loves them. Her mom says that she can teabag in those. Jessica has balls? I knew Xtina and Pink weren't the only ones. Montage of clothes shopping. Nothing to even write down, except MamaSimpson says "nipples."
House. The games arrive. Drew tries to get out of lifting anything heavy. Nick gets onto the forklift. Shot of a crow, and also, cryptically, of a dove.
Store. The Boys With Avids draw out the shot of the receipt printing out with shots of the dog and the mom and the Jessica. The total is about $3,000. Yikes! Commercials.
Forklift. Nick can't get it started. Shot of pigeons on a wire. Okay, now they're pushing it. Drew and friends make suggestions. Finally, Nick is reminded that he has to put the brakes on, and it starts. All the pigeons fly away. Okay. Nick tries to get it going, and people makes suggestions, and it goes on and on. Finally, Nick takes his foot off the clutch and it stalls out. Someone asks where Jessica is. Nick responds that she's out spending money somewhere. A crow flies. Drew looks at it. Pushing significance of non-signifying element to breaking point.
La Brea or Beverly Blvd. or wherever these stores are. MamaSimpson decides that they should put some outfits together. Montage of shopping. Seriously. Ten shots of someone saying "These are great" and "I like 'em" and then "How much are these?" MamaSimpson makes sure tht Jessica gets a celebrity discount, and then they head to the spot. It's a toss-up as to which I hate more: watching people shopping on TV, or actually shopping. I'll have to think on that.
House. Nick and his brother get the first videogame strapped onto the lifty thing and up over the railing. Nick and his boys lift it off and down onto the balcony. Nick says, "Hey, I can always drive a forklift," being surprisingly cheery about the end of his short singing career. A song plays as the Montage Of Videogame Lifting continues. They lift up the second game. Set up the Golden Tee 2004. Ah, another toss-up. Which I hate more: playing golf, or playing golf videogames. (No, actually, after a few beers, it's a fun videogame. But what turns me off about the game is the four drunk frat boys who always seem to be crowded around the thing no matter what bar you go to, slapping the shit out of the track ball and yelling at each other. Those guys I can do without. You'll never see them huddled around Missile Command.) The videogame guy gets the machine hooked up, and Nick thanks them all, saying that this may be the catalyst for his divorce. Nick is very pleased. Later, Nick is putting the sliding door back on when a murder of crows flies by. They really are sort of freaky -- we have them around here. "What is up with these fucking crows?" Nick asks.
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As "Whimsical Orchestral Music" (thanks, Closed Captioning) plays, Jessica takes five minutes trying to drive her Mercedes into the garage, almost ripping the mirror off. Nick helps Jessica bring in the bags. He asks if she saw any crows outside. Jessica asks what the "big orange thing" is out there. He says it's a forklift, and lies that it wasn't hard to use.
Goddamn, their house is amazing. Ugly and pre-fab, but amazing at the same time.
In the laundry room, Jessica shows Nick their new "amazing" sheets. He asks why they're so amazing. She says they're Egyptian thread and they're from Dallas. He asks how much they were, and she smiles. Finally she cocks her head and gives her answer: "Fourteen hundred dollars." Nick responds, "Jessica Simpson!" Goddamn. I think mine were, like, twenty bucks at Macy's. She says that you sleep on them every night, and he responds that he sleeps fine on the ones they use now. She claims, "I don't sleep good." Nick says, "Holy crap. I better have a wet dream when I sleep on those sheets." Okay, that's pretty funny. Jessica gets to washing the sheets, but can't figure out how to use the machine. She finds a stray sock in the wash, and instead of bothering to figure out whom it belongs to, she just drops it behind the machine. There. That says everything about her right there. Nick comes back, saying that even the washing machine thinks $1,400 sheets are ridiculous, it refuses to wash them. Nick figures out the machine and leaves. Jessica puts the detergent in, but then reads that she was supposed to put it in the little detergent ball instead of directly in the wash. "Oh no," she says. "Nick!" This I Swear. Commercials.
I just realized who Nick and Jessica are: George Burns and Gracie, but without the talent or charisma. Goodnight, Gracie.
House. Night. Game room. Jessica has absolutely no reaction when Nick proudly displays his new videogames. It's so nice of her, as his wife, to take interest in what he does. What a nice lady. Nick shows her Carnival Shooter, the game he claims to have bought for her. They discuss a dying plant that he refuses to get rid of. Nick says the game is warming up, and Jessica snidely says, "I can't wait." She sits on the pool table as Nick goes first, shooting ducks and balloons and shit. Nick couldn't be happier, and Jessica could be bitchier. "Is this what you've been doing all day?" she asks. Hee. The end is nigh. Jessica watches the carnival carnage, horrified and bored. Then it's her turn, and she plays in the manner you would expect from her. She whines and complains. Nick beats her; her Accuracy is 9%. Nick takes the gun and she says, "We're playing again?" She says that she's hungry and then says, "Can we turn it off?" They do. Nick asks if she had fun. "Oh, Lord," she responds. I know it's just a videogame, but does she really have to be such a buzzkill? I wonder if she gets that from MamaSimpson. Maybe when Creepy Pa Simpson brings home a man he's picked up at a bar, she barely even feigns interest. Jessica says that she wants to watch a DVD tonight.
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Nick and Jessica paw through hundreds of DVDs they've never even opened. Jessica has a minor freak-out when she thinks she bought Dumb and Dumberer instead of Dumb and Dumber. She says that Jim Carrey looks just like the guy from the sequel. Nick says that was probably why they cast him. Jessica then reveals that she hasn't ever seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, but pretends she has. Then Jessica asks what Scarface is. Nick says they're going to watch it, but she whines that she wants to watch Fried Green Tomatoes. Oh, Lord. Kick her out. Right now. What's amazing to me is that people have girlfriends and wives like this, but that they're not all pop stars bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars. Crazy. Jessica and Nick discuss Scarface, and Nick does a terrible impression and says, "A little bit" when Jessica asks if it's a gangster movie. Hee. She says, "There better be some kissin'." Then they sit and eat pizza and Nick is bummed because Jessica is busy the day. Seriously, again, I ask. How is this television? They argue about the sheets again, and Nick says they had better feel good on his balls; again, with the balls. He must have a thing about them.
Whistling music starts, which the Captioners describe as "Macabre Organ Music." Wha? Nick and Drew walk around the pool area trying to clean up dead birds that have apparently crashed into the window. Or maybe they've been scared by the crows. Or by Jessica's singing. Montage of Dead Bird Cleaning. They put the birds into plastic bags with a shovel. Nick thinks one of them chirps at him. Drew suggests that he put the dead bird bag into the freezer to scare Jessica. He says he'd be divorced. Shot of crows again. Please stop it.
Inside, Jessica says she's going shopping. And that's it.
time on. Nick and Jessica go to do a VH1 taping. In the makeup room, Jessica tries to memorize some lines she has in French. Nick says it's going to take all day. On the set, Jessica says they were supposed to be there for two hours only, but now they've been there for five. Backstage. A PA reads off restaurants for them to order food from. Jessica thinks "Oriental Seafood" is "Anal Seafood." People laugh. The MTV Marketing Department gets to work printing new t-shirts. Also, a high-school band in Detroit rename themselves "Anal Seafood." The mother of the lead singer makes them change it back to "Scab Pickers" the morning. Nick asks who in the right mind would name their restaurant "Anal Seafood." "That's what I want to know," says Jessica. Bye!
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