First up: Props to Niki for Mighty Excellent Recaps -- so good that I'm nervous about subbing for her this time. Wish me luck.
As if willing viewers of all demographics to scream and change the channel to Star Trek: Voyager, the episode's first shot is of a standardized test's multiple-choice answer sheet. Frustrated, a hand vigorously erases one answer and bubbles in a different letter. Pencil-tapping ensues. More uncertainty. This must be a Palm Beach County voter. Instead of voting for president, he or she is filling in the bubbles in the shape of Strom Thurmond. No, wait, it's just Eli stressing about the SAT. On the black-and-white soliloquy stool, Eli points out that "if you think about it too much, you have to move onto the thing, the question." We see his fingers caress the strings of the guitar perched on his knee. Back in the classroom, a clock ticks relentlessly and students' nervous eyes dart around the room as they scramble to finish. Eli, distressed under pressure, does the intelligent thing and drops his pencil, abandoning his test in favor of the life-changing academic challenge of cracking his knuckles. If Eli has ten knuckles and he cracks them at the rate of one knuckle per second, how many apples does he have left when he's done? The answer, of course, is twelve. Regardless, B/W Eli appears again to inform us that Rick believes all scores improve the second time around on the SAT. The show intersperses the full-color test-taking Eli with his B/W counterpart's voice-overs about ridiculous SAT questions. He's grappling with the complexities of "greater than / less than / equal to," and suddenly I realize this isn't the SAT at all. It's the fourth-grade aptitude exam. B/W Eli twangs the guitar. We hear Rick tell him that confidence is everything: if Eli believes in himself, he'll do well on the SAT. If not, he'll be making Big Macs and smoking dope behind the dumpster, drinking fryer grease on a dare.
B/W Eli reads another math question and taps the guitar. We flash back to him studying with Karen for the verbal portion. "Remember, if you don't know what the word means, go through the sentence and try to figure out what [other] word would make sense," she instructs him. Eli rolls his eyes. "Replete....nullify..." B/W Eli recites, as though he's studying. "Truncate, taciturn, negate" -- huh? Since when is "negate" a tough word? -- "redundant, tantamount." From the "easier said than done" file she's got tucked away inside the SAT answer book, Karen tells her frustrated son to trust his instincts during the test, rather than over-thinking everything. In the present, we see Eli completely panic as the proctor calls time and asks them to put down their pencils and turn over their answer sheets. She authorizes a fifteen-minute break. Eli wonders if that's enough time to drive to Capeside and see if Andie has the SAT answers as well, as a complement to the PSAT cheat sheet she borrowed.
As all the students file out of the room, Eli remains seated, staring dumbfounded at the test. He looks up to see Jennifer, his ex-girlfriend, gazing at him as she gathers things into a knapsack. She grins feebly and shakes her head before leaving the room. Eli smiles. He's having an SAT of his own -- a Sexual-Appetite Twinge. His number-two pencil twitches.
Two random girls in the school hallway complain about the test. "If I don't break 1500 this time, there's no way I'm getting into Brown," one of them whines. When asked about her backup school, she spits venomously, "Wesleyan," as though the comparison equates with that fateful day when parents promised her a Lexus, then showed up with a rusted brown Chevette with love-bead décor and a dead alligator air freshener. I'm sure Wesleyan appreciates her remarks. Eli, too, groans at her conceit. As he gulps water from the fountain, Jennifer sidles up to him and proffers a spare can of Coca-Cola. Lots of awkward "how've you been" banter ensues. Eli calls the SAT "soporific," admitting that it is that one pesky SAT word that he never forgets, yet it's never on the test. Jennifer says that her parents pressured her to retake the SAT, even though Eli recalls that she did beautifully on it the first time. Jennifer looks cute: her hair is in a chin-length, blunt-cut bob angled inward toward her chin. The problem is her outfit. What I thought was a desperately unfortunate faux-denim overall dress is, in fact, a hideously regrettable faux-denim overall-style apron top -- layered over pants and a shirt -- that comes down just past hip-level. Jennifer is a tiny girl, and yet in this she looks like a giant Coke-drinking pear who was in the middle of making French toast and homemade sausage when she remembered about the SAT. As they walk and talk, Eli's pal Coop swings past and breezily says that he's blowing off the rest of the test, accepting that he'll be going to community college anyway. He and Eli make a rehearsal plan. "We're putting a band together," Eli informs Jennifer. She nods. Eli explains that they're trying to figure out their sound without tying themselves down to one thing, kind of like his search for nooky last season. He wanted a woman, but more than one kind of woman. I swear, this is how Eli defined the "sound" to Jennifer: "Emo-tinged pop chaos -- sort of early Knapsack and Promise Ring." I'm more of a Salt-Free classicalterna-blasted Mesquite BBQ blues bedlam fan, myself -- early Facts of Life meets The Dead Milkmen meets German rock opera -- but hey, different strokes for different folks. Eli tells Jennifer that the band is called "Anti-Inflammatory." She giggles. "I should go, uh, sharpen my pencil," Eli says, getting up to head back to the classroom. Jennifer stares wistfully at him, longing to suggest that her genital sharpener could amply care for his pencil. Instead, she remains silent as Eli thanks her for the Coke and enters the SAT room. She gives him one last lingering look, wishes him well and dashes off for a cold shower before finishing her SATs.
At Karen's house, Jessie and Leo are discussing a weekend plan. He wants to know what's playing at The Archives, a theater showcasing old movies. Karen balks. Leo's interest is piqued by the Tony Curtis/Jack Lemmon cross-dressing caper Some Like it Hot, which should ring some alarm bells -- isn't obsession with that film a homosexual stereotype in the same class as love of Barbra Streisand? Maybe not. Maybe Leo just likes trying on Karen's sensible shoes sometimes. ["But then there's the fact that Mark Feuerstein, who plays Leo, also played a bisexual on Ally McBeal last year. Just sayin'." -- Wing Chun] Jessie would much rather watch Eli's band rehearsal. Conveniently, Eli sullenly barges in and heads straight for the fridge, trying to skirt his mother's obvious enthusiasm for talking about the SAT -- the test, silly, not Karen's Straight-laced Ass-on-a-pole Tendencies. Eli is so obviously bummed and agitated, but Karen totally buys it when he tells her the test went "fine, great." Karen is too boring to notice that no one uses words like "fine" or "great" in the same sentence unless they're faking it. She immediately asks about the math. "What math?" Eli says, horrified and running screaming from the room with foam flecks spewing from the corners of his mouth. Oh wait -- nothing that exciting could happen in boring Karen's boring kitchen. If you're in it, you're infected with lethargy. Leo posits that Eli should just put the SAT out of his mind and enjoy the weekend. Right on, Leo. As Karen declares her pride in Eli's effort -- which she now believes will lead to auspicious SAT results -- Coop and Company arrive lugging enormous amps. If Karen thought this was a temporary "hey, Mom, can we jam in the basement" situation, then she's sorely mistaken. Unless Coop & Co. is stupid enough to cart the amps in and out of all their different rehearsal venues. Wait, never mind. They are stupid enough. Stupid-Ass Teenagers. Leo salivates at the amplifiers, and Jessie -- denied once by Eli -- is welcomed downstairs by Coop to have a gander at their band in action. Karen sips her wine and looks mildly stressed. No, she just looks mild. "You are one hip mom," Leo says. "My mother would've never let us practice in the basement." Leo offers to help with dinner, but Karen dismisses him so he can scamper downstairs and play with kids his own age. Karen looks worried again.
The drummer taps his sticks together to get the band in sync -- but *N Sync they are not -- and guitar riffs abound. Leo starts twitching and getting really excited, pulling out his worst air-guitar show and displaying it for an unimpressed Jessie. He's a complete loser. The song starts slow, then speeds up and gets very heavy on the bass guitar, which is Coop's instrument. Eli stops them and yells at the drummer, who looks downtrodden and restarts the song. Guitar playing ensues. Leo's erection swells once more. Eli stops the music and there's more pointless yelling about who's off track and who doesn't know the song. One more try. Leo's completely aroused at this point, and Jessie just looks horrified at his attempt to rock out with Eli's chums. Upstairs, Karen catches a glass before it crashes to the floor -- it seems the loud music is jiggling the dinner table, which she is very sensibly setting with very sensible crockery. She grimaces.
The doorbell rings. It's Rick. "I...am...your singing telegram," he croons. Professor Plum shoots him and slams the door. Or, some viewers saw Rick drop off a French textbook that Jessie left in his car. Crackling dialogue ensues: "I thought she'd need it." "Yeah, she probably does." "Yeah." Fire up the Emmy™ reel. Karen chases after the beeping oven, and Rick compliments her sensible new stove. He then jumps right onto the SAT -- no, not the Scalding Ass Thermometer, but the test Eli took. Remember? Yeah, I do, too, unfortunately. Karen says that the test went well, and Rick asks about the math. Karen says she didn't want to interrogate Eli, which is a blatant lie because she also asked about the math portion. They're apparently concerned about Eli's ability to add, especially because he only has ten fingers. "I didn't interrogate. I just don't think we should go easy on him," Rick says. The band strikes up again as Karen praises Eli's summer-long dedication to cramming for the test. Rick agrees, but frets that Eli hasn't filled out a single college application, or even really weighed his options. That pesky glass drops off the table before Karen can catch it, shattering on the linoleum. Karen, telling Rick to chat with Eli, picks up the broken shards of glass with her bare hands. Not very practical, there, Karen -- but I suppose, even if she does get cut, her veins are far too sensible to bleed all over the place. Rick rubs his cheek. "I can go from shaggy to smooth in Mach 3," he thinks, telegraphing to Gillette his readiness for a massive endorsement contract.
The band is loud. That's about all I can say -- from the sound, I haven't yet detected any traces of influence from Knapsack's early years, but I'd say Eli's earlier "pop chaos" classification aptly describes what we're hearing. Jessie is fleeing upstairs for no reason other than to encounter Rick on the stairs and whisper, "Leo's here." Like the mature role model he is, Leo has ganked one of the guitars and started jamming with Coop and Eli. "So you want to be Clapton, or what?" he asks one of them. Rick greets them awkwardly and motions for Eli to talk with him. He asks about the SAT, and Eli repeats that it went "fine." Rick presses the issue. Does Eli feel good about it? Did he put a rush on the scores? Eli is hating this conversation, being just as vague with his answers as he was with Karen. Rick doesn't notice. "I was thinking you should make an appointment with the college counselor at your school," Rick says excitedly. Eli looks horrified. Right then, the piercing shriek of amp feedback rips through the conversation and gives Eli an excuse to quit the discussion in favor of tending to his band. Jessie returns and Leo gives back the guitar, offering the helpful advice, "Stay back on the beat." Shut up, Leo. This guy couldn't be hip even if God actually transformed him into a hip.
Eli gets his own paragraph here because his song lyrics are so devastatingly real, in the sense that I almost fell asleep listening to him spout them. "What's wrong with this picture? What's wrong with this life?" he sings, glaring at the spot where Rick stood near the stairs. That is indeed true sentiment. What is wrong with this picture? I think it's the lighting.
Preparatory booklets: sixty dollars. Test fees: forty dollars. Number-two pencils: three dollars. Rushed scores: thirty dollars. Post-SAT teenage rebellion and parental alienation: priceless.
Lily is working on her home laptop, munching on pizza. Yeah, right. Sela Ward must have a spit bucket under the desk. Rick reads at the dinette table. Lily, keeping with the theme, inquires about the SAT -- again, not Rick's Sultry Anatomical Totem-pole, but the test -- and Rick replies that Eli's acting exactly as he did the first time. "I don't think he's invested," Rick says sadly. Grace and Zoe scamper into the kitchen to raid the fridge. Lily is pumped that Eli's starting a band, and wants to know if they're any good. Grace perks up, her Eli-dar beeping furiously. "Are you talking about Anti-Inflammatory?" she asks. Rick, outraged that Lily told the kids about his Preparation H creams, barges angrily out of the house. Or, he just stares dumbfounded at Grace, unable to believe that his son named a band after topical ointments. Lily loves it, and Zoe wants to know what the group sounds like. "They were too loud," Rick grouses. "I couldn't hear them." Wow, congratulations, Rick -- so sorry I missed your important metamorphosis into an octogenarian. Zoe wants to come to rehearsal, and Grace laughs that they won't let her watch. "They don't want groupies who are nine," she teases. "Ten," Zoe corrects her indignantly. "Whatever," Grace says, rolling her eyes and lightly bopping Zoe's head with a box of crackers. That was kind of cute. Julia Whelan is good at playing the affectionately disdainful older sister. Zoe grabs more snacks and pulls Grace upstairs to finish watching the movie. Grace grumpily complains about spending her Saturday night at home. Well then, she should consider getting some friends who actually call her. Lily smiles and enthuses about how adorable the band must be, and says she can't wait to hear them. Rick sighs. He clearly doesn't care what Lily saying and contemplates capitulating and switching to Sprint just to quiet her.
Eli's playing the guitar outside his school. Jennifer strolls up to him and casually asks whether he's writing a new song, or just strumming. He explains that he's trying to, then ignores her. She pushes to hear the words. "Put your ear close to the ground, do you hear a fading sound? If it's lost, it can't be found...." Eli sings, breaking off and complaining about the last line. Jennifer grins, deems it "not bad," and suggests he replace the line with, "if it's lost for getting found." Eli loves it, and since Jennifer has done some helpful work for him, he finally acknowledges her presence with a smile. Sensing the presence of the kind of brain-addling hormones that make slaves of even the brightest, most independent-minded women, Eli presses Jennifer for a word that rhymes with "wilderness." And no, "horniness" isn't a good rhyme. The line reads, "A vagabond with no address, fire in the wilderness..." Jennifer suggests, "the possibilities are limitless." Her wardrobe is bathed in dinginess. Eli laughs. Jennifer bristles slightly.
Grace walks by and boldly broaches the subject of the band, saying she's heard "great things," which, when pressed, she admits really only means that she's aware of its existence but would really like to dive into Eli's trousers and learn to master his woodwind instrument. Eli is dismissive, so Jennifer pipes up and invites Grace into the lyric discussion. Grace giggles. "The patient's losing consciousness," she suggests, following up with a semi-geeky explanation of how it ties into the word "fading" at the very beginning of the song. Eli and Jennifer both love the suggestion, but are interrupted when Grace's friend G.I. Jolie approaches and utters what can only be a shout-out at the highest cosmic level. "What are you doing? Making the band?" Now, I'm not sure how the Once and Again writers foresaw that I'd be pinch-recapping this particular episode, but somehow they knew and are rewarding my patience with the ultimate reference to my first MBTV show. Let's hope it stops here, though, and that no one tries to work Oliver Platt into this week's script. "I like the guitar," G.I. Jolie says. "My dad says has a pre-war Martin." Eli is impressed, and I get the distinct feeling faux-Jolie wants to bag him. Jennifer obviously feels the same way, because she leaves abruptly, but not before accepting an invitation to watch Eli's afternoon rehearsal. "Wow," Eli says to no one. Indeed. Man, that one's never on the SAT, either.
Eli delves into the coat closet just as Rick arrives home. Eli's heading out to band practice, assuring Rick that his homework is complete. Rick wants to talk for a minute, but Eli doesn't have time for such trifling things as paternal concern, so he blows off his father. Before he gets out the door, Rick drops the bombshell: he made a Thursday afternoon appointment with Mrs. Geddes, the high-school guidance counselor. Eli rolls his eyes and rejects the proffered college pamphlets Rick is holding. Sighing as his son storms out in surly style, Rick slams the closet door and wonders why I couldn't have kept the "s" alliteration going.
Eli sings, his voice throaty and husky. He's not good. The song stops halfway through, because that's all they've written. One band member says, "It wasn't that bad," and Coop bitches that his fingers hurt. Jennifer is impressed, and accepts Eli's invitation to help make the song flow a little better. Jessie comes downstairs and squeals when she sees Jennifer. They hug. Leo follows Jessie into the basement and declares that he's found Anti-Inflammatory its first gig. Well, more accurately, he says, "I may have scored you a gig." Coop snarks, "Is this My Three Sons?" I laugh, even though I'm not really sure I get the reference. Who cares. Leo's an idiot, and that's all that matters. Leo explains that it's not a paid gig, but it is at a coffee shop across the street from the university -- excuse me, that's The University ["you know, the one in the greater Chicago area? That one." -- Wing Chun] -- and as such, it's right near sorority houses. Everyone immediately perks up and embraces the idea. It'll be an acoustic set, which the band agrees is doable. Coop suddenly gets cagey. "This isn't going to be one of those things where now you get to be in the band, is it?" Coop asks warily. "Because we've got four." Leo stares at him. He wanted to be the fifth, because everyone knows all the great boy bands have five members. He wanted sex, drugs and rock-n-roll, although he'd have settled for an Old Milwaukee and a nice chocolate-dipped strawberry. But no. Total rejection. "Get over yourself," Leo sputters before retreating to Karen's boring kingdom.
Lily and Rick are taking Zoe out...somewhere. Details, details. So unimportant here, apparently. They are moving frantically, and yet Lily stops dead in her tracks and says she wants to change...long-distance services! Because Sprint is the best deal in town. Lily then requests time for a change of clothes, if Rick doesn't mind waiting. "Of course not," Rick says, patiently. And that is how I know Rick is not a real person. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if he whipped out his Rocketeer fun-pack and flew away. While he waits and Zoe steals something from the cookie jar -- I'd guess a cookie, but it looks more like a gumball -- Rick decides to call Eli, because he hasn't uttered the word "college" quite enough for one day. Jessie answers, and she's fixing Anti-Inflammatory snacks. Wait, no, she's not...she's fixing snacks for Anti-Inflammatory. If she was doing the former, she'd be a Nobel-winning chemist, not a pubescent black-belt. Jessie tells Rick about the band's gig, and Rick fakes interest. He then pretends he wanted to talk to Karen, who is busy shagging Leo like the minx he is and thus can't come to the phone. He disconnects, dejected, and repeats to Lily and Zoe the news of Eli's gig. Lily is thrilled, and Zoe is irritated because, despite her constant harassment while Rick was on the phone, he didn't score her an invitation to rehearsal. He should have -- an Anti-Inflammatory rehearsal might reduce the apparent swelling in the part of Zoe's brain that controls her obnoxiousness. Zoe decides to change -- her clothes, sadly, not her personality -- and she runs upstairs.
Rick descends upon Karen's office and follows her around, barking at her about how this is a critical point in Eli's life, far too important for him to spend all his time on a rock band. "You're blaming me," Karen says. Rick denies it and apologizes for her reaction, but she knows he doesn't mean it. She sits, looking harried. "I'm just as worried...about his options," Karen sighs. "I can't stop thinking about it." Rick exhales loudly and sets his coffee on her desk and his bum in a chair. Lucky chair. Karen insists that being reasonable is the best solution here. Rick promises -- swears up and down -- that he'll be fair and reasonable with Eli, and Sela Ward calls me on Sprint's Nickel Nights plan just to giggle about how the actress who plays Karen got dizzy from being bashed over the head with foreshadowing.
Eli's listening to loud music through headphones. He sees Karen and Rick bend over him, and their mouths are moving but he hears nothing. That's some serious volume -- I've never had music so loud that I can't hear a single peep out of someone's mouth when they're all up in my face. I'd like to borrow those headphones. He pulls them off, and his parents repeat themselves. Karen whips out the word "important." Eli grins, "Sounds ominous." They look startled until he mumbles, "SAT word." Nice that Eli's parents assume he's too dumb to use any word with a syllable count that's greater than two. I mean, he had a girlfriend with a three-syllable name, for God's sake. "The few months are crucial in terms of your future, and getting into college," Karen begins. "You've worked so hard...overcome so much just to get to this point, and we want to acknowledge..." Then Rick cuts in that "the work is just beginning." He pushes for Eli to visit schools and hammer out some essays. Karen tries to interject that Eli might be spreading himself too thin with the band. He freaks. "That's what this is about," he seethes. "You are both so obvious!" Before Karen can pat him on the back for the big-word choice, Eli continues his rant, refusing to quit the band. Rick asks him to postpone the songwriting just for a while, but Eli reminds him of their gig. "We'll have to talk about that," Rick spits. Eli screams, "That's screwed up. It's my life, isn't it?" No. It's Sela Ward's life, and you get to guest-star whenever she asks for time off.
Commercial. Something about a very special Drew Carey Show coming up, and I make a mental note to watch with my whole family because I have a feeling we can't miss it, and that we'll have to see it to believe what happens . Just a feeling.
Eli, having patented the technique of barging into a room, employs said skill when entering Karen's Kitchen of Tedium. But it's so boring there that, mid-barge, he slumps to the floor in a dead sleep. Jessie nudges him awake, and the action resumes. He's curt with her when she asks about rehearsal, preferring to fix himself a bowl of cereal. CE-RE-AL. Karen would be proud. He could've just said "sludge." Karen reminds Eli that he's got a meeting with the college counselor the afternoon, and that he needs to chat with his coach about missing practice. "I was thinking about quitting the basketball team," Eli sasses. "I don't want to spread myself too thin." Karen warns him not to "start" with her. "I didn't," he says. "I've just been trying really hard." He slams his bedroom door. Jessie looks upset, because she'll have to go through this in three years.
Karen and Leo eat Chinese food in her office, working and passing the soy sauce. I think that would make a great euphemism. "Leo," Karen could growl. "I want you to pass me your soy sauce. Pass it in my office." Then: mad, passionate sex atop a bed of steamed rice and vegetables. Okay, maybe not. I'm just trying to make Karen's life anything but painfully ponderous. "Tell Eli it's all set," Leo chirps. Karen has no idea what he means, and turns steely when he tells her he set up the coffeehouse gig. "Great. A school night," Karen mutters. "What? It's an early gig. He'll be home in time for milk and cookies and beddy-bye," Leo brats. Karen is startled. "Who told you? What do you know?" she snarls. No, sorry. My mind wandered again. Karen actually just worries that Eli has too much to think about, and can't juggle it all with a full-fledged band. Good thing he doesn't have one. Leo laughs at her, calling her "horribly uncool in a funny way." Heh. He defends himself, saying he thought she'd appreciate his interest in her kids. Karen calls it interfering. "Okay, I'll just stay in my box," snaps Leo. She agrees that he should stand back a bit, but Leo argues that she can't have it both ways and has to make up her mind where she wants him in this situation. "Maybe that's the problem," Karen sighs. "Maybe sometimes, it's not just about you." She walks out of the office, aware that it's hers and he's the one who should leave, but unwilling to give up the chance for a good un-boring flounce. I'm warming up to Leo in this scene, and that's saying a lot because I just saw this actor in Woman on Top, a terrible performance in a horrible, horrible Penélope Cruz movie. I'm still bleeding internally from the experience. The only reason I saw it -- for free, mercifully -- was to save our movie critic from having to go though such pain alone. But I digress.
Jennifer perches daintily on the couch, facing Eli, who's sitting on the table strumming his guitar. They joke warmly about his song. "It was cute," she giggles. "Or, maybe I just think you're cute." Kimberly McCullough then goes to make pancakes so that she'll have a practical use for all the syrup pouring from her mouth. Eli then shamelessly picks her brain. She offers this lyric for the song's bridge: "This light, this rain, this life, this pain." He grudgingly thinks it might work, then sings it after this line: "Torn between what I can see and this picture you have of me. It isn't much to look at, we agree..." Jennifer stares at him adoringly while he sings what she wrote. He stops and looks at her. She gazes at him again, silently offering him something saucier to strum. Jennifer is hoping he'll tear off her billowing hippie flower-shirt and make a non-practicing virgin out of her. I think Niki once termed it the "shamboogie," which is my new favorite word. Jennifer leans into Eli. "Guess it works," he says. She leans again. "Do you want a soda or something?" he asks, smoothly. Oh, Eli, stop. You do know how to woo a woman. I'm getting all tingly -- if "tingly" meant "annoyed and cold." Jennifer refuses the soda, but kisses Eli and opens his pop-top for the night. I'm gearing up for some steamy Eli scenes.
And, apparently, I will get nothing and like it. This is so unfair. Rick and Karen have been having joint aneurysms, dull ones, this whole time -- and we're denied some sweet Eli lovin'. How depressing. , we see Eli sitting on the floor in jeans and fondling the guitar. Jennifer, wearing nothing but a man's collared shirt, strolls in and kneels down near him. Silence. Before anything is said, Jennifer scampers into the lounge before an entering Rick can see her. Her plan of hiding in a wide-open room with no door is a brilliant one -- Rick, by turning his head a fraction of a centimeter, sees her and covers his eyes, saying, "Hello, Jennifer." She makes cheerful small-talk while she puts her pants on behind a wall, peering out just long enough so that it's obvious she's working her button-fly. I have to assume Jennifer and Eli slept together, although it makes little sense considering her reluctance last season and their eventual split. Apparently, playing the guitar, writing pseudo-deep lyrics and crooning like a hoarse and constipated Thom Yorke wannabe will right any relationship wrongs. To his credit, Eli nailed the formula. He got the rock-n-roll; that got him the sex. time, he's going to have a wicked smack habit. Anyway, Eli looks mortified that Rick caught them basking in afterglow. "We were looking for a quiet place to work," he offers lamely, explaining that he's still staying at Karen's that night. Jennifer cheerfully explains the song-writing they're doing, begging Eli to show Rick the results. He refuses, throws on an undershirt and prepares to flee the scene. Rick demands to know what else he might be planning for the evening. "Eat dinner, do my homework, brush my teeth and go to bed," Eli lips at Rick. "You're free to do whatever you want as soon as you act like an adult," Rick counters. Eli is angry and slams the door on the way out. Rick is confounded.
Having consulted the parental rulebook, Rick decides that Rule #1 after a crisis with his son is to sit outside and eat nuts with his girlfriend. Wow, that sounded kinky -- really, they're just pistachios. He's perched on a fountain, and Lily runs up with a bag of cookies to share on her half-hour break. ABC is desperately trying to prove that Sela Ward, like Oprah, is Every Woman. She eats pizza! She eats cookies! So what if she's a size zero! Note to ABC: Put her metabolism in pill form, or leave it alone. Lily wants to hear about the band, curious if it's "okay to bring the girls to hear him play...or would that be weird?" Rick contends that maybe, just maybe, Eli won't play. "He should get college applications in before he devotes all time to the band," Rick insists. Lily is startled and gnaws on a cookie. An extra sits below the camera, ready with the spit bucket. Then, Lily grabs Hypocrisy by the shoulders and gives it a big, wet, sloppy smooch. "I just feel that any kind of creative expression is really a good thing," she says, polishing her halo and knocking out the dents it got last week when, in fact, she spat all over Judy's choice of creative expression, which was in the form of Booklovers. Rick snaps at her, and then Lily's phone rings to cut the tension. It's Candice Bergen asking for her spokesmodel gig back. "Not a chance. Go to MCI Friends and Family, baby," sneers Sela, hanging up. Phone rings again. It's Crusty. Apparently, she's insisting that Lily come back and resume doing Crusty's bidding, because Lily bangs her forehead on Rick's shoulder and makes wild gestures. She and Rick patch things up and kiss before she has to leave.
Mrs. Geddes, the college counselor, is in her office with Rick and Karen. "He applied himself this summer," Karen says, adding her hope that the scores will reflect that. Mrs. Geddes, ever the optimist, suggests that many colleges only look at ACT scores, so Eli could always explore those. Instead of slapping her for showing no faith in Eli, Karen just nods mildly and I nod off. "He'll be here any minute," Rick breathes sadly, staring out Mrs. Geddes's open door.
The movie Unbreakable looks quite good. As long as M. Night Shamyalan writes movies, Bruce Willis will have an acting career. Wait a second...in that case, maybe someone should stop M. Night immediately.
Rick storms down to the basement and viciously unplugs the amp, kicking everyone out and ordering Eli to shut up. "I'm not going to let you push me around anymore! I don't care!" Eli shouts. Rick swears he's not trying to push, but Eli contends that everyone's acting crazed. "You purposely disobeyed your mother and me," Rick notes angrily. Eli admits that he skipped the meeting with Mrs. Geddes on purpose, probably because she's such a charmer. "What the HELL is going on, Eli?" growls Rick. "If you don't care about your future, why should we?" Eli stands alone, facing the wall. He has a secret. It's a bombshell, a whopper of a tidbit. No one saw this coming, not even Dionne Warwick's people. "I think I did worse on the SAT," Eli chokes. Put that one away in the "No shit, Sherlock" file.
Eli almost starts to cry about the SAT -- not, in fact, Spectacularly Aromatic Toe-jam, but that other thing with which he just dealt. Rick is almost accusatory when he asks how Eli knows he did worse. B/W Rick and Karen, intertwined in a montage, both say that seeing your child in any kind of pain is horrible. "I just want you to talk," pleads Karen. "We would like to explore whatever it is you want to do." Eli insists that he wants to be in a band, under the erroneous impression that he's really talented and good at it. "Now is not the time," Rick says quietly. Eli bristles, noting that he's seventeen and can do as he damn well pleases. Never mind that legal emancipation isn't until age eighteen. Rick leaves in a huff, and Karen excitedly stares at his retreating behind -- which actually is kind of exciting -- and then looks at her son, who is throwing around power cords in a doozy of a tantrum. Brimming with all kinds of nothing, Karen just stands there.
Upstairs in the Kitchen of Tedium, Rick stops and pants. Someone needs to buy a Stairmaster. B/W Rick notes, "My dad left me without any kind of map." He wrings his hands. "Without any way of knowing how to raise a son. And I try. I've tried really hard. But the truth is, I may be doing everything wrong." Welcome to parenting, Rick. Stay awhile. He weepily stares at the camera, panicked. Back to life: Karen comes upstairs, considerably less out-of-breath than her ex, suggesting that Leo nooky is a lot more athletic than what Lily's offering. Rick leaves without turning around to face Karen, and she does what she does best: stares after him. Karen stares a lot. If she keeps this up, we'll have to sit through an entire episode where she deals with the consequences of premature eye-strain.
Eli tacks colorful flyers onto lockers. They advertise his gig. Jennifer sidles up to him and smiles, earning an immediate apology from Eli for not calling her. "I didn't expect you to call," she says. Liar! Eli starts to make excuses. "What happened, happened," Jennifer smartly notes. "Not that I regret it or anything, but I'm not assuming that it changes things between us." Is this reverse psychology? I could never be that calm and collected and detached about it. And wasn't she a virgin, anyway? Man. "I hope you know it meant something to me," Eli says. Jennifer nods. Eli blahs about how he doesn't know what he wants to do in life, then invites Jennifer to the concert. "I'll be there," she says, touching his face and acting every inch like a girl who really does pretty much want the hell out of Eli. He credits her with the song. "You did it," she grins, leaving. Eli stares after her. I suppose she's his muse. I could be a muse. Maybe he could set my recap to music. Or, he could just keep taping up those flyers. He picks option B.
Jessie hops out of Rick's SUV. "Got everything?" he grins. "Yes...no," she groans, grabbing her French book. She uses the extra seconds to ask if Rick will attend Eli's "thing" tomorrow. Rick isn't sure he wants to endorse it, which Jessie can't grasp. "I think it would mean a lot to him," she offers. Rick thinks about it as he backs the car out of the driveway and collides with something.
Leo and his bike are sprawled on the pavement. Rick wigs, but Leo says that he's fine. "I've had plenty of ex-husbands try to kill me before," he jokes badly. Rick wants to pay for bike repairs, and Leo agrees that's necessary as he tries to affix his broken mirror to the handlebar. Rick moves toward the car again, but Leo calls after him to apologize. "I want to take responsibility for what happened with Eli," he says. "I shouldn't have set up the gig without talking to Karen first." Rick replies that Eli would've found a way to rebel no matter what. "Send me the bill," Rick adds. They part.
Eli sits in the park with his guitar, this generation's equivalent to Linus and his blue blanket. He considers that Rick puts an awful lot of thought into parenting. "Clearly he's too hard on himself, but I guess he feels guilty," B/W Eli says. He leaves the park, bored with introspection and not even wholly sure what "introspection" means because he fell asleep after studying the H words.
B/W Rick, on the Soliloquy Stool, recalls how his father never really came to his baseball games, but finally, he did attend one. "I felt nervous, even though I wanted him to be there," B/W Rick says. "I felt this incredible pressure." Well, ol' Rick struck out and made untold fielding errors. We see his colorful counterpart trying to work at home, but failing because he can't focus. After the game, Rick's father took him aside and gave him hordes of tips and pointers on how to play baseball "because he thought that's how I played normally. It killed me that that's how he thought I was. My father had no idea how I was." Thank you, Soliloquy Stool, for teaching us about the synergies of fathers and sons.
At the coffeehouse, Eli is preparing for the show. B/W Eli says that Rick thinks...silence. "I don't know what he thinks," Eli says sadly, slightly confused.
Eli tunes the guitar while Jessie excitedly bounces over to Jennifer's table. Karen and Leo sit together nearby. Lily, Zoe, and Grace tumble down the stairs and into the coffeehouse, at which point Grace zeroes in on G.I. Jolie and goes to sit with her. Jennifer looks briefly at faux-Jolie, concerned, until she remembers which one of them just got a sultry shot of Sammler. She turns back to Jessie with a smile. Eli sings. "This picture you have of me isn't much to look at, we agree." Rick walks down the stairs and watches quietly. Eli looks up and sees him, singing at him with fire in his eyes. "Let me walk down that road, because you know I have to go. You won't be there, but even so, everyone goes down that road." Eli's song was a lot better the first time, when Cat Stevens sang it and called it "Father and Son." Rick nods almost imperceptibly, looking incredibly moved. He bagged his first babe to the dulcet tones of Cat Stevens.
In slow-motion, we fade up to the House of Karen. Jessie and Eli check the mail on their way inside. Eli pauses when he sees an envelope marked SAT, which doesn't stand for Stop Acting Three, and quickly hides it in his backpack. "Just junk," he tells Jessie. As he walks toward the house, the envelope peeks enticingly from his bag, but Eli shoots a few hoops and wanders inside without touching it so that he'll have a subplot to return to when Jessie's anorexia runs its course.
Oh yeah, week: At Thanksgiving dinner, Rick's relatives harass him about something and suspect Jessie of having an eating disorder. It's been fun sitting in for Niki -- it helps that I love watching this show -- but I have to go psychologically prepare to recap a John Lennon biopic. Can't. Wait. Oh hang on -- yes, I can.