Okay, before we get started this week, I think it might be a good idea to prepare a little, since this episode's all about Wannabe, and we don't want anyone pulling an eye muscle from rolling too hard. So all together: look left, right, up, and down. Left, right, up, and down. Good. Now remember, if at any time, the pain gets to be too much, I want you to stop, take a deep breath, and tell yourself that she's almost gone.
We open in Rick's apartment, where he's busily emptying his bookshelves into cardboard boxes. Jessie slides into the room on her socks, with Eli right behind, as Rick asks whether they're packed yet. Jessie says she almost is, and then rats out Eli for not having started. Rick nags that they have to start moving stuff to Lily's today. Eli insists that it'll take him "like, two seconds." Oh, I've made that mistake before. And when I kept the movers waiting on moving day, they thanked me by breaking my couch and my microwave. The bastards. Jessie's face clouds a little, and she snuggles up to Rick on a box, asking if he's feeling better. Touched, he assures her that he is. She asks, "And they can't do anything else to you now, right?" Aside from sleeping with your ex-wife, that is. Rick promises that the nightmare is totally over. He pats Jessie's hand and looks at her adoringly. Eli breaks the fuzzy moment with a question about whether he should pack the toaster. Rick figures that Lily probably has one, so they'll just give one of them away. Eli playfully asks what if Lily likes her toaster, and they like their own toaster, and then there's this huge small-appliance impasse? "Yeah, what then?" Jessie chirps. Eli bites back a smirk. Eli and Rick banter a bit more and wind up play-wrestling while Jessie laughs and shrieks in protest. As they calm down, Rick mentions that he ran into the mother of one of Eli's classmates, and that she said her kid got accepted at State. Eli's immediately defensive. He says hasn't heard anything yet. His eyes get all shifty, and with his finger-in-a-socket hair, he looks just like a cornered hedgehog. He retreats to the safety of the kitchen as the phone rings and distracts Rick.
"Help," Lily whines when Rick answers. He asks what's up, and she moans, "Everything." She plucks an envelope out of a basket on the table in front of her and studies it, asking if he remembers whether they put "the little maps to the house" in with the wedding invitations. She's worried that they didn't. Rick promises that he'll take care of it. "You will?" she asks, sounding a little surprised. He asks if she likes her toaster. She emphatically assures him, "I love my toaster! Why?" "No reason." Wah wah. Lily asks whether Jessie is going to come over later to try on her dress. Rick relays the question to Jessie, who's propped up on the counter peeling a banana. Peeling a banana. She's eating! Of her own accord! That's good, right? Jessie freezes and shoots Rick a warning look. Rick smiles and tells Lily that Jessie is coming over after school, "and she's looking forward to it." Grace plops to Lily at the table and passes her a wallet. As Lily hands Grace a bill from it, Grace graciously offers, "Those dresses are hideous." Uh, pretty sure that money wasn't for your opinion, sunshine. Just take your handout and run along, ingrate. Lily's about to snark a reply, but Zoe pipes up from the background that she likes them: "They're romantic." Grace makes a disparaging remark while rolling her eyes. Lily rests her forehead against her hand and wearily asks when Rick's moving in. As if that will somehow lessen the chaos around her. He says, "Any day now." Lily gets a beep and puts Rick on hold.
It's a woman from Lily's lawyer's office. She informs Lily that they're sending over some papers later in the day, and that Lily needs to sign them in order to finalize the divorce. And that, my friends, is the scrap of information we've been waiting for all season: Lily and Jake are not yet divorced. There was no magic, behind-the-scenes proceeding that we missed. And we're not crazy. Lily is going to sign her divorce papers with one hand while signing her marriage license with the other. In fact, she wryly says, "Oh, right. That would help, wouldn't it, since I'm getting married again." The humorless legal lady says, "I imagine it would." She tells Lily that they'll need the papers back as soon as possible. Lily glances at Grace sitting to her, and uneasily asks, "Has Jake...has Jake signed everything?" The woman assures Lily that Jake has, and that everything is in order. Lily thanks her and hangs up. She has only a split second to put her head in her hands and sigh before the phone rings again. She jumps, remembering that she left Rick hanging on the other line. She hops out of her seat as she answers, softly telling him that her lawyer is sending over her divorce papers. They both agree that that's good, and that they'll see one another later.
Cut to the high-school hallway, as the bell is ringing. Wannabe's struggling to shove a huge carpetbag into her locker. Eli sneaks up behind her and says he doesn't think it's going to fit. She grabs him, agreeing, and gives him a loud kiss. She grabs his hand and leads him into an empty classroom, throwing him up against the wall. "Let's go to Amsterdam!" she says, with a devilish little grin. Eli thinks she's kidding, but she says that they should go in the summer. Wannabe whips up a romantic vagabond scenario: hitchhiking, roaming the streets of Paris, doing whatever they want. She says that they can go to Prague. "Prague?" Eli says with a dubious laugh. "Yeah, I hear it's really starting to happen," Wannabe says. Yeah, it's been "starting to happen" for a few years now. Wannabe's really got her finger on the pulse, doesn't she? They kiss again as the bell rings, and Wannabe hoists her bag onto her shoulder. Eli asks what it's for, and Wannabe sighs that she isn't going home. "Ever?" Eli asks. Wannabe drones on about the cliché that is her "evil stepmother," who's threatening to "send [her] back to that place." By "that place," she means "rehab." Eli is horrified. Wannabe gripes that Evil Stepmother claims she stole Vicodin out of her medicine cabinet. Wannabe spits that it's "a complete and utter lie." Because we all know that Wannabe abhors thievery, don't we? She blahs on that her dad will believe Evil Stepmother, and that Wannabe will be sent packing. Now aren't you glad we did those warm-up exercises? I'm up to three eye rolls, and we're barely four minutes into the show. Worried, Eli asks what she's going to do. Wannabe shifts into her tough-cookie routine and smiles, grabs the back of his head, and pulls him in for another kiss. She says she'll "figure it out" and that he shouldn't "worry [his] pretty little head about it." See what she did there? Turning the gender tables like that. She's a pistol. She struts away, leaving Eli to worry his pretty, spiky little head.