Episode Report Card Al Lowe: A | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Water, Water, Everywhere
By Al Lowe | Season 1 | Episode 3 | Aired on 03.16.2010
Crosby is having a little Take Your Surprise Kid to Work Day at the studio. For the love of God, why anyone would bring a child to a recording studio... it is about the most child-unfriendly place in the world. The number of cords that can be messed with and broken and knobs and things to be spilled on, and glass and trillion dollar microphones... I just got a cold chill thinking about it. Still, Jabbar is super-impressed as Crosby shows him how to build the mix, and he jams out a little, bobbing his head and killing me with cuteness. He loves it when Crosby jumps the volume, making the switches move together. "Don't tell anyone around here what you just saw," Crosby whispers. "I don't want anyone to know how cool my job is." Hee. They are interrupted by a band coming in to record. "Oh, look," Crosby says, "it's The Happy Hollows!" Apparently this is a real band, currently getting some real attention. And, wow, after seeing them play a little on this show I was so about to write them off -- I am worn out by the breathy little girl voices in indie rock, y'all. Kind of ready for big girl voices to come back, and to come back in tune and singing words that mean something. I grew up loving Kim Deal, too, okay, but a little goes a long way. Anyway, I was over them but I couldn't help listening to several songs, and I did really enjoy this song. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. The lead singer, Sarah, asks Crosby who the little guy is. "Oh, this is my sound engineer assistant, Jabbar," he says, cutely. Sarah, with a mushroom-trip smile, asks if she can speak to Crosby alone for a second. "Is he gonna impinge?" she asks, but Crosby says no, Jabbar never impinges. "Because this is really important to us," she adds, and it may seem bitchy, but she is so right. Substitute "expensive" for "important" and it would be the most accurate. I could completely understand why they would not want a little kid hanging around. Crosby tells her to take how important it is to her, and quadruple it -- "that's how important it is to Jabbar." Heee. Why does Crosby kind of make me like him sometimes? I think it is a total accident -- I really only like him when he says the word "Jabbar."
Sarah is once again under the hood of her rustmobile, covered in grease, when Drew comes home from school. "Um, maybe you should let Grandma and Grandpa help us buy a new car?" he says, causing her to splutter. "In this family," she explains, "we take care of ourselves and we don't expect other people to help us." She feels like she should keep up with the Serious Parenting, so she struggles on. "Which is why, by the time I was your age, I knew how to change a tire and... bake a casserole..." Drew acts sarcastically impressed with the casserole, but hell, that IS a really important skill. Sarah continues. "... and break into a car, and fashion a teepee out of wood and leather..." Drew rolls his eyes for the 39th time, says "really, Mom," and slouches toward the house. "I don't think you get the point, do you?" Sarah says, but he says yes, he does get it (eyeroll). She raises her grease-black hands: "Then give me a hug." Ha! With a final eyeroll, he sighs and goes in. "You're still my favorite son!" she calls after him, her only son.
Crosby is setting up mics as The Happy Hollows warm up in studio. Jabbar, behaving like some kind of magical five-year-old that time forgot, sits in the booth at the board, touching nothing. Except, no -- that's not what happens. He TRIES to touch nothing, but that lasts about one minute. Finally, he gives in and starts tentatively pushing switches and, with great sound-god flair, gives a big dramatic shove and breaks off one of the switches. D'oh! Naturally, this causes him to react like any child would. He runs away to hide.
At Footpath, Kristina sits on a bench with Pirate Max while Adam paces in front of them. Kristina plays with Max's hair, which gets right on his nerves. Adam stops pacing to tell him there's no pressure, just to be himself. "I will," Max says, as if he could be anyone else. Kristina, jittery, offers him a snack. "I've got crackers, a banana, an apple, some trail mix," she says. "I have a granola bar, Chinese mix, an apple..." Awesome. The mom snack bag is not something I look forward to in my future, especially since I will probably compulsively eat all the snacks and then my daughter will be all mad that I can only offer her a half of a stick of gum and a slightly gnawed candy cane I found at the bottom of my purse. Max notes that she repeated apple, and asks if something is wrong. "You're saying the same thing over and over again," he says. "Which is what you do when something's wrong." Kristina: "No we don't. No we don't." To everyone's relief, especially Max's, the principal comes out to take him in for the interview. "No pressure," Adam repeats.
Back at the studio, Crosby returns to the booth to find Jabbar missing. He takes off at a trot through the building and finds him in the kitchen, sitting on the counter. "Man, you scared the crap out of me," he says. "Sorry," Jabbar answers, triply cute from only moments ago. Suddenly, from behind the open fridge door, Katie appears. "Hey, fiancé!" she says to Crosby who, last time I checked, was not technically her fiancé, rather her maybe-I'll-marry-you-sometime-kind-of-later boyfriend. He is shocked to see her, especially in the context of his kid, sitting right there, who he has not even told her about. The kid, by the way, for whom she is making a chocolate milkshake while she rattles on about dropping by to hear the band record. Finally, just as Jabbar is about to once again make the fatal lapse of judgment that allowed him to previously forget his probs with chocolate, Crosby reluctantly steps in to save him. "He can't drink that," he says, taking the glass from Katie. "He's lactose-intolerant." Katie is confused that he would know such a thing about a child who is a stranger to them both. "Who is this little fella?" she asks. Here, Crosby is at a fateful crossroad. He has a chance to man up and tell the truth, or at least allude to a truth about which he can speak with her later, in private, or he can lie. He lies. "I don't know," he says. "One of the girls up front asked me to watch him." Jabbar, being the only mature one in the room, remains silent, but he can't help looking hurt. His big eyes crinkle up a little, like he just watched Peter deny him three times. Brutal. Crosby feels bad about it, you can tell, but still. Then again, this Katie chick seems ridiculous and unstable, so was it really the best moment to bust out the whole story? Well, obviously he should have told her already, but whatever. In conclusion: it sucks.
Adam and Kristina are still in the school hallway when Sarah arrives to lend them support. She has coffee. "To... calm us down... thanks, Sarah," Adam snarks, but he really is thankful. He's still very nervous and fidgety, and Sarah notices he's rolling something around in his hand. "What's that, a rock?" she asks. "It's a Tibetan prayer stone," he tells her. "Oh, God!" she says. "It's come to THIS?" They start to bicker a little until the principal comes out with Max and everybody begins chattering at once. The principal tells them she'll be calling them tomorrow, and as they stand there, Max casually asks if Haddie won her game. Man. They forgot Haddie's game. Sarah has to laugh a little. They all rush out for the field where they find Haddie, alone, leaning up against the goal post with her trophy. Many apologies are offered, but she brushes them off: "Can we just go, please?" Y'all, that is my worst nightmare. My late father, who I loved more than life itself, was not, shall we say, the best at being places on time or... on the right days. You know, details. But, it sometimes affected me very strongly. My greatest fear is that I will not show up somewhere I'm supposed to be for my daughter. She's eight-months-old by the way, so I'm perhaps being premat