Welcome to Episode One of Popular, in which Sam acts like an idiot, Brooke stands up for her values (not), Josh tries out for the school musical, Carmen tries out for the cheerleading squad, and everyone gets at least one chance to run off in a snit.
The first thing I noticed about this remarkably uneven show was the wandering Muppet minstrel who was singing about Teen Issues and Young Womanhood while riding around in the back of the Chiquita Banana truck. Didn’t they outlaw singing in the backs of moving trucks when the Georgia Satellites faded from the scene? Anyway. The annoying folk singer’s chauffeur pulls up in front of Sam’s house and the camera swoops inside like Tinkerbell going for another bump of fairy dust, right through the front door, up the stairs, and into Sam’s completely gorgeous bedroom. Somebody wanted to make way sure that we understand that Sam is "eclectic" and "alternative," because the set designers did a whammy on this one -- embroidered pillows, cheap-ass imported candle holders, and even a stained-glass window. Thank goodness for the Urban Outfitters home decorating kit. A caption floats across the screen to let us know that it’s Monday, the First Day of School.
Mom rushes in, crying, "Come on, Sam! Time for school!" So far, so good. Sam sits up sleepily, looking like she’s just spent an hour with the Max Factor Bedhead Division. Puh-leeze. Nobody’s eyeliner can survive a night of sleep that well -- not even if it’s waterproof. Sam must have been dreaming of head lice again, because she scratches her head for, like, five minutes after she wakes up. Mom roots around in Sam’s closet for a while, then dithers off into the room. Hello? That would have driven me absolutely up a wall when I was a teenager, but this must be one of those it’s-okay-I’m-friends-with-my-mom relationships. Sam grabs an open box of breakfast cereal from beside her pillow and gets up to follow her mom around. What kind of parent lets her kid sleep with a big ol’ roach magnet to the bed?
Mom whines about how she’s not going to go on some cruise, Sam says, "Oh, you kid, you’ll be fine." Then, perhaps to get back at her mom for digging in her closet, Sam proceeds to root around in her mother’s suitcase, only to discover a framed photograph of Mom, Sam, and the Dead Guy, a.k.a. Sam’s dad. "It’s been two years, Mom, time to move on. Dad wouldn’t want you carrying him around like this." Now, I know that we have to establish the plot by any means necessary, but what fifteen-year-old tells her mom to get over her recently-deceased dad? What a cold harpy! Maybe they’re setting her up to be a sociopath, instead of just another poorly conceived, poorly developed piece of eye-candy. Not. Mom and Sam share a tearful moment, which is almost genuinely touching, except for the fact that there’s a marauding folk singer hanging around the upper window like a flasher on the subway.
In a just and perfect world, they would both dash for their respective cell phones and call the cops. Instead, Sam cleverly diverts the conversation away from shallow concerns like her dead father and focuses right in on the important issues: asking if she can get a tattoo. Mom says, "No," Sammie whines, Mom calls in her Cool Mom Cred by recounting the time last summer when she let Sam get a fuschia stripe in her hair. Unfortunately, little Sammie hated the stripe because, when she got to school, "Even the Special Ed kids had colored hair." Oh my. Yes, indeed. And we all know that there’s nothing worse than having something in common with the Special Ed kids, don’t we? I hate this whiny cardboard excuse for a human being already, and it’s only five minutes into the show. And how exactly is getting a tat going to make her different? Like every village idiot in America doesn’t have a Pepe LePew tracking smelly footprints across one ass cheek, or a Varga girl riding a freaking eight ball on a bicep? Even sorority sisters have tattoos these days.
One last thing about this scene and I promise I’ll stop -- not one single mention of, oh, a BABYSITTER or GUARDIAN in residence while grief-stricken mom is out in the middle of the ocean, schmoozing with retirees and contest-winners on the QE II. Child Protective Services, anyone?
And roll credits. The Muppet folk singer belts out a patently offensive song about how teen beauty queens are secretly "ravenous starving artists." This may very well be true, but she is not helping them one whit by riding around in a truck and bellowing like a recent graduate of the Indigo Girls Institute For Acoustic Stylings. The only good thing about this scene is that amazing sofa. You know, I just realized that the Muppet also resembles one of the Chemical Brothers. Hm.
scene. Pan across a really creepy collage of dozens of magazine pictures of eyes to Sam’s alter-ego, Brooke. Voice-over of Brooke writing in her diary. She’s obsessing about food, Raisinettes to be exact, and how she gained 1.7 pounds because of them. Pan across piles of makeup and an untouched fruit tray. It’s hard for me to write right now because this scene’s heavy hand is crushing my chest. Damn! All right, already, so she’s got an eating disorder. Jeez. I have to admit, though, the collage of the eyes is an amazing touch, and gives me a little hope for later scenes and episodes.
Dad comes in and, in a much better scene than the Sam’s Dead Dad scene, proceeds to have a painfully awkward conversation with his daughter. First he eyes the fruit tray and suggests that Brooke pay another visit to a "nice doctor." Brooke insists that she’s fine, and gives an unconvincing smile, at which point Dad hauls up a suitcase-sized box of belted maxi-pads. Brooke is horrified (I am horrified, too. Pads are just plain wrong), not because her dad is buying her pads, but because they have belts instead of wings. I wonder how many times they had to practice that scene to pull it off without cracking up.
Brooke’s dad is visibly uncomfortable and tries to smooth things over by helping her put on her necklace while he tells her that he’s going out of town to New York. She wonders when she’s going to get to go over her "routine" with him; he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Bummer. I really did feel awful for both of them at this point. See, he forgot about her cheerleading routine. She is upset, pulls the necklace out of his hands, they face off, and all this chump-change man can say is, "I’m trying." That’s it? Not "I’m sorry I forgot your routine, will you please show it to me when I get back"? Not "I love you, sweetie, and I really really care about your interests and activities"? Nope -- just "I’m trying." Not very hard, apparently. Thank God, Brooke’s ride honks the horn and ends this torturous exchange. She runs out of the room without a goodbye, then runs back in a minute later to give him a great big hug. Phew. That made me much less tense. Oh, I forgot to mention that Brooke and her dad live in a house that I saw one time in Architectural Digest. I guess they’re rich.
Okay. Now it’s time to meet my least favorite character of the show, a bulldog-faced woman who is even less of a teenager than I am, and I’m pushing thirty. Her name is Nicole, but from now on I’m just going to call her Smug Bitch. The first thing I noticed about Smug Bitch, besides her silver convertible (what high school sophomore drives a car like that? What high school sophomore drives at all?) was her incredibly annoying speech pattern, which consists entirely of sound bytes so dull they could be quips from -- oh, a new WB teen drama. Anyway. Brooke tells this obnoxious little troll that she is "soooo worshipping [her] Gwyneth-ness!" Her what? A scary conversation about nail polish ensues, in which this disturbing pair plots their (and hence the entire student body’s) respective manicure strategies for the school year. Then Smug Bitch reveals that she got up early to photocopy invitations to the big party she’s throwing at Brooke’s house. Brooke protests that her dad will kill her if she has a party. Smug Bitch reassures her that he never has to know. Foreshadowing -- your key to quality TV. Smug Bitch clues us in to the fact that the "first party of the year creates the social Siberia," and that she doesn’t intend to be left out in the cold. What planet do these people live on? I didn’t graduate from high school all that long ago, and while my school had its share of peer pressures and cliques, there was nothing this overtly fascist going on. Brooke hems and haws about the party until Smug Bitch reminds her that they don’t want to be "wearing Monica kneepads." Does this mean that they are prepared to give a lot of blowjobs in order to be popular? Isn’t this a show for, um, teenagers?
Cut to snappy establishing shot of Kennedy High, with fast-motion students crawling across the lawn like ants.
Hunky letter-jacket-wearing Josh meets Brooke at her locker, and they confirm a date for Tuesday night. Nosy Smug Bitch has to know all about it, so Brooke tells her that she’s making a candlelit dinner for Josh. They walk down the hall and right past the cutest little guy in an orange jacket, who says "hi" to Brooke at least twice while she totally ignores him. Smug Bitch, not content to know that her friend has a date, presses for details about their sex life. Brooke tells her that their nookie sessions are like "opera -- a perfect duet." Um, what? Does this girl even know what opera sounds like? Then BAM! Smug Bitch and Brooke run smack into Sam and her big-headed midget friend. Smug Bitch flies into a snit. (She needs to smoke a lot more dope. She’s really uptight.) The popular blondes flounce off together. Whatever.
The camera follows Sam and Little Big Head down the hall. Little Big Head says, "Forget them. Their karma is to become alcoholic housewives." Or state senators. Fate is a cruel mistress, Little Big Head. Sam is wearing the same clothes she slept in, which is a vaguely rebellious act, except for the fact that she looks just. Like. Alanis. Morissette. LBH asks Sam to sign a petition protesting the use of frogs in biology class, but Sam can’t because she has to maintain her journalistic integrity (snicker.) So LBH requests that Sam instead document her protest by recording LBH shouting at the top of her lungs about frog-butchery. What a shrill little creature! I was tempted to go out and murder a few frogs just to get back at her for being so annoying, until I remembered that it’s just a TV show. LBH notices that Sam isn’t paying enough attention to her (get used to it, honey) and asks what’s up. Sam gives the tiredest speech in the history of the free world about how her classmates resemble a herd of sheep. Cut to annoying Ally McBeal-esque scene, wherein all the boys and girls march in formation in matching white undies, bleating like sheep. Brainiac Sam shakes it off and declares that she’s going to -- let me say it with a straight face -- get her nose pierced to define her individuality. BWA HA HA HA HA! She doesn’t seem to realize that even Elizabeth Dole has probably gotten something pierced by now. Of course, Little Big Head thinks this is a great idea.
Cut to the VERY SERIOUS high school drama coach, a very grand Sidney Poitier type. Let’s take a moment to ponder the level of psychosis one must achieve to treat high school drama with any sense of enthusiasm at all. Have you really thought it through? Good. Let’s continue. This guy is perfect -- dressed in all black, silver pendant on long cord, and acting like he’s teaching at Juilliard. God bless him. Unfortunately we have to endure an excruciating shot of a young African queen belting out "Amazing Grace" with superfluous trills on every single syllable. She’s got a great voice, don’t get me wrong -- it’s just that the Mariah Carey School Of Vocal Noodling should have been shut down before it even opened. Did I mention that Josh, Brooke’s boyfriend, is spying on all this noodling from the back of the auditorium and, of course, loving it?
Mr. Drama stops the Nubian queen mid-noodle and says, "I have only one word for you. And that word is: Aretha." They smile at each other conspiratorially. I have no idea what he’s trying to tell her here, but I hope that, in their secret language, "Aretha" is code for "you cut that Mariah Carey crap out right now, young lady."
Cut to the hallway again, to a 1980s glam-rock chubby chick named Carmen with an armload of Madonna bracelets. She is friends with Sam and Little Big Head, and immediately agrees to sign the anti-frog-dissection petition. Sam asks her how her summer was, and Carmen reveals that she spent it at "fat camp." I think I might really like this character. Moments later, they are assaulted by the utterly cute orange jacket boy, Harrison, on the stairs. He is all ticked off because Brooke’s party is invitation only. His voice breaks. I love him. LBH suggests that he disguise himself and crash the party, but no, Harrison wants an invitation proper. You can almost see the line in the sand. And now we have met all the major characters, and the central plot has been established. I’m glad that’s over with.
Cut to the Secret Inner Thoughts Voice-Over Sequence, in which we learn that Sam has a big ol’ crush on the journalism teacher, Josh wants to audition for the school musical, Brooke wonders if she should be the one to score the condoms for her Tuesday date with Josh, Harrison discovers a zit on his forehead, and Smug Bitch thinks predictably mean things about all the kids in the cafeteria except The Mysterious Transfer Student from Dallas named Mary Cherry, who is suitably Stepford and who intrigues the Smug Bitch.
Brooke joins Smug Bitch in the cafeteria, and the two start snickering about how nice it is that everyone wants to be cheerleaders. Josh approaches the table and introduces this big ol’ white ghetto boy named Sugar Daddy to the Smug Bitch. What the hell? Carmen spends her summer at a fat farm, and not one single person mentions that this fellow looks like he eats a bucket of fried chicken with chocolate sauce for every meal? Anyway, Sugar Daddy remarks on Smug Bitch’s rack, and she runs off in a snit. Josh chastises Sugar Daddy and offers to show him how to treat a lady. Josh’s idea of how to treat a lady is to nibble a carrot out of her mouth like a horse. ("Gee, no phallic symbolism there." -- Sars) Josh has a lot of learning to do.
Pan to unpopular kids. Sam and company look on in envy and dismay while Josh and Brooke play petting zoo. Carmen asks Little Big Head if she’s going to eat her roll. Harrison makes a comment about Carmen’s weight, to everyone’s chagrin. Smooth move, Sensitive Guy. Carmen, bless her heart, takes it in stride and tells everyone that she’s not only sassy, but also a . . . good dancer? "Hello? Segue Central? There’s been a breakdown on primetime . . ."
See, it’s her dancing ability that’s going to get her onto the cheerleading squad. Smug Bitch walks past their table. Carmen makes an ass of herself by complimenting SB’s sweater. All three of the other misfits feel so bad for Carmen’s misguided attempt at sucking up that they pile their extra dinner rolls on her plate. Weird. When they question her sanity and motivation for trying out for the cheerleading squad, Carmen replies that of course she wants to be a cheerleader -- they’re popular! All the so-called dorks stare balefully at the popular kids’ table, and we fall into a shot worthy of John Wu’s The Killer. As the camera cuts back and forth between Sam and Brooke, each talking about the other in the EXACT SAME WORDS, because they’re really the same, get it? They THINK that they’re complete opposites, but they’re really just alike!
Cut to biology class. A drag-king teacher with a terrible bleach job pairs people alphabetically. The important pairings are: Sam and Brooke (duh), Smug Bitch and Harrison, Carmen and Josh, and Mary Cherry and Sugar Daddy. Of course nobody is happy with this arrangement, except for Mary Cherry and Sugar Daddy, who make a mysteriously compelling couple.
Cut to shot of Sugar Daddy rapping in the school’s courtyard for an appreciative crowd of lily-white kids. This is definitely not my planet. Caption floats across the screen: "we made it to Tuesday." Alanis, I mean, Sam, strides through the courtyard. Carmen runs up and begs her to put in a good word for her with Brooke during biology. Sam protests that she doesn’t have any influence with Miss McQueen, but Carmen really puts on the squeeze. Sam gives in reluctantly. Have I mentioned that foreshadowing is your key to quality TV?
Cut to Mr. Grant’s office. Mr. Grant is the teacher on whom Sam has a great big crush. Sam is in the throes of a fantasy sequence in which Mr. Grant does a slow strip tease (nice abs!) when the real Mr. Grant walks in. Sam notices that he got his ear pierced and slobbers about how cool he is. He has the good sense to be embarrassed, then reveals that he’s a Really Cool Guy -- well, in a world where "Really Cool Guy" means "Pathetic Post-Trendoid" -- by saying that he got it done after "one too many beers after a Limp Bizkit concert." Don’t get started on Limp Bizkit. Sam pipes up that she went to a Hanson concert. Wow -- thank you for telling me that (tm David on Real World Seattle). Tactfully changing the subject, Mr. Grant tells Sam that she is the new editor-in-chief of the school newspaper. He confides that he’s been thinking a lot about "millennium madness" and how people seem to be overlooking the "young person’s perspective." They come up with the idea to do a series of opinion polls about the millennium, and he suggests that she conduct some of these interviews at Brooke’s party. Now, there is no way that this "hip" young teacher doesn’t know that high school parties are full of idiots shotgunning cheap beer and smoking pot from pipes made out of the empty cans, so this suggestion indicates that he’s either (a) completely naive, or (b) completely unconcerned with the well-being of his students. Sam assures him that she’s going, thus raising this inane party-invitation sub-plot to a new level of importance.
Cut to biology class. Little Big Head has an Ally McBeal moment in which her dead frog opens its eyes and asks to be saved. Cut to Sam and Brooke. Sam is clearly in charge; Brooke looks as vacant as a zombie. Josh passes Brooke a super-tacky note in which he asks her if, on their date, they will "(a) round first base, (b) hit a triple, (c) slide into home." Eeewwww! I remember getting notes similar to this one in high school, and they inevitably doomed the young Casanova to a freezing shoulder with no explanation. Apparently Brooke has very different (read: way, way, WAY lower) standards than I did, because she coyly checks "(c)" and passes the note back. I have to admit that Brooke’s rubber lab gloves lent a vaguely twisted eroticism to the scene, but not enough to redeem it.
Cut to Smug Bitch, who has thoughtfully typed up and printed out a list of the ENTIRE STUDENT BODY and highlighted the socially unacceptable. Does anyone else think that this woman is exhibiting signs of a pathological disorder? Harrison, her lab partner, peers over her shoulder just in time to see that he and all of his friends are (duh) on the "KISS" list. KISS stands for "Kill to be In our Social Circle." First of all, whatever. Second of all, shouldn’t it be "KISC"? Smug Bitch snaps at Harrison for snooping. How does this girl have friends?
Meanwhile, Sam has done all of the work at their lab station, and the biology teacher predictably compliments their work while looking straight at Brooke. All Sam did was draw a big red T on the frog’s stomach anyway. Throughout the class, Carmen has been anxiously waiting for Sam to put in that good word for her with Brooke. Sam, spineless loser that she is, fails completely.
Cut to cheerleading tryouts. The gym doors swing open, and Brooke and Smug Bitch stride in in slow motion, looking very sassy indeed. While I adore the color scheme of their uniforms (baby blue and spring green), I can’t say that I know of any school that would adopt those colors as its own. All the high schools I’ve ever known of have colors like maroon and gold, or purple and white. It is Jacqueline Kennedy High School, and those colors do befit the former First Lady’s exquisite taste. But it’s a stretch to imagine that people like school superintendents would be that thoughtful. At any rate, the blondes tell the herd of applicants to mimic their routine one at a time. A completely gratuitous Club MTV cheerleading sequence ensues, and the tryouts commence. Just before the scene ends, Mary Cherry delivers my favorite line of the whole show: "Um, y’all? Do I have to do the splits? I’m a Christian." If you don’t have the good fortune to live in Texas, you might not realize how completely perfect this line is. Let me assure you that thus far there has been nothing exaggerated in Mary Cherry’s characterization. High school girls from Dallas are just like this.
Cut to drama tryouts. A sweetly overwrought geek named Freddie Gong screeches through the intro to a Rogers and Hammerstein song while the drama teacher watches in horror. I don’t know what he was expecting -- this ain’t the set of Fame, girlfriend.
Cut to Josh anxiously checking his watch during football practice. Only forty-five minutes until auditions end. What to do, what to do? Josh keeps practicing.
And back to cheerleading tryouts. Mary Cherry lurches through her dance routine, looking like an animated corpse from the Circus of the Grotesque. Smug Bitch smiles at her beatifically. Then Carmen comes in, looking like a Winger groupie let loose on the set of American Bandstand (she is definitely my favorite character so far) and proceeds to jiggle her way through a dance routine that is, supposedly, "really good." We don’t actually see much of this really good dance number. What we do see is a lot of cuts from Carmen shaking her ass and smiling seductively to Brooke nodding and smiling in approval. Brooke leans over to SB and says, "Wow! She’s really good!" SB sneers (can she do anything else?) and quips, "Uh-huh. Good ‘n’ plenty." Stop it, SB, you’re killing me! You’re too clever! Um, not.
And back to football practice again. Josh is checking his watch again -- only a few minutes left! The suspense is killing me! The players hike him the ball, and he grabs it and runs right off the field. Smooth move, Josh -- like nobody will care that you took off WITH THE FOOTBALL in the middle of practice.
Cut to the auditorium. Josh runs up onto the stage in full uniform, still clutching the football, and stands in the spotlight like the star of a David Sedaris wet dream. "Um," our hero says nervously, "I don’t really know what to do." The surprised drama coach asks, "Have you any music prepared?" Josh pulls a damp piece of paper out of his helmet (ew!) and hands it to the accompanist. Surprise -- he’s really good! This is, hands down, the most surreal moment of the whole show, including those Ally McBeal sequences: Kip Pardue, dressed up as a high school quarterback and singing "Some Enchanted Evening," all teen steam and embarrassment. Does anyone else get the feeling that Josh is going to come flying out of the closet by the end of the season? Because TV writers just love to equate a taste for musical theater with homosexuality, don’t you know.
And cut to the mall. Harrison is patiently listening to Sam blather about her serious journalistic career. Apparently they’re going to film some interviews about popularity with youngsters at the mall. Um, Sam? These interviews were supposed to be about millennium madness, remember? She asks Harrison if he’s figured out a way to score an invitation to the party, and he accuses her, not unjustly, of being obsessed with Brooke McQueen. Our unbiased little journalist, instead of admitting her unhealthy fascination, instead accuses Harrison of being fixated on Brooke because they were friends in elementary school but now he’s her "Satellite Boy." He tells her that she’s really cold (thank you! I’m glad someone else noticed!) and stomps off in a snit. People have a lot of snits on this show.
Sam runs after him and apologizes. He, unlike her, is honest enough to admit that he is fixated. Then he tells the saddest little story about how he and Brooke used to be best friends, but, the summer that they turned eleven, she grew five inches and started riding on the backs of boys’ scooters, and she also started snubbing him. Harrison makes a bitter reference to his "big-ass ears" and his zits, and admits that at age eleven he still hadn’t outgrown his Justice League of America bedspread. Poor kid. Most of the hipster boys I know still haven’t outgrown their Justice League bedspreads, and that I would happily go out with him if I were a high school sophomore. Sam, compassionate friend that she is, tugs his ears and says they fit his personality.
Cut to Carmen and Little Big Head, shopping for Carmen’s new wardrobe. Carmen is bubbly and bouncy and generally cute, bragging about how Brooke smiled at her through the whole tryout. LBH tells Carmen that she is one of her heroes for having the guts to try out for the cheerleading squad, even though everyone warned her not to. LBH then doffs her imaginary "raspberry beret" to Carmen. I don’t think LBH had even been born when Prince recorded that, but whatever. Carmen looks pleased as punch and remarks that sometimes you have to stand up for yourself, even if it means looking foolish. Amen! Why isn’t this show all about Carmen? She’s just the best! I hope she accidentally eats Little Big Head as a snack.
Cut to Smug Bitch and Brooke in another shop, talking their boring old talk about ruling the world with nail polish and cheerleading. Brooke pops out of the dressing room in a sassy little slip that doesn’t make her look too skinny. SB tells the sales girl that they’ll take the slip and a matching robe. While Brooke is screwing around in the dressing room, SB discovers a fugly silver pantsuit that my Great-Aunt Gertrude would have loved. She snatches it off the rack and stands in front of the mirror, spewing sound bytes. She also busts Brooke for obsessing about her weight, which is the only nice thing I’ve seen her do so far. Brooke says she’s not thinking about her weight, she’s thinking about cheerleading. Apparently, Brooke doesn’t think they’re being fair, cutting Carmen because she’s overweight. Well, duh. SB observes that it’s their obligation as leaders to uphold the "natural social order," and that if they make even one exception, soon they’ll have amputee girls on the squad. Okay -- what is it with this show and the "physically challenged"? I mean, it’s great that they’re looking so closely at weight and appearance issues in teenage girls, but that doesn’t give them a license to bag on folks who have more serious problems to deal with! Brooke wonders what SB means by "accepted social order," and SB tells her that "we live in the Age Of Gwyneth, and that is the standard by which we are all judged." Since when did an anorexic WASP who is very much last week’s news become the standard by which teenagers judge themselves? I think Jennifer Lopez’s fine self has marched on in and bumped Gwennie right out of the public eye. But what do I know? I’m old. The blondes run into Mary Cherry. SB and MC commence to speak entirely in smarmy sound bytes for some time. SB tells MC to lay off the Pop Tarts and she’ll have a great chance for the squad. MC tells them that her mother was a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader and that she’s a legacy. Ugh.
After Mary Cherry runs off, Brooke says she can’t believe that Smug Bitch is going to pick MC over Carmen. Then she declares, in a moment of unprecedented spunkiness, that she’s going to vote for Carmen. Of course SB scares her with a blood-curdling tale of ostracism and shame: "I’ll totally support you when you blow everything we’ve worked for our entire lives because you want to be nice instead of disciplined!" "Entire lives"? They’re only fifteen!
Cut to a black-and-white shot of Sam. Harrison is filming her as she talks about popularity. Then comes a long sequence of cutesy popularity opinion polls with teen shoppers, which is actually pretty entertaining. The final interview is with Brooke. Harrison is mortified, but can’t get out of it. Brooke acts really nice about the whole thing, although a little apprehensive. Her apprehension proves justified, because Sam pretty much attacks her, even though she’s being very cool and honest, even realizing that recognizing that saying "I’m a cheerleader" sounds superficial. Sam, our paragon of journalistic integrity, pointedly questions her about cheerleader tryouts, at which point Brooke starts to get defensive. She objects to Sam "categorizing" her "as one thing," and says that being popular is something that just happened to her. Harrison gives Sam the stink-eye, and Brooke runs off in a snit. Sam and her double-standard bushwa are becoming more loathsome to me by the minute.
Cut to the much-hyped Bedroom Scene. Candles burning everywhere. Brooke tries to look sexy, but not even that cute little slip can help those toothpick legs and razor-sharp collarbones. Josh, sans shirt, approaches the bed. She tentatively touches his fine-ass stomach and then kind of waves her hands around over his crotch, and it looks like some serious hootchie-coo is about to go down.
Cut to the same room, later, with this weird blue light everywhere (I guess the candles went out) and thunder crashing in the distance. Brooke has her knees pulled up to her chest, and Josh is sort of slumped over on the other side of the bed. They both look miserable. She asks if it’s "because I’m fat." He protests that no, no, and he promises it’ll be better time, and he tells her that she’s beautiful. She snaps, "No, I’m not," in a voice sad and angry enough to break your heart, at least if you’re a big softie, which I am. She says she's living "this big lie." She says everyone thinks they've had sex, but they're really "the big Vs," and they get in a big fight about who told whose friends what. Then they fight about Josh trying out for the musical. She makes a cutting comment about how they won’t be elected Homecoming King and Queen if he’s a drama geek. His face falls, and she apologizes immediately and says she didn’t mean it, but the damage has been done, and Josh runs off in a snit.
Cut to the day at school. The whole student body is checking out the bulletin board, which posts the results of all the tryouts, or alternatively checking out others checking out the bulletin board. First, Mary Cherry checks the cheerleader list. Yep, she made it. comes Josh. Yep, he made the lead in the musical. Last comes Carmen. Her friends watch her. Brooke watches her. She psyches herself up to check it. Nope, her name isn’t on it. She reads it again, just to make sure. Still not there. Her face falls, and she starts crying and walks away. Sam cringes. Brooke cringes. Sam glares at Brooke. Carmen runs off in a snit, and disappears, literally, from the shot.