Episode Report Card Amorgan: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Mo' Menace, Mo' Problems (2)
By Amorgan | Season 1 | Episode 2 | Aired on 09.29.1999
Cut to the school courtyard, where the camera pans across different groups of students. First the hacky-sack kids, then a gaggle of girls showing their Biore strips to one another (ew!), then our good friend Freddie Gong and the Acid-Wash Girl eating Oreos from the inside out with gluttonous abandon. Both of them have chocolate cookie smeared across their faces. Um, gross. Cut to Josh, also sitting in the courtyard, also eating cookies but looking all tidy and gorgeous instead. Cut to Brooke smiling at him in that weird watery way that she has. Oh, wait - Josh actually has cookie in the corners of his mouth, and they stay there for the whole scene. Great touch, very subtle. Brooke says, "What are you doing out here? This isn’t where we sit." Josh grimaces (or something) and says that he doesn’t exactly feel "embraced by the masses" since his decision to be in the musical. "But then," he says pointedly, "you know that." She sits down next to him and pulls out an apple. "Is that all you’re eating?" he asks. She says yes, but then ignores the apple for the rest of the scene. She asks him about his dad yelling at him and asks if he’s okay, and he says, "Yes, no, maybe, I don’t know. Check one." Josh is really hung up on that "check a box" thing. He says that he expected his dad to be against him, but that he didn’t expect it from Brooke. Brooke starts to nibble a cracker, then thinks better of it and puts it down next to the abandoned apple. Josh wonders aloud if she’s with him because he "happens to fit the quarterback uniform this year." Brooke seems genuinely hurt by this and cries, "That’s so unfair! You know how I feel about you!" He says that no, he doesn’t, and then they both face forward in glum silence. Yuck. This is way too much like a couple fight in real life for my taste. She asks him what he’s going to do, and he says bitterly that he’ll probably quit the musical: "The irony’s great, isn’t it? Dad wins, the guys win, you win." Heavy pause. "But then, you always do." He walks off, leaving her alone to stare the cracker and the apple and wonder what it is people do with things like that, anyway. This scene was almost entirely watchable and good until the very last shot where Brooke tearfully drops her head into her hands - in SLOW MOTION. I almost expected her to fall to her knees and yell, "Nooooooooo," while shaking her bony fists at the sky.
Cut to Sam and Harrison walking down the hall. Sam is frisking like a little dog, bouncing around and punching at Harrison’s shoulder. He is utterly unresponsive, perhaps hoping that if he ignores her she’ll close her mouth and go away. It doesn’t work. She keeps punching him, then says, "What’s up? You haven’t said two words to me all day." That’s because he’s about to kill you, Sam. He shrugs casually, then asks her if she’d like to grab a slice of pizza with him on Friday night. Her frisking falters, and she says, "Uh. . . I can’t . . . I’m gonna go check out Brooke’s party . . . we’ve become sort of friends in bio." Oh, man, she is SO LAME! Harrison nods bitterly, "That’s cool. Can I come?" and watches her as she squirms, "Uh -- I don’t think you can bring anybody. It sucks, it’s stupid, I know." No, Sam - you suck, and you’re stupid. She fidgets with her collar with her mouth gaping, in a stunningly poor attempt at looking uncomfortable. Harrison totally lays into her, calls her a sell-out and a hypocrite, and says he’s completely disappointed in her. She retorts, "Oh get over it, Harrison, I’m going for work." Right. And guys only read Playboy for the articles. Of course this only makes Harrison even more infuriated (have I mentioned yet that I love him?). He calls bullshit on her, saying that she’s only going because she thinks that if she goes she’ll be one of the "chosen ones, just a little bit closer to the flame that heats the school." SHE FINALLY CLOSED HER MOUTH! Yay for Harrison! I have to confess, though, that even though I love Harrison, I think that whole "flame that heats the school" thing is super weird. Harrison goes on to tell her that she’s been nuked from the list, and pulls out a guest list that he "hacked from Nicole’s laptop thirty minutes ago." Hacked from Nicole’s laptop? What? Pardon my tech-geek aside, but wouldn’t Nicole have to be logged onto a network for Harrison to hack into her machine? And wouldn’t Harrison have to have a computer handy, also on the same network? Oh, well. Maybe they have a computer science class together. Whatever. Sam, hearing that she’s been disinvited, gums, I mean, smiles in disbelief. Harrison continues to bag on her, telling her that she’s no different from anyone else who is dying to be unique, and that she never really stands up for her ideals. He tell her that she has no follow-through, and that she’s basically just a big ol’ stupid ho. Thank you, Harrison. He walks off in a snit, leaving Sam staring blankly into space with her flytrap a-hangin’. After a minute, she flounces off down the hall, followed by her bouncin’ and behavin’ hair.
Cut to Mr. Grant’s office. Sam bursts in all rosy-cheeked and wearing more lip gloss than one of Charlie’s Angels. Even I have to admit that she looks utterly beautiful here, in spite of her ropy-ass hair. She blurts out, "Mr. Grant, I’d like to know if you would please have dinner with me on Friday at seven o’clock." Mr. Grant just stares at her. "Um, to go over my questions for my interviews." More staring. "I need some focusing." Mr. Grant looks bemused by this and says, "No, Sam, I don’t think that’s appropriate. Maybe we can meet here after school tomorrow afternoon instead." Oh, wait, that’s not right. Instead, Mister I’m-Too-Stupid-To-Know-An-Impending-Sexual-Harassment-Hearing-When-I-See-One just smiles and says, "Why, sure, Sam, if that’s what you need." Maybe Chad should talk to his brother, Rob, about the consequences of inappropriate relations with minors.