Boys locker room. Sugar Daddy is standing at his locker sniffing a suit in a dry cleaning bag. When Josh comes over and starts taking off his clothes, Sugar asks Josh if he thinks the suit smells funky. Josh feels that the suit indeed does smell funky. Sugar starts ranting about wearing a smelly suit to the sports banquet tomorrow and how bad the banquet is going to be without Josh there. Josh reminds Sugar that he's suspended from the team due to the whole drug fiasco. Sugar isn't looking forward to speaking in public on Josh's behalf. "Last year I was drippin' with sweat," says Sugar. "I practically shorted the microphone." Josh tells Sugar to forget all about that, "this year, you're standing in for me!" Whatever. So for some reason, Sugar is newly inspired to speak in public because it's all about Josh. Just as Josh reminds him to bring him back some spicy chicken wings, Sugar's suit rips in the back. Ah, I guess these promos were right all week when they promised us an episode all about eating disorders. All we need now is for Brooke to relapse.
Speak of the devil. Brooke gets some things out of her locker at the end of the day. The hallway is empty, and Brooke bends down to pick up an old flyer for her campaign and sees that someone has written "Hypocritical Bitch!" in lipstick to her picture. She swallows whatever feelings she has over this and puts the offending flyer in her messenger bag. On her way out of the building, she runs into Sugar Daddy, who is in the process of throwing out the ripped suit. He quickly covers for himself by explaining that the suit is "too Regis." He also tells her that he's going to bail on the banquet. Okay, we get it. Sugar is feeling too fat to speak in public. "Can I ask you something?" says Sugar to a departing Brooke. "You know that place you went to where they helped you with your weight?" "It's called an eating disorder clinic," says Brooke tartly. "Well, I was looking for a place that would put me on a healthy crash diet," says Sugar. "The clinic's not about dieting," says Brooke. "Listen to me. You have to get beyond the shame and get support. No man is an island, that is the first thing they teach you." Sugar is all, can they really help someone like me? Brooke is like, "I'm a completely different person." Sugar tells her his dream of being able to wear a pair of pants that doesn't have an elastic waistband. Brooke promises to call him later with the number.
The palace kitchen. Brooke is gathering her things for school while Sam eats breakfast. Sam is wearing a baby blue turtleneck under something I can only describe as a Swedish leisure suit. Seriously, she looks like a member of some Polish boy band. It's black and it zips up in the front. Meanwhile, Brooke is wearing a very Gwyneth-looking wine-colored top which matches the wine-colored stain on the walls of the palace kitchen. She asks Sam if she can tag along with her when she goes to visit Harrison in the hospital, because she doesn't want to go alone. "Hospital-phobic?" asks Sam, totally forgetting the shenanigans of last week in which Brooke, in the debate with the entire student body in attendance, totally accused Harrison of doing drugs, to which Harrison replied that he in fact had leukemia, making Brooke look and feel like shit in front of the entire school. No, Sam can't imagine why Brooke might feel odd about going to Harrison's bedside. "I don't know if, uh, Harrison would want to see me," says Brooke. "Brooke?" says Sam, her eyes heavenward and a sneer on her lips. "I think Harrison's got bigger things on his mind than your student council race." Anyway, you know how there are those synthesizers and you can switch it to the sound of just about any instrument like Steel Drum or Tuba? And then there are these other more nebulous options like "Voice of Angels" or "Waterfall"? I swear to God, I think that there is an option on one of the more advanced machines entitled "Anorexia Nervosa." It's a very high-pitched tone and only dogs can hear it, but someone is playing a series of arpeggios in A-sharp minor with it while Brooke is eating Life Cereal straight out of the box.
Anyway, so Sam, who obviously doesn't yet feel like she's been enough of a self-righteous bee-otch toward Brooke that morning, is looking through the help-wanted ads because she wants to raise a whole lot of money so she can buy Harrison some golf clubs, "something he can look forward to using after his first round of chemo." For those of you who might not be paying attention, golf was a sport that Harrison enjoyed back in the days before a girl named Brooke and a disease called leukemia made life so sucky for him. She finds an ad looking for a teen writer to help write someone's memoirs, and she circles it, because Sam is after all the "teen writer." Too bad there weren't any want ads for "fat girl" back when Carmen's mom kicked her out and she was looking for a job. Anyway, Brooke wonders why anyone would be advertising specifically for a teenager. Sam accuses Brooke of being cynical. "Brooke, face it. You've earned your bile," says Sam. "If I lost an election and got dumped by my boyfriend all in the same week, I would be curled up in a fetal position chewing the drapes." Brooke tries to pretend she's fine with everything, but she's totally in denial. After she exits, Sam calls for the job listing. A "hoity-toity" British-accented female voice answers and instructs Sam to meet her at three in the "girl's loo" of Kennedy High School. When they do a reverse shot to establish who is on the other end of the line speaking to Sam, it turns out to be Mary Cherry, who pushes in the antenna of her cell phone (what, she doesn't have the latest Nokia with the internal antenna?) and cackles evilly to her bad self. Like we couldn't see that coming a mile away. I mean, I can still tell it's Mary Cherry, even with a bad British accent. Oh, I wonder what evil she has in store for Sam, and if it can be enough to make up for these other two cheesy plots.
The Hospital. Nurse Dan, a poor man's Erik Palladino with a backwards baseball cap, wheels Harrison to his room. Harrison is all, "Could you stop this thing and let me walk." Nurse Dan is all, "No can do! Hospital policy." Harrison gets all in his face. Dr. Cheeseball gets all macho on him and is all, "Positive outlook is important to your health blah blah blah." Harrison is all "take me to my room." Poor Man's Palladino is all "whatever." Where is Harrison's lesbian mom? Shouldn't she be taking Harrison to his room or signing him in or something?
In his room, Harrison meets his new roommate, Clarence. Clarence looks just like Harrison, only there are dark circles under his eyes and he's wearing a pylon-orange knit cap and a hospital gown. Clarence is also a born-again Christian. How could I tell? Well, one of the first things he asks Harrison is if he's "been saved," and then in case you got confused and thought he was talking about being rescued from a really really bad boating accident, a little pan over Clarence's side of the room reveals his Angels poster (you know, those two cherubs who are on every Christmas card?) and a painting of Jesus. Oh, and then in case you are still not getting it, Clarence has left a figurine of an angel on Harrison's bed. Harrison picks it up and looks at it scornfully. "You don't like angels?" asks Clarence. "Can't say that I do," says Harrison. "Really?" says Clarence. "I always thought that angels were God's way of saying 'hey there.'" Harrison gives the angel back to him and turns down his offer to attend Clarence's prayer circle. Hey, I've forgotten Clarence's religious affiliation! Wait, I was just reminded of it when Clarence put on a Christian music CD, never mind. Oh, and can I just say that this is such an accurate and sensitive portrayal of an actual born-again Christian. They are so occupied with their love for Christ that they have no sensitivity whatsoever for people with different beliefs. No sirree! Once you've accepted Christ as your savior, you will have no idea how to behave normally around other people. It's just like black people and their love for watermelon and fried chicken -- it just consumes their whole lives. When Harrison asks Clarence to turn down his Christian CD, Clarence puts headphones on…and sings along…loudly. Those wacky born-agains!
Elsewhere at this very hospital, Sugar Daddy and his fellow eating-disorder compadres are being weighed by the elderly woman who played Jim Carrey's morally upright legal secretary in Liar Liar. Sugar nervously introduces himself to the other anorexic girls in his group, who oddly enough don't seem any thinner than anyone else on this show; in fact, I think any one of these girls could eat Lily whole and still have room for peach cobbler. But these girls do wear lots of pale foundation and dark eye make-up -- that's how you can tell they've gone too far. One of the anorexic girls, who resembles Amber Valletta the morning after some very serious partying, stares at Sugar Daddy and makes a bitchy comment about his weight. Auntie Bulimia apologizes to Sugar on behalf of Not-Amber and introduces Sugar to his teammates. They're all named Ashley. Isn't that funny? Original too. Cough…Heathers…cough! There's Mean Ashley, (the girl who was just mean to Sugar), Quiet Dark-Haired Ashley, and Black Ashley. Auntie Bulimia goes on to lay down the law, claiming that she's too smart for games and that no one is here to be punished. Everyone is here to redefine their relationship with food. "No man is an island," she says. "All the support you need is here in this room." Mean Ashley storms out resentfully.
Outside the Novak. The Novak is closed, and a burly man stands guard. Sam walks up to him and tells him she has an appointment inside. Burly man pulls a photo of Sam out of his pocket, studies it carefully, studies Sam's face carefully, and lets her inside. Mary Cherry is waiting for her. It turns out that Cherry Cherry is writing a tell-all biography that has some unflattering details about Mary Cherry in it. Mary Cherry wants Sam to write a bio of Mary Cherry that will appear in bookstores at the same time, telling her side of the story. Sam is not interested until Mary Cherry ponies up enough money. While I find the battles between Cherry Cherry and her daughter to be rather funny and highly entertaining, I only feel this way when Delta Burke is actually in front of the camera playing Cherry Cherry.
It's that damn Whatever Happened To Baby Jane music, again. And this time it's for no discernable reason that's germane to the plot. Josh and Lily are standing by Harrison's empty bed. Brooke and Nicole enter, thinking that they're too late and that Harrison is dead. Harrison enters from the bathroom and acts all surly about seeing them. Everyone leaves except Brooke, who attempts to apologize to him for the whole campaign thing. Harrison doesn't accept her apology and reads her the riot act. Clarence enters and hears the whole conversation. Brooke runs to the nearest snack food machine, cries, and starts caressing the glass shield in front of all the candy. Gee, I wonder what Brooke is going to do now as the Anorexia Nervosa Tabernacle Boys' Choir sings, "Food, Glorious Food!" in voices too high for the human ear to detect.
The Novak. I guess there's no money left for a new set after buying Mary Cherry's mink for this scene, because Sam and Mary Cherry are writing Bury That Cherry in the Novak. Of course this is "explained" by Mary Cherry's belief that the Novak inspires her creatively. Sam gets sick and tired of all of Mary Cherry's ranting and raving, and tries to quit and leave. Mary Cherry ties her up with duct tape. Tying people up with duct tape is funny. Actually, it's sort of joyless. Why couldn't she have held Sam hostage in a wing of the Cherry mansion? What about that basement where they held Gwyneth Paltrow's shopper hostage? What happened to her relationship with Harrison? I love her Scarface-in-Palm-Beach sunglasses, though.
Gotta give the producers of Popular credit for cutting back on the parents, though. They have only one scene together tonight, and it goes by really fast and totally turns out to be not about them at all but about Brooke. Jane is in the palace kitchen, about to open the biggest jar of olives I've ever seen outside a BJ's Warehouse. Mike comes down and he's all, how can you eat so soon after you just threw up? Only, in a brief faux-comic interlude, he doesn't quite say the words "throw up," so Jane thinks he's talking about a sex act, which basically sums it up for me as far as Jane and Mike go. So anyway, they finally establish that Mike thinks Jane just had a bout of morning sickness because he heard someone in the bathroom, but Jane claims that she didn't get sick that morning. So Mike is all, "Then who was throwing up in the bathroom just now?"
Brooke is standing in front of her bathroom mirror with the scariest shag hairdo I've ever seen. It's really fluffy at the ends like pony hair, and perfectly symmetrical. The tips point eerily inward, and she looks like a German teenage boy in an Aryan Medieval folklore porno comic book, or Robin Zander of Cheap Trick. She stands in the mirror, admiring all those Styrofoam peanuts she stuffed down her pants for fun. Oh, wait. Scratch that. She's having a body-image disorder "moment," and this is how she's seeing herself. I hope we find out that the hairstyle was only an illusion as well. Mike enters the bathroom, and Brooke is all trying not to look like eating-disorder girl.
Anyway, I've already forgotten the religious affiliation of Harrison's roommate. I just can't remember which monotheistic religion he's a part of. Oh wait, thanks to a pan across to the Jesus-and-his-apostles action figures on one of Clarence's end tables and the "My Daily Prayer" pamphlet he left on Harrison's bed, I just remembered that it's Christianity. Those wacky worshippers! Harrison is annoyed at Clarence's attempt to recruit him, so he starts yelling at him. For some reason, Clarence pretends to be asleep with a big smile on his face -- must be all that Christian joy or something. "You want a prayer? Here's your prayer!" says Harrison, ripping up the pamphlet and putting his hands together. "Back off!" Clarence "wakes up" and is all, "That's not a prayer, that's a command." Harrison is all, "That's it. I'm going home." Clarence reminds him that he's going to want to be in the hospital when they start chemo and he's barfing like crazy. "Who's going to be there for you at home? Your friend Brooke? I saw you chase her away." Poor man's Palladino shows up to see if everything is okay. Harrison asks if they can put him in another room. Not-Palladino points out to Harrison that this is a hospital, not Club Med.
Back at the palace, Brooke has removed the kitty litter from her pants and is trying to convince Mike that she's just looking in the mirror, not relapsing. Mike goes through her bag and pulls out a syringe. Oh, wait -- that's not a syringe, that's a bag of Cheetos. Still, Mike thinks she belongs in a hospital. Hey, I just had some Pepperidge Farm cookies, where's my room?
Auntie Bulimia and Sugar Daddy go to work to cure his eating disorder. They don't do this by actually talking about his relationship with food, or trying to identify and work through the psychic pain he carries around with him which causes him to overeat. Nah, that's too boring. Instead, she makes him eat a donut and spit it out several times until he gets sick of donuts. I totally apologize if I'm wrong here, but I know several people who have been hospitalized for eating disorders, and this is not what they do. If I got hospitalized for a painkiller addiction (which just might happen if the show continues to suck this hard for the rest of the season), would they make me swallow a Vicodin over and over again? And can I just say that the sight of Sugar Daddy spitting out a huge donut lugey onto a saucer over and over again was really not needed here?
The Novak. Sam is bound and gagged. Mary Cherry has hired a sushi chef to come in and ply them with sea urchin. Carmen walks in, and the jig is up. Hey, Carmen? How's your mother's drinking problem? Is she still beating you? That's nice. Before Carmen can run for help, MC grabs one of the Ginsu knives from the chef and forces Carmen into one of the toilets, where she sits down on the toilet and is trapped there with some adhesive that MC put there in anticipation of something like this happening. Now she's stuck like a pig in a poke. Hey! Did you all see what I just did there? Whatever. Now they're both trapped. Carmen is put to work on the book, selecting glamour shots of MC to put on the book jacket.
Hey, did you realize that the eating-disorder clinic and the cancer ward are on the same floor, and that they're both administrated by Poor Man's Palladino? That becomes apparent when both Sugar and Harrison try to check out and go home. Hey! Brooke's here too! Mike brought her in kicking and screaming. Now it's a party! Sugar Daddy is all, "Brooke? Why?" Brooke is all, "I wasn't given a choice!"
Sensitive white soul music plays as Brooke, Sugar Daddy, and the three Ashleys draw pictures of themselves with crayons as part of an eating-disorder/recover-your-inner-child exercise for Aunt Bulimia. Yeah, they threw Brooke into Sugar Daddy's eating disorder team just like that, because everyone knows how the only people in the state of California who need to be hospitalized for eating disorders are Sugar, Brooke, and the three Ashleys. Brooke whines about not being able to draw. Since being admitted, her hair has been styled to make her look like Aimee Mann on crack. Nice Ashley looks around pensively, and Aunt Bulimia tells Sugar Daddy to draw himself naked so he can better accept himself as a sexual human being. Aunt Bulimia, if everyone in the United States who didn't feel like drawing themselves naked as commanded to by a white-haired old lady were rounded up and thrown into an eating-disorder clinic, the streets would be empty except for Elizabeth Hurley, Harvey Keitel, and Rob Schneider. After the crayons are put away, food is served. Brooke and Mean Ashley fight. Sugar takes Mean Ashley's side. Brooke is nasty to Sugar Daddy. Sugar Daddy accuses Brooke of still beating herself up over her mother leaving her. Brooke reminds Sugar of the time he took too many laxatives so he'd qualify for wrestling and he shat in his uniform. Black Ashley and Nice Ashley are completely silent. Sugar tries to leave the room, but Aunt Bulimia doesn't let him. Nice Ashley, speaking for the first time, tries to smooth things over by inviting Sugar to sit to her.
The Novak. More wacky hijinks. While MC gets a massage and dictates to Sam, Sam manages to pass tools to Carmen that will help her break free of the adhesive.
Sugar's room. Brooke enters and apologizes to Sugar. They commiserate about how tough the program is and hatch a plan to hook Sugar up with Nice Ashley. You go, Sugar! Girls with eating disorders are hot 'cause they're so thin and stuff.
Harrison comes back to his room to find Lily and Josh playing cards with Clarence. He freaks and pulls his curtain all the way around his bed and all of his stuff so he'll have privacy. Clarence reminds him to save his energy. He'll need it after his chemo session. Josh and Lily try to calm him down, but he's having too much of a pity party. Finally they leave, and for some reason there's a bird's-eye view of Harrison in a fetal position on his bed, and the image gets smaller and smaller and eventually disappears.
Brooke drops by Sugar's room. Sugar is suffering from food withdrawal, because he's sitting in a chair, staring at the ceiling, and "wondering how many grams of carbohydrates are in that light fixture." Brooke has retreated into some sort of fugue state, in which she imagines that she's on an episode of Facts Of Life instead of an eating-disorder clinic. She's just forged a fake love note from Sugar to Nice Ashley. "I just put what you were feeling into words," says Brooke. Sugar gives his okay for her to go slip it under Nice Ashley's door, so she goes and does just that. Her face looks all doughy, like Kelly Taylor's did during her senior year of West Beverly when she was having her eating disorder. And can I just say, Brooke, that you are no Kelly Taylor. When Kelly Taylor had an eating disorder, she was selling it! She was suffering! She was dumping food fitfully down the garbage disposal, guzzling over-the-counter diet pills, and getting up early to work out on her treadmill for a couple of hours before school. She passed out in front of Brenda, whose boyfriend she stole while Brenda was in Paris, and had temper tantrums in front of the families who came to the open houses her mother held in the hopes of selling that big ugly house. That was a teenage television eating-disorder moment! What the hell is this? There's a Cheetos wrapper in her purse, and now she doesn't have to go to school and can devote all her time to writing love notes on behalf of Sugar Daddy? Hasn't anyone seen The Best Little Girl In The World, the best early-eighties eating-disorder made-for-TV-movie ever made, with Jennifer Jason Leigh, Helen Hunt, Ally Sheedy, Jessica Lange, Viveca Lindfors and Eva Marie Saint? Puts this shit to shame!
So Mary Cherry is dictating some more in the Novak while she gets a facial from a tough-looking female cosmetologist, and Sam's hair has gotten all cock-eyed and messed up because she's been held hostage, and yet it really doesn't look any worse than half of the styles she's had on this show. Exasperated, Sam convinces MC through flattery to stop writing the book and tell her mom how she feels instead spewing all this bile publicly. Meanwhile, Carmen manages to loosen the toilet seat from the toilet, jumps up, grabs some sushi from the sushi chef's cart, and escapes from the Novak with the toilet seat stuck to her butt. That Carmen sure can put it away. I suppose that's why she's the fat girl.
Back at the eating-disorder clinic/slumber party, Sugar is sitting around reading an eating-disorder pamphlet. Nice Ashley enters the room, ostensibly because she thinks there's a group therapy session about to happen there. Sugar tells her it starts at ten. She enters anyway and sits beside him, chatting him up and commending him for standing up to Brooke at lunch. Sugar tells her he didn't really write the note, and that they really shouldn't get involved because she might dump him later for being a big fat slob. Nice Ashley can't get a word in edgewise. Yeah, guys. This is why almost every eating-disorder clinic in real life divides people into single-sex groups. Go figure.
Harrison enters his room from the bathroom. He's just been throwing up all day after a round of chemo. Okay, they show us Sugar's donut spit but they spare us Harrison's chemo vomit. Where is the logic in that? Who makes these decisions? Harrison is particularly vulnerable, so he finds himself warming up to Christian Clarence, who actually has a sick violent side and admits to dreams of owning a shotgun and shooting people who make fun of him for being bald. The two of them trade war stories about chemo, and Clarence basically explains that his Christianity is simply a crutch for him because his illness is so painful: "The truth is, I go to prayer circle because it gives me one less hour in the day to think about being sick. I don't know if God is going to be there for me in the end. I'm just covering the bases." Harrison takes pity on his annoying roommate and joins him in watching a Channel 9 showing of The Ten Commandments. You know, I would have had some respect for this episode if they'd made Clarence a genuine Christian instead of a Trekkie, but they really didn't have the guts, I guess.
Aunt Bulimia takes Sugar's blood pressure, which is higher than normal "due to stress." Aunt Bulimia asks Sugar is the stress has anything to do with the note he "wrote" to Nice Ashley. Sugar freaks out and wants to know who else knows about the note. Ashley never knew anything about it. Aunt Bulimia assures Sugar that she was the first and only person to read the note. She intercepted it because she was in Nice Ashley's room when Brooke slid it under the door. What a wacky hospital! She reminds Sugar that romance at Eating-Disorder Sleepaway Camp is forbidden.
Later, back in Sugar's Food Abstinence Pad, Brooke pays him a visit, wanting to know how come he looked so glum at dinner. Sugar tells him about Ashley never reading the letter. Brooke points out that this is a good thing. If Nice Ashley was never seduced by Brooke's Cyrano routine, then she genuinely likes Sugar for himself. This is cold comfort for Sugar, who can't accept anyone being attracted to him since he's not attracted to himself. "If I can't get naked in front of myself, then how can I get naked in front of someone else?" Brooke tries to remind him how far he's come. Sugar questions Brooke's constant focus on Sugar's life and Sugar's problems. "You shouldn't be taking care of me. You should be taking care of yourself. You are looking at me through this glass wall you have to keep people from getting close. You use glass bricks and I use whatever I can put in my mouth." They hug and agree to take it one day at a time. Whatever. I really feel that it's poor form to have a very special episode about eating disorders when the show routinely makes blackly humorous jokes about bulimia and anorexia. It's like having your cake, eating it too, and then throwing it up later.
Harrison wakes up to find that Clarence had a bad reaction to a drug combination and a team of nurses is wheeling him out of the room. Harrison tries to follow and go with him, but Nurse Dan tells him to get back to bed. Clarence holds tight to his beads and starts saying the rosary. Did they ever explain he was Christian before? "Pray for me, dude," he says as his last words to Harrison. See ya, Christian Guest Star! Sam enters with Harrison's golf clubs. Harrison is crying. They hug, and there's a lot of sobbing, and then it ends.