The Palace. Spam's bedroom. Sam's hair actually looks okay, but she's wearing this dashiki-type shirt that totally reminds me of something Rosalyn Carter would have worn around Camp David circa 1977. "Hey, I made the bedside table," says George, checking out the framed photo of himself on Sam's night table. "That's big! I just can't believe it took me two months to see your room." "There's a first time for everything," says Sam, lighting candle number 64 and doing something which I'd imagine is what she thinks "leaning seductively" is against her Ethan Allen dresser. Then she mentions that it "took her that long to clean the place up." Oh yeah and there's an R&B-type song playing in the background. I guess that Sam figured that in order to seduce a black man, you have to put on some black tunes. Meanwhile, I figured that in order for a reasonably attractive teenage female to seduce a heterosexual high school age male of any race, all you have to do is take out your retainer and dust off a sturdy surface somewhere, but I digress. After all, this is Popular, a magical land where straight teenage boys are always reluctant to have heterosexual sex and George is no exception.
Anyway, they start making out and Sam gets more aggressive, asking George if he's "too hot" in his sweatshirt and mentioning over and over again how Mike and Jane took Brooke to the movies and they won't be home until "very very late." Not late enough for me. "What are you saying, Sam?" asks George. "I repeat," says Sam. "There's a first time for everything." Okay, we get it. George backs off, explaining that he's "sort of in virgin territory" himself. "Well, I may be a romance geek," says Sam. "But at least I have an honest boyfriend." Then all that Heathers music plays, just so you know that the term "honest boyfriend" is going to come back to haunt someone. Like, who knows? Maybe George has an "honest boyfriend."
Credits.
Harrison is back in school. My, that was one fast recovery from leukemia. Glad I didn't get emotionally involved in that plot line or anything. He enters the hall and gets slow-motion hugs from everyone while that Windex commercial song "I can see clearly now…" plays. I guess someone thought that a predatory hug from April Tuna would provide much-needed humor to undercut the maudlin aspect of this scene. Nope. You're a day late and a dollar short, people. I'm already nauseous and there's nothing you can do about it. Although if viewed as sweet relief from the dumbest plotlines this show has ever stuck with for more than an episode, there's definitely cause for hugs and rejoicing.
Cut to Chem's class. Chem welcomes Harrison back from "death's door." More hugs and rejoicing. I mean that's it, right? No more leukemia? Please tell me there's no more leukemia and that there'll be no more mention of it? My TV/VCR doesn't answer me. Chem moves on to her regularly scheduled lecture and asks the class which of the following activities will not result in syphilis: a) vaginal sex, b) oral sex, or c) sharing a joystick. Hey, Chem? What about vaginal sex with a condom? Or am I the only person watching right now who is aware of the fact that syphilis -- a highly treatable disease to begin with -- is sort of rare these days ever since AIDS made most people practice safe sex? And speaking of AIDS, shouldn't we be more concerned with a fatal venereal disease? One that won't go away with a mere application of antibiotics?
Sam cracks a joke that's bawdy but too stupid to even go into. George laughs, so Chem makes him answer the question. George doesn't know the answer, so they go into this Who Wants to Be a Millionaire fantasy sequence. Okay, I know this episode marks a return to the "old" Popular, but there's no need to recycle actual material from the old Popular, as Nicole already had a WWTBAM moment back in "Caged" last season.
Mary Cherry throws George a "lifeline." "The correct answer is 'a,'" she says proudly. "Va-jay-nall sex!" Ha! I have to say, though, that for a moment there I misheard her and thought she had said "fudge-anal sex" and I was like, "what in God's name is 'fudge-anal sex'?" I mean, was this another thing I hadn't heard of like the crush video?
So Chem is incensed that her class is ignorant about venereal diseases. She announces that she's written a play about venereal disease called "That Burning Sensation." Each member of the class has been cast as a different form of VD, and they only have a week before they have to perform it for kindergartners at Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg grade school. Oh and guess what happens if anyone doesn't want to be in the play? That person gets an F. Chem, you have got to get a new threat. This is all so tired.
George Austin is Chlamydia. Lily is Gonorrhea. April Tuna is Syphilis. Sugar Daddy is Warts. Mary Cherry and Nicole are Crabs. Brooke is Herpes, "the queen of all inflammations." Sam is a whore, and Harrison is "the lonely virgin." This prompts the class to laugh, and oh gee, I sense another plot line coming in which Harrison tries to lose his virginity. Remember what I said about a return to good old Popular vs. the recycling of last season's plot lines?
The cafeteria. Nicole sits down with Mary Cherry, who has a giant crab on her plate. Get it? Mary Cherry thinks that "crabs" are literally those sea animals that crawl sideways, and wonders how they could possibly get into her "La Perla drawers." She's studying one to get into her part for Chem's VD festival. Nicole informs her what crabs really are. I mean, should I really go into what crabs are here? I trust that my readers either a) saw the episode and heard Nicole's description or b) know what crabs are themselves. Okay, because Popular feels like "sharing" tonight, maybe I will too. Pubic lice and scabies are tiny insects that live on the skin. They are often, but not always, spread sexually. You can also pick them up by using the bed linen, clothes, or towels of an infected person. Scabies, an itchy rash, is caused when a female mite burrows into a person's skin to lay her eggs. Pubic lice infect hairy parts of the body, especially around the groin and under the arms. Their eggs can be seen on the hair close to the skin, where they hatch in six to eight days. Or at least that's what www.sex101.org had to say. So according to this, and several friends of mine who get them from time to time, to get rid of scabies you have to see your doctor and get a prescription for some cream that you have to slather all over your body from head to toe and then stand there like an idiot for several minutes. With pubic lice, all you have to do is go buy this stuff over the counter at the drug store, spread it all over your genitals, and stand there like an idiot for several minutes and then wash it off. So Mary Cherry is pissed that her research was such a waste of time and that her prospective Red Lobster dining experience that evening won't really be productive or anything.
Over at another table, where Harrison, George, and Josh are sitting, Sugar Daddy is complaining about not being allowed to play a disease more "north of the equator," whatever that means. Harrison's eyes wander until they meet April Tuna. I don't know what the visual reference of April's outfit is supposed to be at this point. Lots of red. Maybe it doesn't have a meaning. She blows a kiss at Harrison, one filled with so much sexual innuendo that it makes his ears spread out really far to either side of his head. When he starts paying attention to the conversation again, the boys are having this eighties-style rap session about their fears of having VD. And by rap, I don't mean hip hop -- I mean "rap" as in what some groovy guidance counselor wants to do with you. George talks about how paranoid all this talk of VD makes him. Josh talks about how "sure" he is of Lily's virginity, and, like, every viewer at home nods along because Lily is so definitely a virgin. I mean, those thighs are clamped so tight you'd think she was hiding hundred dollar bills between her knees. Then Josh talks about his sexual history and concludes that he's in no danger because Brooke "was clean." Sugar reminds him of his thing with Nicole, provoking Josh to reconsider his smugness and start wanting to get tested. Sugar Daddy claims to be clean because when he was with Exquisite Woo this summer, he "had to wear a rainhat and she still made [him] get tested…twice." Thanks for sharing, Sugar.
Josh tries to steer the conversation towards George's sexual history. George is all, "I'll never tell." Yeah, if I were going out with Sam I'd try to steer clear of conversations involving sexual experience. Then George steers the conversation back to Harrison and asks him if he's ever been with Sam. Harrison answers in the negative, and the boys explain to George that Harrison's got it good because he's in with the ladies by being one of them more or less. This prompts Harrison's second sexual crisis of the day, which the boys exacerbate by making fun of his manhood. He stomps off and George chastises Sugar and Josh for being cruel. Sugar feels bad, but gets the brilliant idea to hire Harrison a hooker so Harrison can "cross the great divide." Awwww! Not.
So then George is all, "Someone like Candy Baux?" which he pronounces "Candy Box" instead of "Candy Bo" and thank GOD closed captioning spelled it all Frenchified because otherwise there'd be all these -- you know -- racy connotations. Sugar's all like, "Good call!" Then, because there are a couple of six-year-olds watching who don't see where this is going, Josh is all, "Who is Candy Baux?" Sugar is all, "She's a hooker." Like, no shit, guys; I thought she was a bookkeeper. And what is up with Sugar and George knowing names of hookers in town like they're local sports heroes, if both of them are supposed to be so sexually inexperienced and George just moved to town a few weeks ago?
Okay, so then Sam and Brooke are hanging out in the Palace kitchen, talking about Sam's botched attempt at losing the big V as though it had just happened. It's like they totally forgot that Sam was just in school for the day a few seconds earlier. Brooke gives her the speech about how important it is to wait because you never get your virginity back blah blah blah and how noble it is of George to want to wait. All the while Brooke keeps making references to her first and only time with Josh and making these wistful faces about the incident as though it were not just in fact an awkward first-time sexual experience that left her feeling a bit empty, but something really traumatic like the death of a beloved pet. So Sam is all, "I KNOW," so Brooke is all, "So why are you in such a hurry to lose it?" Sam answers that she's tired of her "prim" rep and she just wants to be sexy. Oh, okay, because God forbid any teenaged girl would just want to have sex because -- I don't know -- they imagined it might be a pleasurable experience or something.
thing you know, Brooke is showing a Sam a porn movie. Now I am all for showing a teenaged virgin a porn video. Why? Because I think it's important for a girl to realize that she's going to sleep with someone someday who actually watches movies like that and will yell out stuff like, "Yeah baby yeah, s--k that c--k!" during sex because he thinks that's what sex is actually like. I figure that if a girl can hear that stuff early on and be prepared for it, she might not burst out laughing during her first sexual experience.
But I digress. That's not the reason that Brooke is showing Sam a porno. She's doing it to teach Sam how to be sexy. Whatever. So they sit there on the couch watching one of Mike's videos ("a leftover from his lonely bachelor days") that judging from the dialogue seems to be based on the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin. Sam wants to know what she's supposed to be learning from the video. Brooke tells her that if she wants something, she has to be more aggressive. Okay, wait. What happened to that whole "you'll never get your virginity back" speech from like three seconds ago? Whatever.
Kennedy Hallway. Sugar and Josh are wearing the same clothes they were at lunch, which was supposed to be yesterday, unless Sam and Brooke are at home playing hooky and watching porn. They catch up with Harrison, apologize for insulting his manhood, and give him this really gay gift book which is filled with all this stuff, including a gift certificate for a "session" with Candy Baux-with-a-non-silent-"x." So Harrison is all, "You bought me a hooker?" Actually, Harrison, hookers aren't for sale. They're for rent, and what the hell are you doing knowing about local hookers, and how did you know that the "x" wasn't silent? He's offended that the boys don't think he can "lose it" on his own. Josh is all, "We just thought you could use a little help, that's all." Harrison vows to lose his virginity within a week. What is up with these kids who make these outrageous promises, like when Sam bet Brooke that she could lose her virginity that week and she didn't even have a boyfriend? "And when I lose it," says Harrison before he stomps out of there, "it won't be because someone is picking up the tab."
First day of rehearsals for "That Burning Sensation." Chem is wearing a beret, because it's always really funny when someone who doesn't wear a beret wears a beret because they're directing a musical. And we also have a new funny set. Apparently, Kennedy High has a dinner-theater theater, because they're rehearsing in this space we've never seen before that has all these little café tables instead of rows of auditorium seats. Chem's trying to get everyone's attention while Josh and Lily are practically doing it onstage, Sam and George are engaged in some foreplay of their own, and Mary Cherry is stumbling around in a "Super Sex Girl" t-shirt. See, that's ironic, because it's a play that preaches sexual abstinence. Chem tells Josh and Lily to chill out because "Genital Warts do not co-mingle with Gonorrhea." Oh really? Actually, Chem, it is entirely possible to have both of those venereal diseases at the same time, so whatever. But Chem tells everyone that they all need to do more research into their roles so they can play them with conviction, "except Harrison," and everyone laughs again at Harrison's virginity.
Warning: scene with Nicole acting like a human being approaching. Avert eyes. Nicole is at her locker. Harrison approaches her, thanks her for saving his life last episode, and basically asks her for a go. At first Nicole laughs hysterically like the Nicole we all know and love. Then she gets intrigued -- until Harrison basically lets it slip that he's asking her because he's heard she's easy. She stomps off sniffing and making nasty remarks about his "underprivileged Red Vine," which was a total shout out to Djb. Not the "underprivileged" part, though.
Palace kitchen. George is reading some chlamydia pamphlet while Sam stands against a counter, doing strange contortions with her mouth that she thinks are alluring. Sam hears voices in her head. No, wait, it's just a flashback to some advice Brooke gave her two scenes ago about being more aggressive if she wants something. "Let's Get It On" by Marvin Gaye plays on the soundtrack. You know, more black music to seduce a black man. Works like a charm, I hear. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with George, and he's all nervous and hesitant. Sam pulls him into the laundry room for privacy. George pulls her off of him and asks what she's doing. Uh, George? She's trying to have sex with you. Have you ever heard of heterosexual sex before? I hear it's a huge thing and it's been around forever. Sam claims she's only "being aggressive," because men like that. George wants her to back off because she's scaring him. Sam moans that she's gone from "unsexy to scary." George tells her that she is sexy. But he says it with about as much conviction as Kevin Spacey's Oscar speech proclaiming his love for Diane, his personal assistant. Then George reminds her how romantic he is and how he wants his first time to be special. Yeah, there were guys at my high school who wanted to "wait" with their girlfriends. They were usually out of the closet by their junior year of college. Sam realizes how lucky she is to have such a "sweet" boyfriend. Yeah, Sam. Gay boyfriends are awesome. Especially at prom time when you have to pick out a dress and shoes to match. He'll be such a help. Sam and George decide to "set a date" for their big mutual devirginization, and schedule a love-making session for week. Ew. Then Mike walks into the laundry room because his wife Va-Jane-Ah threw up all over her pants due to a spell of morning sickness. He asks what the kids are up to in the laundry room. George is all, "She's fluffing." Sam is all, "He's folding." See what they just did there?
Kennedy hallway. Nicole runs into Mary Cherry, who is wearing hospital scrubs and has just hired an upholstery cleaning service to sanitize the Novak. She's become a germ freak now as a result of learning all about crabs. Nicole accuses her of being "parannoying." Mary Cherry maintains that it's the only way to survive in this age of "sexual misinformation."
The waiting room of some VD clinic. Lily and Josh wait to see a doctor while Lily rehearses lying to the doctor. She figures that if she can convince the doctor she has gonorrhea, she'll totally have Method acting down like Meryl Streep. Josh offers to take a VD test for her before they "do it." Lily lights up like a Christmas tree and starts talking about how honesty "is sexy." Hey, Lily? How sexy or honest is it to waste the time of a physician just to get a part right in a school play? Nevertheless, Josh is all turned on at the reward he'll get from Lily for having all those tests done -- until he realizes what a chlamydia test involves: that whole prostate massage thing. Before he can freak out too much, George enters the clinic too. Lily congratulates George on doing the right thing by Sam and getting a test…but wait, if George is a virgin, what's he doing in a VD clinic? A male doctor summons Josh to his exam with a latex-gloved finger. Heh.
Back at school, Lily and Sam sit together on a stairwell and moan about how little they see each other now that they both have boyfriends. Lily mentions seeing George at the VD clinic and congratulates Sam on the big step she imagines they'll be taking. Sam wants to know what George was doing at an STD clinic if he's a virgin. She storms off to get to the bottom of it all.
Meanwhile, Harrison is asking some other Kennedy student to have sex with him. Only you can't see her, 'cause she's off-camera. Except for her hand, briefly, when she hauls off and slaps him for suggesting that they should have sex because they both have lesbian moms. April Tuna approaches him and offers her virginity to him. There's also this whole "comedy" thing with an electronic chastity belt that I won't go into. Harrison runs off in disgust, with April chasing after him and calling him a loser.
George is in the middle of talking to some black students we have never seen before, and will never see again, about a stripper. Not that any of this is explained later, which is a bummer because I totally want to know where they've been hiding these black Kennedy students and what was up with that stripper. So then Sam walks up to him and starts giving him grief about the STD test. George doesn't introduce her to his black friends, and Sam doesn't even notice them. So the black friends run off, and Sam asks him what he's doing getting an STD test when he's supposed to be a virgin. So George is all, "Actually, I never said I was a virgin, I said I was 'in virgin territory.'" Sam complains about being misled. George apologizes and explains that he didn't want to "go into it" that night because she'd gone to so much trouble. He didn't want to "kill the intimacy." Sam points out that his dishonesty is "killing the intimacy." George 'fesses up to some experience while very very drunk with some woman from his old school whose name he never even knew. Her name wasn't Rick, was it? Anyway, despite George lamenting his virginity that was so carelessly lost, Sam is all, "Were you wearing a condom?" George answers that he doesn't know. He was too drunk. Who knows? Maybe the guy that George slept with wore a condom. You never know. So Sam is pissed that George wasn't honest with her and basically says that they're never going to have sex and stomps off.
Harrison runs up to Josh in the hall, tells him he changed his mind about Candy Baux, and asks for the certificate back. Josh promises to bring it in tomorrow. Lily enters just in time to hear a little about the plan. Harrison exits, and Lily asks what they were talking about. Josh is all, "Honesty is sexy, right?" Lily agrees. "We sort of bought Harrison a prostitute," says Josh. Okay, for the sixty-seventh time, you rent a prostitute. Only marriage gives you actual ownership of a woman. Doesn't anyone read Simone De Beauvoir anymore? Lily is offended that Josh is helping Harrison patronize some "poor woman" who is being exploited. Josh counters that Candy Baux knows what she's doing, because she has an ad campaign and everything. "It's not my place to tell any woman what she can and cannot do with her own body," says Josh. "That's a Republican's job." Because, usually, evoking the name of the right wing always shuts Lily right up. So then Lily is all, "In that case, I'll sleep with Harrison myself -- for free." How noble of Lily to sleep with someone she's not attracted to in order to prevent a fellow female from doing it for money. And they say feminism is dead. ["And didn't we cover this ground last season, with the hotel room and the Jamba Juice and whatnot? They aren't attracted to each other." -- Sars]
Dress rehearsal for "That Burning Sensation." Brooke, April Tuna, George, and Lily are dressed as Weimar Republic cabaret girls. Sam is made over to resemble Liza as Sally Bowles. They perform some song called "Mein Crab," complete with a Fosse-esque chair dance. George redeems himself as a Popular character by looking hilariously out of place in his halter and tap pants. Lily runs off in the middle of the number to go convince Harrison to sleep with her. Chem wants to know where "Gonorrhea" went. Brooke/Herpes is all, "This is so unprofessional!" Dude, what did you expect? She totally disrupted Miss Ross' production of "Equus" when she had that whole boob crisis a couple of weeks ago. That girl has no respect for the theater. At all.
Chem lab. Lily is asking Harrison how he can lose it to a stranger. Harrison explains that he's trying to seize the moment since Clarence died a virgin. Gosh, does anyone have any idea who this Clarence person is? I'm drawing a blank here. Nor am I understanding what Harrison is talking about when he refers to his recent battle with death, because that leukemia plot line simply didn't happen. K? Lily offers to devirginize Harrison herself and -- thank God -- Harrison doesn't want to go back there, because last year when they were going to lose it together she backed out.
Josh approaches Sam at her locker, seeking advice about his latest problem with Lily wanting to devirginize Harrison. "You are not going to get any sympathy from me on the idea of sending Harrison to a prostitute!" says Sam. Josh tells her that it wasn't his idea. It was George and Sugar who thought of it first. So Sam is all, "George knows a prostitute?" Josh tries to cover, but Sam gets him to tell her Candy Baux's name.
Candy Baux's place. You can tell it's the apartment of a prostitute because everything is painted this misty rose color. Candy, who looks and sounds like an Argentinean woman who won the Miss Universe pageant in her teens and now that she's in her thirties she hosts a talk show on Telemundo, invites Harrison in and offers him some pie. No guys, she really offers him pie to eat and stuff. Get your minds out of the gutter already! They sit down in Ms. Baux's couch, and Harrison tells her it's his first time and that he's super nervous. Candy is more than sympathetic. She whips out a "menu" and lets him pick out what kind of scene he wants, cautioning him that she's out of "hot French oil." Okay, I just wanted to point out here that a real call girl would never write down a list of her services unless she wanted to be thrown in jail once a week. Harrison can't make up his mind. Lots of time goes by, and eventually they decide to simply order Chinese food and play a few games of checkers. Aw!!!
At some point Candy tells Harrison that men who are "above average at checkers" are "above average" in other areas, and bites seductively into (what else?) an egg roll. This inspires Harrison to remove his shoes. But before anything can happen, Sam comes to the door wanting to speak to Candy. Don't ask me how she figured out the name wasn't spelled B-O-X and looked up Candy's address. Harrison panics and hides in the closet. Sam enters, and for some reason, Candy lets her interrupt a session to ask her some questions, ostensibly because she's doing research for Chem's play. Like any call girl with any sort of professional reputation would allow this to happen. Sam asks her if she remembers all her clients. Candy realizes the true nature of Sam's visit and asks her, "Why you digging around in your boyfriend's basement?" Sam 'fesses up and tells her the whole story about her troubles with George. Candy looks at his picture and tells Sam that she's never seen him before. Oh, as if a call girl with any sort of professional reputation would open her mouth about something like that, even if she had. Sam is comforted. As she's about to leave, she tells Candy that she's got a friend who "may be coming by here." She describes Harrison physically and asks her to "be gentle with him." Candy assures her that he'll be in good hands and closes the door after her. Harrison emerges from the closet and decides not to go through with the sex, because heterosexual boys never want to have meaningless sex and Harrison is no exception. He tries her low-fat lemon meringue pie instead. Awwww!
Backstage at "Burning Sensation" opening night. Everyone is dressed as their disease and doing some last-minute line readings. Carmen is an usher…and an unsightly yellow discharge. She shows some kids to their seats. Chem breaks up a fight between Nicole and Mary Cherry. Mary Cherry is accusing Nicole of giving her crabs. Chem takes a look at the infected area -- her arm -- and concludes that MC is simply allergic to shellfish or wool.
Mike sits in the audience. Va-Jane-Ah isn't there for some reason, so he strikes up a conversation with Candy Baux about venereal diseases he thought he had. The play starts. We see MC and Nicole in their crab costumes; the kids in the audience sit enraptured as the nun who is their teacher eats nachos. Harrison as the virgin steps out of character and actually speaks about his experience as a virgin and how he learned something about his visit to Candy Baux. The kids cheer for him, but start booing him when he tells them he's still a virgin. Hee! Everyone is touched by Harrison's decision to wait for the right time and person to lose his virginity.
Sam and George walk hand-in-hand down an empty Kennedy hall and talk about what a wonderful experience it was to be in Chem's play. George tells her that she's "the best hooker [he's] ever seen" and gives her a piece of paper with the results of his STD exam, which both he and Josh passed. Sam confesses that she went to see Candy Baux to check up on him. George lectures her about how spying is "uncool," and they both decide that they're even. He asks her if she wants to take their relationship further that very night. Sam turns him down, saying she wants to wait. George says he's okay with waiting and almost admits that he loves her. They make out, and Chem, who has overheard everything, is all happy that her play inspired someone to try abstinence. "End scene," she says, and winks to the camera.