Fire In The Hole

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.

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 testedtwice." 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.

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 testbut 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.

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.