The News Of My Death Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

Something's different about this episode. For one thing, it opens with an exterior shot -- and not one of those one-time-only expository shots either. This one features a car on a road and everything. Furthermore, the truce struck between Lily and Mary Cherry during the last episode has not been swept under the rug as these things so often are. Lily is driving her to school along with Carmen, Brooke, and Sam because Mary Cherry crashed her car into Bijan of Beverly Hills -- as if Mary Cherry wasn't already the love of my life or anything. Someone has farted. Brooke blames Mary Cherry. Mary Cherry blames Carmen -- you know, all that air she consumes along with those Pringles. And speaking of Carmen, how fat can she actually be if there's room in the backseat of this compact sedan for her, Mary Cherry, and Brooke with space left over for their demonstrative hand gestures? I think my sister and I might have sat together comfortably in the back of one of these things fifteen years ago when we both weighed a grand total of 160 lbs.

Sam -- apropos of nothing -- makes a speech about how great her life is because she's got a boyfriend and Harrison is in full recovery. No one asked you, Sam. Lily -- apropos of nothing other than the fact that Sam felt like sharing -- gives herself a high five for driving an electric car which doesn't pollute the environment -- not that any explanation is given as to how she can afford to buy a used moped, let alone a brand-new car. Carmen makes a crack about Mary Cherry polluting the environment with her own personal methane. Everyone laughs and accuses each other of cutting the cheese until "Rapper's Delight" comes on the radio and they all start singing along. I daresay they are giving us some major group chemistry, the likes of which we haven't seen since the end of Caged. When it comes to Popular, I am made of stone, but even I have to admit that they are all being so damn cute right now.

So then it's no surprise that the mirthful moment is interrupted by tragedy. They drive past a totaled car that has plowed into a tree. Is that a shout-out to Jason Priestley or Matthew Perry? Or are they being really old-school and making a Kelsey Grammer reference? The girls stop and watch the EMTs drag a covered dead body from the wreckage. The camera sweeps over the license plate number of the car. It's a vanity plate that says "Tuna 69." "I regret that I never got a chance to say goodbye to April Tuna," says Sam, as it starts to rain and the girls collapse into tears. Sam? April's friggin' twin sister died last season and you never said a word about that, so please shut your trap.

Credits.

Kennedy Hallway. Harrison and Josh discuss the death of April Tuna. "I'm never speeding again," says Josh, running his fingers through his newly mulletastic Simon Le Bon-esque hairdo. Harrison is all, "Are you growing a mullet?" Josh is all, "No way, man!" Harrison continues to muse over how fleeting life can be. Josh is not paying attention. He's still ruminating over the mullet comment. I'm not paying attention either because Harrison has been contemplating life's fleeting-ness in every goddamn episode since last November. Not that I know why, since I have no memory of what life-altering experience Harrison just went through or who this Clarence person is that they're not talking about. Harrison, who is obsessed with the details of April's fatal accident, tells Josh that Sam told him that when April Tuna was pulled from the wreckage, she was wearing capped sleeves.

Josh, in another scene in another part of the hallway, obviously misheard Harrison, because he tells Emory Dick that April was "de-cap-itated." Emory is all, "Oh my God," and then asks Josh if he's growing a mullet. Josh denies it. "I can't believe that the fire pie is gone," says Emory Dick. "And missing a head -- like a Pez dispenser at a garage sale." Hee! "I don't know which I'm more upset over. Your mullet or April's demise. Both are sad but true." Mary Cherry walks by. Upon hearing Emory Dick say the word true, she hightails it to the Novak to tell Brooke and Sam that Spandau Ballet's "True" was playing in April Tuna's car when the car hit the tree. Hello? Was that a shout-out to my favorite cheesy eighties pop hit? Sam and Brooke are horrified by this touching detail. "We were there and we didn't even notice that?" says Sam. "This just proves that we need Friday off!" says Mary Cherry, grinning mischievously into the camera.

Another scene, another part of the hallway. "So what you're saying," says Chem to Mary Cherry, "is that you want me to lie about the death of a student we all sadly overlooked, be in denial about my true lack of feelings and pretend we can't function so we can all get Friday off?" "Umyeah," says Mary Cherry. "I'm on it," says Chem. Hee!

They take their plan to Vice Principal Calvin Krupps, who muses over the meaning of "True" by Spandau Ballet, and reminisces about slow-dancing to it at frat parties. Meanwhile Mary Cherry and Chem show off their "real" tears and angle for Friday off. "We're overwhelmed!" says Mary Cherry. "Well, then there's only one thing to do," says Calvin as violins shimmy in the background ominously. "Call in a grief counselor."

Novak. Nicole stands at the mirror, reapplying lipstick. Sam enters and tries to engage Nicole in a round of mutual insults, but Nicole isn't rising to the occasion. When Sam asks her to explain her sudden lack of bile, Nicole explains that she's preoccupied with her real mother. "I hear she's dead," says Sam. "I'm sorry." "I think the news of her death has been greatly exaggerated," says Nicole, quoting Mark Twain and hitting us with the episode title in one fell swoop.

Hallway. The camera sweeps past Calamity's sign-up sheet, which says "Good Grief!" at the top of it, and lands on Lily and Josh, who are having a heated discussion about Josh's haircut. "Face the music, Billy Ray Cyrus," says Lily. "You have a mullet!" Josh denies this and stomps off. Then there's this parody of an eighties hair-band anthem playing in the background called, "It's My Hair!" Hee! I cannot tell you how much more tolerable I find Lily when she's acting like a normal bitchy teenage girl and not doing her pious teen schtick.

Back in the Novak, Sam is doing a web search on her Powerbook for Nicole. Apparently, Sam is so smart that she's the only Kennedy student who knows how to surf the internet. In return, Nicole has promised to deliver April Tuna's eulogy at her memorial. While Sam waits for some information to "download," she tells Nicole that she's in denial. Nicole points out that there was no death certificate filed in Fontana for her mother, and explains that the heart-shaped brooch that the lunch lady wears is identical to the one pinned her diaper when she was abandoned in the Fontana greasy spoon. "I think she's wearing the mate as a signal. She's identifying herself and waiting for me to make the first move." Okay, did it occur to the writers to plant the story about the brooch in a episode during one of those discussions between Nicole and her mother so it didn't seem so abruptly tacked on? Now that the information has "downloaded," Sam concludes that there is no death certificate for a Shaggy Louise Grout in the entire state of California, and "it is possible" that she changed her name to Mary Lou Parker. What kind of a website tells you that it's "possible" that someone changed their name? Either they do or they don't, right? The fuck? Unfortunately, there is no Mary Lou Parker listed anywhere, so they can't check any further. "But I know she's my mother," whines Nicole.

And, hey, while we're delivering unlikely online scenarios, here's another. Somehow, three emails that Harrison sent while he was in the hospital ended up in Sam's inbox. One is for Sam. One is for his mother. The third is for Nicole. Don't ask. The one to Sam is a love letter that he wrote thinking he was going to die. Harrison thought he was going to die? When was this? I have no recollection of that plot line. None whatsoever. Leukemia? What's that? The lights dim as Sam reads the email and Spandau Ballet's "True" comes over the soundtrack. "I wish I could hold you when life is hard and no one seems to understand," says Harrison over the Spandau Ballet tune -- which I guess is a shout-out to my favorite nineties pop song, PM Dawn's "You Send Me," which features rapping against a Spandau Ballet sample. "I love you. I love you," he continues. "I don't want to go to my grave without telling you how I feel. I love you, Sam. I know this much is true." There's more, but I'm trying to keep my dinner down. Sam is devastated. "Okay," says Nicole. "What did he say about me?" I love Nicole!

Kennedy cafeteria. thing you know Brooke, Carmen, and Mary Cherry are doing grief homework ordained by Calamity. This involves sitting at lunch with Emory Dick and being nice to him. "That way, if he crashes his car while driving home from school today," Brooke explains to Lily, "his last memory will be a happy one." Lily gets this grief-stricken expression on her face that I didn't really notice as being out of the ordinary, but Brooke does and calls her on it. Lily explains that watching how nice they're being to Emory reminds her of how bad she feels about what she and Josh did to April. "I am so angry with myself," says Lily.

Elsewhere in the cafeteria, Sam and Harrison. Whatever. She brings up the email. Whatever. He pretends he was joking. Whatever. Finally, he breaks down and admits to writing her something he never meant to send, cleaning it out of his email account one day and hitting send by accident. He still is in love with her, he tells her, and Sam gets all angry at him and reminds him she's with George. Big whatever. "You've just ruined a wonderful friendship!" says Sam before she stomps off. Is it purely an effect of her eye make-up, or does Carly Pope have a lazy eye?

Calamity's office. Lily and Josh sit before Calamity, who is focused on a bottle of prescription medication in front of her. "Thank you for interrupting your lunch to see us," says Lily. Am I paranoid, or does it in fact seem like, every time the need to eat is mentioned, it's a "fat" cast member at the center of it all? Lily tells Calamity about how she and Josh feel horrible about April's death, since they'd turned her down for "love plus one." Like, who the hell refers to three-ways as "love plus one" besides Haircut One Hundred? But then I guess that's the point, since this episode is so preoccupied with the eighties.

A flashback reveals April Tuna approaching Lily and Josh at lunch and asking them if she could join them in a menage. And she's so cute and nasty about it! "April," says Lily, a picture of piousness. "That's inappropriate!" "Does she use five-syllable words like that in bed?" says April to Josh. "What's New Pussycat" by Tom Jones plays in the background as a montage sequence rolls of April stalking Lily and Josh like a wildcat. She keeps joining them uninvited at lunch and being inappropriately seductive. Hey, what ever happened to booty camp, Lily? Shouldn't you be putting an end to sexual harassment?

Back in reality, Lily expresses deep regret that she didn't see the longing for human companionship underneath the inappropriate displays of sexuality, and used April's weirdness as an excuse not to get close. She decides right then and there to set up cans in the cafeteria accepting donations for the April Tuna Scholarship. People who feel bad about ignoring her when she was alive can atone financially. Whatever. Josh disagrees with Lily's plan: "People like April are freaks and there's no way you can protect them from the real world." Lily blames his insensitivity on his new mullet, since "it is after all the hairstyle of the Cro-Magnon man!" Josh is all, "Lay off the mullet," as Lily exits to go raise some consciousness. Calamity sits at her desk, doing something that could easily be seen as either laughing or crying while she arranges her pills on her desk to spell "T-U-N-A." Why doesn't this woman have her own series?