Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Dumbward Bound
By Stee | Season 9 | Episode 16 | Aired on 10.01.2000
r off at her little site (replete with lean-to) and telling her that there "shouldn't be anything living inside of it." They're not sure because B/M hates Msaada and didn't pay for Steve and Elaine to actually scout out a safe area for her -- "Put the little black girl wherever you find a clearing. We don't give a crap. We're not even going to put batteries in her camera. Hah!" Theo stares at his camera. Steve asks Holly if she needs anything. Holly, instead of saying, "Constant attention from men," lies and says, "Nope." "Forty-eight hours in solitude begins now," says Mayor McSteve. Holly tries not to cry as yet another man walks away from her. She begins cleaning her area. Shot of the kids at their individual sites now. Kathryn looks around. James arranges his sleeping stuff. Laterrian huffs at the camera. Msaada brushes stuff off the ground. Whoa! Holly puts the camera waaaay too close to her face, as she tells us, "I'm trying not to think about it too much, at all." Scaryteeth. Shot of her site. Scary tree. There's a nice symmetry there. Strange music. We're supposed to feel "foreboding." How can I feel anything but pure joy as the shot gives way to the first commercial break, though? That's a fucking challenge.Graphic of Stupid tells us that it's "Hour One." It sure feels at least that long. Oh, for the kids, not for us viewers. James says, "Here we go." Holly, still too close: "I don't know, this is going to be kind of insane." Insane being the operative word when talking about Holly. Msaada, sweet and cheerful as always -- except when she's getting Pesci on James -- shows us her view of the valley. Laterrian shows us his tent and "[his] pinecones." Wow, Laterrian found pinecones in a forest. Those could be worth something! Holly shows the measly stock of food they've been given -- including a bagel, a banana, and a cookie. Dude, that's more than is in my fridge right now. James. Kathryn. Laterrian. Msaada, smiling. G of S: "Sense of Self." Holly, still crazy close to the camera: "I'm kind of trying to be positive about all of this right now. I'm hoping it all goes well." She's spooky. Cute, but spooky. And not so cute in this shot. More spooky than cute. Like, spook-cu-y. Laterrian suddenly begins the self-revelation by saying that he always wanted to be the stud everyone looked up to -- the pretty boy -- to meet the approval of his friends, but along the way he lost his sense of self. Well, how can Laterrian really have much of a sense of self when there are two of him? I mean, if "T" has a sense of Laterrian and vice versa, does that count? ZenKathryn, her "serious" voice on, says, "It hasn't been an easy trip for me." She goes on to say that she's had a lot of emotions she's never had before and a lot of things she's had to overcome. Yeah, like the lock to the bathroom-stall door, Laterrian's belt, her own bra clasp. Shot of the mountain. "Spooky" music. A spookier Holly says, "It's kind of this hazy light right now. Which is kind of creepy. And I'm waiting for the sun to go down. And, uh, waiting. And waiting. And waiting and waiting and waiting." The funny thing I realize is that part of the reason she's looking so odd is that she's looking to the right of the lens. And you know why? Because that's where the little pop-open screen on the camera is. She's just performing for herself right now. Freaky. I wonder what happens when the cameras aren't on Holly? Does she melt? Does she disappear? Does she stand catatonic, finding no reason to do anything if no one is going to see? All I know is I'm looking at HollyBoogers right now and she needs to back the fuck up. And...Theo breaks the little "waiting" spell Holly created by Bringin' on da Noise, Bringin' on da Hick, and yodeling, "Happy birthday to me. Today's mah twentieth birthday. Two decades of Theo in the books." What books? That's a library I want to make sure to never visit. Just like I never want to see James, The Movie ever in my life. We see that Theo has written birthday greetings to himself on his blue lean-to in what looks like, well, dookie. Theo goes on to say that the "funny" thing is, only Mother Nature showed up to party; I have a feeling that his party's attendance levels, were he not in seclusion, would be exactly the same. Next comes James, who blahs about learning that "maturity" is not about getting older, but about learning things: "You can mature more, and not have to grow old." Where? Does James have a time machine? Did he find the Cocoon? He goes on to say that he's mostly afraid of growing old. He should be more afraid of discovering exactly what it is in him that makes him love tackling other men and being in a fraternity more than anything else in life.
Next is Kathryn, who kicks off this section the G of S labels as "Fears." Sniffling (could be emotions or just the constant mucus problem she and Laterrian both seem to suffer from), she tells us that she most fears going through life without someone to share it with. Ah, Reed must be like, "Uh...hello?" A shirtless Theo tells us that he's been afraid to care about people. Are you sure it hasn't been "the people" who have been afraid? Holly now. She focuses the camera on a big pile of sticks. Huge. Weird. Like her teeth. She swivels the camera back to her huge face since she was approaching thirty seconds off-camera there, and giddily stares right at her image on the little screen, smiling and checking her face from all angles. "Very suspicious looking. Isn't it? Yeah. Lovely." Msaada now. She talks fast, as she's sure B/M is going to cut her off any second; she talks about it being "difficult" and not wanting to have friends or "associates" enough to willingly give up information about herself. Music of My Headache starts. Trees. "Hour Seven." Laterrian, in his tent, says, "At home it was either having sex or working out. Working out or having sex." Same with Marky Mark in the early '90s. Or Richard Simmons visiting a "fat camp" for boys. Msaada, in a very funny deadpan, says that she sometimes questions the priorities of people on this trip. Theo takes the conversation in a whole different direction by saying that if he could go anywhere, it would be to heaven to give his dad a hug: "Because I know he probably really wants one. And um, I'd just tell him how much I miss him. And tell him about the fun I've been having. And just tell him how scared I've been sometimes." Shit. I have nothing bad to say about him here. That's pretty sweet. I mean, he's still a fucking freak, but that was sweet. Holly now: "Oh man. This is crazy. I'm stuck out here." You know, this is just like the solitary confinement scene in The Hurricane, where Denzel talks to imaginary tormentors and goes nuts, only that was under horrible conditions over months in the dark. This is Holly sitting in a campsite for seven hours straight. Ooh. Call fucking Amnesty International. "Hour Eight." Split screen. Bad, bad music that ruins everything. Awful. Kathryn looking tired, staring. James huffs. Theo says again that he'd give his dad a hug. Laterrian fucks with the lens. Holly, eyes glued to herself on the little monitor, makes a face. Theo. "Luckily, my dad got to meet Mr. Rhett, the, um, sort of father figure in my life...[a tear rolls down his cheek]...my dad really liked the whole family, and he like, you know, he was just so amazed that I could meet people like Miss Wendy and Mr. Rhett who, uh, who would take me into their home, and people like Mr. Wally and Miss Frankie, who would take me into their home." He goes on to say that his dad was happy about it, and he knew that he was going to die soon. Wow. How sad. Really. And I'm not just talking about the fact that a twenty-year-old still refers to people as "Mr. Wally" and "Miss Wendy." James listens to the wind. Theo looks down. Holly says, "Bye-bye." We see her get ready for her mental breakdown...I mean, bed.
Night. Shots of the moon. Split-screens all over. Msaada in The Blair Witch Project knit cap, light from the camera all that illuminates her face. Same with James. G of S: "Hour Fifteen." Kath