Michael, The Guys, And The Great Snapple Caper

Props to Wing and Sars.

We open this week on the glass and chrome living-in-the-not-too-distant-future set of what this intrepid researcher will call "some kind of office thingy something something." A suited, fidgety, security-pass-wearing, eighteenth-century-classical-composer-haired Michael "Cops and Slobbers" Guerin sits at one end of a sleek glass table, while at the other end sits a severe-looking individual in a security guard ensemble. "So," the non-Michael guy begins, holding up a piece of paper and acting acutely aware that his greatest asset as an actor lies in the "cast this genetic doppelganger only when the budget is too small to allow for the real Dabney Coleman" niche of his rsum. Dabney continues, "Mr. Gweerin." Michael corrects Dabney's pronunciation, Dabney shoots back a withering "Back off, Junior, I was in Nine to Fiveactually, I just read for the part of Franklin in the vastly inferior TV series, and I didn't get it, but back off anyway, Junior" look (you knowthat look), and moves on with what I'm seeing shape up as some kind of interview. "It says you've been an emancipated minor for the last two years." Where exactly does it say that on his application? In the box checked "yes" to the question reading, "Of hillbilly pedigree?" on the average security guard job application? Dabney notes that that is "a lot of responsibility for someone your age. Do you like responsibility?" Michael notes, "I like to stay on top of things," and we cut to a wacky slacker-alien-on-the-job-hunt clip of Michael inside The House That Government Subsidy Built, holding a bunch of papers and angrily barking into a phone, "I only got four notices! How can you cut off my power?" Cheep cheep cheep cheepheh. Sorry. I only laughed to break that gnawingly uncomfortable silence. Back in the interview, Michael notes, "I'm a big believer in self-discipline." Cut back to him standing in an electronics store -- we'll call it Radio Slack on account of he's a slacker -- staring down a large-screen TV and telling a salesman, "I'll take it." Because the clips serve to illustrate just how not self-disciplined he is! It's not only hilariously original, but it also employs the advanced narrative tool discovered in the "writers'" room when one "writer" turned to another "writer" as they were "writing" this scene and said, "I love this part. It's so ironic." And it is. It totally, totally is.

Dabney worries that a second job might interfere with Gweerin's studies, and a shot of Michael asleep in class elicits the laffer, "I think I can handle it." And so Dabney wants to "cut to the chase, Gweerin. You already have a job flipping burgers. Why do you want a second job?" Michael notes that there are many reasons, and we GET IT when we cut to a shot of Michael at a fancy-ish restaurant, making a pursed-lipped expression of sorrow when his date, "Madame Toussaud's" Maria DeLuca, snaps, "Please don't tell me the words 'Maria, can you pick up the check' are gonna come floating out of your mouth once again." Michael tells Dabney that his reasons are "financial." As opposed to one's usual desire for simultaneous vocations in the "short order" and "infrastructure protection" industries: namely, "starfucking." But nevertheless, Dabney seems impressed by this answer, and even more so when Michael pulls himself out of this Dream On-meets-Inside Schwartz narrative structure and gives Dabney the straight dope: "And I guess I sort of want to see what it's like out there in the world." Dabney smiles and stands, walking to Michael and congratulating him on getting the job. Orientation starts tomorrow night at "0200 hours." Grrrr. Don't you hate it when civilian types like heads of security at pharmaceutical companies and Really Stern Dads and stuff use military time because it makes them sound all tough? Michael concurs, bristling as if to say, "Let's go ahead and leave the military time to the actual military. Capiche, Pete the Pill Protector?" opting instead for an incredulous, "That's 2 AM." Indeed it is, Crabney Coleman indicates: "You're working the graveyard." Crabney walks away. Michael looks around, the Roseanne Barr Twangy Chord Of Misbegotten Blue-Collar Scheduling Conflicts serving as a valuable public service announcement for us all to never, ever, ever be poor.

Opening credits: Shut up, bitch.

Our long-lost epistolary convention of "cheesy voice-over narration" finally gets a fucking pen pal, and we return to find Max "Dugan Returns, And Returns And Returns And Returns" Evans sitting on the dock of the landlocked state of New Mexico, reading a letter. Liz "P.S. I Hate You, You You You" Parker's voice is everywhere, which is all places too many: "Dear Max: It's so horrible and so unjust to pass you in the school and have to wonder whether some teacher's gonna call my father." Boo hoo, Liz. You had me until "it's so horrible to see you." And then you lost me. Let's go see if she can get us back: "But no matter how hard my parents try, nothing can keep us apart." This would all probably be a lot more touching and gay were Liz narrating this sequence with an emotional investment slightly higher than that akin to "reading stereo instructions that have been translated from English to Japanese and then back to English again." Like, "Dear Max: Me like preset stations long time" or some such equally well-written thing. She goes for the jugular: "I love you." Max smiles ever so imperceptibly, and the pier on which he sits threatens to tear loose from its moorings and float itself back to an actual state with some goddamn water. "Even when I can't see you in the day, I see you at night. In my dreams. And I have been. Dreaming about you." Because every time she's telling secrets, she remembers how it used to be. And she realized how much she missed him. And she realized how it feels to be free.

The voice-over continues as we jet over to the Crashdown, Liz dreamily wiping off the counter and watching as Max walks up to the front door, stares in mournfully all, "But it's the only place to eeeeeeeeeat," and moving swiftly away before Slackjaw has a chance to swoop down and enact some of that just-add-third-season-necessity-and-stir Instant Vigilant Justice we've come to know so well. And here is what the voice-over says: "Over and over, it's you and me holding hands and flying through the night. I know it sounds cornball, but it isn't. It's amazink! Like Superman and Lois Lane in the first movie. Y'know, the good one." Thus splitting the audience into the two polarizing camps of the ones that screams, "If your version of 'the good one' is The Quest for Peace, where Gene Hackman is all bloated and cashing his paycheck in the middle every scene so he can pay for his replacement colostomy bags, damn geezer" and the one that smacks its collective forehead, yells, "Oh, shit! Smallville premiere!" and lunges thankfully for the remote.

Kyle "Cure For The Common Show" Valenti walks in the front door of The Den Of Porno wearing a (honk honk!) Better Get Maaco ones-y and carrying a few pieces of mail. He finds his father, Jim "Porno" Valenti, sound asleep in a brown (natch) recliner inordinately close to the camera, clears his throat, taps the mail, and finally resorts to slamming the door shut to wake up his deadbeat dad. Porno rises and asks how Kyle's day at work was. We learn that "it sucked as usual," and he banters in ready-made backstory about how he's been working at -- I guess -- some kind of body shop. He flips open the mail and reads, "Your credit rating may be adversely affected by this action," recapping for MightyBigCollectionAgency.com with the insta-snark, "Well, it was nice of them to let us know." Too bad we never got the same purely informational letter informing us that Kyle was now Kyle Valenti, Monochromatic Mechanic. It just seemed like it would have been a helpful bit of information, is all. Kyle walks into the kitchen all man-o-the-house, point-blanking to Porno, "So, how's the job search going? You got any prospects for a full-time, well-paying job in your future?" Poor oppressed bacon-bringer-homer Kyle, loosening the tie and pouring himself a scotch from the sidebar. Where's his chicken pot pie, bitch? But Porno has some sort-of news this time, as opposed to all those other times, in which we did not have the opportunity to see or hear anything about the build-up of this enticing drama because, plot develop all you want on a stumbling push toward continuity, "writers," but please do tack a post-it up on the "Writers'" Room bulletin board that reminds everybody that THIS SHOW DOESN'T AIR DEVELOPMENTS TANGENTIALLY IMPLIED TO HAVE TAKEN PLACE OVER THE SUMMER. There you go. Clip 'n' save. Dramatic tension of this scene pretty much diffused by that truism, we are not able to celebrate with Kyle when he smiles and asks of Porno, "You got a job?" For he has suffered off-camera for so long. Apparently. But Porno qualifies that it's not so much a job as it is "sort of a -- how do I describe this -- a business. Kind of a small business." The archetypal tough-guy auto-mechanic type, Kyle returns from the kitchen with a glass of hot pink bug juice in a glass, excited about his father's prospects. But Porno tells him that he needs to sit on the idea for a little longer, and he'll let Kyle know just what it is in a few days. Kyle, disappointed, returns to the kitchen to see if he can turn up the origins of this subplot under of a stack of old newspapers, or maybe in the cookie jar.

House That Government Subsidy Built, by the light of the Pier One candle clearance sale. Maria sits impatiently, insisting that Michael "come out." Michael's all, "Tell it to Max!" Which is weird, because there Max is, walking through the front door. Maria welcomes him with a pleasant "Hey, Max," which completely follows the narrative logic of the last thing she said to him, which was, "I can't believe you made her hold the gun," and then her best friend was sent to jail because of him. I'm just sayin'. Michael finally enters for his close-up, and Max spots him in the outfit, asks if it has something to do with sex, tries to act blas about asking, seems disappointed when it doesn't, and finally gets around to the damn reason he's there to begin with: "Well, you heard about my dad and I. I moved out." To the cruel, subterranean borderland where razors and non-monotone line delivery fail to dwell. No Bic, no schtick, I hate you. Oh, my God. That should totally be the name of the new Roswell theme song. Anyway, Max asks Michael is he can crash (as aliens do) with him for a couple of days. Michael agrees, and is quickly off to join Kyle in his auto gear to prowl the nighttime streets for a plumber, a concrete finisher, and a tollbooth collector and finally make their dream of forming a blue-collar version of The Village People a reality for the millennium. I can't wait to see that band.

"Jezebel" Evans trolls the supermarket for johns. She comes upon the strong-jawed person of one Jesse "Other" Ramirez pricing lime juice, as I so often do right before I'm about to get laid in the condiments aisle. Banter. Fancy meeting you. No, no, no, fancy meeting you, Other. Here at the Nook-E-Mart. Nookie between attractive non-Liz-and-Max types thankfully ensues, Other wondering why Isabel won't just tell her parents about them and me wondering, after the wacky directorial decisions made in the opening segment, why there aren't interspersed shots of overweight supermarket patrons incredulously staring at the couple in the corner, popping the proverbial maraschino cherry. And then maybe the words "the dancers laugh" could appear right underneath them. I don't know. I'm not a director. Right. So Jesse insists that Isabel come clean with her parents about their relationship, citing the fact that "eventually, the smell of microwave burritos is going to kill the mood." Wait. Wha? Was that a self-deprecating racial crack? Is this acceptable? Oh. Wait. Convenience store. Never you mind. So Isabel tells Other that she has to keep their relationship on the QT because "my parents can barely get used to the idea of me dating high school guys. You're a twenty-six-year-old lawyer who works for my father, who is" He fills in the blank: "Who's Latino?" Isabel quips, "You're Latino? I thought you just had a great tan!" So I guess the jury is still out on the whole "microwave burrito" crack. See above. Isabel promises it has nothing to do with their checking two different boxes on the census form (it sure doesn't for anyone's relationship with Maria, for some unexplored reason), but that she thinks they need some more time before anybody knows. But, heavens to contrivance, there's Kyle! Well, I'll be. He utters a "whoops" and freezes. Kyle pauses for a fabulously awkward moment, pulls himself together to form the line, "My dad neglected to start the fridge, so I needed to." And God bless the kid, he's the only one who could pull this off. Because, I mean, "start the fridge"? I know Porno's been on the down-and-out, but no level of poverty leads to the imminent ownership of a refrigerator that you need to start with a ripcord like a lawnmower. So, duh. But Kyle keeps vamping, which is kind of amusing, looks around, utters, "Bye!" and just takes off. He needs a variety show. And for some reason, I want him to host it with Cher.

It's sometime between 0200 and 0700 hours. In the frickin' Army, it is. But over at Not Too Distant Future Inc., it's between two and seven in the AM, and Michael sits in his surveillance room with the rest of the peacekeeping security drones. But they have clipboards. And so they are extremely official. They stare silently at black-and-white screens until Michael hits one button -- probably the one marked "CONTRIVE," but I'm only guessing -- and the surveillance screen turns to a channel broadcasting a hockey game. Whatwhat's that? It's "a replay of tonight's game." Uh-huh. Steve The Standing Guy suggests that Michael get back to work, but Michael has a little speech about this job "sucking," calling it "the most boring thing I've ever done in my life." I give speeches of that nature on a rather consistent basis, usually delivering verbatim words at 8:59 local on Tuesday nights. Michael continues that he is going to "improve the working conditions" of this sucking job, and he rips off his clip-on tie as an example of said improvements. The others follow, eventually including Steve The Standing Guy, who gets a big round of applause when he takes off his own clip-on. A win for fashion. A loss for Sears. Michael loudly celebrates the scoring of a goal he would already have seen. Celebrate and sympathize with them, folks. They're checking your carry-on luggage.

Yeesh. A montage. It's what I'll assume is the following night, Michael blazing into the office, tie-less, hat-less, shirt undone, bad, and we cut to these pent-up, pasty, mullet-y, chess club dorks playing poker, drinking Delicious SNAPPLE Brand Beverage, cracking open a case of SNAPPLE-brand beverage long after we've seen half-consumed bottles of it sitting on the makeshift poker table, and dancing around the office to the music that I think only we're supposed to hear. Out in the hallway, though, Michael bounces a basketball and listens earnestly while last night's Steve The Standing Guy (easily recognized by his lack of mullet and his standing) warns Michael, "I just don't want this to get out of control. Some of us actually need this job." As opposed to those who take such a high-profile job just to get laid. Michael bounces a basketball and proclaims "Door 53 secure" before asking Steve The Standing Guy, "What's the worst that could happen?" Security breach! Security breach! Hackneyed foreshadowing has broken loose from Door 53!

Pizza and Delicious SNAPPLE Brand Beverages abound as the relaxed crew is suddenly rattled by the appearance of Dabney Coleman at the long end of a black-and-white televised hallway. Good thing they decided to watch that awesome No One's Driving A Pipe Bomb Into The Parking Garage show on the grainy but informative Security Camera Network for once, all the better to save their asses in light of this exciting new development. They clean up in a hurry, clipping on ties and matting down mullets. Dabney enters and quickly becomes Nine To Five's angry graveyard shift alter-ego "Crabney Coleman," entering the room and sensing the awkward vibe. That darn Principal Vernon is going to give them all another detention for sure. Three detentions? Four detentions? Five? Six? I can count all day, Judd Nelson. I can count all damn day. But it's hella worse than that, because he learns upon Crabney's entrance that "there has been a serious breach here at Medichem." Oh, yeah? What kind is that? "Someone broke into the company cafeteria and made off with a substantial amount of [Delicious] Peach Snapple [Brand Beverage]." Crabney says that the food service manager believes that it's "an inside job," and singles out Mr. Gweerin (my side!) to ask what they should do. Michael suggests getting "right on it," but Crabney bends down and comes back with the damning evidence of a Delicious Snapple Brand Beverage cap, retorting, "I think that the first thing you should all do is clean out your lockers. You're all fired." Worried glances. Minor chords. Fade to ominous black. Thirsty?