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I recap sitcoms. I recap sham weddings. I recap John Doe Unpluggedconcerts. This week, I recap music videos. Once upon a time there was the artifice of an actual show buried underneath all this excess media somewhere. But that was a long, long time ago.
Fade up on The Bar That Carding And Bouncers Forgot. Liz "Toys For Bots" sits to Kyle "Julian Lennon" Valenti, the latter of whom watches in horror as Porno and his Shickers of the Kit jam out with renewed vigor as special guest Maria "I'm With The Bland" DeLuca sits in on vocals and general underage whoring. On a stage decorated with strips of flowy silver foil that announce "I'm a rockin' car wash" as much as they announce "I'm a rockin' Chinese restaurant and right back there are the restrooms" as much as they announce "please fail to take my non-legitimate musical enterprise the slightest bit seriously," they gamely fight their way through a rendition of Meat Loaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light." Oh, sorry. "Meat Loaf Aday." The scene's single saving grace is that we join the song somewhere in its ninetieth marathon hour, after Mr. and Mrs. Loaf have met, after they fall in love, after they're glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife, glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife, glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife, after the words "Phil Rizzuto" and "sex" are no longer mutually exclusive, to my continuing shock and horror. And then Maria: "Stop right there!" Good advice, Jamie-Lynn Sigler Lite. May I suggest you take said advice and apply it to your own singing career? As Maria vamps functionally through the girl empowerment verse, she stands back-to-back with a glistening Porno in a pose that's two parts "Olsen Twins photo shoot" and one part "David Bowie and Mick Jagger in that really, really gay 'Dancing in the Streets' video from 1985." Either way, it's just not right. And Kyle, head buried in his hands, knows it. He asks Liz, "Am I the only one who sees the creepiness in this?" Liz counsels him to -- and this is really what she says -- "get a grip. They sound amazink." Get a grip. Which is one Queer Dialogue Step above telling him to "take a chill pill," which I'm sure she also totally thinks he should do. Liz frets her way into a plot development snit, looking around and asking, "Where's everyone else?" Far, far away, Liz, exercising their divine rights of free will and self-preservation. Kyle, meanwhile, continues his own brooding: "There are so many other duets out there. Clean duets. Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt can keep their hands off each other. So can Elton John and Kiki Dee." Liz, cultural barometer and sexual deviancy witch hunter, sets Kyle, uh, straight, with the quip, "Elton John likes boys." Insert Max/Jesse/Kyle barbed retort here. Thanks. Kyle shoots back, "Yeah, but did the Captain ever grind on Tennille?" Well, kind of. Depending on what the "that" modifies in "Do that to me one more time." Is it sex? I think it's sex. Kyle finally freaks out and disappears from the table, exclaiming, "I've gotta wash my eyes." On his victory lap in Operation Avoid Liz At All Costs, he walks past an interested-looking woman with curly hair, who looks curiously at the stage before taking a pen from her jacket and writing something -- perhaps "this is where the plot should be" -- on a copy of the script with large chunks of text mysteriously missing from it. From the stage, Porno requests that he be allowed to "sleep on it," promising he'll "give [her] an answer in the morning." But lo, it's not good enough for Maria. Before they go any further, she's gotta know right now does he love her, does he love her forever. God. Phil Rizzuto wept. And he didn't even know he was sad. Or even still alive, maybe.
Liz sits alone at the table for just a minute, until Max "Elton John" Evans makes his way over to the table and kisses her on her shiny, shiny hair. Liz informs Max, "You missed half the set" (meaning "the first nineteen verses of this song"), punishing him appropriately by continuing to talk to him, asking, "Are Isabel and Jesse coming?" Good God, I do hope not. What about Michael? The damaged ex-boyfriend whose heart the bitch broke? No. No, I don't think he'll be coming either. Now Liz is mad: "This is a big thing for Maria. She's been practicing for, like, over a week." Over a week? Now that's dedication, yo. And also a brilliant way to legitimize this huge, not-at-all-continuity-defying event in Maria's life that we heard of for the very first time ever not two TV minutes ago. Liz drives it home: "None of her friends showed up." Translation: she hates you, Max. Max notes Maria up on stage, cowboy hat in hand, eyes squinty, singing the same damn verse again, and (gack!) smiles, "I don't think she's gonna notice." Liz is not amused. Or bemused, even. So Max tries the old sweet touch, putting his arm around her and apologizing. Liz regards him all, "Don't even dream of touching me unless I can't stop the bleeding myself, thanks," and fires a really unwarranted dagger: "I'm not the one you should be apologizing to." Max senses that this can't be all about Meat Loaf Aday -- is it ever? -- so he turns the topic to the Liz-being-a-total-bitch thing, asking, "What's wrong?" Liz thinks on it. This has nothing to do with Meat Loaf Aday: "I think I'm coming down with somethink." He notes that there is a "bad flu going around." And then this line really, actually happens: "It's terrible. Fever. Sore throat. And an uncontrollable urge to dance." Nice! So what kind of fever would that be? Dance Fever? Night Fever? Disco Fever? Um. Max? Max, if you don't tell us, how are we supposed to get the proper shot? Max? MAX? Damn. Now I'm dancing and I feel like crap.
And so they dance their dance of lies. But on her way from the table, Liz puts a hand on the plate that held her dinner, and in doing so melts a large portion of the ceramic from the complete opposite side of where her hand was. A busboy just then comes to clear the plate, which is really hot to the touch and causes him to pull his hand back, all, "That plate is really hot to the touch!" Screw you, wage slave. There's dancing to be danced!
“ 'I am an A&R executive. I have been scouting the Southwest for talent. Sweetheart, anyone with a voice like that who can work an outfit like this is definitely not the wrong girl.' Because I totally need to explain to all of you that this is exactly how people become famous. ”Liz is the only good friend in the whole of the infinite universe. And she wanted you to know. We're over at the Crashdown, Maria sitting alone at the bar drinking what appears to be a strawberry shake. Liz approaches with a plate and announces loud enough for those-who-hold-God's-checklist-to-heaven hear, "Pluto potato skins, on the house." Pluto what skins huh? Liz offers congratulations, then tells Maria that she's going to "call it a night." They share a brief kiss (I guess just saying his name was enough for Liz to catch a case of the Elton Johnsthat condition must be really contagious), and Liz takes off. But rock stars can never brood alone for long, and Liz is soon replaced at Maria's side by Porno, who slides Maria a wad of cash and tells her, "Before I forget, here's your cut from Cow Paddy's." From, uh, what? While he's there, Porno casually asks if Maria would like to "sit in with the Kit Shickers on a more permanent basis." Maria smiles, rock-star cool, and asks, "No shick?" This show! The scandal! They're almost cursing! He tells her that she "wouldn't just be singing back-up, either," adding that he's been "working on a set list" that includes "'Baby, It's Cold Outside' done rockabilly," which Maria likes, "'Stop Dragging My Heart Around,'" which she proclaims as "classic," and "'Islands in the Stream,'" about which Maria proclaims, "Not so much." Boo-hoo, sister. You had me, then you lost me -- that song rules, and it should be a deal-breaker for an artist of Porno's integrity. Besides, once you use the word "rockabilly" with a straight face, as a point of sale to increase the cool cache of your band, no less, there's just no going back.
Anyway, Maria agrees to sit in more often. But she agrees just for a moment, as just now Blonde With Pen from the non-bar bursts in the front door of the Crashdown, marches up to Maria, and announces, "Iam loving you." Porno thanks her kindly, but the woman's eyes are focused entirely on Maria. She continues her prepared speech: "Dominique Lazar, Medusa Records. I was at your show. You were really good. P.S., I never say that." Porno tries with the chit-chat, but the hard-boiled New York record exec from the fake indie label (who, at least at this point in the recap, is who I'm guessing she is) only wants Maria: "Maria. Maria what?" Maria offers her last name, which Bizarro Michelle Gellar considers for a second and announces, "I can work with that." Maria puts the women in check, offering a deadpan, "Earth to the lady with the really great boots, by the way." Earth! Maria, you don't want to give away the identities of your alien friends to this latest in the endless parade of alien hunters and interstellar spies, do you? But no matter. Maria is on permanent vacation on Planet All About My Alien-Free Plot Line, informing so-called Dominique, "I don't know who you think I am, but I guarantee you've got the wrong gal." Dominique explains, "I am an A&R executive. I have been scouting the Southwest for talent. Sweetheart, anyone with a voice like that who can work an outfit like this is definitely not the wrong girl." Because I totally need to explain to all of you that this is exactly how people become famous. Dominique strides away. Maria follows. Porno looks dejected. Dominique is most strident. Shut up, Tommy Not-tola.
Crashdown kitchen. Liz enters to find Slackjaw doing ambiguous kitchen duties and judging her, judging, judging, judging. She doesn't look at him, like she's got something to hide, which I think she doesn't. Slackjaw puts down his ambiguous cutting tool and walks over to Liz: "Mrs. Fleischer called from the Guidance Office. Two Cs in Spanish and AP History?" Jesus, Mrs. Fleischer. Step back, wouldja? She didn't get Fs. It's not like she set off a fire alarm and threw Mr. Fleischer into the pool. It's more like she returned a library book late and didn't show up for "Jump Rope For Heart," even though she'd gone and collected all those sponsors. It's a C. On a quiz. Put down the phone, Mrs. Fleischer. Keep kids off drugs. Liz claims that she had two quizzes on one day or something and that everybody failed, and Slackjaw inserts "Plot Point A" into "Interlocking Contrivance B" in developing, "Is that the same excuse you're going to use at your Harvard interview?" Liz claims a headache and tries to take her leave, but Slackjaw's got some speeching to do: "Y'know, I backed off the whole boarding school thing because you promised you were going to get your life together." But no. No studying. No focusing. No acting lessons. Nothing. But wait! Slackjaw's not done: "Going to Harvard has been your dream since you were what, six?" Just saying it once doesn't make it true, people. So Slackjaw tries the supportive route: "You have got more brains and talent in your little finger than all the kids in Roswell have in their entire bodies." Well then, maybe they should have gone ahead and cast Shiri Appleby's little finger in the role of Liz and put one of those googly-eyed finger puppets with the really long arms on it and had the googly-eyed puppet fall in love with Max after being shot right between the really long arms. I'm just saying, if that little finger is the untapped locus of this as-yet-unseen "talent" we keep hearing so very much about. Slackjaw keeps going, saying lines of the "ruzzah ruzzah ruzzah SET-UP blah blah" variety to prepare for the "blee blee blee feh PUNCH LINE" that's all poised to come barreling in from the dining room. Oh, you say you want the actual line? Well, fine: "I mean, how many of them are even thinking of going to college? They're all just hanging around, watching MTV, dreaming about becoming rock stars." What a Cyndi-Lauper-esque 1983 kind of rebellion he's painted. Wait! Punch line as yet undelivered! The kitchen door bursts open. Maria enters and announces, "A label wants to sign me, I'm gonna be a rock star." Damn. I loved those little puppets.