The Time They Cheated

Ninety-five minutes away from insanity, I've got a full tank of gin, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and I'm wearing sunglasses. Hit it.

Major props to klaxon in deepest, darkest New Zealand for making it possible for me to bring the dinnerlicious antics of Jennifer Love Hewitt to you.

As we all know, one of the last episodes showed Sarah "Twitch Face" Merrin gettin' freaky with Spencer over the Internet while pretending to be his supermodel girlfriend. This little matchmaking ploy succeeded in patching up a rough spot between Spencer and Leia, while at the same time making her jones for Spencer. What is a Neutrogena girl to do? Read on to find out.

Klaxon missed the first fifteen minutes, but was able to patch it all together for me in a mini-summary. What we missed wasn't much. Romy the Platypus, after flapping a bit over the fact that her agent won't put her up for theatre jobs, has decided to get a new agent because she wants to go for a theatre part that she's just perfect for. I guess they finally decided to make Frog And Toad Are Friends into a play. While at Sarah's apartment "for some spurious plot contrivance reason," as klaxon put it, Spencer manages to see that Sarah is not only signed on, but her name matches that of Princess "Long-Legs" Leia. I imagine Sarah sputters out some stupid explanation, but klaxon says that Spencer yells at her and storms out. Leaving Sarah hugging her capacious dinners and feeling sorry for herself, I'm sure. Later, his burning loins get the better of him and Spencer comes back over. He apologizes, admitting that since he had been opening up to Sarah all along and not to Leia, his body (burning loins and all), heart, and soul belong to her. Since Sarah cannot deny her changeable-as-Dennis-Rodman's-hair emotions, they kiss.

Platypus hauls up her slacks to Sarah about going after what you want instead of wasting time mooning about it. Sarah listens to her (for a change) and is inspired to be selfish. Well, you could've knocked me down with a feather. Sarah, disregarding all others around her and making sure that she gets exactly what she wants? I wouldn't have believed it if klaxon hadn't written it down in black and white. To further show how much more self-involved she is than we originally thought, Sarah tells Scraggle that they have to stop sleeping together as friends, because she's seeing someone. "Sleeping together as friends"? Wasn't that a missionary position already filled by Joss? In her love hangover, Sarah ignores how hurt Scraggle is, instead telling him that she needs to get serious about singing and wants him to scour all his contacts for her. Do you know what I think she needs to get serious about? Catching a life-long bout of laryngitis. How many more times is she going to screw with Scraggle's feelings until he takes out an AK-47 and blows her skinny ass to Poland? Wouldn't that make a great episode? "The Time She Got What She Deserved." Meanwhile, over email, Spencer offers to take Sarah to Balthazar's, and Sarah bounces over to Scraggle Rock's shoppe as Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long" plays. Scraggle asks her if she's busy that evening, and Sarah tells him she has a date. Scraggle tells her that's too bad, because as he was chewing the fat with his music friends at The Cherry Picker ("it's this musician hangout"), he mentioned that he had friend who was a really great singer looking for a gig. Are we still talking about Sarah here? Apparently, some guy named Spud ("Don't ask," Scraggle says) is in this band called Youthful Offenders, and they are looking for a singer. "But since you have a date --" Scraggle says dismissively. Sarah squawks her contradiction, "Uh, Maguire, I can push my date till later. Of course, this is more important, Spencer will understand." Scraggle looks at her, "That's the guy? What did you call him, Mr. Stick Up His Butt?" Sarah says that was before she got to know him. Yeah, "know him" in the Internet Biblical sense. "Weird. Huh?" Sarah says. "That's one word for it," Scraggle snipes and walks away. Sarah looks chagrined. She's probably worried that if she keeps treating Scraggle like so much horse pucky, he won't finesse his contacts for her. Selfish cow.

And now it's time for New Zealand commercials! When I lived in the UK, the commercials were not annoying interruptions like they are here, they were true art, just another extension of East Enders, Ready Steady Cook, or whatever other show you happened to be watching. In this case, TOYL is the annoying interruption in what would otherwise be a satisfying romp through the New Zealand culture, complete with those plummy accents. The first is a totally wacky Bounty Bar (Bounty Bars, yum!) commercial where the chick takes a bite and suddenly her face gets painted in animal markings and she fantasizes about swimming with a studly island man. Oh, so that's where the "MacDunnold's" McRib sandwich went: to New Zealand. Only in the UK, and now NZ, have I seen adverts showing Philadelphia Cream Cheese being spread on thick, crusty bread. Over here, it's bagel this and bagel that -- how healthy and how boring.

And now back to our regularly scheduled bad taste. Platypus is stapling letters to her head -- er, make that head shots -- when J.B. walks in, telling her he got her tickets to a Joan Crawford movie marathon. "After all that has happened, I thought it would be nice to do something fun," J.B. says. Yeah, like seeing Whatever Happened to Baby Jane will make Platypus forget that her friend was murdered. Sure. When did she come back from Oregon anyway? Platypus blows him off, telling him that getting a new agent "has to take priority right now. They won't let me in without an agent. The best thing you can do for me right now is tell me you understand." J.B. offers to help stuff envelopes. ["Am I the only one who finds the whole straight man/Joan Crawford tickets thing somewhat suspect?" -- Sars]

At the Youthful Offenders audition, Scraggle introduces Sarah, whose hair looks like she took a random bite out of live telephone wire on the walk over. Guess that's the new "hip" rock-star look I'm not familiar with, but it looks like she went hog wild with a crimping iron. Spud offers his hand: "I'm Spud, don't ask." What is with this "don't ask" business? It's not like it's the friggin' NSA. So the guy likes potatoes, big whoop. Sarah sticks out her dinners and strikes a flirt pose, "Nice to meet you Spud, I'm not asking." Spud introduces Sarah to the rest of the band; she bestows upon each of them a dinner thrust and a toothy grin. Spud tells the band that Sarah's the one doing "She's So Fine." Of course she is, because Little Miss Executive Producer wouldn't have it any other way. Why don't they just sing a little song dedicated to the wonder that is Jennifer Love Hewitt? I'll hum a few bars for you, to the tune of D'yer Maker: "Oh oh oh oh oh oh/Your show had to go-oh/Oh, oh, oh-oh/Your show had to go-oh/oh, oh, oh-oh./Your show had to go/Ay ay ay ay ay ay/All those beers I imbib'd./Ay, ay, ay, ay/All those beers I imbib'd/Ay, ay, ay, ay-ay/Hepwitt please, please go!/When I saw the program they wrote you/It made me mad mad mad/When I read the reviews that smote you/It made me glad glad glad/'Cuz I still hate you so/You just have to go/I ha-ate you./Oh, Hepwitt, I hate you!"

No such luck. Instead, Sarah peels off her jacket (exposing a tight sleeveless red shirt) and hands it to Maguire. She prances up onto the stage, showing off her butt, which has been squeezed into black leather pants, and begins to sing. And I begin to drink a tall glass of gov'ner's best hock. The band scene fades out, but Sarah is still singing, without music. Turns out she's giving Spencer his own private concert as they take a horse-drawn carriage ride down the busy streets of New York. First his own private strip show and now his own private concert -- does the girl have no shame? Spencer is wowed by her talent. Either that, or someone watched reruns of Seinfeld and fed the horse a can of beans. Sarah tells him, "Spud, when I finished, he said, 'Totally freakin' awesome!' Direct quote." "Spud?" Spencer asks. "Don't ask," Sarah says, falling into the whole Youthful Offenders tradition. "Anyways," she goes on, not wanting the conversation to be diverted from her for a minute, "these guys just got signed to do their first CD, and if I get it, I mean this could be a really great start!" Spencer says she already told him that part. Sarah apologizes for boring him, but Spencer protests that he "likes seeing [her] all fired up!" Sarah gives him a look and says she thinks it really "bizarre" that they are sitting there together and he is actually interested in her life. "I am," Spencer confirms. They start to kiss, but Sarah stops him, reminding him of that little thing he has in his life called a steady supermodel girlfriend. They agree that Leia has to be told about them before anything progresses. I'd like to comment that in this scene, JLH's makeup looks like someone thrust her face into a bucket of tar and then cleared out spaces for her cheeks and mouth just so they could smear blood on them. In simpler terms, she looks like a hooker.

Sarah is poring over the yellow pages, complaining that "someone" tore out all the Vs. Platypus tells her she's the culprit because she was looking for a voice message service. It turns out Sarah needs them to find a voice teacher. Platypus tells her she probably could ask around her acting class for her. The phone rings, and both Selfish Brats nearly beat each other senseless trying to get it, each thinking it's for her specific life. It's Spencer, calling from a headset in his car. Since he's not the one driving, I don't know why he needs his hands free. "Want to have phone sex?" he asks. Oh, that's why he needs his hands free. Can his driver hear him? Platypus buzzes out, shouting, "Wish me luck!" and Sarah gives her a "shoo" wave from behind her back. Spencer wants to take Sarah to dinner, but since he hasn't broken up with Leia yet, Sarah refuses. Spencer tells her that Leia's flight gets in at seven, so he will break up with her and then pick up Sarah around eight. Sarah gets pissy and tells him "that's so calculating!" Oh, and sleeping with Maguire and then using him for his music contacts isn't? Spencer says, "Sorry, I don't mean to be cold about it, but we both know that the biggest part that kept that relationship alive was you." The man's got a point. Sarah must agree, because she tells him that Leia has feelings too, but also tells Spencer to pick her up at eight.