Last week, Steve and Lizzie slept together; this week, we've skipped the embarrassing "let's be friends" conversation and the "I've got an obsessive boyfriend" reveal, jumping straight to the platonic friendship with kernels of longing on one side and oblivion on the other. Steve strolls across campus with Lizzie, who carries an envelope under one arm. She says it contains a calendar from her boyfriend, who constantly sends her the fruits of his extremely craft-centric labor. "He manages a copy shop, so he's really good with all the equipment," she explains, as if to dig any deeper would expose something faintly uncomfortable about her relationship. Steve flips through the calendar, which contains one photo of Lizzie as Mona Lisa, another with Lizzie and Eric in old-time garb, and a third with them in Halloween costumes. "He really goes all-out," Steve says politely, which is nice-boy language for "He's terminally insane." Lizzie agrees, but carps, "It's like, has he ever heard of chocolate and flowers?" Steve grabs a rectangular card designed like a dollar bill, but with Eric's face in the center and four lipstick marks where a dollar value would be. Stamped "National Bank of Eric," the bill promises the bearer "one gigantic smooch when I see you." And he cleverly laminated it so that no one will mistake it for real currency, which comes in doubly handy if she tries any funny business, like stuffing it down a stripper's g-string. Steve grins that he'll be sure to hold onto this coupon. Then he tries to sell me a Toyota for a very low monthly payment and zero APR. No, shit! I sat on the remote. My ass turned on the WB; had this been the Sunday night lineup, that would've been nicely apropos. When we return to Undeclared after this terrible mishap, Lizzie is expressing uncertainty about her future with Eric, who she's dated since tenth grade. "Don't you think I should see what else is out there?" she asks Steve, begging him to make the tough decisions for her. Steve, knowing exactly what's out there for her because he's seen it in the shower every morning since he was wee, tries to mask his excitement with a contemplative nod. "Yeah, maybe you need a little break or something," he downplays. "It's like Sting said, 'If you love someone, set them free.'" Lizzie stops and stares at him, inspired. "That's it!" she decides. "I'm gonna break up with Eric tonight. But you'd better be around to support me afterward, because I'm gonna be a mess!" Steve wears a look of sympathetic assent, until she's well ahead of him and he can fire up the celebratory groove -- which, sadly, resembles nothing so much as slalom skiing, but whatever. Sometimes people are different.
It strikes me odd that movies are already trying to market themselves as comfort food for the emotionally starving. A trailer for Serendipity basically comes right out and says America needs this movie to distract it from our national terror, and it's just very thoughtful of the studio to put out a movie just to help l'il ol' me repair my coping mechanism. I now understand that there's nothing spending nine dollars can't cure! Thanks, Hollywood!
Steve, Shaggy, and Heath sit languidly in the study, the latter trying to study while Steve rhapsodizes about his impending score. "I'm gonna have a girlfriend!" he exclaims dreamily. "This is so cool! I get to have two toothbrushes, one in our room and one across the hall in her room!" I love that the booty isn't what has Steve trembling -- it's the domesticity of it all. Shaggy drops his jaw and nods enviously. Heath casually wonders whether Lizzie knows she's going to be Steve's girlfriend; our budding Romeo, however, is abreast of the latest scientific findings about indecisive women and macho magnetism, so he's sure her path from A to B includes a stop at Steve Station. "She'll dump the guy, feel alone and sad-ish, and who's she gonna come to? The Karper," Steve dudes, puffing with pride and pointing to himself with both thumbs, then leaning back and daring Heath to deny the sheer force of The Karper's lusty loins. Heath sighs and closes the book he wasn't really reading anyway. "If you wait, you'll wait forever," he instructs, telling his willing pupil to march over there and steal her away. "I can just do that?" Steve asks, brightening.
Ron interrupts with an important announcement. He's wheeling something covered in a blue tarp, promising that what he's about to reveal will mark a seminal moment in their lives as roommates. With wacky flourish, he whips away the cloth to reveal a beautiful, shiny, metallic trophy of all that's gorgeous about our proud nation: a keg. "Voila!" he says proudly. Heath studies it. "That was the moment?" he queries, skeptically. Ron bubbles over that the guys on the multicultural floor couldn't kick the keg -- yeah, baby, I've still got the lingo -- and therefore donated it to Ron's room. The beloved silver shrine must itself be returned by 6, he explains, but the beer inside it can be preserved for a mammoth drinking binge that won't end until the last drop is consumed and regurgitated into some kind of dorm-issue wastebasket. "Count me out, guys," Steve states importantly. "I'm the designated lover." We had one of those in our section. She needed only a month to hook up with six guys from the same hallway. And, Steve rules. Shaggy rolls his eyes, but even he can't deny the inevitability of The Karpenter and his tool. Ron begs his pals to booze the night away. "We're not roomies until we kill a keg together!" he insists. "Come on, do this with me, it'll be fun."
Panning across every surface in their common area, we realize Ron and Co. have turned anything remotely resembling a container into a beer receptacle -- beakers, jars, Tupperware, vases, a fishbowl, coffee pots, ice cube trays, and a "Raiders" hardhat. I think I even spy one of those plastic pots of Oxy Cleansing Pads, not that I would know what those look like, of course. Pre-poured, the amber nectar is just waiting to find a home in someone's belly. I am stunned, and more than a bit ashamed, that we never thought of this. Heath marvels that so much fluid came from just one partial keg, and they vow to drink the lot before it goes flat. Shaggy proposes a toast to the lightweights on the multicultural floor, and everyone clinks cups -- except Steve, who is miming, and even goes so far as to fake-sip from his air cup. His grin is so incredibly genuine, though. He's determined to bond.
Rachel scampers across the hall and stage-whispers that the quartet must come to her room ASAP. "Lizzie's boyfriend is here," she froths. Steve's bottom lip drops right into his air cup. Heath intones, "Your nemesis has arrived." Rachel demands they follow her across the hall. I wish we'd seen the part where they all got acquainted. It feels like they skipped an episode, which would be a blessing if this was, say, 7th Heaven.
Lizzie, parked in front of a mirror, delicately applies mascara. "Hey, Lizzie, how ya doin'?" Steve calls out from the doorway. The other four huddle behind him, quivering. Lizzie shoots a quizzical glance his way. "Uh, we were just gonna...watch television...and I was wondering if you wanted to maybe come watch television," Steve says awkwardly, breaking a sweat in his effort to appear blasé. Lizzie looks apologetic. "Eric and I are just getting ready to go out," she says, gesturing to the screwball lounging on her bed. Eric leaps up and beams beatifically, his shoulder-length corkscrew curls framing a scraggly face. He's a hopelessly friendly, well-meaning, and clueless scruff. Steve feigns surprise at seeing the big lug, introducing himself and letting Lizzie handle the others. "Hope there's not going to be a test later!" Eric says jovially, turning to Lizzie and hugging her in a burst of mirth. She echoes his laugh, but falsely, and it spreads through the others until we've got a chorus of insincere chuckles masking disbelieving eyes. Lizzie tactfully tries to dismiss them, so Ron wishes them a happy visit and moves along. "You can count on it," giggles Eric, nudging his girlfriend in case she missed the fact that she's about to get laid. The others stagger away, and Eric snaps back into insecurity. "[Heath] seems really cute," he says. Lizzie groans indignantly.
"This beer tastes like mustard," Shaggy moans. Sigh. You do not insult the beer, rookie. Rachel's head lolls around tipsily, and she wonders aloud whether Shaggy has ever dumped anyone. "Almost," he replies. "But we never actually went out, or talked, or anything." Aw. It's easier that way. Shaggy confesses that girls don't tend to notice him, so Rachel suggests that he drastically alter his appearance. "When I was in high school, there was this totally normal guy named Dennis," Rachel begins. Shaggy throws up his hands and shakes his head in amazement, as if he is absolutely floored that there's a Dennis. She explains that one day, Dennis showed up with a snake around his neck, which prompted all the girls to christen him Snake-Neck Dennis and rave about his dangerous hotness. Steve sulks into the room, stares at the closed door across the hall, and morosely asks how they think it's going for Lizzie. "They've been in there for quite a while," Shaggy informs him. Suddenly, the door flies open and a half-naked Eric staggers out, the grin of afterglow on his face. Steve peeks past him and sees Lizzie's bare foot flopping off the end of the bed. Crestfallen, he tries to ignore Eric's plea for directions to the bathroom, then gives in and agrees to show his rival the way. As they leave, they pass Heath and Ron, who give Steve cutesy little waves mocking his misery, while Rachel and Shaggy are doubled over in the background gagging on their own laughter.
Eric and his mushy torso roll down the hall in red boxers and Birkenstocks, his pelvic bone jutting repulsively above the waistband. His visage is one of the reasons I'm glad my dorm was single-sex. Now, I love this show for its normal-looking people, yet I'm still shamelessly hungry for the missing eye-candy. "College is great," Eric says. Steve looks distinctly uncomfortable, a state which intensifies when Eric asks whether he and Lizzie spend much time together. He sputters that they all tend to move as a pack. They do? Seriously, did they axe an episode? ["They're showing them out of order; this was supposed to be the third or fourth." -- Wing Chun] Eric ruffles Steve's hair with something resembling macho affection and says, "How are the ladies treating you?" By now praying fervently that a higher power will let him melt into his loafers, Steve gulps and lies, "No luck yet." Eric assures him it'll happen, then scratches his nostril and wanders into the bathroom alone. Steve waves after him until he vanishes, then sprints back to Lizzie's room.
"What's your favorite film?" Heath asks Ron, trying to forge a bond beyond the mere consumption of beer, although that'll be a pretty enduring one. Ron doesn't seem terribly wasted, but then completely betrays his degree of drunkenness by confessing that You've Got Mail is his all-time favorite film. Heath is wisely alarmed. "Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, a very likable Greg Kinnear...you think you're better than it, like, 'Ooh, this movie's going to suck,' but then you watch it and it becomes a part of you," Ron says philosophically. The Head of Frankenstein from which he's drinking only enhances his entire speech. Heath is wary of watching the film, but Ron brightens and insists that they bond, because he's always regretted not sharing a room with him and "[they're] cooler than the other guys." This totally snares Heath, who agrees to a screening. "Oh! You made a wise choice, my friend," Ron cheers.
En route to the shower, Steve bumps into Lizzie, who looks desperate for approval yet again. "I did it," she offers. "I broke up with Eric." Steve covers his shock and asks how Eric handled the news. "It wasn't too bad," she shrugs. "I think he gets it." Lizzie insists that she feels good about the decision, but it's clear from her face that she feels adrift without a life raft, and wasn't truly ready to slice her biggest tie to her old life. She thanks Steve anyway.
Shampooing in the shower, Steve sings what I'm certain will become an anthem for the ages. "I'm a sexy robot," he boogies. "A robot who likes sex...sexy robot!" Somehow, I feel like C3PO would really dig that melody. I can totally see him singing it while skipping through the sand dunes in a leisure suit. Noisy sobs disrupt Steve's euphoria. He switches off the shower spray and tiptoes out of his stall, wrapping the green curtain around his slight frame. Steve makes toothpicks look butch. He reaches out with his backbrush and flicks open another shower curtain to reveal a weeping Eric curled up in the stall. "Hey, Steven," he sniffles. "Lizzie dumped me. [moan] But I remembered your name." Steve raises his eyebrows and smiles politely, scanning the room to make sure no one's witnessing this spectacle. "Oh God, oh God, oh God," wails Eric. If this is how he cries, can you imagine when he has an orgasm? God will need earplugs. So will Northern California.
Commercial. Drew Barrymore in another movie. Must look away.
All cleaned up and clad in terrycloth, Steve gingerly approaches the sniveling Eric and half-heartedly asks if he's okay. "I'm fine, I just need a minute. Lizzie dumped me," Eric repeats. Steve searches his face, then brightens. "Well, you probably want to get your stuff together before you leave, so hey, take care, Eric," Steve waves, attempting to escape the bathroom before his feet take over and kick up their own heels with joy. But Eric wants to reminisce. "After a date, I would always drop her back off at her parents' house, and I'd go back to my house and there would be a message waiting for me from her, telling me how much she loved me," he chokes brokenly. "Now, I'm never gonna get one of those messages again!" He ends the sentence in a high-pitched howl, then bursts into a whole new chorus of sobs. Heath enters the men's room, hears the ruckus, and stifles a laugh, giving Steve a comical thumbs-up. Steve shoots him a poisonous look, except, well, it's Steve, so his poison is more like baby powder laced with black pepper.
Eric huddles on Steve's bed, cupping an orange juice carton with both hands and sipping gently from it. "This beer tastes good," he whimpers. "That's probably because you've got some leftover pulp," Steve explains, as though it's the most normal thing in the world. Eric shakes his head. "Lizzie's right," he says. "She's too young to be committed to someone right now. It's like that song, 'If you love someone, set them free.' Ever hear that" Steve jumps on that one: "No," he gulps. Eric mournfully admits that he's lousy at giving Lizzie freedom, what with the personalized calendars and the collages and the verbal shackles that are their phone conversations. Steve adds, "And the pillow cases." Somehow, the pillow is now on Steve's bed, because Eric picks it up and cackles. Steve tries to lie that he'd like that gift a lot, but Eric sees through it. "What was I thinking?" he laughs. "I shoud've written, 'I'm your worst nightmare.'" Steve considers this and then offers a slogan of his own: "I don't sleep because I'm obsessed with you." Eric snickers and revises it, saying, "When I'm not there, it's because I'm out stalking you." Steve, gathering steam, tosses out, "Or, 'When you're not there, I put on your underwear and sleep in your bed'!" By now, they're guffawing uncontrollably, wringing all possible mirth from Eric's psychosis. "I'm a psycho, I'm a psycho!" Eric sing-songs, holding the case in front of his face. His laughter quickly subsides, though, and he soberly warns Steve to appreciate any love he has that remotely compares to what Eric feels for Lizzie. That's the gift this show has -- it pits the protagonist against the paranoid boyfriend, yet somehow makes viewers feel affection and even sympathy for the enemy. Eric looks serene. "Good convo, Steve!" he chirps, preparing to leave. Steve is suddenly completely aware that he needs to intervene, so he tells Eric not to leave before making one last stab at winning back Lizzie.
As Rachel watches proudly, Shaggy strolls the quad with a cane and a parrot perched on his shoulder. He looks like a grunge pirate about to perform "Puttin' on the Ritz." Rachel's braids are disheveled nubs of hair and elastic. Shaggy's ploy works; everyone calls out, "Hey, Birdman!" He descends on two girls and a guy studying on a blanket, and lets the women coo at his pet. The guy, however, wants to touch it, and just as Shaggy screams, "Don't poke the bird," the parrot flips out and attacks Shaggy's forehead. Rachel winces.
Rachel and Shaggy stagger into the room, the latter trying to hide his cut and swollen right eye. Agape, Heath and Ron ask what happens. "I don't know, and I don't really care," Shaggy says defensively. Ah, war wounds. But I have a hard time imagining that he could completely forget traveling to the pet store, wearing a bird, getting pecked ferociously, and getting treated for it. That must be some evil, evil beer. Rachel lies that he looks cute with his wounded eye. "Shut up, you're evil!" he barks.
"You'll think I'm a flake," Lizzie says, "but I got back together with him." Gosh, no. Why would we think that? I don't find her character at all endearing, mostly because she's messing with two harmless geeks who love her and I'm tempted to take her outside and yank out hunks of her hair. She flashes the "chocolate and flowers, Eric-style," which include a heart-shaped box decorated with an incredible, if slightly insane, collage of different Lizzie photos. Okay, I know his projects smack strongly of insanity, but does anyone else think Eric is sort of ingenious and talented? Maybe it's the NyQuil. ["One way Glark won my heart back when we were courting was to Photoshop my face onto a shot of Princess Leia, so...I'm with you. (He later wanted to Photoshop both our faces onto that shot of Luke Skywalker swinging through the Death Star with Princess Leia clinging to him and use that for our wedding invitations, which is where I drew the line -- not least because they're...you know, brother and sister. But I've said too much.) -- Wing Chun] Lizzie confesses that she isn't sure how she'll feel about her relationship later on, but that right now, she needs it. Steve nods and gives her the support she craves. Aw.
Cut to Eric's license plate, which reads "Copeeman." Yeah, okay, he's never getting another job. He and Lizzie smooch and embrace. "I wish I could just have sex with you right here on the gravel," Eric says, in the tone most men might use to say, "I'll call you tomorrow." Lizzie feigns modesty. "What? It's just Steven," Eric says. I bet Steve has heard that line his whole life. Steve extends his hand to Eric, who brushes it away and pulls his nerdy comrade into an embrace. Steve slowly raises his arm and pats Eric's back. More sappy farewells for Lizzie and Eric; then he finally drives away. "He's a good guy," Steve says, choosing his words too carefully for them to be completely sincere. "He's the best," she smiles. Eric waves one last time. "When's he coming back?" Steve asks. "Oh, tomorrow," she replies flippantly.
In the common room, Rachel is passed out on the couch; Shaggy's sleeping head is in her lap, and his feet rest on Ron's knees. Ron's out cold, too, as is Heath. Steve strolls inside, ogles the carnage, then shrugs and flops down on his own bed. The camera pulls back to reveal that Steve is snoozing on the Eric pillowcase, nose-to-nose with the Copeeman's silkscreened image. Ew, and it's scary how much Eric looks like Jesus in that picture. Uncanny, really. I don't know how to feel about it.
Aw, no preview for week. Instead, we get more Eric, likely a deleted scene from the part where he made fun of the pillowcase. Here's hoping that case ends up on eBay.