Judd Apatow is an unlucky man. First, NBC mistreats Freaks & Geeks. Then Fox orders up a full slate of Undeclared episodes, only to pull back on that decision. What rankles me -- and believe you me, I'm rankled -- is that Fox gave this show an impossible time slot, ran it irregularly, and expected it to pull in the young viewers already in a tizzy about choosing between Buffy and Gilmore Girls. This gives new meaning to the phrase, "Crazy like a Fox." Meanwhile, Fox gives nine lives to long-dead cats like Ally McBeal and The X-Files. This gives new meaning to the phrase, "Stupid like a Fox!" When you have a critical darling like Undeclared, assholes, you have to give it a chance. Play ball with the time slot. Fuck, if Three Sisters and Yes, Dear can exist, then Undeclared should already have been picked up for five years. And because I'm hardly an impartial recapper -- I don't hide that I love the show -- I hope people will check out the forums, which contain contact information for people at Fox who might be able to save the show, or at the very least, upon whom your angry letters will become a huge burden. And now, I'll breathe deep and try to write the recap, choking back my ire. I HATE FOX. Seriously, don't you think Undeclared could work on Sunday nights? FOX = Fuck Off, X-Files.
Ahem. Last time, Steven was teased into a tizzy and decided to join a frat, where he felt he would be truly appreciated. Samm Levine guest-starred as the sage of Theta Delta Zeta; a tall brunette, Brandi, led the Little Sisters, along with Natasha Melnick (Cindy of F&G) and a blond named Jana. Lizzie joined their brothel, and Shaggy, Ron, and Heath failed to save Steven from selling himself. Once Steve was a pledge, though, Samm started treating him like crap.
At 3:18 AM, Steven snoozes peacefully in his room. The telephone rings, but he ignores it; on the second or third ring, Heath growls that Steven had better get up and answer the damn thing. Leaping out of bed, as if he's scared of being late, Steven runs into the common room.
In the darkness of the Frosh Pit, Steven throws on a sailor hat and starts hopping up and down while chanting into the phone. "Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, Sir or Madam, whatever the case may be," he begins. "I am but a lowly pledge of the Theta Delta Zeta fraternity." The line is "lower than a whale crab," according to the captioners, but I'm thinking it's actually "whale crap." Do whales crap? Or get crabs? Eh, it doesn't matter. Steven also explains that he's "stinkier than a fart," and adds that until he makes the pledge list, "in me beats no heart." He's jumping the entire time. As he chants, Heath appears in the doorway and watches with his arms crossed, irritated. Ron and Shaggy yawn and stagger into the room as well, flipping on the light. Now illuminated, we see that Steven is clad in a giant cloth diaper with the word "JACKASS" scrawled on his chest in red. His friends look ashamed for him. "Oh, you've GOT to be kidding me, Steve," Shaggy groans. Steven listens to his caller. "A car wash? Now, sir?" he asks. "No, I'm not complaining! I'm still hopping. Yeah, I can get some car wax, sure." Heath angrily heaves a ball at Steven's head; Steven ducks and it hits the window. Ron lobs an empty water bottle at Steven, succeeding in knocking him off his balance. All parties retreat, leaving Steven alone with his Huggies.
Steven gets into the elevator, holding a bucket with paper towels inside. The doors start to close, but he hits "Open Door" to hold the lift for a guy in a wedding dress and veil, who carries with him a vacuum cleaner. "Morning," they say to each other, nonchalantly.
After the credits, we're on one of the UNEC quads. Shaggy, Heath, and Ron stare at something, with the latter laughing in disbelief. "This is why you joined the frat?" he asks. "This was in the brochure?" Cut to Steven, who is bound to a tree by one of those U-shaped bike locks. He's wearing nothing but a blue banana hammock. He probably should've stuffed a sock into it. Someone has drawn two semi-circles underneath each of his man-teats, filled in the nipples, and written "BOOBS" on him. "Everything's fine," Steven insists, desperately trying to sound blasé. Heath gets angry all over again, incredulous that Steven's allowing himself to be humiliated for no apparent good reason, and calling the whole thing stupid. "Why don't you call me stupid again, [Heath]? I love it so much. It makes me want to hang out with you guys so much," Steve says sarcastically. He's doing a pretty good job of standing his ground. I'm proud of our Steven. Ron, though, chips in that he's pretty sure that if they checked the Big Book of Stupid, a photo of this exact moment would be in it, right between the listing for "Chicken in a Biscuit" and a transcription of Jewel's poetry. Steven staunchly refuses to badmouth the fraternity. "If I was going to say one thing, it would be that this instills brotherhood," he states, a barely perceptible tremor in his voice. He yells to Erik (real character name: Lee) hooked to the tree door, for confirmation. Erik weakly agrees. Heath notes that, as mean as they might've been to Steven, they at least refrained from chaining him to plant life. Ron merrily interrupts to recall the time they strapped Steven to his bed with bungee cords -- wish we'd seen that! -- and refused to untie him for a bathroom break. Glad we didn't see that. Shaggy snorts with laughter, and the two turn to leave. Heath smacks Shaggy on the back, turns to Steven, and shrugs a fairly genuine-looking apology. Steve wriggles against the tree.
Okay, I finally went to the Undeclared website and checked out the dorm floor plan. It alleges that the girls and guys each have a suite, with two bedrooms adjacent to a middle sitting room. Except I'm not sure the girls' suite appeared until after the first few episodes. Remember in "Eric Visits," when Eric comes out of the bedroom and goes across the hall for directions to the bathroom? Steven peeks into the bedroom and sees Lizzie's bare leg. But if she had a suite, he wouldn't have been able to see that, because the bedrooms open out into the common room, not into the hallway. Am I overanalyzing? Sure! But I was so damn confused for a while about how the whole thing was laid out.
Anyway, Lizzie and Larice are in their common room. They're both wearing sleeveless shirts, which seems weird, because even autumn in Northern California can't be warm enough for that. Lizzie is meticulously painting on yellow poster-board, and Larice watches, bored. "Do those girls know how lucky they are to have you?" she asks, with a hint of sarcasm. Lizzie misses it completely. "Well, they better!" she sighs. "This is the ninth poster I've done for them. My hand is cramping!" And suddenly, the most in-demand man on campus -- a male hooker taking cash for delivering orgasms in a box -- appears at their door: it's The Pizza Man. Rachel leaps out of her room, pays him hurriedly, and tries to scamper away again. Lizzie thinks it smells fabulous, and asks to share. Rachel, her hands hardly able to fit around the giant cardboard pizza box, gapes at her and duhs, "There's barely enough for me!"
Larice and Lizzie, alone again, exchange startled glances. Lizzie slowly asks if Larice has noticed anything different about Rachel. "Yeah you mean her being locked in her room all the time, eating food?" asks Larice. Lizzie figures Rachel is just stressed, but Larice insists she's caught the Freshman Fifteen. Hello? Weight gain isn't a virus you can catch and cure. And it doesn't happen in the span of a week. And, it usually happens from endless beer and post-3 AM pizza, or the frozen yogurt machine in the dining hall, or those Papa John's breadsticks with the garlic sauce...er, not that I'd know anything about any of that. Lizzie and Larice decide to confront her, figuring they'd like to know if it were happening to them.
House of Boob With A Bowtie. Samm addresses the pledges, saying there's a reason it's called Hell Week. He spouts "brothers for life" crap, too, because that's the party line. We see four pledges in cages, two stacked atop two, with all the poor guys in their bikini briefs and some goggles. "Ready?" Samm snarls. The Theta Delta Zeta brothers throw whole eggs at the pledges, or shoot Super Soaker guns filled with mustard and ketchup. I knew they'd work mustard in here somewhere.
Cut to Steven standing on the porch, perched on the railing just above the giant TDZ letters. He is holding a brick tied to a long piece of rope, and he looks positively terrified. "Tie it and throw it," instructs Taint, one of the frat's leaders. "Tie it to what?" Steven wails. "TIE it, and THROW it!" Taint repeats, exasperated. Steven turns forward to stare at the brick in his hand, shits one of his own, and then really starts to panic. "Tie it to WHAT?" he sobs. Um, wouldn't tying a brick to your dick and then throwing it off a balcony be...well, fatal? Not to mention the rope burns that will carve up his wood.
We switch to a car wash. Erik, Jim, and Steven have scrubbing brushes strapped to their scantily clad asses, and are wiggling their hips around the vehicle. Taint arrives and commends them for getting the car completely clean, then opens fire with the condiment bazookas. The three pledges look utterly defeated and tired.
Cut inside to a line of pledges, blindfolded. "Touch the poo-poo!" the frat brothers say, passing around a dish with a soggy banana coated in peanut butter. Can't they smell it? It's so clearly not poop. "I don't want to touch it any more," weeps a pledge, as he kneads it energetically. "Play with my poop!" someone screams.
Back at the car wash, Samm demands that they clean the car again, but he whips out three toothbrushes that are to be the instruments of their chore. The guys reach for them. "Ah!" Samm snaps, pulling them away. "Not with your hands." Resigned to the anal violation, the pledges turn around in abject misery and wait for the cold plastic handles to nestle between their ass cheeks.
Cut inside to the caged pledges. They're still covered in red and yellow goo. "Steven, your date has arrived," Samm coos. He brings forward a goat with a long, black wig. Hey, Steven has a date with Cher! The frat guys guffaw proudly. "Baaa," Cher announces. Steven's eyes widen as he turns to Caged Jim. "What am I supposed to do with the sheep?" he panics. "Maaaaa," suggests Cher, batting her eyelashes. Samm grins like the fiendish "mini"on he is. From off-camera, Steven wails, "WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THE SHEEP?!?" Sigh. She has a name, Steven. How do you suppose Cher feels when you treat her like all the other sheep?
During the break, my roommate and I had a very insightful conversation about Old Navy commercials, specifically that they're better when they're campy and don't feature Molly Sims. These are the pressing issues facing our generation today.
At the TDZ house, the Little Sisters are rehearsing a skit to be performed for their johns. Cindy and Brandi are each in chairs, with Jana standing between them. "I am sorry, but you are such a slut," Cindy chirps. "You shut UP. You don't know me," Brandi Valley-Girls in response, following it up with a similar shout to an "audience member." She and Cindy then stand up and stage a tame catfight. Every girl pumps her fist and chants, "Fight, fight, fight!" Lizzie looks around in disbelief, then gingerly joins in the "fun." The "skit" ends, and the "girls" "cheer." Cindy and Brandi hug, then hold up their arms to celebrate their acting triumph. They shove their flat stomachs forward, and Cindy's hipbone skewers a girl in the front row. She dudes that this skit will be incredibly funny. "The guys will love it," she says, then turns to Lizzie and announces that, as the newest Little Sister, Lizzie will be playing Jerry -- whoops, Mary! -- Springer. As the sisters clap, Lizzie frantically searches for a chair to throw. She looks sickened. Slowly, she speaks up and says she's not comfortable with a big part. "Why are we doing it again?" she asks, confused. "So the brothers can make objects of us and jack off into their sweat socks," Brandi says. "We have to help the guys get off!" Cindy chirps. At least, that's my translation. To the untrained, it sounds like they're saying they need to support and show appreciation for the frat boys. Lizzie complains that all they do is worship the TDZ guys, and wonders why they don't just join a sorority so that they can find one or two other reasons for being. "Because sorority girls are bitches!" duhs Cindy. "Maybe you should join a sorority," suggests Brandi snidely. Lizzie can't believe they're insulting her, stands up indignantly, and quits. "I'm not going to be in some stupid skit in the hope that Totem Pole or [Samm] feels me up later," she seethes. "Like they would," scoffs Cindy. As Lizzie leaves, Brandi delivers the final blow: "She's such a Tri-Delt."
Animal House. "Who loves pickles?" Samm asks with a wide smile. At a table, Erik, Jim and Steven are chowing down on whole pickles. Suddenly, they're the only three pledges. "We love pickles," they mumble, ill. Pickle juice trickles down their stuffed faces. "I can't take much more of this," Erik frets. "Dude, you've had that pickle in your hand for half and hour. It's not a lollipop! Just eat it, already," Jim scolds. Erik shouts at Jim to shut up, because he's eaten twenty more pickles than Jim. Steven tries to pep-talk them into submission, because they're almost done. Taint leans over to Samm and whispers that he doesn't remember eating that many pickles when he was a pledge. Samm whines that he did, and so the new guys bloody well will. Steven chews frantically, then swallows and announces that they've completed the pickle banquet. "Do you know why the brothers of Theta Delta Zeta made you eat that many pickles?" Samm asks. Steve guesses it's to instill brotherhood. "Wrong," Samm sneers. "It was to make room...for THESE pickles." He sadistically dumps another massive bucket of pickles onto the table.
The camera stays on Steven so that we can watch him screw up his courage and bolt to his feet. "I quit," he announces. "This is stupid. You aren't friends. Friends don't do this." Samm insists that brothers do this, so Steve will sit down and shovel pickles into his piehole and like it. "You're pathetic," he steams at Steve. "The other pledges don't even want you!" Erik quickly stands up and admits that he wants to quit, too. So does Jim. Samm can't believe they're quitting because of Steven. "Kind of -- I didn't know I could quit," Jim trembles. I love that -- of all the things they had to do, it's a pickle feast that pushes Steve over the edge. What I want to know is, did he tie it and throw it? Did he go on a date with Cher? And did the toothbrush clean all Steve's hard-to-reach places? Regardless, Samm kicks the trio out. "Get out of my sight," he hisses. "I had to do this, this is nothing!" Taint turns on Samm and insists he always knew it was too many pickles. I think that's a proverb.
Lizzie grabs a cola from the Generic Cold Drinks machine. Steven staggers upstairs, sweating pickle juice onto his t-shirt. "How's my favorite frat guy?" Lizzie asks, affectionately. Steven admits that he quit, and whaddya know, so did she. "The Little Sisters were total bitches!" she says brightly. "The guys were total bitches!" Steve exclaims. They toast the joys of quitting, Steven clinking his phantom cup against her can. Heh, I love almost-meaningless double entendre. They decide there's no shame in being dorm people.
"What the hell was that, man? That was so creepy," Ron whispers to Steven, who figures the guys are just trying to intimidate him. Bravo, Sherlock. Have a cookie. Upstairs, Samm intones that it's time to put their cunning plan into action.
The elevator lurches to a halt. Ron is pretty sure they're going to die, and he's not what you might call happy about it. Samm yells down to inform Steven that they're in his hell now. "Did you hear that, man?" Ron panics. "We're in that boglin's hell!" "Boglin," apparently, isn't really a word. Webster says so. I'm guessing he transposed the letters of "goblin." Yeah, I'm a wordsmith, all right. Heath looks mighty irritated. "That little guy scares the crap out of me, you guys!" Shaggy trembles. Heath is very interested in sounding brave, so he shouts, "Why don't you fight like a man, Gnome Boy?" Steve begs him to stop yelling, because TDZ is an insane clown posse. But Heath insists that they're going to teach the boglins not to start something they're ill-equipped to finsh. "Am I right, Steve?" he asks. Steve is silent. "You got us into this! AM I RIGHT, STEVE?!" Heath shouts. "Yes, yes!" shrieks Steven. The elevator jerks back in an upward motion. Ron whips off his glasses. Hel-lo, Seth Rogen! Each guy assumes a battle stance, except Ron, who looks very hopeful that glaring very hard at the boglins will implode them.
The doors open to reveal Samm's irate face. The men whip out three buckets of chocolate milk -- again, god, I hope it's just milk -- and throw the contents at the quartet. They're covered in cold, sticky brown goo. Feathers drop from the ceiling and lightly dust them. The frat boys burst into laughter, and flee. "At least you can't tell that I peed myself back there," Shaggy notes.
If you drink Bud Light, you'll get stuck in a Port-o-Potty that's rolling down a cliff. I just saw it on TV and thought I should warn you.
Frosh Pit. The guys cook a huge stack of bacon on a George Foreman Lean & Mean Grilling Machine, all the better to siphon off the fat with, my dear. They collect it in a giant bucket, then fill little baggies to the brim, creating the sweetest-smelling lard bombs in all the land. "This is gonna be so awesome," Steven decides. Ron and Shaggy high-five each other while wearing oven mitts. They leave the bacon in a giant pile, untouched. Maybe they'll feed it to Rachel later.
Samm innocently strolls down the path to pork fat. Our quartet leaps out from behind a building and pelts him with Hot Bombs of Breakfast, and it's congealed translucent fat, and I'm so hungry for bacon it's insane. "Fat? You're hitting me with fat?" Samm shrieks. "What are you?" One of the bacon-fat baggies sticks right to Samm's back as he flees, squealing like the little piggy that died to make this revenge possible. "We are the kings of this!" Ron yells, arms aloft. "Boo-ya!" Heath shouts. The group gleefully chants, "Bacon fat! Bacon fat!"
So naturally, the morning, Boob With A Bowtie has brought vengeance down upon the group, smiting them with spray paint. Apparently, the gang got hammered after its triumph and didn't hear people defiling the common room. Graffiti defaces the walls. "Greeks, not freaks!" one message reads. "You suck, Karp!" reads another. "TDZ rules!" Way to implicate yourselves, guys. You are exactly as smart as I expected. Steve wanders into the door, so we notice they scrawled "DORK" with an arrow pointing to the door frame. Ron and Shaggy's door says "BOOB" on it, with an arrow pointing downwards. It's pleasing to know the TDZ boys can spell.
Larice enters quietly and explains that someone moved all their furniture onto the lawn, with price tags on it. She bought back the "No Farting" poster. The guys stagger to the windows and start yelling at the vultures picking at the carcass of their common room. "Get the hell off our Chesterfield, guys!" Heath whines. Someone walks off with a beanbag chair. "Steve, what the hell...?" Ron complains. But Steven has an idea. An awful idea. A terribly horrible AWFUL idea.
At night, Heath slinks toward the Theta Delta Zeta house, clad in a knit ski cap. The others follow, with Shaggy looking especially suave in a blue jester's hat. He's manning the flashlight. His job is to shine the bright beam and reveal their secret plan to any passersby. With little difficulty, they dislodge the boob with the bowtie and carry it away, snorting with mischievous mirth.
Having discovered the rape of the bowtied boob, the fraternity brothers mournfully gather around the vacant spot while Samm picks up a manila envelope and nervously opens it. Beast-Whore is especially despondent today, punching the air in aw-shucks anger. Inside the envelope is a handful of Polaroids depicting various acts of vandalism and terror being inflicted upon the poor, scared alphabetic hostage. Shaggy wedges it into his butt crack. Someone pretends to pee on it, and yet another person squats above it. Rom humps it. And I swear, there's a photo in which it looks like Ron is using a Dustbuster on it. Naturally, the guys groan passionately when they see that. "What are they doing to our theta?" someone wails.
Samm stalks around the side of the house, pouting, and Taint follows him. It's so nice to see the term "taint" being given its due spotlight. Samm tries to deny responsibility for the disappearing boob, but Taint won't have it. "Of course it's your fault!" he cries. "The pickles! Nobody can eat that many pickles!" But Samm has blown up his hazing ritual into the stuff of legend. He didn't eat pickles. He ate PICKLES. Backwards. In the rain. Naked. While bleeding from the nipples. As his whopping hand gestures indicate, Taint can't understand Samm's obsession with pickles. "We're a frat!" he reminds Samm angrily. "We drink beer!" He orders Samm to recover the theta. They're losing faith in him. "The only reason you're the sage of this frat is because me and Ass Hair decided we couldn't do the paperwork," Taint rages. That's so, so fabulous. Not "wouldn't," but "couldn't." Taint threatens to destroy Samm, and the great family legacy begun by the unparalleled Dingleberry, unless the theta is back in place promptly. Samm clears his throat and pretends he isn't liquefying inside. "Dude, switch to decaf," he suggests. Taint shoves him.
Rachel struggles to lug her laundry down the hall. A nerd in glasses -- he appeared in "Sick in the Head" as one of the Sexiles -- sidles up to her and politely offers to carry her basket. Rachel declines. The kid persists with increasing stickiness. He won't let up. He wants her dirty clothes in his hands. At one point, he grabs the basket and tries to take it from her. She wrests it away, begging to be let alone. A guy in the lounge overhears and struts over; apparently he is Jerry Rice of the 49ers. He strolled past the screen once in "The Assistant." Anyway, Jerry intercedes to make sure the little lady isn't being harassed. Sexile insists that Rachel is fine. "Hey, man, step off," Jerry says. "I was talking to the lady." Sexile corrects him, "No, you're talking to me, and I was talking to the lady." Rachel looks increasingly sickened by all this, until the cold reality of her situation hits: she's sunk to such a level that dorks feel comfortable macking on her. "Do you guys actually think you can hit on me?" she squeals. "I wouldn't hit on you," coos Sexile. "I'd love you all night long." Rachel flees, and rightly. "I was so IN," breathes Sexile sadly.
Man, somehow the word "garage" appears in my notes right here. What the hell is that about? This scene takes place in the dorm. Rachel, whipped into a tizzy, is clearing the cabinets of anything containing even a granule of sugar and a gram of fat. She rants to Lizzie and Larice those wimps were afraid to even look her in the eyes before; now, they feel comfortable fighting over her. She's deeply wounded. Larice interrupts to note that Rachel is disposing of food that isn't hers. "It all has to go," insists a panicked Rachel. "And no more baking!" Larice agrees. At this point, Rachel's flat belly is showing and it's offensive to me that they're even pretending she's fat. She's wearing tight sweatpants, for fuck's sake. I bet she's a size four. Sometimes I hate being female. The girls make up, forgiving each other for the other day. "Guys!" moans Rachel, affectionately. "Let's never eat carbs again!"
The quad is a battlefield. Steve fights for one side, and Samm the other. As the snare drum plays, the camera switches back and forth between the suit-clad boys, until all of a sudden they're side by side. It totally reminds me of that scene in Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail, in which Lancelot is charging the castle and every time the guard looks at him, he's exactly the same distance away, still running, until he suddenly pops up right there and slices the guard. And I'm not sure I could have described that worse.
Steve and Samm sit at opposite sides of a table. "Don't try anything crazy," Steve warns. "You're being watched." Heath, Ron, and Shaggy huddle behind a tree, two of them peering through binoculars. It looks like Heath's are backwards. Samm intones that if Steve knows what's good for him, he'll return the pilfered boob with a bowtie. Steven lays out his first bargaining chip -- Theta Delta Zeta's death wish against the quartet must come to an end. "That's a concession the frat's willing to make," Samm nods. Ha. He's really good at feigning this suavity. Steven demands the return of their furniture; Samm self-importantly smarms that he'll have to check with the elders, but he thinks he can convince them to comply. "Then, we will return the theta," Steven acquiesces. Samm praises his wisdom. "IF...you eat these," Steven adds, dumping a giant tub of pickles onto the table. Samm turns a matching shade of green. "You're high!" he sputters. Steven refuses to return the theta unless Samm noshes on the pickles. Samm turns frantic and rambles about an incident in which he ate too many pickles and was rushed to the hospital, and so he can't possibly be expected to ingest these. "Well, boo hoo!" Steven sighs, exasperated. He's got no patience for this. Samm proceeds to blame the entire pickle insident on Ass Hair, Taint, and Totem Pole, like, Samm, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that excuse, I wouldn't be flying Southwest Airlines tomorrow. Steve is both wary and weary of this, so he reduces the pickle fee to three. Samm rolls his eyes and shoves the giant green vegetable into his mouth, quite at ease with it. "Unh," he observes. Steve triumphantly signals to his pals, who whip out the boob and light it on fire, rolling it down the quad's grassy slope. Steven bolts. Samm notices the flaming theta and scampers after it. "Go Karp!" cheers the group as Steven raises the roof goofily. Heath looks adorably proud of his protégé, who bows with a flourish.
Back at Theta Delta Zeta, the brothers hoist Samm aloft, who in turn waves around the singed theta. "Theta, theta, theta!" they chant, while Samm insists he kicked Steve's ass, and then kicked it again.