A listing of .mp3 files in my folder: F:\Backup\Old Computer\Old Computer\Old Computer\Scour Media Agent
(note: file modified dates range from 12/16/1998 to 4/11/1999)
(Jars of Clay) Flood.mp3
(Sixpence_None_The_Richer)-Kiss_Me~1.mp3
(Wyclef_Jean)-Gone_Till_November.mp3
13wishlist.mp3 (Pearl Jam)
Aerosmith -- Walk This Way.mp3
Animaniacs - Countries of The World.mp3
Beastie%20Boys%20-%20Intergalactic.mp3
Beatles - Her Majesty.Mp3
Beatles - Yellow Submarine.mp3
Beck - Loser.mp3
Bob Dylan -- Hurricane.mp3
Chumbawumba%20-%20Tubthumping.mp3
favgame.mp3 (The Cardigans)
Foxylady.mp3
Garbage - Push It.mp3
Garbage-Push_It.mp3
Louis Prima - Sing, Sing, Sing.mp3
Mission_Impossible-Main_theme.mp3
Pearl Jam -Do the Evolution.mp3
Pink Panther.mp3
Proclaimers - I would walk 500 miles.mp3
queen-bohemian_rhapsody.mp3
Rolling Stones - Saint of me.mp3
Rolling Stones - Saint of Me (live).mp3
thewayfastball.mp3
track_5.mp2 (a partial track of Liz Phair's "Polyester Bride")
tropicalia.mp3 (Beck)
uninvited.mp3 (Alanis Morissette)
zootsuit.mp3 (Cherry Poppin' Daddies)
Friday, August 29, 2014
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Daria S01xE10 The Big House and Daria S01xE11 The Road Worrier
1. Thesis
Finally! Episodes which stand on their own merits. The Big House and The Road Worrier represent a real step forward in quality relative to what we've so far, something much more representative of the overall quality of the show. But there's something else that differentiates these episodes, and that is the relative absence of <cue Ms. Li voice> Lawndale High. In fact, unlike every other episode so far, neither episode this week has even a single scene set inside a classroom. In fact, The Road Worrier never even shows the school. And it occurred to me that a similar dynamic holds with a lot of "high school" stories: all the action takes place elsewhere. Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Can't Hardly Wait, Dazed And Confused: all of these are about being away from high school. Why do those movies, and these episodes of Daria, achieve their greatest success only by abandoning their ostensible subject? As you might guess, I have a theory. Read on.
2. Recap
Short: When Daria and Quinn come home late, Helen comes up with a set of ground rules, which includes a strict curfew.
Long: Daria and Quinn both arrive home late and are caught by their parents. The next morning, Helen announces a new set of family rules, which Quinn immediately evades by rebranding her date as a "study group." The next morning Jake realizes that Quinn backdated her sign-in the previous night, resulting in a session of Family Court. As Daria relates these events to Jane at school, Jodie offers tickets to a roller hockey game between the faculty and local DJs, which nearly killed Mr. DeMartino the previous year. In Family Court, where Jake is the judge and Helen is the prosecutor, Quinn and (for some reason) Daria are grounded for a month. The next day at Lawndale, Daria reveals that she is grounded, surprising everyone and baffling Kevin. The first night of grounding passes slowly; Quinn monopolizes the phone. Kevin and Brittany continue to misunderstand what is going on. Daria takes up the harmonica. The ripple effects of Kevin's confusion cause Jodie and Jane to visit during a game of Monopoly, inspiring her to plan an escape to see the roller hockey game, which turns out to be simpler than she'd expected, though her parents do discover her absence. The next day, Daria convinces Helen that grounding makes everyone unhappy, and agrees to "parole," during which she finally convinces Kevin that she is all right.
The Road Worrier
Short: Jane volunteers gas money if Trent and Jesse will take them to the upcoming Alternapalooza concert.
Long: At Jane's, Daria watches SSW while Jane works on an art project, which is interrupted by an extremely loud rehearsal for Trent's band, Mystik Spiral. Knowing Daria's crush on Trent, Jane drags her to go complain about the noise, Daria struggles to act normal and suppress her dislike for the band. Trent mentions that they're going to Alternapalooza and need gas money, Jane volunteers to chip in in exchange for a ride. At Cashman's, the Fashion Club is also planning a trip to Alternapalooza; Quinn gets a temporary tattoo to get in the spirit, leading to a discussion of music festivals at dinner that night (Jake went to Altamont). Upstairs, Daria sees Quinn's "alternative" outfit and reveals that she is also going. The next morning, Jesse and Trent arrive in their van, which only has two seats, so Daria and Jane sit on a box in the back, though only after Daria bumps her head getting in. The J's arrive for Quinn. In the van, Trent and Jesse discuss artistic integrity, to the disgust of both Daria and Jane. Daria feels ill, then falls onto an old sandwich when Trent hits a bump. We see that Kevin and Brittany are also going, along with Jodie and Mack. Daria gets stung by a bee. Meanwhile, back home, Helen and Jake are, well, they're having sex is what they're doing. The van stops at a diner (complete with stereotypically sassy waitress) where Daria laments her day, and as soon as they get back on the road they become stuck in traffic. Daria has to pee, and goes behind some bushes, then is surprised not to be made fun of. The rest of the Lawndale students stop in the same diner as the gang plays games to pass the time, but Trent hits another bump, causing Daria's glasses to get broken, just before the engine breaks down. Jane goes off with Jesse to find a phone, as Brittany and Sandy hijack the other two cars to go outlet shopping. Daria and Trent have a fairly normal conversation while they wait, Jane and Jesse couldn't find help but Jane fixes the engine with a glue gun, though not before the concert ends. As they drive home, Daria smiles.
3. Recapitulation
So, up in part one, you may well have thought of any number of counterexamples, high school movies that do stay in the school. And you are correct! The first to jump to my mind were The Breakfast Club and Mean Girls, and there are plenty of others. But what I suddenly realized about those movies and others like them is this: they are really about middle school.
(Note: there is another reasonably large category: high school stories that are adaptations of other works, such as Clueless, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, 10 Things I Hate About You, etc. I'm leaving them out of this discussion.)
While I was instantly convinced of the truth of my observation, it took me a bit longer to determine what exactly it was I was observing. What did I mean, really? What distinguished these stories as "middle school" in particular? The conclusion I reached was this: "middle school" drama is clique-based. Conflicts are almost always about a.) Who is or is not part of a given clique, and/or b.) Competition between cliques.
High school, however, isn't really like that. Certainly cliques exist, and are taken seriously, but the wider scope of high school gives each of them enough security that conflicts are generally within the clique, and even then, they rarely threaten anyone's membership. By high school, people tend to have more conflicts with their elders than their peers. Middle schoolers seek acceptance, high schoolers seek independence.
With that distinction in mind, Daria is pretty clearly a high school drama. Friendships are rarely threatened (even in the People's Front of Judea that is the Fashion Club), and Daria tends to clash with family and teachers more frequently than with her fellow students. But, like much else in this first season, that distinction is coming more from instinct than design. The show is (and will continue to be) enamored with the idea that it presents a conflict between "brains" and "popular people" (as personified by Daria and Quinn). And the general cartoonishness of the Morgendorffers' fellow Lawndale students would hardly look out of place next to Regina George or Ally Sheedy or, for that matter, Minkus.
But these two episodes (mostly) leave all that nonsense behind. In retrospect, "The Big House" is an ironic title, because it's an episode that actually sets Daria free. In TBH, Daria directly confronts her parents, and over the most fundamental conflict of adolescence: her right to independence. Not only that, but she wins, and that against a woman in Helen who is not accustomed to losing. Then, in TRW, Daria confronts the fear that has been haunting her (like all of us) since puberty: the fear, not just of being rejected by a boy she likes, but of disgusting him. And to her amazement, she finds that said boy (i.e., Trent) enjoys her company just fine! A full day of pain and embarrassment is made worthwhile by this single moment of realization. And it's a realization that, in middle school, Daria would have been incapable of making.
4. Closeup
So, let's talk a bit about Helen and Jake. We learn a bit more about them in these two episodes, particularly TBH. We've known since the first scene of the series that Helen is the dominant partner in the relationship, but this episode provides an inside look at their relationship, and gives us a more nuanced look at how it works. Helen's dominance is still clear: not only was Jake not consulted in the new family rules, he didn't even think that Daria and Quinn had misbehaved in the first place. What's interesting is the balance that he strikes: he certainly supports Helen and in general, and it would take a lot for him to contradict her, especially in front of the children. But he also clearly has his own independent point of view, and knows it. He is generally of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" persuasion, and he (correctly) feels that his kids are essentially good, well-behaved children. But when Helen summons him to hold court, he unhesitatingly accepts.
Part of this is the admittedly patronizing way that Helen manipulates him, giving him the empty position of "judge" when both of them know that Helen will always be, to coin a phrase, the decider. And there is an element to their relationship that is almost distasteful; Helen really does treat Jake like a child, and he really does play into it, completely falling for her cynical attempt to co-opt him through what is essentially a game of dress up. His self-satisfied "I hear that judge is pretty tough" line more or less epitomizes this.
And yet, ultimately their relationship is pretty healthy. Part of this again comes from the voice work. The fact is that every time Jake expresses his own opinion, he sounds self-assured, even as everybody knows he's about to get shouted down by Helen. His own artlessness is his salvation, counted on by Helen just as much as everyone. As she would probably be the first to admit, she doesn't really want Jake to submit to her will. She feels that she is virtually always right, and she is glad to have found somebody, in Jake, feels the same. But the key is that he really does believe that. He's not just going along with Helen not to get yelled at, and the proof of this is his constant willingness to get yelled at for speaking his mind. If he was really broken, he would never let Daria know that he had also been unaware of her curfew. He may always be happy to run things, but it is a choice he is continually, freely, and actively making, and that is ultimately the salvation of their relationship, and their family.
5. Bullet points!
-Just a couple episodes ago, Helen made "put the spice back in my marriage" her number one priority. When she sets out to do something, it gets done.
-In case you think MTV half-assed their DVD release: disk 2's menu has a light BLUE background, where disk 1's menu was light YELLOW. So clearly, they went all out.
-Also, my handmade DVD set matches up disk breaks to season breaks. Unlike certain other DVD sets I could mention.
-As always, I enjoyed the Daria Day intro for TRW, amusing because it acknowledges that this was episode was really the most unpleasant in the series for Daria's character. She certainly has various humiliations ahead, but none so focused as in this episode.
-One of the signs of improvement in these episodes is the Thomas Jefferson runner in TBH. The first usage is great (Jake's delivery of "Well, it can't be Jefferson..." is a highlight), but it also manages to keep the joke running the whole episode, which is a good sign for the quality of future episodes, joke-wise.
-On that same note, Helen's claim that "Bureaucracy is the price we pay for impartiality" is a quote from Stalin is dubious. I've tried to look it up online, and there certainly are some places that attribute that quote to Stalin. But I can't find any quotes that I can be confident predate this episode, so I suspect that all of them are taking Helen's word here as authoritative. But if anybody knows otherwise, please let me know.
-Honestly, I don't think Mystik Spiral is that bad.
-Did Alternapalooza really only draw 10,000 audience members? Seems a bit low.
-OK, listen everybody, once and for all: the Trojan Horse DOES NOT APPEAR IN THE ILIAD! This drives me nuts, because thanks to Daria (among others) I had always assumed that it did, and so I read that whole entire book waiting for it to show up, and was very disappointed. The fact is that the Trojan Horse is the Clone Wars of Homer; it takes place after The Iliad, but before The Odyssey. So please, tell your loved ones: Homer never wrote about the Trojan Horse. Thank you.
-The Altamont joke doesn't really work, but I do like the idea that Jake went there.
-While I never attended a faculty-DJ roller hockey game, I very much did attend a wheelchair basketball game between a team of teachers and an actual wheelchair basketball team. The teachers fell out of their wheelchairs a lot.
-Daria Timestamp Watch: Car breaking down = go find a phone. Also, we see Mr. DeMartino smoking, which would be far less likely today. Jane also suggests that Trent's band might need a "fly girl," but even at the time that was an intentionally dated reference.
-There are only a couple of places where the royalty-free music for the DVD release really messes up an episode, but the Everybody Hurts parody is absolutely one of them, just embarrassing for everybody.
-That said, check out the song list for this episode, just to be reminded that, even though it's usually not so crucial, the loss of the original music is still a serious one.
-This week in people being called the wrong name: "His name is Cliff. Oop, no wait, it's Clint. I'm not positive, but I can find out at school."
-See you next week as we close out season 1!
Finally! Episodes which stand on their own merits. The Big House and The Road Worrier represent a real step forward in quality relative to what we've so far, something much more representative of the overall quality of the show. But there's something else that differentiates these episodes, and that is the relative absence of <cue Ms. Li voice> Lawndale High. In fact, unlike every other episode so far, neither episode this week has even a single scene set inside a classroom. In fact, The Road Worrier never even shows the school. And it occurred to me that a similar dynamic holds with a lot of "high school" stories: all the action takes place elsewhere. Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Can't Hardly Wait, Dazed And Confused: all of these are about being away from high school. Why do those movies, and these episodes of Daria, achieve their greatest success only by abandoning their ostensible subject? As you might guess, I have a theory. Read on.
2. Recap
Short: When Daria and Quinn come home late, Helen comes up with a set of ground rules, which includes a strict curfew.
Long: Daria and Quinn both arrive home late and are caught by their parents. The next morning, Helen announces a new set of family rules, which Quinn immediately evades by rebranding her date as a "study group." The next morning Jake realizes that Quinn backdated her sign-in the previous night, resulting in a session of Family Court. As Daria relates these events to Jane at school, Jodie offers tickets to a roller hockey game between the faculty and local DJs, which nearly killed Mr. DeMartino the previous year. In Family Court, where Jake is the judge and Helen is the prosecutor, Quinn and (for some reason) Daria are grounded for a month. The next day at Lawndale, Daria reveals that she is grounded, surprising everyone and baffling Kevin. The first night of grounding passes slowly; Quinn monopolizes the phone. Kevin and Brittany continue to misunderstand what is going on. Daria takes up the harmonica. The ripple effects of Kevin's confusion cause Jodie and Jane to visit during a game of Monopoly, inspiring her to plan an escape to see the roller hockey game, which turns out to be simpler than she'd expected, though her parents do discover her absence. The next day, Daria convinces Helen that grounding makes everyone unhappy, and agrees to "parole," during which she finally convinces Kevin that she is all right.
The Road Worrier
Short: Jane volunteers gas money if Trent and Jesse will take them to the upcoming Alternapalooza concert.
Long: At Jane's, Daria watches SSW while Jane works on an art project, which is interrupted by an extremely loud rehearsal for Trent's band, Mystik Spiral. Knowing Daria's crush on Trent, Jane drags her to go complain about the noise, Daria struggles to act normal and suppress her dislike for the band. Trent mentions that they're going to Alternapalooza and need gas money, Jane volunteers to chip in in exchange for a ride. At Cashman's, the Fashion Club is also planning a trip to Alternapalooza; Quinn gets a temporary tattoo to get in the spirit, leading to a discussion of music festivals at dinner that night (Jake went to Altamont). Upstairs, Daria sees Quinn's "alternative" outfit and reveals that she is also going. The next morning, Jesse and Trent arrive in their van, which only has two seats, so Daria and Jane sit on a box in the back, though only after Daria bumps her head getting in. The J's arrive for Quinn. In the van, Trent and Jesse discuss artistic integrity, to the disgust of both Daria and Jane. Daria feels ill, then falls onto an old sandwich when Trent hits a bump. We see that Kevin and Brittany are also going, along with Jodie and Mack. Daria gets stung by a bee. Meanwhile, back home, Helen and Jake are, well, they're having sex is what they're doing. The van stops at a diner (complete with stereotypically sassy waitress) where Daria laments her day, and as soon as they get back on the road they become stuck in traffic. Daria has to pee, and goes behind some bushes, then is surprised not to be made fun of. The rest of the Lawndale students stop in the same diner as the gang plays games to pass the time, but Trent hits another bump, causing Daria's glasses to get broken, just before the engine breaks down. Jane goes off with Jesse to find a phone, as Brittany and Sandy hijack the other two cars to go outlet shopping. Daria and Trent have a fairly normal conversation while they wait, Jane and Jesse couldn't find help but Jane fixes the engine with a glue gun, though not before the concert ends. As they drive home, Daria smiles.
3. Recapitulation
So, up in part one, you may well have thought of any number of counterexamples, high school movies that do stay in the school. And you are correct! The first to jump to my mind were The Breakfast Club and Mean Girls, and there are plenty of others. But what I suddenly realized about those movies and others like them is this: they are really about middle school.
(Note: there is another reasonably large category: high school stories that are adaptations of other works, such as Clueless, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, 10 Things I Hate About You, etc. I'm leaving them out of this discussion.)
While I was instantly convinced of the truth of my observation, it took me a bit longer to determine what exactly it was I was observing. What did I mean, really? What distinguished these stories as "middle school" in particular? The conclusion I reached was this: "middle school" drama is clique-based. Conflicts are almost always about a.) Who is or is not part of a given clique, and/or b.) Competition between cliques.
High school, however, isn't really like that. Certainly cliques exist, and are taken seriously, but the wider scope of high school gives each of them enough security that conflicts are generally within the clique, and even then, they rarely threaten anyone's membership. By high school, people tend to have more conflicts with their elders than their peers. Middle schoolers seek acceptance, high schoolers seek independence.
With that distinction in mind, Daria is pretty clearly a high school drama. Friendships are rarely threatened (even in the People's Front of Judea that is the Fashion Club), and Daria tends to clash with family and teachers more frequently than with her fellow students. But, like much else in this first season, that distinction is coming more from instinct than design. The show is (and will continue to be) enamored with the idea that it presents a conflict between "brains" and "popular people" (as personified by Daria and Quinn). And the general cartoonishness of the Morgendorffers' fellow Lawndale students would hardly look out of place next to Regina George or Ally Sheedy or, for that matter, Minkus.
But these two episodes (mostly) leave all that nonsense behind. In retrospect, "The Big House" is an ironic title, because it's an episode that actually sets Daria free. In TBH, Daria directly confronts her parents, and over the most fundamental conflict of adolescence: her right to independence. Not only that, but she wins, and that against a woman in Helen who is not accustomed to losing. Then, in TRW, Daria confronts the fear that has been haunting her (like all of us) since puberty: the fear, not just of being rejected by a boy she likes, but of disgusting him. And to her amazement, she finds that said boy (i.e., Trent) enjoys her company just fine! A full day of pain and embarrassment is made worthwhile by this single moment of realization. And it's a realization that, in middle school, Daria would have been incapable of making.
4. Closeup
So, let's talk a bit about Helen and Jake. We learn a bit more about them in these two episodes, particularly TBH. We've known since the first scene of the series that Helen is the dominant partner in the relationship, but this episode provides an inside look at their relationship, and gives us a more nuanced look at how it works. Helen's dominance is still clear: not only was Jake not consulted in the new family rules, he didn't even think that Daria and Quinn had misbehaved in the first place. What's interesting is the balance that he strikes: he certainly supports Helen and in general, and it would take a lot for him to contradict her, especially in front of the children. But he also clearly has his own independent point of view, and knows it. He is generally of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" persuasion, and he (correctly) feels that his kids are essentially good, well-behaved children. But when Helen summons him to hold court, he unhesitatingly accepts.
Part of this is the admittedly patronizing way that Helen manipulates him, giving him the empty position of "judge" when both of them know that Helen will always be, to coin a phrase, the decider. And there is an element to their relationship that is almost distasteful; Helen really does treat Jake like a child, and he really does play into it, completely falling for her cynical attempt to co-opt him through what is essentially a game of dress up. His self-satisfied "I hear that judge is pretty tough" line more or less epitomizes this.
And yet, ultimately their relationship is pretty healthy. Part of this again comes from the voice work. The fact is that every time Jake expresses his own opinion, he sounds self-assured, even as everybody knows he's about to get shouted down by Helen. His own artlessness is his salvation, counted on by Helen just as much as everyone. As she would probably be the first to admit, she doesn't really want Jake to submit to her will. She feels that she is virtually always right, and she is glad to have found somebody, in Jake, feels the same. But the key is that he really does believe that. He's not just going along with Helen not to get yelled at, and the proof of this is his constant willingness to get yelled at for speaking his mind. If he was really broken, he would never let Daria know that he had also been unaware of her curfew. He may always be happy to run things, but it is a choice he is continually, freely, and actively making, and that is ultimately the salvation of their relationship, and their family.
5. Bullet points!
-Just a couple episodes ago, Helen made "put the spice back in my marriage" her number one priority. When she sets out to do something, it gets done.
-In case you think MTV half-assed their DVD release: disk 2's menu has a light BLUE background, where disk 1's menu was light YELLOW. So clearly, they went all out.
-Also, my handmade DVD set matches up disk breaks to season breaks. Unlike certain other DVD sets I could mention.
-As always, I enjoyed the Daria Day intro for TRW, amusing because it acknowledges that this was episode was really the most unpleasant in the series for Daria's character. She certainly has various humiliations ahead, but none so focused as in this episode.
-One of the signs of improvement in these episodes is the Thomas Jefferson runner in TBH. The first usage is great (Jake's delivery of "Well, it can't be Jefferson..." is a highlight), but it also manages to keep the joke running the whole episode, which is a good sign for the quality of future episodes, joke-wise.
-On that same note, Helen's claim that "Bureaucracy is the price we pay for impartiality" is a quote from Stalin is dubious. I've tried to look it up online, and there certainly are some places that attribute that quote to Stalin. But I can't find any quotes that I can be confident predate this episode, so I suspect that all of them are taking Helen's word here as authoritative. But if anybody knows otherwise, please let me know.
-Honestly, I don't think Mystik Spiral is that bad.
-Did Alternapalooza really only draw 10,000 audience members? Seems a bit low.
-OK, listen everybody, once and for all: the Trojan Horse DOES NOT APPEAR IN THE ILIAD! This drives me nuts, because thanks to Daria (among others) I had always assumed that it did, and so I read that whole entire book waiting for it to show up, and was very disappointed. The fact is that the Trojan Horse is the Clone Wars of Homer; it takes place after The Iliad, but before The Odyssey. So please, tell your loved ones: Homer never wrote about the Trojan Horse. Thank you.
-The Altamont joke doesn't really work, but I do like the idea that Jake went there.
-While I never attended a faculty-DJ roller hockey game, I very much did attend a wheelchair basketball game between a team of teachers and an actual wheelchair basketball team. The teachers fell out of their wheelchairs a lot.
-Daria Timestamp Watch: Car breaking down = go find a phone. Also, we see Mr. DeMartino smoking, which would be far less likely today. Jane also suggests that Trent's band might need a "fly girl," but even at the time that was an intentionally dated reference.
-There are only a couple of places where the royalty-free music for the DVD release really messes up an episode, but the Everybody Hurts parody is absolutely one of them, just embarrassing for everybody.
-That said, check out the song list for this episode, just to be reminded that, even though it's usually not so crucial, the loss of the original music is still a serious one.
-This week in people being called the wrong name: "His name is Cliff. Oop, no wait, it's Clint. I'm not positive, but I can find out at school."
-See you next week as we close out season 1!
Friday, August 1, 2014
Daria S01xE08 The Pinch Sitter and Daria S01xE09 Too Cute
1. Thesis
Daria presents herself as a rigidly principled individual, sacrificing the cheap rewards of popularity and acceptance for the deeper satisfaction of doing what she knows to be right. For that matter, the show itself self-presents in much the same way as its title character. That this image is presented so bluntly is, I believe, one of the turnoffs for first-time viewers of this show. I certainly remember that "preachiness" was among my vague impressions of Daria, in the years before I started watching it. But neither the character or the show are what they claim to be. Daria's personal morality is largely based on laziness (a fact she doesn't even really bother to deny), and the show as a whole is constantly speaking on two levels at once, presenting a straightforward story with cartoonish characters and blunt dialogue on the surface, while allowing the characters' subtle complexities, and the realities of the actual plot developments, to suggest an entirely different moral conclusion. The cartoonishness is in fact a crucial part of the trick that Daria is playing, the dramatic gesture the street magician makes in the air so you don't see him stacking the deck. Don't be fooled.
2. Summary
Short: Quinn pesters Daria to take over her Saturday night babysitting job.
Long: Mr. DeMartino teaches a class on cults, and reminds the students that their term papers are due. Meanwhile, Quinn is attempting to pawn off her babysitting gig on a boy she's not interested in, to free herself up to date Skylar, her real target. Daria inadvertantly reveals Quinn's schemes, and that evening, Quinn attempts to convince Daria to take the gig. Daria resists, until learning that the alternative is participation in her parents' Couples' Workshop night. Helen figures out what happened, and forces Quinn to visit her time-management consultant. After a discussion of priorities, the consultant sells Quinn on a new day-planner/makeup kit, all coordinated in coral. Daria recruits Jane to help her babysit, as Quinn's date arrives and Jake has a pre-workshop martini, then heads to the Guptys, an extremely G-rated (in a Berkeley liberal kind of way) family with two children: Tricia and Tad. The Guptys give Daria a detailed schedule (including 15 minutes of flossing) and depart. Daria is uninterested in following the schedule but can't find anything else to do (even the TV only gets "The Forecast Channel"). Meanwhile, Skylar takes Quinn to Chez Pierre as she tracks her impressions in her Lifeplanner. Daria calls Jane, who is late, having been held up waiting for Trent. She arrives just in time to prove surprisingly helpful putting the kids to bed, with the help of spontaneous reinterpretations of classic children's tales. However, Jane then unlocks Sick Sad World on the TV, which attracts the kids from their room (though they are safely in bed by the time their parents return). Back at the Morgendorffers', Skylar is hurt to discover from Quinn's Teen Lifeplanner that he is only a small part of her boyfriend-related plans. In class, Mr. DeMartino compliments Daria on her paper on "deprogramming" the Guptys, who have apparently learned a very naughty word.
Too Cute
Short: Ms. Barch uses Kevin in an "experiment" to determine how a person's looks affect the behavior of others.
Long: Kevin stands on the street wearing ugly makeup, trying to greet passers-by. At Lawndale, the Fashion Club and others admire the new nose which a girl named Brooke has gotten from the popular plastic surgeon Dr. Shar; Sandy and Quinn spar over whether Quinn showed proper appreciation. At dinner, the Morgendorffers inconclusively discuss plastic surgery. In school the next day, we learn that Kevin's makeup is part of an assigned project by Ms. Barch, ostensibly to teach how attractiveness affects behavior, but mainly to take Kevin down a peg or two. Quinn, by claiming illness, manages to convince the school to let both her AND Daria leave early to go visit Dr. Shar, who recommends $6000 worth of procedures to Quinn (and even more for Daria), and gives Daria some breast implants in a box to take home. Quinn is hurt to discover that the rest of the Fashion Club all got nosejobs, but is interrupted by Brooke, who has now also had liposuction and collagen injections. At her locker, Daria advises Kevin, and shows her implants to Jane and (inadvertantly) Upchuck, who runs away. Quinn asks Daria to claim to need HGH, which Dr. Shar has agreed to charge for while secretly operating on Quinn instead. Jane suggests that Quinn take up a collection to pay for her surgery, which Quinn does, with predictably meager results. Daria finally gives in and tells Quinn that she is very attractive and doesn't need surgery, but Quinn is not impressed. However, news now breaks that Brooke has had a "nasal relapse," and, as Quinn explains at dinner, looks even less cute than before. Kevin, meanwhile, has begun accompanying his greetings with the offer of five dollars, leading to much friendlier interactions.
3. Recapitulation
The most obvious ethical gray area in these episodes is in Too Cute's treatment of plastic surgery. The episode seems like it's going to be another straightforward issue-of-the-week episode, a la This Year's Model, simply swapping plastic surgery in for modelling. But Too Cute seems much more ambivalent about its ostensible target than This Year's Model ever did, in a variety of ways. Helen, for example, may dismiss the idea of plastic surgery for Quinn, but has clearly been considering it for herself (and Daria doesn't exactly disagree with her). Brooke really does gain confidence as the episode goes along, as evidenced by both her clothing choices and her tone of voice. When Daria tries to talk Quinn out of getting plastic surgery, she doesn't attack the idea of plastic surgery, or the tyranny of physical standards of beauty or anything like that. She simply says that Quinn is already extremely beautiful and thus doesn't happen to need plastic surgery at the time. And the speech doesn't even work! The only thing that finally convinces Quinn to give up on plastic surgery is a fairly clumsy deus ex machina, in the form of Brooke's "nasal relapse." Combine that with the resolution of Kevin's plot, and the message of this episode is fairly explicit: If you don't have looks, you better have money. A sentiment that Sandy herself would hardly dispute.
So, where did this ambiguity come from? I believe the answer, at least in part, is that it was an accident. Too Cute, apart from having a clumsy resolution, definitely appears to have come in a bit short. For one thing, the B plot featuring Kevin's biology project never actually ties in with the A plot in any way. It had thematic relevance, of course, but that sort of parallel structure, while common on television, isn't actually something Daria did very often. And even with that awkward B plot, there are a few moments (the long beat after Daria says "Want to borrow my stapler?", the odd scene that's just Quinn sneaking into the girls' bathroom for a few seconds) that seem to be signs of an episode that was struggling to fill out its time slot. There is also at times an interesting and, I believe, unintended tension between the vocal characterization and the animators' characterization, particularly in the case of Dr. Shar, who is drawn as almost a monster, but whose voice work implies a savvy operator, who seems to really see herself as helping her clients. The voice actors in Daria were generally more or less unknowns (and generally remain so, check out this wiki entry for the voice of Jodi that makes her seem like D.B. Cooper), and I think that at times their naturalism pushed the writing away from the outlandish places it wanted to go.
I won't insult the creators, however, by claiming that this ambiguity was entirely accidental. For one thing, we can see elements of the same issues running through The Pinch Sitter, which is a much tighter episode. Consider the Guptys. On the one hand, they are the "villain" of the piece, to the extent that Daria ends up using them as an example of a real-life cult for Mr. DeMartino's class. On the other hand, their children genuinely seem to be quite happy with their life, and even capable of thinking for themselves (or at least Tricia is). That said, there's still a bit more to the Guptys than meets the eye. They seem pretty aware that Daria is lying to them (as Quinn has been) about the reasons for their phone usage, but they don't admit as much, presumably because, like all parents, they're at times willing to leave their children in substandard hands in order to get out of the house for an evening. And they blithely, even eagerly, tell Daria that her father cried during their couples' workshop, which is about as extreme a breach of Jake's trust as they could have managed. So, when Daria teaches their children to swear, are the Guptys the victim, or the villain?
The same question could be asked of Quinn, and will continue to be posed throughout the run of the series. Is Quinn, in her relationships with boys, the victim, or the villain? She certainly seems villainous; Skylar is pretty much justified in his dismay at learning that Quinn has scheduled her breakup with him months in advance. The only way of justifying Quinn's behavior is to say, look: Quinn is extremely, almost implausibly in demand among boys. Why should she not extract the most value she can from that interest? Which is still kind of villainous reasoning. But Quinn herself always identifies as the victim (often just through her tone of voice, as in her reaction to Skylar's dismay). And there's a sense in which she's correct: there may be a ton of boys chasing after her, but none of them really have anything to offer her. Quinn's interests are fashion, gossip, and boys, and nobody that dates her is willing, or even able, to discuss any of those topics. Why shouldn't Quinn treat them as fashion accessories, if they aren't any other use to her? Skylar specifically grounded their relationship in their social positions rather than their emotional compatibility, so why should Quinn be made to feel bad just because she took him at his word?
4. Closeup
The relationship between Daria and Quinn is one of the most important relationships in the series, but you wouldn't necessarily know it to this point. The basis of their relationship is a reflexive, almost banal sibling rivalry, which doesn't reveal much about either character. Too Cute marks a bit of a turning point in that regard: for the first time, we see one of the sisters need something from the other, apart from their absence. When Quinn, on the bus ride to Dr. Shar's, says "I just need you here, okay?", it's a milestone in their relationship. Quinn has constantly, and vocally, wanted Daria elsewhere. Even earlier in this very episode, she desperately waves Daria away from approaching Brooke and the Fashion Club. And that history of avoidance is there, sitting between them on the bus, but there's something else there as well. What they both know is that this elaborate performance they have been giving, in which Quinn ostentatiously denies any relationship to Daria (apart from "au pair," or "exchange student," or "cousin or something"), while Daria just as loudly expresses her desire to see Quinn miserable, is and always has been just that: a performance. It's a performance they both need, one that allows them the space to establish their own (very different) identities. But its theatricality is also important, a subtle, maybe even subconscious signal to the other that their antipathy is situational, and not fundamental. The characters they must play (in school, at the dinner table, even alone in the upstairs hall) are and have to be opposed to each other, but by keeping it on that "character" level, they leave themselves an opening to drop the mask when necessary, and fall back on the authentic relationship which their inauthentic hatred has allowed them to maintain.
Not that anything about their relationship changes much, if at all, during this episode. Quinn does reach out to Daria, but she makes her distaste at doing so crystal clear. And when Daria does (eventually, grudgingly) give Quinn the advice and affirmation she was seeking, Quinn rejects it out of hand. Their official rivalry resumes, essentially unchanged. But at least for a moment, on that bus, we could see that the rivalry, while real, is not all there is to their relationship.
5. Bullet points!
-What class is Mr. DeMartino teaching that has a whole unit on cults?
-OUTPOST DARIA IS BACK, Y'ALL! You can finally download Daria-themed WinAmp skins again! Thanks to Kevin, aka neonhomer, for bringing it back!
-Dr. Shar's office is located in the RxPlex, which is hosting the 1997 Adjustable Bed Show. Other offices in the 'Plex include The Butt Hut, Limbs 'n' Things, and, most disturbingly, Mela-No-Mo!
-Speaking of voice work, special shout out to Wendy Hoopes, who voices Quinn, Jane, and Helen (not coincidentally, the three deepest characters in the series apart from Daria). Her vocal work in the last scene of The Pinch Sitter ("more of a blush, really") provides a level of intelligence and self-awareness to the character that simply isn't there in the writing, and lays the groundwork for future developments.
-Dr. Shar's computer's keyboard has a key labelled "Execute" that lights up when you press it. Who made this keyboard, LA Gear?
-While I'm on the subject, I have a lot of opinions about Dr. Shar, but my job requires me to work with plastic surgeons, so I'm going to leave those opinions unstated.
-The blackboard for Mr. DeMartino's Jonestown class is particularly good, including a mention of "Kool Ade," which I find especially amusing because the people at Jonestown didn't even poison themselves with Kool-Aid, they used Flavor-Aid.
-This week in people being called by the wrong name: "So hello there, Quinn, whichever one of you is Quinn," as well as Quinn calling Jamie "Johnny"
-The Gupty's house reminds me of the house of Frank Ormand, The Pretzel Wagon guy from the Simpsons (which you'd think I'd be able to find an image of on the internet, but you'll just have to take my word for it).
-Quinn and Jane always have great interactions, Quinn's "Shoo! Shoo!" and Jane's "Well, if it's an emergency..." in the scene at Daria's locker are both great lines.
-That said, let me be clear: many of the jokes in Daria are terrible. I can't defend bits like "...in another hospital. In Belgium." or the guy in Dr. Shar's waiting room. I'd love to defend them. But I can't.
-When Quinn lists her priorities, number four is school. Which yes, it's last on the list (after "bouncy hair"), but it is on the list. Worth remembering.
-I'd definitely be interested in hearing the plot of "Mr. Potty Goes To Town"
-Sandy seems to imply that The Fashion Club is limited to four members. Which is odd, but then again, that rule is never contradicted anywhere else in the series.
-Daria Timestamp Watch: Hawaii was the only state that would recognize a marriage between a dish and a spoon.
-The Fashion Club continues to be terrible at fashion. How could Quinn thinks that coral suits her? Though I like the meta-joke where Sandy accuses Quinn of wearing the same thing all the time.
-Andrea shows up in Too Cute! Andrea is like the Boba Fett of Daria: she's barely in it, but you're always glad to see her.
-My wife pointed out that Kevin's claim to have been shot at implies the existence of a concealed carry law in Lawndale.
-I think I wound up writing more about Too Cute than The Pinch Sitter, but let me be clear that The Pinch Sitter was by a clear margin the better episode, possibly the best since The Invitation.
-See you next week for two fantastic episodes, The Big House and Road Warrior. I haven't rewatched them yet, but I am excited to do so, I remember them as being better than anything we've seen so far.
-The vocabulary word for the night is "indemnification!"
Daria presents herself as a rigidly principled individual, sacrificing the cheap rewards of popularity and acceptance for the deeper satisfaction of doing what she knows to be right. For that matter, the show itself self-presents in much the same way as its title character. That this image is presented so bluntly is, I believe, one of the turnoffs for first-time viewers of this show. I certainly remember that "preachiness" was among my vague impressions of Daria, in the years before I started watching it. But neither the character or the show are what they claim to be. Daria's personal morality is largely based on laziness (a fact she doesn't even really bother to deny), and the show as a whole is constantly speaking on two levels at once, presenting a straightforward story with cartoonish characters and blunt dialogue on the surface, while allowing the characters' subtle complexities, and the realities of the actual plot developments, to suggest an entirely different moral conclusion. The cartoonishness is in fact a crucial part of the trick that Daria is playing, the dramatic gesture the street magician makes in the air so you don't see him stacking the deck. Don't be fooled.
2. Summary
Short: Quinn pesters Daria to take over her Saturday night babysitting job.
Long: Mr. DeMartino teaches a class on cults, and reminds the students that their term papers are due. Meanwhile, Quinn is attempting to pawn off her babysitting gig on a boy she's not interested in, to free herself up to date Skylar, her real target. Daria inadvertantly reveals Quinn's schemes, and that evening, Quinn attempts to convince Daria to take the gig. Daria resists, until learning that the alternative is participation in her parents' Couples' Workshop night. Helen figures out what happened, and forces Quinn to visit her time-management consultant. After a discussion of priorities, the consultant sells Quinn on a new day-planner/makeup kit, all coordinated in coral. Daria recruits Jane to help her babysit, as Quinn's date arrives and Jake has a pre-workshop martini, then heads to the Guptys, an extremely G-rated (in a Berkeley liberal kind of way) family with two children: Tricia and Tad. The Guptys give Daria a detailed schedule (including 15 minutes of flossing) and depart. Daria is uninterested in following the schedule but can't find anything else to do (even the TV only gets "The Forecast Channel"). Meanwhile, Skylar takes Quinn to Chez Pierre as she tracks her impressions in her Lifeplanner. Daria calls Jane, who is late, having been held up waiting for Trent. She arrives just in time to prove surprisingly helpful putting the kids to bed, with the help of spontaneous reinterpretations of classic children's tales. However, Jane then unlocks Sick Sad World on the TV, which attracts the kids from their room (though they are safely in bed by the time their parents return). Back at the Morgendorffers', Skylar is hurt to discover from Quinn's Teen Lifeplanner that he is only a small part of her boyfriend-related plans. In class, Mr. DeMartino compliments Daria on her paper on "deprogramming" the Guptys, who have apparently learned a very naughty word.
Too Cute
Short: Ms. Barch uses Kevin in an "experiment" to determine how a person's looks affect the behavior of others.
Long: Kevin stands on the street wearing ugly makeup, trying to greet passers-by. At Lawndale, the Fashion Club and others admire the new nose which a girl named Brooke has gotten from the popular plastic surgeon Dr. Shar; Sandy and Quinn spar over whether Quinn showed proper appreciation. At dinner, the Morgendorffers inconclusively discuss plastic surgery. In school the next day, we learn that Kevin's makeup is part of an assigned project by Ms. Barch, ostensibly to teach how attractiveness affects behavior, but mainly to take Kevin down a peg or two. Quinn, by claiming illness, manages to convince the school to let both her AND Daria leave early to go visit Dr. Shar, who recommends $6000 worth of procedures to Quinn (and even more for Daria), and gives Daria some breast implants in a box to take home. Quinn is hurt to discover that the rest of the Fashion Club all got nosejobs, but is interrupted by Brooke, who has now also had liposuction and collagen injections. At her locker, Daria advises Kevin, and shows her implants to Jane and (inadvertantly) Upchuck, who runs away. Quinn asks Daria to claim to need HGH, which Dr. Shar has agreed to charge for while secretly operating on Quinn instead. Jane suggests that Quinn take up a collection to pay for her surgery, which Quinn does, with predictably meager results. Daria finally gives in and tells Quinn that she is very attractive and doesn't need surgery, but Quinn is not impressed. However, news now breaks that Brooke has had a "nasal relapse," and, as Quinn explains at dinner, looks even less cute than before. Kevin, meanwhile, has begun accompanying his greetings with the offer of five dollars, leading to much friendlier interactions.
3. Recapitulation
The most obvious ethical gray area in these episodes is in Too Cute's treatment of plastic surgery. The episode seems like it's going to be another straightforward issue-of-the-week episode, a la This Year's Model, simply swapping plastic surgery in for modelling. But Too Cute seems much more ambivalent about its ostensible target than This Year's Model ever did, in a variety of ways. Helen, for example, may dismiss the idea of plastic surgery for Quinn, but has clearly been considering it for herself (and Daria doesn't exactly disagree with her). Brooke really does gain confidence as the episode goes along, as evidenced by both her clothing choices and her tone of voice. When Daria tries to talk Quinn out of getting plastic surgery, she doesn't attack the idea of plastic surgery, or the tyranny of physical standards of beauty or anything like that. She simply says that Quinn is already extremely beautiful and thus doesn't happen to need plastic surgery at the time. And the speech doesn't even work! The only thing that finally convinces Quinn to give up on plastic surgery is a fairly clumsy deus ex machina, in the form of Brooke's "nasal relapse." Combine that with the resolution of Kevin's plot, and the message of this episode is fairly explicit: If you don't have looks, you better have money. A sentiment that Sandy herself would hardly dispute.
So, where did this ambiguity come from? I believe the answer, at least in part, is that it was an accident. Too Cute, apart from having a clumsy resolution, definitely appears to have come in a bit short. For one thing, the B plot featuring Kevin's biology project never actually ties in with the A plot in any way. It had thematic relevance, of course, but that sort of parallel structure, while common on television, isn't actually something Daria did very often. And even with that awkward B plot, there are a few moments (the long beat after Daria says "Want to borrow my stapler?", the odd scene that's just Quinn sneaking into the girls' bathroom for a few seconds) that seem to be signs of an episode that was struggling to fill out its time slot. There is also at times an interesting and, I believe, unintended tension between the vocal characterization and the animators' characterization, particularly in the case of Dr. Shar, who is drawn as almost a monster, but whose voice work implies a savvy operator, who seems to really see herself as helping her clients. The voice actors in Daria were generally more or less unknowns (and generally remain so, check out this wiki entry for the voice of Jodi that makes her seem like D.B. Cooper), and I think that at times their naturalism pushed the writing away from the outlandish places it wanted to go.
I won't insult the creators, however, by claiming that this ambiguity was entirely accidental. For one thing, we can see elements of the same issues running through The Pinch Sitter, which is a much tighter episode. Consider the Guptys. On the one hand, they are the "villain" of the piece, to the extent that Daria ends up using them as an example of a real-life cult for Mr. DeMartino's class. On the other hand, their children genuinely seem to be quite happy with their life, and even capable of thinking for themselves (or at least Tricia is). That said, there's still a bit more to the Guptys than meets the eye. They seem pretty aware that Daria is lying to them (as Quinn has been) about the reasons for their phone usage, but they don't admit as much, presumably because, like all parents, they're at times willing to leave their children in substandard hands in order to get out of the house for an evening. And they blithely, even eagerly, tell Daria that her father cried during their couples' workshop, which is about as extreme a breach of Jake's trust as they could have managed. So, when Daria teaches their children to swear, are the Guptys the victim, or the villain?
The same question could be asked of Quinn, and will continue to be posed throughout the run of the series. Is Quinn, in her relationships with boys, the victim, or the villain? She certainly seems villainous; Skylar is pretty much justified in his dismay at learning that Quinn has scheduled her breakup with him months in advance. The only way of justifying Quinn's behavior is to say, look: Quinn is extremely, almost implausibly in demand among boys. Why should she not extract the most value she can from that interest? Which is still kind of villainous reasoning. But Quinn herself always identifies as the victim (often just through her tone of voice, as in her reaction to Skylar's dismay). And there's a sense in which she's correct: there may be a ton of boys chasing after her, but none of them really have anything to offer her. Quinn's interests are fashion, gossip, and boys, and nobody that dates her is willing, or even able, to discuss any of those topics. Why shouldn't Quinn treat them as fashion accessories, if they aren't any other use to her? Skylar specifically grounded their relationship in their social positions rather than their emotional compatibility, so why should Quinn be made to feel bad just because she took him at his word?
4. Closeup
The relationship between Daria and Quinn is one of the most important relationships in the series, but you wouldn't necessarily know it to this point. The basis of their relationship is a reflexive, almost banal sibling rivalry, which doesn't reveal much about either character. Too Cute marks a bit of a turning point in that regard: for the first time, we see one of the sisters need something from the other, apart from their absence. When Quinn, on the bus ride to Dr. Shar's, says "I just need you here, okay?", it's a milestone in their relationship. Quinn has constantly, and vocally, wanted Daria elsewhere. Even earlier in this very episode, she desperately waves Daria away from approaching Brooke and the Fashion Club. And that history of avoidance is there, sitting between them on the bus, but there's something else there as well. What they both know is that this elaborate performance they have been giving, in which Quinn ostentatiously denies any relationship to Daria (apart from "au pair," or "exchange student," or "cousin or something"), while Daria just as loudly expresses her desire to see Quinn miserable, is and always has been just that: a performance. It's a performance they both need, one that allows them the space to establish their own (very different) identities. But its theatricality is also important, a subtle, maybe even subconscious signal to the other that their antipathy is situational, and not fundamental. The characters they must play (in school, at the dinner table, even alone in the upstairs hall) are and have to be opposed to each other, but by keeping it on that "character" level, they leave themselves an opening to drop the mask when necessary, and fall back on the authentic relationship which their inauthentic hatred has allowed them to maintain.
Not that anything about their relationship changes much, if at all, during this episode. Quinn does reach out to Daria, but she makes her distaste at doing so crystal clear. And when Daria does (eventually, grudgingly) give Quinn the advice and affirmation she was seeking, Quinn rejects it out of hand. Their official rivalry resumes, essentially unchanged. But at least for a moment, on that bus, we could see that the rivalry, while real, is not all there is to their relationship.
5. Bullet points!
-What class is Mr. DeMartino teaching that has a whole unit on cults?
-OUTPOST DARIA IS BACK, Y'ALL! You can finally download Daria-themed WinAmp skins again! Thanks to Kevin, aka neonhomer, for bringing it back!
-Dr. Shar's office is located in the RxPlex, which is hosting the 1997 Adjustable Bed Show. Other offices in the 'Plex include The Butt Hut, Limbs 'n' Things, and, most disturbingly, Mela-No-Mo!
-Speaking of voice work, special shout out to Wendy Hoopes, who voices Quinn, Jane, and Helen (not coincidentally, the three deepest characters in the series apart from Daria). Her vocal work in the last scene of The Pinch Sitter ("more of a blush, really") provides a level of intelligence and self-awareness to the character that simply isn't there in the writing, and lays the groundwork for future developments.
-Dr. Shar's computer's keyboard has a key labelled "Execute" that lights up when you press it. Who made this keyboard, LA Gear?
-While I'm on the subject, I have a lot of opinions about Dr. Shar, but my job requires me to work with plastic surgeons, so I'm going to leave those opinions unstated.
-The blackboard for Mr. DeMartino's Jonestown class is particularly good, including a mention of "Kool Ade," which I find especially amusing because the people at Jonestown didn't even poison themselves with Kool-Aid, they used Flavor-Aid.
-This week in people being called by the wrong name: "So hello there, Quinn, whichever one of you is Quinn," as well as Quinn calling Jamie "Johnny"
-The Gupty's house reminds me of the house of Frank Ormand, The Pretzel Wagon guy from the Simpsons (which you'd think I'd be able to find an image of on the internet, but you'll just have to take my word for it).
-Quinn and Jane always have great interactions, Quinn's "Shoo! Shoo!" and Jane's "Well, if it's an emergency..." in the scene at Daria's locker are both great lines.
-That said, let me be clear: many of the jokes in Daria are terrible. I can't defend bits like "...in another hospital. In Belgium." or the guy in Dr. Shar's waiting room. I'd love to defend them. But I can't.
-When Quinn lists her priorities, number four is school. Which yes, it's last on the list (after "bouncy hair"), but it is on the list. Worth remembering.
-I'd definitely be interested in hearing the plot of "Mr. Potty Goes To Town"
-Sandy seems to imply that The Fashion Club is limited to four members. Which is odd, but then again, that rule is never contradicted anywhere else in the series.
-Daria Timestamp Watch: Hawaii was the only state that would recognize a marriage between a dish and a spoon.
-The Fashion Club continues to be terrible at fashion. How could Quinn thinks that coral suits her? Though I like the meta-joke where Sandy accuses Quinn of wearing the same thing all the time.
-Andrea shows up in Too Cute! Andrea is like the Boba Fett of Daria: she's barely in it, but you're always glad to see her.
-My wife pointed out that Kevin's claim to have been shot at implies the existence of a concealed carry law in Lawndale.
-I think I wound up writing more about Too Cute than The Pinch Sitter, but let me be clear that The Pinch Sitter was by a clear margin the better episode, possibly the best since The Invitation.
-See you next week for two fantastic episodes, The Big House and Road Warrior. I haven't rewatched them yet, but I am excited to do so, I remember them as being better than anything we've seen so far.
-The vocabulary word for the night is "indemnification!"
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