WILD, WILD MESS

Episode 9 is here and it just happens to be the first episode of Popular I ever partly saw. Mainly because I was bored and my sis had sort of been following the show for a while. Anyway, before I go further a brief reminder of what happened last week. As you all know, Brooke’s relationship with Josh was a total fake. So, after sleeping with the guy, she broke up with him. In effect, Brooke is now single. Totally single. As it becomes fairly clear later in the episode the off-screen affair Brooke had with Sam last week has hit a small road block. The nightly visits have ended.
Let’s see how long this state of affairs is going to continue.

At Kennedy High a group of men and women wearing blue overalls are holding up signs and chanting something. They are the janitorial team. And they’re on strike. Judging from the large amounts of trash strewn about everywhere, they have been on strike for quite some time now.

In the Novak (where there is also a large amount of trash for those of you interested), Sam is washing her hands when she hears something drop. Turning around, she sees a small plastic thing on the floor. It gets picked up by someone occupying the stall. Her voice indicates that it’s Brooke and she’s complaining about “those stupid tests”. Sam quickly hides in one of the stalls. Brooke then exits her stall, looks around suspiciously, then puts the plastic thing in a box, hides the box and leaves. Sam, being the nosy reporter that she is, saw where Brooke put the box so she decided to fish it out of the trash. The box says, quite simply, “One step pregnancy test”.

Thursday

Miss Ross, the Drama teacher who also teaches Greek, now teaches another class. The subject is the ‘guest principal for a day’. The Kennedy High populace will have to choose a role model and he or she will be principal for one day.
Meanwhile, Mary Cherry is disinfecting her desk. Miss Ross doesn’t approve of this, since the cleaners are on strike and cleaning up yourself goes against strike law. Or something. Miss Ross then goes into a speech about trash. That you can either ignore it until it kills you or that you can face the messy business of cleaning up the mess one little piece at a time.
After class is over, Brooke walks up to Miss Ross and she sort of implies that she may not be at school tomorrow. Sam then walks up to her (Brooke, not Miss Ross) and asks how she’s doing. Brooke snaps at her and wants her to leave her alone.

In the Novak, Brooke is panicking. Her period is already four days late and she fears that she may be pregnant. Nicole tries to reassure her and tells her to do the test again. Preferably in cleaner surroundings. She also tells Brooke not to tell Josh about it. At least not until she knows for sure. Telling Josh now would seem like an attempt to get back with him. And Brooke so doesn’t want to get back with him.

Nicole, Mary Cherry and Sugar Daddy are walking through the messy hallways of the still messy school. They’re talking about the principal for a day thing. Nicole thinks they should nominate Gwyneth Paltrow, but unfortunately they have no way of contacting her. SD then makes the stupid and suicidal remark that he knows the guy who shops for the actress. MC and Nicole turn on him like a pair of sharks and demand that he calls him.

Lily, Carmen and Harrison are standing near Harrison’s locker. Lily and Carmen want him to do some sort of favour for them, but Harrison doesn’t want to. Sam shows up, asking what’s going on. Carmen and Lily say that they want to nominate George Stephanopolous, who’s some sort of big time Kennedy celeb. It seems that Robin -Harrison’s mom- and George have been dating for a while so Lily and Carmen want Harrison to ask his mom if she can call George so that he can be the principal for a day. Harrison says that it’s a no-go. The first reason being that George and his mom dated ages ago and the second being that his mom’s current boyfriend is an insanely jealous prick who doesn’t let her talk to other men. Harrison then cuts any further arguments short and leaves.
Lily, Carmen and Sam are not defeated that quickly, however, and the decide to go pay Robin a little visit.

Josh walks up to Brooke to talk. The jock has called four times already and Brooke hasn’t returned any one of them. Brooke obviously isn’t in a mood to talk to him, but Josh isn’t going to let it slide that easily. Brooke then snaps at him and yells at him about all the troubles she’s having at school, at home and now with this damn pregnancy.
There’s a silence as Brooke realises what she has just said. Josh is worried, Brooke is freaking.

At some pharmacy, Josh is looking at the… err… feminine products. He doesn’t find what he’s looking for, so the nice counter lady asks him what he wants. It should be obvious that he wants pregnancy tests.
Sam, Lily and Carmen enter the pharmacy and Josh disappears like a flash. It is implied that Sam noticed him, but there is no real evidence that this is the case. Anyway, the three brunettes walk up to the nice counter lady, who turns out to be Harrison’s mom. Sam notices that Robin’s hands are currently filled with pregnancy tests.
So, the brunettes and Robin small talk for a little, but Carmen cuts right to the chase about George. Robin makes a small joke that, right now, she’d rather be dating Hillary Clinton than George Stephanopolous, thereby implying that the odds of him listening to her are very slim indeed. Lily and Sam exchange glances upon hearing this, but Carmen doesn’t notice it. After that, Lily says that if Robin’s reluctant because of her jealous boyfriend, she need not worry. Robin laughs and seems unconcerned. Then another pharmacy worker shows up. Her name is Sheila. Laying her hand on Robin’s shoulder, she tells Robin that she’s going to pick up some Chinese food and asks if Harrison’s eating habits have changed since last time.
Even Carmen now notices what’s going on here. There is a small awkward silence, but, just in case some of the viewers are blind, Carmen asks the rhetorical question if Sheila is Robin’s current ‘boyfriend’.

Still Thursday - After School

Mary Cherry and Nicole have been gathering support for their “Goddess Gwyneth for Principal”-campaign. Sugar Daddy, meanwhile, has been trying to contact Gwyneth’s personal shopper. He has succeeded, but with no luck. With much fear for his own person he tells the girls that Mr Shopper Man has said that the girls might have more luck with Jewel.
Shocked, dismayed and outright furious Nicole and Mary Cherry leap into action, dragging SD along because he’ll need to drive the getaway car. But first, they’re going to pick up a pair of handcuffs at Nicole’s house.

At the Palace, Sam is on the phone with an answering machine. As it turns out, this answering machine belongs to Robin and Harrison. After the beep sounds, Sam tries to form a few words, then hangs up. Did she want to ask Robin for some “coming-out” advice?
If fear we shall never know, because Josh shows up before Sam has worked up the nerve to call again. Josh is nervous and carrying two paper bags. He wants to know where Brooke is, but Sam tells him that she has no idea where the blonde is. Then, in his nervousness, Josh knocks down the two bags, spilling pregnancy tests all over the floor.
Brooke shows up, sees the tests and becomes outraged. She really doesn’t want Sam to know this. She claims that Sam will just use this information to make her life an even bigger living Hell. Josh says that Sam’s concerned too and that Brooke needn’t worry.
“Oh really?” Brooke counters. “When did we become a threesome?”
Gee Brooke, kind of fast to turn this thing into a relationship kind of thing, don’t you think? And besides, there was never a threesome. It was just a triangle.
Anyway, Brooke kicks Josh out of the house, then tells Sam not to tell anyone else about this. Then she leaves, taking the tests with her.

At the pharmacy, Harrison picks up his mom. Judging from the easy conversation, Harrison knows full well that Robin is dating Sheila. Robin then tells him that Sam, Lily and Carmen showed up and asked her about George. She then expresses her hurt about the fact that they did know about her freshman fling with George, but had no clue about her relationship with Sheila. Harrison gets mad and refuses to talk, except to say that nobody should ever know about Robin and Sheila. Robin then tells him that she’s been hiding out in the closet for years and years and that it’s a deep, dank, dark place where she never, ever wants to return.
Harrison’s answer is intriguing:
“Yeah. I know. Some of us still live there.”
A confession if I’ve ever heard one. Anyway, Harrison keeps being pissed off and tells his mom that he’d rather not let his friends would find out. Robin is honest and tells him that it’s too late. They already know. Now Harrison gets seriously mad, expressing his fears that others will find him queer and saying that maybe Robin doesn’t care if people think she’s a freak, but that he does. Having said that, Harrison leaves, alone.

Meanwhile, in the Kennedy High basement Nicole, Mary Cherry and Sugar Daddy have kidnapped Felix, Gwyneth’s personal shopper. In his despair Felix agrees to call Gwyneth, but the girls won’t release him until she has called back.

Brooke has taken another pregnancy test. She then goes to the kitchen, where Sam is reading a comic book and eating popcorn. Brooke walks to the fridge, takes out a bottle of water, takes some of Sam’s popcorn, announces that she’s going to have a baby, then goes back to the fridge to get more food for an all-out pig-out fest.
Sam, meanwhile, is freaking, thinking that Brooke is behaving weird and telling the blonde that she should get a blood test. Brooke, however, is totally out of it and is far more interested in sharing a huge salad with Sam.

Friday

In the Kennedy High basement, Felix is still chained up and guarded by Mary Cherry. Nicole enters, dressed like an SM dominatrix from some bad porn movie, but with less leather. Anyway, she threatens Felix for a while until Mary Cherry points out that they _did_ kidnap Felix when he was buying clothes for Gwyneth. So now, they DO have part of Gwyneth’s wardrobe. The girls decide to try it all on. What follows… well… think about the two evil stepsisters trying on Cinderella’s glass shoe and you’ve got a pretty good idea.

Back at Harrison’s locker, Lily and Carmen want Harrison’s support for their candidate. As it turns out, they have given up on George and are now nominating Robin. Harrison gets very mad at them, grabs their sheet with signatures, scrunches it up into a ball and throws it away. He then loudly slams his locker shut and leaves.

Josh catches up with Sam in one of the hallways. He wants to know if Brooke has taken another test yet and what the results are. Sam tells him that she doesn’t know and that he’d better ask Brooke. Giving him some lame excuse, she leaves, visibly upset.

Brooke is in her room, her legs crossed, her knees drawn up to her chin, sitting on her bed, staring at nothing. In the hallway, Sam has some material dealing with pregnancy and slides the papers under Brooke’s door.
Brooke slides them back.

Lily and Carmen are still at Kennedy and their campaign to elect Robin doesn’t seem to be going smoothly. There they meet Tawny, who’s nothing more than some random student required for this scene. They want her support, but Tawny doesn’t want to give until she knows she would give that support. After some failed attempts, Carmen blurts out the true reason: because Robin’s gay.
I’m writing down Tawny’s full response here because I’ve got a slightly morbid fascination for the stupidity of mankind:
Tawny (looking around as if she’s saying some bad word): “Why do you want someone… (gay)… to be our principal?”
Lily (suspicious): “Why does that matter?”
Tawny: “Because it’s gross. I-I mean it may be trendy, but I still think it’s wrong.”
Ah, good old traditional Christian upbringing. Gotta love it. My apologies, by the way, for those Christians who believe that God did NOT preach bigotry and hatred. Anyway, Lily and Carmen are quite disgusted by Tawny and leave.

At the Palace, Jane sees the papers lying just outside Brooke’s room. She picks them and, seeing what they are about, gets suspicious. Sam shows up and is horrified. Jane demands to know what’s going on. In her room, Brooke walks up to the door to eavesdrop. Sam covers the whole thing up by saying that the papers belong to her and that she needs them for a school project. Jane isn’t quite sure if she believes this but decides to let it slide.
Brooke walks back to her bed, and lies down on it. It would be interesting to point out that Brooke’s bed is totally purple. And if a Teletubby is accused of being gay just because he’s purple, what does that mean for Brooke and her purple bed?

Meanwhile, in the basement, SD apologises to Felix about this whole mess. Mary Cherry and Nicole show up. They behave like a pair of SS officers. Or Gestapo. You never can be quite sure, because all the departments were sort of mixed up back then.
Anyway, in that good old Nazi tradition, they threaten Felix with a slow, painful death if Gwyneth does not call soon.

We’re back Miss Ross’ class. Voting for the principal for the day are taking place. One nominee is Gwyneth, the other is Katie Couric, who’s an excellent example of good motherhood. Unlike Brooke, who has a big belly while she’s still in the High School benches. Then Miss Ross transforms in some sort of purple-dress-and-big-black-wig-wearing singer from the seventies. Her backing chorus consists of Mary Cherry and Nicole who are dressed the same way. The three of them wag their finger at Brooke accusingly while singing (in Karaoke style) a song which consists mainly of calling Brooke a dirty ho.
After this musical interlude, Brooke wakes up.

We’re at the women’s health clinic. Brooke is here for that blood test and Sam is here to give her emotional support. The girls sit down in the waiting area, where there is a little bit of awkwardness.
Brooke: “You know… if, uhm… if you have to be somewhere…”
Sam: “I don’t.”
Brooke: “Be-Because you didn’t have to come with me.”
Sam: “It’s fine really. It didn’t look like you wanted to do this on your own.”
Brooke: “I’ve handled much bigger stuff than this by myself.”
Sam: “Really? Like what?”
Brooke looks up. Their gazes lock. The words ‘breaking up with you’ hang unspoken in the air. Tension mounts. The girls are looking for something, ANYTHING, to say, but can think of only one thing. And then…
They look down.
Moment over. Cold shower needed. But since there isn’t a cold shower in sight, Sam decides to go get something cold to drink.

Harrison is playing a spot of basketball all by himself. Lily and Carmen show up to apologise to him and to tell him that they’re withdrawing Robin’s nomination. Harrison is in no mood to talk and when he does it’s in one-word answers.

Josh is sitting on some bench in some park somewhere. He gets called by Sam. Sam realises that if she’s going to be alone with Brooke for much longer they’re going to end up making out with each and, right now, Sam still wants to have a little distance until she has everything worked out. So she asks if Josh can come over, claiming that Brooke needs him more than she needs her.

In the basement, Gwyneth still hasn’t called. Nicole, now terribly frustrated, starts a fight. SD has had it, saying that kidnapping one’s staff is not going to help if you want one to like you. Anyway, SD, Mary Cherry and Nicole bicker for a while and it somehow evolves in Felix making a speech about how celebrities are not the leaders of fashion because they have someone else to buy clothes for them. It’s the people that do their own shopping who dictate the current height of fashion. Moved by this speech, Nicole and Mary Cherry decide to let Felix go and then share a small moment that reminds me somewhat of the first few episodes.

Back at the clinic, Brooke and Sam do their utmost best not to look each other directly in the eyes again. Josh shows up. At first, Brooke wants him to leave, then realises that having him around will prevent anything happening with Sam that they’ll both regret later on. So, Josh is allowed to stay. And, just to make sure, Brooke kindly tells Sam that she’s allowed to go home now.

At the pharmacy, Robin and Sheila are closing up for the day. Harrison enters, saying that he had to do some thinking and that he won’t be home for dinner. So he wants to borrow the car. Robin wants to know where Harrison is going and asks Sheila to back her up. Sheila, however, wants to stay out of this and sides with Harrison. It would seem that Sheila knows very well what’s going on in Harrison’s mind right now. She then leaves, so that Robin and Harrison can talk in private.
Robin then makes a speech, telling Harrison that she wants to be the perfect mom for him. Unfortunately, the image Robin has of ‘the perfect mom’ is, amongst others, a picture of a straight woman. So Robin denied herself for years in the hopes that this would benefit Harrison. But then she realised that if she were happy, she could be an even better mom, so she decided to come out and, well, seek out happiness. It’s unclear if Harrison has really paid any attention, but, in the end, he’s allowed to borrow the car. He then says that he’s still having difficulty with it all, but that he’s getting there. Slowly, maybe, but he’s getting there.
Gosh, I’m almost starting to like Harrison a little bit there. Too bad he’s going to screw it all up beyond repair next season.

Monday

In the Novak, Brooke calls the clinic for the results. The results are, simply, that Brooke isn’t pregnant. She’s not going to have baby. Jumping with joy, she shares this news with Nicole (and with Sam since she happens to be in the Novak as well), who, in turn, starts bouncing as well. Brooke then remembers that she has some fashion magazine that she wants Nicole to look at. Nicole’s ecstatic until she finds out that Felix isn’t Gwyneth’s personal shopper. Outraged, she leaves. Brooke then starts leaving as well. Then she comes back.
“Sam, uhm…”
Sam turns around and looks at her. They’re both smiling a little.
“… Look…”
“You’re welcome.”
The girls again smile at each other and Brooke leaves.
It would seem that the girls are quickly heading for a reconciliation.

Nicole shows up at Sugar Daddy’s locker. Mary Cherry, holding a milk carton, has already got him cornered. On the milk carton it says that Felix is an escaped mental patient. The girls’ wrath turns to SD and they drag him off to make him pay.

Harrison opens his locker and out falls a ball of paper. Harrison un-balls it and sees that it’s the paper nominating Robin for principal for a day. Harrison adds his signature, folds up the paper and puts it in the box with the other nomination papers.