Post by affrosponge88 on Dec 31, 2012 1:17:25 GMT -6
Freaks and Geeks: "The Diary" Review
by Enemynarwhal
Lindsay has just broken up with her boyfriend in a weird way and now things are painfully awkward between the two of them. On top of that problems with her friend Kim begin to surface when she doesn't stand up to her parents and defend her friend. This show has a lot of plots that go into the differences between Lindsay and the rest of the other freaks as a means of making Lindsay the oddball, in fact they showed that pretty clearly by contrasting her naivety with Kim in the beginning of this episode. Lindsay is an honor roll student who lives in a good home with "normal" parents so she never really fought with them before when they told her to do something. Her friend Millie, who acts as an ongoing contrast for Kim, would never ask Lindsay to fight with an authority figure so it just doesn't occur to Lindsay that she should do so. For Kim though, fighting with her parents in defense of her favorite pen would happen without her giving it a second though and as a result it doesn't occur to her that she Lindsay might care about her but still need to be nudged into standing up for herself and her friend. The two of them come from different worlds and as a result Lindsay really hurts Kim for the first time.
Meanwhile Lindsay's parents are scared. Their daughter has been going through with some major changes: from geek to freak. They've definitely noticed some changes in her attitude and grades, even if she's definitely the geekiest freak in school, so when they hear about what one of her friends are up to they both, on some level, feel that intruding upon their daughter's personal space is permissible if it'll help save her from becoming a hooker or being killed by Ted Bundy. Harold is uncompromising in his opinion and makes Jean go through with it even though she feels bad about doing something else her daughter won't like. While in the room Harold mistakes a knitting pad for birth control pills and they find that their daughter's diary contains nothing more than just some normal teenage angst. Of course some of that angst is directed at them and it makes them feel bad, albeit for different reasons.
Harold brushes it off of his shoulders and moves on but his wife doesn't. She immediately begins to take everything her daughter said to heart and, in an attempt to look better in her child's eyes, tries to make a different meal and tries to stand up for herself and make her husband clean the table. When he doesn't comply she begins to wonder if two robots can really love each other, and that maybe Harold doesn't care for her. This leads to her sobbing on the bed like a hormonal teenager and him giving her a loving monologue that leads to some loving on top of his log.
Meanwhile Lindsay and Kim Kelly are learning about each other and about the joys of friendship. Daniel has a talk with Kim about how it would be scary to have her as a teenage daughter and he tells Lindsay that Kim really is just a big ol' softie. When there's nobody else around he can easily take upon the role of the adult figure or the voice of reason. As a result, the two friends make up and Lindsay promises to show Kim that she really cares first by standing up for her (and her intelligence) in class and then in front of her parents. It doesn't go as planned because Jean and Harold were boning for an hour and they were about to bone for another hour so they might as well be on ecstasy for all their cared about who their daughter hangs out with. It was clear that the Weir's didn't have a relationship without problems but it must have been bad enough to make it totally blissful to have awesome sex again, otherwise they wouldn't have been so apathetic about Kim.
On the Geek side Bill is having an issue that is fairly common for geeks. He doesn't feel like he was ever given a chance. His anger could possibly go beyond the realms that they've explicitly explore here (though they did hint at some social problems involving girls laughing at him) but within context of this episode he was upset that he was picked last every time in
baseball and that he always played backup right with Gordon sitting cross-legged by his side. While watching the cool kids meet on the mound Bill decides to save all the geeks by making sure everybody gets a shot at playing sports. He didn't know then (though Gordon's
sarcastic comments should have been a clue) but no one else cared about playing sports. In fact they didn't want to at all.
Nevertheless Bill ignores their pleas to let them essentially be standing benchwarmers and projects his own insecurities and worries outward. So Bill makes two crank calls. The first one has no humorous intent behind it and while his friends don't say much about how not funny Bill is, which is a weird thing for Neil to resist doing (complimenting his own sense of humor while taking someone else down) they later object to what Bill did to them as he stares off into space dreamily imaging the next gym class. The first call only causes Bill to suffer even more humiliation because the Coach offers Gordon, not Bill, a chance to play and when Bill asks if he can play shortstop instead of Gordon (who loves being
backup right) the Coach and the other kids just make fun of him.
Furious, the second crank call Bill makes (why did his friends just let him make two after they barely survived the first one?) is nothing more than a long barrage of insults and name calling. He doesn't even do much, if anything, to disguise his voice. The work is sloppy and hasty and he is caught. This time however he tells the Coach whats going on and while the
Coach mocked Bill before when he asked to play this got his attention. The geeks got to play and as you can guess the game was going horribly. All the geeks besides Bill were humiliated while their friend floated on clouds (the reverse of previous sports games). Then something happens that has likely never happened to a geek at that school before, Bill calls his friends to the mound and cheerfully encourages them to do well. Sam is suddenly able to throw the ball all the way to the plate, Bill is able to run and and catch it and Neil somehow manages to stand there! This moment of glory is so exciting that they don't even remember how the game is played and several runners make it home.
That doesn't matter though because Bill proved his point. Nobody had encouraged the geeks to do well before and nobody ever gave them a single chance. When someone finally did give them that chance they didn't magically turn into the greatest baseball players of all time but they did prove themselves to be far more competent and able than anyone had likely assumed. If somebody had given them that chance earlier on they might have turned out as good as anyone else in their gym class.
Stray Observations
-"No she's not. She's as dumb as a crayon, ever her own mother said so."
-"They said you're a bad banana, aren't they queer?"
-"Everybodys got parents Jean, even hookers!"
- It wouldn't be acceptable for teachers to make fun of students these days, but its funny that they all do it in this show.
- I like the attention to detail this show has (meetings on the mound, butt-patting, girls laughing, so on). I suppose it's not particularly impressive but at the same time this show is more in-depth than most others.
- It's probably important to look at the two episodes that this one is sandwiched in-between. It's definitely a confusing time period for Lindsay. More so than the rest
of the show, as this takes place around the halfway point of the season's arc.
- "Frederick? You're a turd, a stinky f-fat turd. Go sniff a jock-strap you poop head. You love patting boy's butts. You love patting boy's butts you butt patter. You're a perv and a loser and a stink s..turd." I'd ask what genius writer came up with that but it was probably improve.
- My favorite part of this episode was when everybody had to come in and read Bill's prank call. The character-based humor was just great. I especially love the laughing
and the "wow coach, that's really harsh" line. Also Tom Wilson nailed those facial expressions.
- My least favorite part was when Jean fell on the bed crying. It was just such an overdone reaction while still taking place in a relatively under-dramatic scene.
by Enemynarwhal
Lindsay has just broken up with her boyfriend in a weird way and now things are painfully awkward between the two of them. On top of that problems with her friend Kim begin to surface when she doesn't stand up to her parents and defend her friend. This show has a lot of plots that go into the differences between Lindsay and the rest of the other freaks as a means of making Lindsay the oddball, in fact they showed that pretty clearly by contrasting her naivety with Kim in the beginning of this episode. Lindsay is an honor roll student who lives in a good home with "normal" parents so she never really fought with them before when they told her to do something. Her friend Millie, who acts as an ongoing contrast for Kim, would never ask Lindsay to fight with an authority figure so it just doesn't occur to Lindsay that she should do so. For Kim though, fighting with her parents in defense of her favorite pen would happen without her giving it a second though and as a result it doesn't occur to her that she Lindsay might care about her but still need to be nudged into standing up for herself and her friend. The two of them come from different worlds and as a result Lindsay really hurts Kim for the first time.
Meanwhile Lindsay's parents are scared. Their daughter has been going through with some major changes: from geek to freak. They've definitely noticed some changes in her attitude and grades, even if she's definitely the geekiest freak in school, so when they hear about what one of her friends are up to they both, on some level, feel that intruding upon their daughter's personal space is permissible if it'll help save her from becoming a hooker or being killed by Ted Bundy. Harold is uncompromising in his opinion and makes Jean go through with it even though she feels bad about doing something else her daughter won't like. While in the room Harold mistakes a knitting pad for birth control pills and they find that their daughter's diary contains nothing more than just some normal teenage angst. Of course some of that angst is directed at them and it makes them feel bad, albeit for different reasons.
Harold brushes it off of his shoulders and moves on but his wife doesn't. She immediately begins to take everything her daughter said to heart and, in an attempt to look better in her child's eyes, tries to make a different meal and tries to stand up for herself and make her husband clean the table. When he doesn't comply she begins to wonder if two robots can really love each other, and that maybe Harold doesn't care for her. This leads to her sobbing on the bed like a hormonal teenager and him giving her a loving monologue that leads to some loving on top of his log.
Meanwhile Lindsay and Kim Kelly are learning about each other and about the joys of friendship. Daniel has a talk with Kim about how it would be scary to have her as a teenage daughter and he tells Lindsay that Kim really is just a big ol' softie. When there's nobody else around he can easily take upon the role of the adult figure or the voice of reason. As a result, the two friends make up and Lindsay promises to show Kim that she really cares first by standing up for her (and her intelligence) in class and then in front of her parents. It doesn't go as planned because Jean and Harold were boning for an hour and they were about to bone for another hour so they might as well be on ecstasy for all their cared about who their daughter hangs out with. It was clear that the Weir's didn't have a relationship without problems but it must have been bad enough to make it totally blissful to have awesome sex again, otherwise they wouldn't have been so apathetic about Kim.
On the Geek side Bill is having an issue that is fairly common for geeks. He doesn't feel like he was ever given a chance. His anger could possibly go beyond the realms that they've explicitly explore here (though they did hint at some social problems involving girls laughing at him) but within context of this episode he was upset that he was picked last every time in
baseball and that he always played backup right with Gordon sitting cross-legged by his side. While watching the cool kids meet on the mound Bill decides to save all the geeks by making sure everybody gets a shot at playing sports. He didn't know then (though Gordon's
sarcastic comments should have been a clue) but no one else cared about playing sports. In fact they didn't want to at all.
Nevertheless Bill ignores their pleas to let them essentially be standing benchwarmers and projects his own insecurities and worries outward. So Bill makes two crank calls. The first one has no humorous intent behind it and while his friends don't say much about how not funny Bill is, which is a weird thing for Neil to resist doing (complimenting his own sense of humor while taking someone else down) they later object to what Bill did to them as he stares off into space dreamily imaging the next gym class. The first call only causes Bill to suffer even more humiliation because the Coach offers Gordon, not Bill, a chance to play and when Bill asks if he can play shortstop instead of Gordon (who loves being
backup right) the Coach and the other kids just make fun of him.
Furious, the second crank call Bill makes (why did his friends just let him make two after they barely survived the first one?) is nothing more than a long barrage of insults and name calling. He doesn't even do much, if anything, to disguise his voice. The work is sloppy and hasty and he is caught. This time however he tells the Coach whats going on and while the
Coach mocked Bill before when he asked to play this got his attention. The geeks got to play and as you can guess the game was going horribly. All the geeks besides Bill were humiliated while their friend floated on clouds (the reverse of previous sports games). Then something happens that has likely never happened to a geek at that school before, Bill calls his friends to the mound and cheerfully encourages them to do well. Sam is suddenly able to throw the ball all the way to the plate, Bill is able to run and and catch it and Neil somehow manages to stand there! This moment of glory is so exciting that they don't even remember how the game is played and several runners make it home.
That doesn't matter though because Bill proved his point. Nobody had encouraged the geeks to do well before and nobody ever gave them a single chance. When someone finally did give them that chance they didn't magically turn into the greatest baseball players of all time but they did prove themselves to be far more competent and able than anyone had likely assumed. If somebody had given them that chance earlier on they might have turned out as good as anyone else in their gym class.
Stray Observations
-"No she's not. She's as dumb as a crayon, ever her own mother said so."
-"They said you're a bad banana, aren't they queer?"
-"Everybodys got parents Jean, even hookers!"
- It wouldn't be acceptable for teachers to make fun of students these days, but its funny that they all do it in this show.
- I like the attention to detail this show has (meetings on the mound, butt-patting, girls laughing, so on). I suppose it's not particularly impressive but at the same time this show is more in-depth than most others.
- It's probably important to look at the two episodes that this one is sandwiched in-between. It's definitely a confusing time period for Lindsay. More so than the rest
of the show, as this takes place around the halfway point of the season's arc.
- "Frederick? You're a turd, a stinky f-fat turd. Go sniff a jock-strap you poop head. You love patting boy's butts. You love patting boy's butts you butt patter. You're a perv and a loser and a stink s..turd." I'd ask what genius writer came up with that but it was probably improve.
- My favorite part of this episode was when everybody had to come in and read Bill's prank call. The character-based humor was just great. I especially love the laughing
and the "wow coach, that's really harsh" line. Also Tom Wilson nailed those facial expressions.
- My least favorite part was when Jean fell on the bed crying. It was just such an overdone reaction while still taking place in a relatively under-dramatic scene.
