Nothing's campier than cancer!
Updated 2000-11-16 16:00:00
Hallway. Shots of a "Brooke, a president who cares" poster tacked up right above a "Vote for Harrison" poster. Carmen and Chem exit the chem lab and walk together down the hallway. Either Chem's hair is shorter, or they just rolled that one big curl up a rotation. Carmen's hair is all primed for the homecoming queen battle: it's big, curly, and the color of a grape-flavored Popsicle. She complains that her teeth hurt. Chem explains that it's due to the sulfuric acid she put in Carmen's teeth-whitening solution. It works, because her teeth sparkle all artificially like Erik Estrada's did in last year's season finale. They discuss what to wear, mentioning that Carmen is going to go get the rest of her clothes by breaking into her mother's house while Roxanne is at her tae bo class. I guess Roxanne needs something to do with her fists now that Carmen has moved out. As Chem abuses her power and puts a "Carmen for Queen Poster" in one of those transparent fiberglass protection cases right over a listing of S.A.T. testing sites, Hellacious enters. Okay, have you all seen Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream? Anyway, in it, Ellen Burstyn plays this widowed Jewish housewife living alone in Brighton Beach in 1974. The only pleasure she gets out of life is sitting in front of her TV, eating Russell Stover chocolates. In fact, whenever her son (Jared Leto) needs drug money, he takes the TV and hocks it, knowing it's the only possession of his mother's that she'll retrieve over and over again from the local pawnshop. So, one day she gets this notice in the mail that her favorite game show wants her as a contestant. She runs to her closet to see if her favorite red dress still fits -- one of those polyester crepe pleated things with padded shoulders that you always see at bar mitzvahs. It doesn't, even after her neighbor (played by Louise Lasser -- I mean, are you there or what?) lets it out. So for the next two hours, we watch Ellen Burstyn become addicted to diet pills and lose her mind. Bring a date. Anyway, Michelle Phillips is wearing the exact same dress. I mean, Michelle Phillips looks way better than Ellen Burstyn in the dress, but still, I'm having a moment. Hellacious is being bitchy. She taunts Chem for being a "big fat loser," and suggests that Carmen should have come to her for campaign advice. Carmen tells Miss Glass to stand up for herself. Hellacious is even more hellacious in response. She makes a nasty remark about Chem being more suited for a "battle of the bulge" than a homecoming queen campaign. Chem walks away sadly. "You know, if this school knew what kind of a person you really are," says Carmen to Hellacious in her best Haley Joel Osment delivery, "I don't think they'd be honoring you." As Carmen walks away down the hall, the screen goes all "Terminator-vision" with vital statistics appearing in Hellacious's POV next to Carmen, who is being tailed by one of those range finders. In other words, Hellacious is gunning for Carmen. For those of you who actually watch Popular for all of the inspiration Carmen provides for downtrodden teens, write passionate letters to Ryan Murphy about how you want Carmen to win homecoming queen, and actually treasure new facts about Carmen: she's a Scorpio. They also give her address. They don't mention that she's fat, though.