Death Becomes Them
Updated 2002-02-17 16:00:00
Time for rounds. Michael and Lenny/Carl rise and exit the office for a thorough search of Sector 7-G. The room they vacated remains empty for exactly three-fourths of one second, before two people in full-on biohazard suits with those big scary Luke-I-am-your-plot-contrivance filtration masks enter the room and turn it upside-down. They open up briefcases of equipment and put everything left in the room -- hats, chips, crusty leftover Band-Aids (ew, Michael) -- into Ziplocs and vials and things. They're so scary, like when the bad men came to take back E.T. I always hated that scene. Thank goodness this one could come along and remind me of it.
Opening credits: Shut up, bitch.
Crash Bandicoot, I don't think we're in Roswell anymore. Stock footage of The First Chartered Bus In The History Of Earth (if you look really closely at that ancient, decrepit thing, you can always make out that its intended destination is "Prussia") accompanies some long-lost voice-over narration compliments of Liz "Time To Call Your Agent (310) 273-6700" Parker. And here is what it says: "Dear Maria: Spending a week on a cramped, smelly bus was one of the most liberating experiences of my entire life. The further away I got from Roswell, the more I felt like myself again." Like Shiri Appleby? Neglected and unemployed? "Like a normal teenager." Oh. "In fact, when I finally got to the Winnaman Academy, it was like coming home." Dear Liz's Endless Internal Monologue: Wasn't this the very same hackneyed script convention that almost got your show canned in the first damn place? I can just see the "writers" sitting around the "Writer's" Room, brainstorming for ways to reinvigorate the action, listening in rapt attention as Jason Katims stands up, indicates the glowing light bulb shimmering just above his head, and quietly but intensely intones, "I know the way to save this show! We'll we'll make the whole thing epistolary! It's the literary wave of the future! Why, look at how many copies of Howards End have been sold!" The "writers" ponder whether there are any staff positions left open on As If as a way to stifle their otherwise incessant sobbing.
Accompanying said narration, Liz carries a suitcase made up of a poly-blend of "every gaudy couch cushion in the greater Boca Raton area" up the stairs of Chilton -- er, "The Winnaman Academy." Catholic school girls in plaid uniforms (oh, hello, absent male audience welcome back, temporarily) carrying textbooks entitled I Was A Teenage Gilbert Gottfried USA Up All Night Movie Cliché walk past Liz. Liz walks up the stairs of the main building and places the letter she was just writing to Maria in the mailbox. Even though she's mailing a letter describing the feelings she's experiencing right now, which means she was writing the letter before she was to be experiencing those feelings for the first time. She smiles a shiny-haired smile. Awwwww.