Season 3, Episode 13: Nothing In Common

Hi guys. Well, we’ve finally reached the end of my beloved season three. You can kiss the old school Amanda and Busy good bye after this episode. Their attitudes change, their style changes, their hair do’s definitely change and overall the show as a whole feels like it changes. It’s still good, but I think it loses the charm these earlier seasons hold.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, we still have one more episode of this season to tackle, so let’s get on with it.

The episode opens with Amanda and Busy sitting at a creek, that seriously reminds me of Taylor Creek in Toronto. Amanda is forcing Busy to listen to her mediocre poetry, and Busy’s acting her usual annoyed self with Amanda’s antics. Amanda’s disappointed that Busy wasn’t impressed with her poetry, but what can she expect? Busy never enjoys anything artsy Amanda attempts, like I’m sure she’s still traumatized by that Save the Animals song from the Wild Life episode in season one.

They randomly run into a homeless lady in the park, and Amanda gives her the poem because she’s a cheap bastard.

Amanda’s all excited because Busy’s Uncle Pasquale is in town and he’s a publisher….of cook books. But Amanda figures she can use some good old fashioned nepotism and charm her way into getting published in one of his cooking magazines. Busy tells her to calm the hell down, because her uncle is not in town just to help Amanda’s half-assed writing get published. But Amanda’s got a mission and there’s no way Busy is getting in the way of that.

Next scene, Amanda’s at Busy’s place having dinner and Uncle Pasquale is amidst the Ramone clan. He brings up some random song from Amanda and Busy’s youth about them being “best friends forever” (the theme of this episode) and they kinda groan at him remembering the stupid shit they said when they were seven.

Amanda wastes no time pointing out that she still writes and that she’s been working on some poems. Busy tries to shut her down, but is unsuccessful, as Amanda worms her way into getting Uncle Pasquale to read some of her poems. I don’t really get why Busy is trying to cock block Amanda’s writing. I mean, it is annoying that Amanda is trying to use Busy’s family to get published, but at the same time, it’s not that big of a deal. I’m sure Uncle Pasquale is just being nice, like reading one of her damn poems isn’t going to take up his day. Anyway, Uncle Pasquale then starts eating some corn in a really disturbing manner which makes the girls giggle since he apparently did this at a corn roast many moons ago.

Later in the eve, Amanda puts together a little care package of literally every poem she’s ever written in her life, including some ribbons about winning poetry contests, in case Uncle Pasquale doesn’t recognize how talented she is y’all.

The next day at school during lunch, Amanda presents Busy with her poetry package, and as usual Busy doesn’t give a shit. Amanda catches glimpse of a cassette that Busy has, which Busy seems weirdly uncomfortable about. Amanda gets it out of her that it is music she and some chick named Maxine are working on. Amanda really wants to hear it and even offers to write lyrics for Busy, but Busy turns her down saying the way she writes wouldn’t work for the music. Amanda is still really insistent on hearing the tape, and Busy begrudgingly gives in. I think because Busy is so hyper critical of Amanda’s art she’s worried Amanda will judge her (and rightfully so, because we later learn Busy really sucks at lyric writing).

Suddenly some random Asian chick named Wendy sits herself next to the girl’s table. I don’t think this is the same chick who was the “Oooo tough luck” one from the Danny pimple episode, but I think she was the one who schooled Amanda in the Jewish episode. Anyway, Wendy has come up with some book club idea that she thinks is super not nerdy at all. Amanda thinks it’s rad and offers to be a member, but Busy thinks it is hella lame and takes off.  Uh oh, AMANDA AND BUSY DON’T LIKE THE SAME THINGS. WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN?

Shortly after, we see Amanda and Wendy sharing a Walkman and listening to Busy’s tape, as Wendy loudly and openly mocks the lyrics. Busy is at a water fountain and hear’s everything. I don’t think it was very cool of Amanda to listen to that tape with Wendy, when Busy is clearly the type of person not comfortable sharing her art. At the same time, Busy’s been acting pretty bitchy towards Amanda lately so I’m not surprised it occurred. Anyway, of course Busy is pretty pissed at this situation. Also, what is that person behind Wendy in this screenshot?

After school Busy meet’s up with Maxine, whose trade mark is a monotone voice and a stupid hat. Amanda manages to catch Busy before she takes off  to “jam” with Maxine, because Busy forgot the poetry package at the lunch table. Busy tells Amanda she’ll give it to her uncle after she’s back from Maxine’s, but Amanda being her usual selfish self, whines at Busy to please go home first and give it to her uncle because it is important to her. Busy reminds Amanda/every viewer for the 10,000th time that her music is important too. Busy eventually just lies and tells Amanda she’ll go home first. Amanda then gives Busy back her tape and in a super phony manner tells Busy how great she thought it was. Busy see’s right through her bullshit and takes off with Maxine. So yeah, some tension is definitely brewing between these two girls, and honestly, it’s been in the making for awhile now. I feel both of them are probably a real chore to be friends with sometimes.

Busy and Maxine then ride their bikes through that same ravine/park Busy and Amanda were in at the beginning of this episode. Amanda’s poetry package was on some really flimsy looking back part of Busy’s bike and falls off and her poems scatter everywhere, unbeknownst to Busy.

Amanda later stops by Busy’s place, and is now basically harassing Busy about these poems and Uncle Pasquale. Busy’s getting mighty fed up with Amanda and her poetry shit, and tells her Uncle Pasquale is at some convention and isn’t even home yet. Amanda then decides she should just give him the poems herself, and Busy tells her they are on the bike. Amanda notes their absence and Busy is basically like DERP.

They return back to the ravine and Amanda’s poems are all over the place and completely ruined. Busy feels really bad and offers to make new one’s but Amanda apparently didn’t have copies. This would not be an issue in this day and age I must say. They then start getting into it, with Amanda saying Busy never cared about her poetry and Busy being pissed that she and Wendy made fun of her tape. Amanda says it was basically retaliation for insulting her poems at the dinner table the night before, which Busy didn’t actually do. Busy then says her and Wendy are perfect for each other because they are boring boy crazy book worms and Amanda says Busy and Maxine are boring, and that Maxine doesn’t talk. Busy tells her she’s thankful for that because she’s grown weary of listening to Amanda’s bullshit 24/7. They then leave each other on that bad note.  I’M NOT KIDDING….WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN? Seriously guys…I’m so scared. Will they survive this rift?

The next day Amanda arrives at school in full Claude Tanner from Degrassi High attire. She meets up with Busy at their lockers and they both exchanges bags with the stuff the other had left at their homes. So basically, they are acting like a couple breaking up and returning items.

Later on Amanda is walking with Wendy and see’s Busy with Maxine so invites Wendy over to read poems. So Busy asks Maxine if she wants to jam. Both are trying to make the other one jealous I’m assuming. Definitely acting like a former couple. I wish they’d just accept their feelings for each other and date already.

So then Wendy is at Amanda’s reading some boring ass poem that could be used to induce a coma. Seriously, look at Amanda, she looks like she’s about to fall asleep.

We then switch to Busy and Maxine where they are jamming along. Interestingly, Busy is now playing keyboard instead of drums (she’ll be playing keyboard a lot more in future episodes, so I wonder if this was a coincidence or the show planned this) and while the music is actually decent…the lyrics are….yeeeeah. I’ll let you guys judge:

You’re such a bore, don’t come ’round no more, just walk out that door, like you did, before.

No wonder Amanda and Wendy made fun of the lyrics. Even Busy thinks it might rhyme too much, but Maxine says that lyrics should rhyme, and Busy is very easily satisfied with that half-assed reasoning.

Then we get a sort of montage of the girls doing things they like with their mini me’s aka Amanda rating boys and doing make-up with Wendy and Busy playing video games and listening to U4EA (remember that band?) with Maxine.

Next day at school, Busy is playing Pogs with Maxine (“remember ALF, he’s back, in Pog form!”), while Amanda is partaking in the book club with Wendy and some other nerds. They both look at each other longingly from the across the cafeteria, missing each other’s annoying tendencies.

Later on, in a pretty random scene, Maxine and Busy are walking through that damn ravine again. Seriously, what’s with this location? They’ve never been there before and now everyday they are hanging out here. Busy points out how Amanda gives that homeless lady money/her poems which makes Maxine scoff. Busy then kind looks like she has some epiphany that maybe Amanda is a good person and gives the homeless lady money too. I dunno, was this the scene they used to make Busy realize she’s kinda been an asshole lately to Amanda and should cut her some slack? I dunno, it felt really out of nowhere to me.

Then we see Wendy and Amanda reading poems and Amanda’s pretty much over this scene. She basically rolls her eyes at her own poetry and you can tell she’s bored as fuck by everything with Wendy. I guess Amanda is now realizing how dull of a person she actually is and needs Busy around to keep things interesting with her sassy attitude. See, these bitches need each other!

I think the last straw comes for Busy when she has Maxine over for dinner, and the Ramones are acting like freaks as per usual, and Maxine doesn’t roll with the punches like Amanda did. I guess it is pretty important to have a friend that can understand and relate to your family’s quirks.

A new scene, the girl’s are in class and the teacher comes up with an assignment to have the kids write about their most memorable birthday’s. Busy asks Amanda if she’s going to write about when they put Brandy to sleep. I really hope Brandy was a cat and not her grandma. Amanda asks Busy if she’s going to write about when she got her first drum kit. So yeah, obviously these two have been in each other’s lives since the dawn of time, and should just become damn friends again already.

Later on in the evening, Uncle Pasquale stops by Busy’s room and asks about Amanda’s poems. Busy lets him know that she and Amanda aren’t friends anymore because they have nothing in common. Uncle Pasquale points out the most obvious thing ever in that Busy and Amanda never had anything in common in the first place, and that’s why they were best friends, because d’uh opposites attract. This should be most evident by the fact that both girl’s are already bored of their clones after one week of hanging out with them. Uncle Pasquale then does a creepy wink and leaves, never to return again. Thanks for your pearl’s of wisdom, Uncle Pasquale.

In the last scene, both girls are at a coffee shop with their new friends, but keep looking at each other. Finally Amanda bails on Wendy, and Busy follows, dumping Maxine. They meet up outside, where they have awkward small talk. Amanda asks Busy how the song is coming and Busy admits the lyrics blow. Amanda tries to use an analogy of Busy being peanut butter and her needing some jam aka Amanda, but Busy’s a tad too dense to get it. Finally Amanda just comes out and asks if Busy wants help and she says yes. They both do their secret handshake from years gone by and become friends again. The episode ends with the girl’s casually walking down the street dissing both Wendy and Maxine haha.

I’m not going to lie guys, I have been writing this review since Labour Day weekend. I find this episode so incredibly tedious, it’s been hard to get through it. I really did not like this episode, it severely grated on my nerves. I’m wondering if the show did this episode of their friendship almost ending in case there wasn’t going to be another season, just because season 4 is the start of a whole new look for the show. Anyway, apologizes for taking a decade to do this review.

BUT I got exciting news! Y’all should go look for Ready or Not on Youtube, because yesterday I looked and was pleasantly surprised, that’s all I’m going to say. 😉

Next episode: SEASON 4, EVERYTHING CHANGES aka mostly just Amanda and Busy’s hair. The first episode is actually kind of stupid, but I’m looking forward to the review. Until then!

 

Season 3, Episode 12: Sister, Sister

Hi gang, sorry for taking for frickin’ ever to write this review. I cannot believe this is the second last episode of season three. Where has the time gone? Soon Amanda and Busy will completely change…and not for the better.

Anyway, let us focus on the now and this episode, so aptly named after the mid 90’s sitcom starring Tia and Tamara Mowry. Unfortunately this episode does not feature a sassy black lady by the name of Jackee.

The episode opens with Amanda and Busy talking about some upcoming concert Neon Vomit has on the weekend. I wonder what sexual favours The Liz had to perform in order to secure that gig. Amanda’s also decided that it is a brilliant idea to let Busy perm her hair. I know it was the 90s, but who the fuck still got a perm beyond the 80s? Anyway, Amanda wants curly hair because “everyone she knows has it”…wonder if that will be her excuse for when she acquires herpes in the distant future. But she points out that it isn’t nearly as “radical” as changing your name, which Phyllis has now done, going back to her maiden name of Myers. Busy asks Amanda if she will change her name too, but Amanda gets pissed, proudly proclaiming she will always be a Zimm. Oh yeah, and I forgot to point out the most important part of their conversation; Amanda will be meeting Mel’s daughter Leslie tonight and she has a dead mom (will matter later).

The next scene…and Amanda’s hair looks exactly how you’d expect it to, i.e. a deranged poodle.

Now that Phyllis is newly divorced, she is wasting no time washing every aspect of Leonard out of her life, starting with a purging of her closet. She goes to throw away some fugly sweater, which Amanda gets offended by since she and her dad picked it out for Phyllis. Maybe if you guys had better taste she wouldn’t be tossing it out.

Amanda then goes in her room and writes some emo diary entry about how she wishes her hair wasn’t fucked, that she didn’t have to meet Leslie and that her mom would quit pretending to be sad about the divorce. Yawn, next.

Next scene, and Phyllis and Amanda arrive to the restaurant. Amanda gets all whiny about the restaurant being really fancy, even though her outfit looks totally normal (other than her hair and her stupid Blossom hat). Mel comes waltzing up with “14 year old” Leslie in tow. Can this show please start casting people that sort of look their age? This girl looks like she’s in her early 20s. Anyway, Amanda seems to immediately take a disliking to Leslie, sort of snubbing her, and Leslie seems super fake, so I’m sure these two are going to get along swimmingly!

They have a boring dinner, where Amanda is forced to eat vegetables she doesn’t like.

Back at home, Phyllis is obviously trying to get this Mel/Leslie and Phyllis/Amanda dynamic to happen, because her and Mel want Amanda and Phyllis to spend the whole weekend at his place to bond. Amanda gets super pissed, because she wants to go to Busy’s concert. Phyllis pulls the whole “Mel and I would be soooooo disappointed” line. I don’t often side with Amanda, but I was pretty annoyed with this scene. Phyllis just got divorced and already is trying to force this new dynamic on Amanda who clearly hasn’t come to terms with the fact that her parents aren’t getting back together. Pretty selfish on Phyllis’ end I must say.

Amanda calls Busy to bitch about it (while she’s clipping her toe nails in the scene haha) to which Busy is pretty sympathetic. Busy then implies that Mel and Phyllis are probably banging, because they went to New York together and they are forcing interactions between the two daughters. Busy even goes so far as to suggest that maybe Phyllis will marry Mel and Leslie will become Amanda’s sister, which freaks Amanda right the hell out.

Next scene, Amanda and Phyllis has arrived at Mel’s artsy-fartsy pad. Leslie is playing a solo cello concert for Mel and Phyllis, and Mel suggests Amanda bring her things to Leslie’s room to sleep in. Both girls are pretty WTF at that, as it is clear that neither likes the other, but these adults are determined to force this union on their daughters so they can keep having sex and not feel guilty about it.

Amanda goes into Leslie’s room, and looks at a bunch of pictures on her wall from various moments in Leslie’s life. She comes upon a picture of Leslie as a child with her dead mother. Amanda gets tears in her eyes, and I guess starts wondering if Leslie is going to attempt to steal her mother for her own.

After the concert, Phyllis suggests that her and the girl’s should go shopping. Leslie totally burns Amanda’s sweater, saying they should buy her a new one, which makes Amanda mad haha. The sweater is ugly, just accept it.

They end up going to some shop that looks like it’s in Yorkville or something. Amanda points out a purple dress to Leslie that she likes in the display window, and then goes to find it in the store to try it on. But lo and behold, Leslie also likes the same dress and THAT CAN’T BE!!!! Amanda gets super bitchy and exclaims that she doesn’t want the dress anymore. I’m sorry, but get over yourself. Leslie doesn’t even live with Amanda, and there’s definitely been times I’ve bought the same thing as my friend because we both like it. Amanda’s being super immature here. The salesmen then makes the error of asking Phyllis if she wants him to wrap up the dress for her daughter aka Leslie, and Phyllis doesn’t correct him, which results in a look of betrayal from Amanda.

Later on, Amanda calls Busy to bitch about Leslie, saying how super fake she is and is trying to be all chummy with Amanda’s mom. Busy more or less says just deal with it and ignore Leslie since it’s only one more day. But we all know Amanda’s the queen of drama, so that will not be happening.

Amanda returns to the living room and looks at Mel’s photography while still sulking about the dress. Mel asks Amanda if she still wants to see his new shots at his studio because he needs “a good eye.” I gotta say, Mel is being really nice to Amanda considering that A. She’s being a brat and B. SHE FUCKED UP HIS CAR LIKE LAST WEEK.

As they start setting the table for dinner, shit is about to hit the fan. Leslie asks Mel to drive her to her friend’s house, to which Phyllis replies that she wanted everyone to watch a movie together. Because obviously this forced interaction cannot take a break for one second of this weekend. Amanda gets excited at this, because if Leslie goes out than she can go to Busy’s concert. But Mel agrees with Phyllis and says they should stay in and become the Brady Bunch. Phyllis hands Leslie some food she doesn’t like, which Leslie makes known and Phyllis tells her she doesn’t have to eat it if she doesn’t want to. This pisses Amanda off since Phyllis always forces Amanda to eat shit she hates, which makes sense because you’re her daughter you dumbass. Leslie tells Amanda to mind her own fucking business and both parents start getting annoyed at their kid’s behaviour. Leslie calls Amanda an “immature baby” (correct) and Amanda retorts back with calling Leslie a “snobby stuck-up” (also correct). Leslie tells Amanda she should GTFO because it’s not her house. Amanda then says “Maybe it’s your house, but she’s my mother. Just because you don’t have a mother doesn’t mean you can steal mine. She’s not yours and she never will be!” And runs out crying like an immature baby. I find this an extremely insensitive thing to say on Amanda’s part, but as always I will fall back on my “teenagers are stupid” reason. Dumb parents should’ve just let them see their friends and this all would’ve been avoided.

Amanda runs outside to sob and Phyllis follows. Amanda basically lays it out to Phyllis, saying she’s been acting weird since the divorce, forcing Mel and Leslie on her and she knows Phyllis is doing the nasty with Mel. Phyllis says yeah, she is, but Amanda will always be her family and the most important thing in her life. Phyllis says she loves Mel a lot and that it’ll take time for them to get used to Leslie and vice versa, to which Amanda replies “what if I don’t want to get used to her?” Phyllis kinda shrugs and is like “you’re not wrecking this for me!!!” aka looks sadly off into the distance knowing she’ll probably have to deal with future outbursts from Amanda.

Next scene is Amanda writing in her diary about how changing means growing up and she’s not ready. Well clearly not judging by that little spectacle you pulled earlier.

Amanda goes into Leslie’s bedroom where she awkwardly has to spend the night and asks Leslie if she is still awake, to which Leslie replies “d’uh my eyes are open.” Amanda tells Leslie she used to want a sister when she was younger, even wrote to Santa for one, but then one day she didn’t want one, and now she still thinks she doesn’t. Leslie then says she never wanted a sister, only a mother, but now she doesn’t really think she wants one anymore either. So it is clear they both still hate each other.

Amanda then gets in bed and says “Leslie….goodnight.” Way to not apologize at all for your actions, Amanda.

Ugh two Amanda-centric episodes in a row is too much for me. I’m so tired of her bratty behaviour. Thankfully the last episode is equally about Busy and Amanda and how they may be too damn opposite to continue their friendship. Will it survive???? (yes, come on, there’s two more seasons of this goddamn show). But tune in soon (probably) for the final episode of season three!

Season 3, Episode 11: Sweet Thirteen

Hola faithful readers. How are you enjoying the summer if you are in the northern hemisphere? It’s humid as hell here in the ol’ southern Ontario, so it’s good enough a time to sit in some air conditioning and to do a review. Off topic, but I randomly noticed that from here on out there are no more winter episodes of this show, which kind of makes me sad. Meh, anyway.

The episode opens with Amanda crocheting and giving her mom the stink eye as she flirts with her boyfriend, Mel. Mel and Phyllis are canoodling on the balcony, and Mel opens the door and tells “Mandy” to come outside, as they are discussing Amanda’s birthday party. “Mandy” doesn’t take too kindly to her new nickname, and her face expresses as such.

Hey man, I get it. I hated when people called me “Mel” as a short form for Melissa. MEL IS NOT A GOOD NICKNAME.

Anyway, she goes outside and they start discussing her lame thirteenth birthday party. Phyllis asks her what kind of food she wants, and she says dumb shit like hors d’ourves, because Amanda thinks she’s super sophisticated now that she’s leaving the pre-teen level. Mel offers to photograph the party, since that’s what he does as his day job, and Amanda shoots him down. Mandy then brings up that she doesn’t want her mom there at the party, and Phyllis says fuck no, since Amanda’s borderline special needs, and can’t be trusted alone. Amanda then shows her maturity by sticking her tongue out and stomping off in a sulky manner. Phyllis shakes her head, wishing she had gotten that abortion thirteen years ago.

Later on, Amanda is bitching to Busy about how Phyllis treats her like a little kid. Yeah…you’re fucking twelve! Apparently her dad treats her maturely though as he is taking her and Busy to a French restaurant for her birthday. Oo la la, you know Amanda probably harassed him into doing that. Amanda then takes out some dresser drawer and flips it over, revealing a letter she wrote herself when she was ten predicting what she would be like at thirteen. Do people actually care about their thirteenth birthday? I mean yeah, technically you are a teenager, but not really in a sense. You’re not in high school at thirteen. Sixteen is a much more memorable year than thirteen. But then I forgot this is Amanda, and she makes the biggest deals out the stupidest shit. I’m surprised she didn’t create a care package for herself for when she got her period.

Outside, Busy is leaving and Mel and Phyllis are washing his car and acting totally gross and PDA together. You know they’re banging on a regular basis. Phyllis waves Amanda over and tells her that they’re going to New York. Amanda gets all excited, as she thinks she’ll be heading to the Big Apple, only for Phyllis tell her fuck no, Mel and I are going, like we’d invite you to ruin our sexcapades. Of course Amanda is pissed, because Friday is her birthday, despite the fact that she’s staying with her dad and won’t even see her mom anyway, and Phyllis will be back Saturday for her party. But yeah, I know for a fact I would’ve been pissed too, it’s such a teenage girl thing to be so self-centred. Amanda is pouty, but accepts the fact that they are going, all the while writing “SMel” on Mel’s car because she’s such a bad ass. This reference will become important later on.

The next day in class, Busy and Amanda are waiting around for 10:52am, the time Amanda exited her mom’s vagina, to read the letter she wrote herself three years ago. They open the letter, and ten year old Amanda basically expected thirteen year old Amanda to be “an awesome French kisser,  have a boyfriend who drives, be a published poet and someone who played hooky”. Wow, what a twisted little ten year old she was. I guarantee no ten year old’s I knew were thinking these thoughts. They’re study hall or whatever ends, and Amanda decides she must live up to her ten year old self’s expectations and asks Busy to play hooky with her. P.S. The shadow’s on Busy’s face makes it look like she has jowls in this shot….eeesh.

They end up going somewhere and sitting on a bench, bored out of their minds. Why they didn’t go to Amanda’s house and watch daytime TV, I have no idea. That’s what me and my friends did when we skipped, and taped hilarious parts of TV shows.  Suddenly Busy spots three randoms who are apparently friend’s of her brother’s and freaks out, thinking they’ll rat on her. Of course, they really couldn’t careless about Busy’s ass. Anyway, their names are Wright, Reed and Joy. Wright is played by Paul Popowich, who recently in Canadian TV played Claire’s almost-rapist newspaper boss on Degrassi: The Next Generation. He was also a regular on the Canadian show Catwalk, which I mentioned before is an old favourite of mine. Wright asks the girl’s if they have any money for smokes, and Amanda whips out the twenty dollar bill her mom left for her. Wright immediately snatches it up, winking at her and saying “Thanks Mandy.” Amanda gushes because as long as it’s a hot guy, she doesn’t care what name he calls her. The group then offers to show off Joy’s artwork to the girls and they scamper off all excited at their hooligan behaviour.

They show the girls some snake that Joy had a dream about and spray painted on a wall. Busy exclaims that it looks “so real!” which made me laugh. It has a neon-pink belly! Wright comes back with smokes and snacks for his friends, spending all of Amanda’s money, and giving her back like fifty cents in change lol. But he did buy her some truffles, so I guess that makes it ok. Suddenly they see the cops and need to take off because they “hassle them.” Really doubt cops give a shit about teens skipping school. Although, these “teens” look about twenty-five, so maybe they are worried they are impersonating youths and trying to lure children into their lair.  Anyway, Amanda offers to bring them back to her place, and Busy gives her classic “WTF Amanda” look.

Amanda’s hanging out with Wright in her kitchen, making some Cheez Whiz hors d’ourves, while he raids her mom’s beer stash. Wright asks her why he’s never seen her at the plaza before, and she tells him she’s skipping because it’s her birthday and she just turned thirteen! You can tell he’s like “okaaaaaaaaay” but then goes with it and says they’ll party all night! P.S. Amanda makes the best face after she drinks the beer, wish I could capture it but it looks too blurry.

Amanda decides to call her dad and postpone their dinner for tonight, by lying and saying Busy is throwing her a surprise party, so they can keep hanging out with the Funky Bunch here. Busy seems none the thrilled at this idea, but Amanda’s pretty pleased at the bad ass she is becoming, tossing her letter into the wind and preparing to party all night long.

So I guess “partying” equals watching Reed and Joy make out, as we get an uncomfortably close-up shot of them French kissing. I guess Amanda could pick up some pointers from observing them. Amanda decides to mack on Wright a bit and goes outside onto the balcony and offers him another hors d’ourve. We then get this weird as hell shot of him eating it in slow motion, I guess in a sexy manner to Amanda? I have no idea.

Wright notices a sweet car in the parking lot and it turns out to be Mel’s which pisses Amanda right off. Wright then says it would be pretty sweet if she had keys to the car, and of course dumbass Amanda decides it’s a great idea to let an almost perfect stranger drive her mom’s boyfriend’s expensive-as-fuck car.

They then go on a joyride around the neighbourhood, screaming and waving at confused old people.

They totally end up driving past an area I used to live, and drive underneath the Gardiner Expressway so Joy can do some more mediocre spray paint art. Busy offers to be on the look-out for cops and Wright offers Amanda the option to spray paint. Wright then suggests she spray paint onto Mel’s car. Then these assholes flat out lie and tell Amanda the paint can be washed off with soap and water, despite it being indelible. Poor gullible Amanda totally falls for it, and goes to work painting “SMELL” on the car.

Busy walks over and is like “What in God’s name are you doing??” And Amanda all joyfully is like “Don’t worry it’s indelible!” To which Busy replies, “like permanent?” and Amanda’s face just drooooooooops.

Driving back, Amanda’s clearly silently freaking out over the car stuff. Wright decides that having the car damaged is not enough, he must kill everyone as well, and decides to “cheer up” Amanda by speeding down a residential road. He gets up to almost 100km which is insane on a city street, and does a donut. Amanda freaks out and tells him to drive their asses home now. Fun and games are over!

They get back to the apartment, and Amanda basically tells the group to fuck off and they leave. I know Amanda’s a pretty bad judge of character, but this was probably one of the worst examples of that. I dunno how she thought it was normal to let these random “teens” drive Mel’s car, even if she does hate him. Amanda tells Busy she hopes they think vandal’s marked up the car.

And sure enough, they do! They don’t even seem to have one slightest suspicion that Amanda was the culprit. Score one for Mandy! They don’t even get the “SMELL” reference, referring to it as “gang code” haha.

Busy comes by later on and asks Amanda how it went. Amanda tells her they think vandals did it, which Busy replies is great. But you can tell Amanda’s being eaten up by her guilt. Busy tells her to forget it, because Phyllis would’ve caned her if she had told the truth, and she’s lucky they fell for the vandals bullshit. But apparently Smel convinced Phyllis to actually go out tonight and let Amanda have her unchaperoned party, because they think she’s so mature now…pfft.

Anyway, I guess now Amanda displays some real maturity, because she totally ‘fesses up to Mel about spray painting his car. She even tells him about her SMELL nickname for him. I’m gonna tell you all right now, no matter how old I was, if I was in this situation, no way in hell would I confess if the people already thought vandals did it. “The truth will set you free” my ass. Amanda did it to make herself feel better, there’s no way Phyllis or Mel got anything out of learning the truth, other than discovering Amanda is still an immature brat.

The episode ends with Mel and Amanda having their serious convo. I kind of wish Mel shoved her off the balcony to be honest.

So this episode was lame. Amanda was extremely gullible and chose once again to hang around with bad seeds who brought nothing of value to their interaction. I don’t care about Amanda’s “growth” either, because if she was actually mature, she wouldn’t have done like 90% of the things she did in this episode. Oh well, can’t blame teens for being stupid.

Next episode: Amanda meets Mel’s daughter and they hate each other.

 

Season 3, Episode 10: Just Friends

Hi loyal readers. Apologizes as per usual with the lack of entries as of late. I started a new job this week (which I am feeling very “meh” about), and general mental health good times. So now that I’ve gotten my usual excuses out of the way, let us begin.  P.S. I can’t believe Season 3 is almost done, so sad my favourite season is soon coming to an end.

The episode opens with Busy and some random cute boy discussing some nameless band they both like, and how their favourite song is something called “Shattered Heart.” That sounds like the title of a really bad country song. I’m cautiously curious what this band sounds like. Anyway, the guy’s name is Jamie, and he’s played by Mik Perlus, who played Victor on a pretty “popular” (by late 90s Canadian TV standards) show called Student Bodies (which also featured Ross Hull aka Danny playing a slightly less annoying character). Anyway, it was a pretty decent show that I recommend if you are bored.

Anyway, back to this show, so Jamie and Busy are playing baseball, and you can tell they have a pretty good dynamic, in a purely platonic fashion as evident by Jamie treating Busy like a total dude. They even have their own stupid handshake… if that doesn’t scream absolutely no sexual chemistry I don’t know what does.

Suddenly along comes Amanda, wearing her latest Shakespeare in Love attire. They have some boring idle chatter, and Amanda mentions she likes baseball. Jamie tells her to try to hit a few balls. She stands there in worst batter’s stance I’ve ever seen, barely swings the bat and of course misses hitting the ball. Jamie and Busy exchange a look, and kinda roll their eyes like “WOMEN, AMIRITE?”

Later on, Busy and Amanda are in the locker room, discussing Mona’s upcoming party. Amanda’s excited because she thinks it’ll be a make-out party and that she’ll get to participate in her very first orgy. Anyway, Amanda’s got her eye set on “Alex from Eight B” who she hopes she’ll get lucky with at Mona’s party. Amanda starts going on about some aroma therapy thing her and her mom went to, as Phyllis is now entering her hippy New Age phase. Amanda dabs some camomile on her temples while Busy decides to not shower and allow her natural sweat to be her eau de toilette.

Ok I somehow I paused at this moment and I will use it as a reference to this scene because it makes me laugh really hard. Amanda looks like she’s doing some really offensive cultural reference, but she’s really just dabbing essential oils on her head.

Later on, Busy and Jamie are playing catch  and wearing the EXACT same outfit. They are discussing Mona’s party, and Busy asks Jamie if he plans on going. Jamie says he is, and that he wants to invite someone. Busy starts getting her hopes up, as Jamie walks over and says “Busy…will you…..give me Amanda’s phone number?” As the look of disappoint spreads across the poor girl’s face. Maybe if you didn’t stink he might’ve asked you Busy.

New scene in science class, and as I’ve already harped upon numerous times, but will AGAIN, the show’s theme is corresponding with a real world event, i.e. the class is about magnets and how opposites attract and likes repel. WE GET IT, does this need to be bashed into our skulls from each different direction? 90’s shows clearly must’ve thought kids were too stupid to figure out themes and had to hammer it into their heads from 10,000 different angles.

While the teacher is yammering on, Busy asks Amanda if anyone aka Jamie called her last night because she tried calling her but the line was busy. Note how this scenario would never happen in today’s modern times, the 90’s are so antiquated. Amanda then says someone did call her but they hung up when she answered and that it’s bizarre as fuck that Busy called at the same moment. Busy is somewhat relieved to learn this info. The girls then continue learning how magnets work, it’s pretty complicated.

How DO they work? The questions of our time.

ANYWAY. So later on Jamie meets up with Busy and tells her he was too much of a pussy to talk to Amanda. Busy, clearly not taking note of the science lesson, asks Jamie why he likes Amanda because they have nothing in common. Jamie says it’s because she’s funny, pretty and she smells good. Once again, Busy, take a SHOWER and maybe you’ll stand a chance with this dude. Maybe Jamie only thinks Amanda smells good because in comparison to Busy’s BO she probably does smell amazing. I have a hard time believing anyone would think camomile is a sexy smell.

In the hallway, Busy goes for it and asks Jamie if he wants to go to the party with her as friends. Jamie, being the clueless male that he is, gets excited because he figures since Amanda is Busy’s best friend they could all walk over together. Busy glumly agrees. Poor friendzoned Busy.

Later on in the girl’s washroom, Amanda’s discussing some slutty dress she wants to buy, when Busy tells her she shouldn’t come all the way to her house and to just go straight to Mona’s place for the party since Amanda lives closer to Mona anyway. Amanda says she doesn’t mind waiting, to which Busy again tries to make up some excuses and then casually lets out that Jamie will be picking her up. Amanda quickly catches on that Busy wants that D to which Busy gets really defensive. I don’t get why Busy always acts so weird whenever Amanda tries to get her to admit she likes a guy. I guess because of this weird triangle going on right now, but even in other situations Busy is strange about it. Anyway, they get sort of pissed with each other, but at least Amanda won’t be cramping Busy’s game….or so she thinks.

In a new scene Busy’s taking a bubble bath (finally), when Lucy knocks and asks if she can grab her glasses. As she’s leaving, Busy asks her mom to tell her the story again how her and her dad met. Turns out when Sam was fresh off the boat, he couldn’t find any work, so Lucy’s family hired him to fix things around the house. Lucy fell in love with the way Sam could handle a wrench and Sam also was smitten with Lucy. Whoa Busy’s parents must’ve gotten married pretty young, sounds like they met when they were teens. Anyway, somehow Busy relates to this story, even though her situation with Jamie seems not at all similar to Sam and Lucy’s courtship. Lucy tells Busy to then have a good time at her pretty. Busy grins and then submerges herself into the bathtub. This part always annoyed me because you can clearly see that Busy is wearing a white bikini when the bubbles move (not that I wanted to see a naked Lani Billard, she just should’ve laid still!)

Busy gets ready, and you know she’s trying to look hot, because she’s wearing the boob enhancing shirt from the French guys episode (Edit: I went back to look, and it’s actually not the same shirt, but it looks pretty darn similar). She even bought some of that camomile essential oil stuff to try and appeal to Jamie’s senses.

The doorbell rings and Busy’s excited to see Jamie’s fine ass. But her excitement lasts for about two seconds, as Amanda appears right behind him. Turns out Jamie walked a mile to pick up Amanda and then back to get Busy. If he had the guts to go all the way over to Amanda’s house unannounced, why didn’t he just suggest they walk over to Mona’s party together alone? I guess that would be too big an asshole move, but anyway, Busy is pretty disappointed. To add insult to injury Jamie exclaims that something “smells like mosquito repellent”.

Walking to the party, the gang makes small talk, and we learn Busy and Jamie share more similarities with History being their favourite subjects. We get it show, they’re too darn alike to ever have a romantic connection.

They finally get to Mona’s and I notice that Daisy is not present. She’s probably at home carrying Danny’s love child. Amanda quickly rushes into the party, while Jamie keeps forcing Busy to be his wing woman by asking her to find out if Amanda likes him. Busy’s just thrilled with this whole fucking scenario.

Busy meets up with Amanda in the kitchen and Alex from Eight B is totally checking Amanda out. This pleases both girls, and Busy plays up her wing woman role to Amanda’s benefit and pushes her towards Alex from Eight B to get that going. Jamie comes over and asks Busy if she’s asked Amanda yet and Busy says nope. Jamie then reluctantly asks Busy if she wants to dance which she happily says yes to.

Everyone dances around in the whitest way possible, when the song ends and Busy decides to request “Shattered Heart”, her and Jamie’s favourite jam. Since it’s a slower song, Jamie tries to use it as a chance to ask Amanda to dance, even though she’s already slow dancing with Alex from Eight B. Busy decides to be blunt and tells Jamie it’s pretty damn obvious Amanda doesn’t care about him at all since she’s barely acknowledged him since they got to the party. Jamie’s “shattered heart” can’t handle the rejection and he decides to leave.

Busy ends up leaving with Jamie, and walks home with him. She vaguely implies that somewhere out there a girl probably likes him, and he just doesn’t know it yet. Of course he still has no idea it’s Busy, as it’s clear he totally doesn’t realize she is a girl. As they walk up to her door, Jamie tries to do their handshake, but Busy goes for it and kisses him. Jamie backs away in shock and horror saying “Busy! We’re friends…JUST…friends.” Stone. Cold.

Busy goes inside and Lucy comes out of her bedroom and asks her how the party went. You can tell Busy is really struggling not to cry in this scene, or at least that’s how it looks to me. She tells her mom she’ll be up in a minute, and then goes to sit alone in the dark living room. I feel really bad for Busy, like what guy would immediately reject a girl after being rejected themselves? Busy isn’t hideous… but I guess if it’s not there you can’t force it. DAMN MAGNETS.

Next day at school Amanda’s excitedly reminiscing about the party, while it’s clear Busy still feels like major shit. Amanda then goes to display the finest trophy of her life thus far; her very first hickey. Busy of course doesn’t care, and turns to leave when she and Jamie spot each other. They both look at each other awkwardly and turn in the opposite direction, as it suddenly dawns on Amanda that Busy did have a crush on Jamie.

Busy’s sitting on some bleachers like a Sad Panda, when Amanda comes over and says she knows Busy liked Jamie. Amanda asks why Busy didn’t tell her and Busy replies because she knew he liked someone else. Amanda asks who and Busy says it doesn’t matter. Wise decision there Busy, that would’ve been so awkward, and knowing Amanda, once she realizes a guy likes her she zeros in for the kill. Busy goes on to say it’s bullshit because she and Jamie have so much in common, while Amanda points out that love is illogical and dependent on chemistry, which is pretty much true.

Just as the girls are about to leave the bench, Jamie shows up. Amanda takes off and Jamie asks Busy if she wants to play catch after school, obviously trying to completely avoid talking about what happened and hoping they can just go back to being buddies. Busy says nope, but as he’s turning to leave, she says “maybe next week.” Judging by the fact that Jamie is never seen again, I’m going to assume Busy held onto her grudge forever.

Jamie walks off as “Shattered Heart” is played once again over the credits.

I liked this episode a lot. It’s rare to see Busy really fall for a guy like she did with Jamie. It kind of sucks that he shot her down in such a cold manner though, but I think he was more shocked than disgusted since it’s clear Jamie never saw Busy as anything other than a dude.

Next episode: Amanda turns thirteen and she thinks that gives her the right to be a rebellious little shit.

Season 3, Episode 9: Swear to God

Hola Ready or Not party people. Apologies for not writing a review lately. I have no excuse other than needing a break from this damn show. Well now I feel more energized, which is good, because this episode is probably the lamest of Season 3 and I will need all willpower I can muster to write this review.

The episode opens with some random teacher doing roll call, showing off how diverse this school is with names like Ricki Rodriguez and Wendy Wong being called out. After the teacher calls out Amanda’s name, he notes that it’s weird she’s in school, because she’s a Jew and it’s Yom Kippur. Amanda lets him know she’s not a Jew in terms of actually practicing the religion, just a Jew culturally or something. The teacher then asks her to explain to the class what Yom Kippur is, even though she told him literally one second ago she is not a religious Jew and thus wouldn’t know any of the holiday meanings. Stupid teacher, no wonder you’re never shown again…learn some listening comprehension.

Anyway, Amanda stands up and tries to stammer out some bullshit, before accepting defeat and sitting her ass down.

The teacher opens up the floor for the other multi-cultural students to educate Amanda on her own religion, to which Wendy Wong does. This leads the teacher to begin a discussion about “comparing” religions (not sure if that’s the best choice of words when talking about this subject matter). He asks Busy about Catholic stuff, which Busy is a pro at because you know Sam drags the Ramone’s asses to church every Sunday. Amanda’s impressed that Busy knows all these Catholic holidays, but they’re really not that hard to remember. I grew up Catholic, and I don’t consider myself very religious now and I still remember all those holidays Busy pointed out. Amanda tells Busy she’s embarrassed about not knowing about Jew stuff. The teacher tells them to shut up, even though he started this whole religious conversation. Thank God this teacher is never seen again, bring back Mr. Boil please and thanks.

The next scene Amanda drags Busy to a church to bask in Catholic glory. It is a pretty nice church…the show probably scouted out the best looking one in Toronto for this scene. Amanda finds praying fascinating, thinking it is like “passwords to God.” I guess that’s an interesting way of looking at it. Amanda notices a woman doing confession, and wants to try it out. Busy says she can’t, because Amanda would be engulfed by the wrath of God if she went into the confession booth since she hasn’t had her first communion. Amanda tells Busy she’s lucky to get to go to Church every Sunday and Busy tells her it’s supremely boring and Amanda can go in her place if she wants.

Amanda arrives home, and who should be there but her extremely Jewish grandmother or “Bubbie” as she likes to be called. Once again, the show conveniently having an event i.e. Amanda questioning her religious beliefs coincide with someone/something appearing on the show that compliments this event aka Bubbie’s one and only appearance ever on this show.

Bubbie made a big ol’ spread, but Phyllis tells her that she and Amanda aren’t practicing Jews, and so breaking fast means nothing to them. You could still eat the damn food, Phyllis. Bubbie’s disappointed at raising a heathen child, which stressed Amanda out and asks Bubbie if it’s bad she didn’t fast. Bubbie tells her it’s not her fault her mom is an infidel, and that God doesn’t expect kids to fast. Bubbie then points out that if Amanda was a real Jew she’d be having a Bat Mitzvah around now. Amanda decides she’s going to give it a good ol’ college try, and attempt to be a Jew.

Next scene shows Busy building a “studio” for her drums. This will never been seen or spoken about again. She asks Amanda to come by and help this weekend, but Amanda’s going to synagogue on Saturday with Bubbie, and Busy can’t do it on Sunday because of her church duties. Damn religion, always ruining people’s lives.

Amanda and Bubbie are then seen doing what I can assume is the “Shabbat Blessings” as I looked up “Jewish Friday night rituals” and that’s what came up.

The next day at synagogue Amanda makes eyes with a cute Jewish boy. If there’s anything that motivates Amanda, it’s a penis. With that, she has now decided to become a full-fledged Jew, and tells an overjoyed Bubbie she wants a Bat Mitzvah.

The next day, in a short scene, Amanda’s discussing her decision about becoming Jewish with Busy. Busy thinks it’s pretty lame and advises Amanda to make sure she doesn’t become a fanatic. Wise words in this day and age.

Later on in the day Phyllis, Leonard and Amanda are meeting with a Rabbi to discuss all the things Amanda needs to do before her Bat Mitzvah. Leonard tries to throw Phyllis under the bus by saying he always wanted to go to synagogue, but Phyllis reminds Leonard he is a lazy jackass who would never be able to follow all the rules of being Jewish. The Rabbi tells them to shut the fuck up, and tells Amanda she needs to decide what it means to be Jewish to her. Amanda then suggests Brent Green (cute Jew boy) as her tutor to learn Yiddish or whatever the language is that she has to learn. The Rabbi smirks and you can totally tell he knows she’s only using his people’s religion to get laid and says “I’ll see what I can do.”

Wisely, the Rabbi chooses the person with the least amount of sex appeal to tutor Amanda; Monkey Ears. Amanda gets all pissed off that converting to a religion isn’t getting her access to hot dudes anymore, and you can tell she’s already checked out of this Jewish thing by the sheer annoyance on her face of one day’s worth of practicing the language.

As they’re leaving the synagogue, Amanda’s discouraged that learning a language is hard and has already basically thrown in the towel. Suddenly as they turn the corner, she see’s that the synagogue has been defaced by eggs and a huge swastika. Amanda’s in shock, while the other Jewish kids sadly don’t seem that surprised. What the hell? I’ve never heard of anything like this happening in Toronto…. this is like Nazi Germany garbage.

Suddenly, Amanda is hit in the back with an egg by the invisible man, who runs off saying “dirty Jews, stop stinking up our city!” Again…if this has happened to anyone in Toronto please let me know. Toronto has a huge Jewish population, so I’d be rather surprised, but I guess anything is possible.

So now Amanda’s definitely not becoming a Jew, as this event has fully traumatized her.

Later on, Amanda’s with Busy cleaning her egg-stained coat, and telling Busy she’s done with being Jewish because it’s “too dangerous”. She really must not know the history of her people and all the stuff they’ve gone through. I honestly think Amanda just expected becoming a Jew to be a walk in the park.

Later on that night, Bubbie comes in to say good night to Amanda as she’s heading back to Florida tomorrow. Bubbie gives Amanda some really nice candle holders as her Bat Mitzvah gift. Amanda tells Bubbie she can’t go through with it because “it’s too hard” (Amanda’s catch phrase, as she gives up on everything that takes some sort of effort on this show) and she’s worried people might hate her for being Jewish. Bubbie doesn’t try to hide the fact that people might be assholes because she is Jewish, and tells Amanda her half-assed attempt at moving up the ranks pleased her enough, and she can keep the candle holders.

The episode ends with Amanda performing the Shabbat with Phyllis. I’m assuming Amanda’s going to be a part-time Jew like I am with Catholicism, aka only going to synagogue on whatever the Jewish equivalent of Christmas Eve is.

This episode was pretty meh for me. I think Amanda was extremely naive about becoming Jewish. Was she never informed that Jews have gone through a lot of shit in the past and thus can sometimes have incidents happen in the present? I know her parents aren’t practicing, but the fact that Amanda seemed so absolutely clueless about Judaism really surprised me. You’d think she would have had some idea about the trials and tribulations of being a Jew.

Ah well. Anyway, next episode: Busy likes a boy who likes Amanda. DRAMA.

Season 3, Episode 8: Thin Ice

Yeeeeeeah. So I’m going to stop giving myself deadlines, because it clearly doesn’t work for me. Plus I figure the two people who I know for sure read this won’t care if it’s not right on schedule. I must allow my creative juices to flow naturally,  but really….this show can start getting on my nerves after awhile.

Anyway, I don’t remember much from this episode because I always found it kind of dull, and Amanda continues with her season long shitty behaviour. So let us begin.

The episode opens with the grade eights rehearsing for a production of the play Hamlet. The talent in the school must be tapped dry, because it looks like Monkey Ears is actually playing the lead role. Amanda’s backstage pacing around nervously because there’s some casting lady in the audience of their dress rehearsal looking for talent. No idea why she’s at this school, but whatevs. This is also the start to Amanda’s annoying love of acting, which we won’t stop hearing about for the rest of duration of this show.

Amanda’s cue comes up and she starts hamming it up on stage. I’m pretty sure she’s playing the role of Ophelia. Suddenly the cardboard wall behind them starts to fall, threatening (not really) to flatten Monkey Ears and Amanda. But luckily Busy saves the day, and catches it in the nick of time. This act really impresses the casting lady who gives Busy a hearty applause, resulting in Busy showing off her muscle definition. That girl off to the side of Busy looks severely unimpressed.

After rehearsal, Amanda and Busy are called over to meet the casting lady. Amanda’s having heart palpitations, while Busy couldn’t care less. We find out the casting lady’s name is Ms. Kurahashi (probably spelt wrong). Her name seriously sounds like a Japanese car company.  Amanda asks Ms. Kurahashi what she’s looking for, and she says general talent and casting for commercials. Amanda continues on and asks what commercial specifically, and Ms. K (not gonna spell her name out ever again), says the latest thing is for some granola bar called “Solo” and it will star Canadian figure skating sensation Kurt Browning. Amanda and Busy are both awe struck hearing this.

At Busy’s place, the girls are both going on about how Kurt Browning is both their hero’s. Busy likes him because he’s a good athlete, while Amanda thinks he’s cute. I’ve never heard of anyone having a crush on Kurt Browning. I feel like he forced the show to say that Amanda finds him hot. Busy apparently has a vast Kurt Browning VHS collection, and they start watching one of his ice shows. Busy wishes aloud to be as talented as Kurt in “anything she does” while Amanda just wants to see him naked and to use the commercial to launch her one-second-old acting career. BTW, off topic, but I always though Kurt Browning won an Olympic gold medal, but he never did. The highest he placed was 5th. I remember hearing a lot about him growing up, so I was kind of surprised to hear that, because he was a big deal here. Then again, Canada goes on about any athlete that does mildly well, so I’m not surprised when it came to figuring skating that he and Elvis Stojko were the bee’s knees in the 90’s.

Later on, Busy is washing dishes when Amanda calls to bitch about the casting lady not calling her yet. As if right on cue, Busy’s “call waiting” goes through (such a throwback to the 90’s) and lo and behold, it’s the casting lady calling for her. Busy returns back to the line with Amanda and tells her the casting lady wants her to audition for the commercial. Amanda’s in shock and you can tell she is pissed off, because Busy didn’t do any acting whatsoever. They have an awkward, tense silence, and then Amanda says she has to go just in case the casting lady calls her. Busy’s pretty excited about getting the call, while Amanda tensely watches her phone for the rest of the night.

The next day at the audition, Amanda comes along with Busy for her own selfish reasons. Ms. K comes out and all Amanda has to say is, “try and put in a good word for me!” She didn’t want you, Amanda. Quit being so desperate.

Busy goes in and Kurt Browning is there with the director for the commercial. Busy has a total star-struck moment, and freezes in front of Kurt. He asks her name, and she replies with Busy, which Kurt seems to find endearing. The director asks Busy questions such as “have you ever played hockey?” and “what position?” to which Busy replies “goalie.” So it’s clear this is going to be a sport’s based commercial, hence the reason why they didn’t want Amanda’s prissy ass.

The next day at school, Busy tells Amanda that she got a callback to come back for another audition. You can tell that Amanda is plenty jealous at learning this information. Turn’s out that they are looking for a goalie, and that Busy will get a chance to be on the ice with Kurt. Amanda points out that Busy sucks at skating, which Busy acknowledges, but figures since they need a goalie, she probably won’t do any skating. She asks Amanda to help her practice, but Amanda’s ego has been severely bruised at being rejected for the commercial, and she tells Busy she’s too busy with rehearsal for the play. Once again, Amanda’s being a little snotty bitch. What is it with her and season three?

In the eve, Busy’s parents are prematurely celebrating Busy getting the commercial. Busy tells them to calm the fuck down, because she hasn’t gotten it yet, but Sam is already telling all the customers that his daughter’s going to be in a commercial with the “champion of the world.” Way to put the pressure on her, Sam. We then get a Ready or Not dream sequence, it’s been a while since one of those!

Kurt is skating around “Busy” (because it’s clearly an actual skater whose in a goalie mask), and then lifts her up and does some elaborate skating moves with her. She then takes off her mask and Kurt shows her the “Solo” bar in a corny manner, and then kisses Busy on the cheek while she looks at him lustfully.

Busy is shaken out of her daydream by Sam yelling at her to focus on being a goalie. Frankie, Lucy and Sam are all practicing shooting on her in net, though it is important to note that it’s street hockey she’s playing and not ice hockey (it will matter later on).

Next day at school, backstage, Busy is practicing goalie blocks with some random extras. I think the Asian girl is the “OoOoOoh tough luck” girl from last episode. Good for her for getting more lines. Monkey Ears comes up and asks Busy if she can get Kurt to autograph some picture of him looking like a total chode. The kid’s continue talking and gushing about Busy getting to hang out with Kurt, much to Amanda’s immense jealously. Since she can’t stand not being the centre of attention,  Amanda yells; “DO YOU MIND? SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO REHEARSE!” while stomping off like a total diva. Everyone wonders to themselves how Amanda got sand in her vagina, since there’s no explanation for her behaviour. But Busy knows better.

Busy finally confronts Amanda on her extremely immature behaviour, telling Amanda she’s sorry she got picked for the commercial, and that she didn’t try to get chosen. Amanda counters with asking why Busy ran on stage and “stole the show” by stopping the castle from falling down. Busy tells her she’s a complete dumbass, and only did that to prevent Amanda’s inflated head from being smashed by cardboard. Amanda whines that she’s the one that wants to be the actress, and Busy tells her that the commercial is more about being a good athlete than acting. Amanda’s still not having it and being pouty, and Busy asks her why she needs to be such a self-centered bitch all the time and make everything about her. Amanda tells her “good luck” in a really sarcastic manner and stomps off again. This reminds me a lot of the “Wild Life” episode, where Amanda acts like a complete little brat for not achieving something on the same level as Busy. It must be exhausting being friends with Amanda.

The next day is the audition, and Busy is there with her parents. There seems to be a lot more people auditioning than Busy expected, as there is worry in her eyes.

The first portion of the audition is goal tending. Busy does pretty well here, and advances further.

Amanda decides to finally stop being a shithead and to actually support her friend, by coming to watch the audition.

The next portion is skating, and Busy also does really well here. She’s getting closer and closer to getting the commercial. The final portion of the audition is coming up, and it’s with Kurt. He comes out and remembers Busy’s name, which makes her all giddy. How could you forget a weird as fuck name as Busy though?

The next part of the audition involves Kurt doing some crazy skating moves and then shooting the “Solo” bar at the net, which the goalie catches. The goalie then skates around Kurt and they kinda wink at each other and comment on how awesome “Solo” is. The first girl auditioning does this really well. Next up is Busy. The world kind of slow-mo’s it down, while Kurt does his skating portion. Busy manages to catch the granola bar, but unfortunately crashes into Kurt while circling around him, and tumbles like a game of Jenga. Everyone gasps at this tragedy. But it’s not that surprising, as Busy didn’t practice at all for the skating part. Also this screen shot makes me laugh.

Busy walks off the ice and she’s so pissed at herself she nearly knocks over a grown man, while stomping to the change room. She catches glimpse of Amanda and is like “what the fuck are you doing here?” and Amanda says she wanted to see her audition, to which Busy replies “satisfied, you wench?” You know a small part of Amanda is satisfied.

The next day at school, Busy appears to be still crying about the audition, as she’s in the washroom wiping her eyes. Time to move on, Busy. Amanda comes in and apologizes for being a jealous cow. Busy says she has to go into hiding because she didn’t get the commercial, stating she’ll have to “switch schools and possibly families.” Busy, Busy… you need to learn that people really don’t care about events outside their own lives, and I guarantee you not one of your peers gives a single fuck about the commercial anymore. Busy runs into a washroom stall stating she’s never skating again, and Amanda calls her a dumbass, saying she didn’t quit the play when she didn’t get a call from Ms. K. It’s really not a good comparison though, as Amanda wasn’t publicly humiliated like Busy was. Then Amanda starts saying some corny PSA stuff like “you don’t get good unless you try” and then tries the ol’ reverse psychology with the lines “if you want to be a quitter, go right ahead.” Yeah that wouldn’t work for me. I would just quit. Fuck skating.

I guess Amanda’s little “pep talk” worked, because the next scene is Amanda and Busy somehow gaining access to the rink that Kurt is practicing on. We see Kurt skating around, but then he falls on his ass. I guess to prove that yes, even World Champions can stumble sometimes.

But listening to the wise words of the dearly departed Aaliyah, Kurt dusts himself off and tries again, this time nailing his complicated routine.

Kurt finally notices the girl’s watching him and I’m sure his immediate thoughts were “where’s security?” But he goes up to them and says hi, remembering Busy from the audition. Amanda then has the balls to ask if they can skate with Kurt for a bit, and he figures why the fuck not. The episode ends with them gliding around the ice with Kurt.

I actually enjoyed this episode a lot more upon re-watching it. I guess because I really liked that “Wild Life” episode from season 1, and this one reminded me a lot of it. I like when Busy and Amanda get competitive with each other, though in this one, it was mostly Amanda being a little baby. I felt bad for Busy, but since 90% of life is about not getting what you want, I feel this was a valuable life lesson for her.

Next episode: Amanda attempts to be a Jew.

 

Season 3, Episode 7: Crater Face

Hi guys. I know, I know, I failed you already. It’s past Monday and I didn’t have the review up. I have no excuse other than I’ve been feeling kind of bummed lately, but I apologize. Gonna try to keep a schedule, dammit!

Alright alright, let’s begin. The episode opens with what looks like a sleep over at Amanda’s place. I see she’s wearing the same pj’s that she pissed in during the camp episodes. It looks like Daisy and Mona are also there. I love how these two randoms who were never once in this show are now bosom buddies with Amanda and Busy. So they’re taking some Cosmo quiz about the ideal man, and I guess now that Frankie has rejected her, Amanda has gone back to pining over Danny, stating her quality man is “sensitive with a great sense of humour.” WRONG. How easy it is to forget how not funny Danny was. Amanda has some video tape Danny sent her of actually performing in a club. Amanda uses this to once again, try to show off to Mona and Daisy how awesome her current beau is. I’m really surprised no one is shading Amanda, considering it’s been merely two weeks since her whole Frankie fiasco. Like if this was nowadays, people would be calling her a slut and cyber bullying her online. She’s lucky she grew up in the 90’s. So yeah, Amanda’s really proud that Danny is actually going somewhere with his lame comedy and suggests to Daisy that she could probably get him to perform it at her pool party. Daisy is really excited, because she’s never met Danny and has no idea how unfunny he is in person.

A new scene with Busy and Amanda, and I guess this will sort of set up this episode’s theme of body insecurities. Amanda’s once again gone back to bitching about her body, stating how “huge” her thighs are. Busy is like “shut your pie hole”, while Amanda is worried Danny’s going to reject her because she’s a fat fuck now. I think this episode really begins Amanda’s descent into becoming superficial, which lasts for the rest of the duration of this show. But yes, Amanda’s bitching about being a beached whale when she probably weighs 100lbs. at most. God this shit annoys me. Danny should reject her not because she’s a fat ass, but because she’s a dumb ass.

The next day at school, a new guy comes up to Amanda and begins flirting with her. This actor was on this lame Canadian show called Radio Active which I of course watched. I watched every Canadian show in the mid to late 90’s and I am unashamed. Anyway, he compliments her outfit and we find out his name is Doug, but he prefers to go by Jake. K…. Amanda’s all pleased with their interaction, since she thrives off male attention. Doug/Jake walks off, then Busy comes up to her and asks where the hell Danny is. Amanda doesn’t know, and points out that Danny didn’t see her last night, despite living downstairs. He claimed to have jet lag from that whole one hour flight between Toronto and New York. Amanda’s worried that now that Danny’s performing in da club, that he has “tons of gorgeous groupies” and thus will give in to temptation. But no…that is not the reason, and we learn that as Danny comes up behind Amanda and we get a look at his now pimply faced mug, hence the title of the episode.

Sorry, you can’t really see his face well in this screenshot, but rest assured he’s covered in zits. Also, I think it’s interesting to point out that Amanda immediately thought that Danny would dump her for hot chicks, when she was the one on the brink of probably dumping him for Frankie. Like there’s no way in hell she would’ve went back to Danny had Frankie not resisted her psycho urges.

In a short scene after, Amanda and Danny awkwardly have lunch together, while it becomes clear that Amanda has nothing to talk to Danny about now that he is hideously grotesque.

Moving on, in gym the girl’s are discussing Danny’s pimple problem. Mona say’s he should lock himself away like Quasimodo, while Daisy is a lot more sympathetic. Mona brings up the gross thought of kissing him, which Amanda makes a face at. That can’t be a good sign when he’s your damn boyfriend.

Later on, Amanda’s checking out Doug/Jake, and Danny comes running out of the school and squirts her with a water gun. See, this is the type of shit that Danny does that I find a lot more unappealing than his stupid pimples. He decides to squirt his gun at Jake/Doug which of course pisses him off, while Amanda stands there feeling super awkward. She then gets pissed because he’s not wearing socks with his shoes which could result in warts or more things that could make Danny even uglier.

Later on, Amanda’s bitching on the phone to Busy about how immature Danny is for bringing her back a squirt gun from New York, even though she apparently used to collect them. She tries to come up with some bullshit reasoning for not inviting Danny to Daisy’s pool party, by saying that he’s probably too tired to socialize. So it’s pretty clear Amanda does not want to be associated with Danny now that he’s deformed in her eyes.

Next day at the pool party Amanda chats it up with Doug/Jake and we learn the origin of his two names. It’s not that interesting…basically he doesn’t want to be called Doug because it is “too clunky” whatever the fuck that means. But I have to agree, Doug is a terrible name. Random side note: for the longest time I thought this guy was wearing a life guard whistle, which I thought was stupid…like does this fuck think he’s on Baywatch or something? But I think it’s a cross, though I cannot be sure.

Doug/Jake runs off to get Amanda a drink. Much to Amanda’s chagrin, Danny decides to show his hideous face at the same social event she’s at. Danny points out that Amanda didn’t tell him about the party, but Daisy ended up inviting him. Amanda sounds totally disappointed when she hears that. She suggests they go for a swim, but Danny declines, which leads me to believe he probably has bacne as well, which is very unfortunate. Jake/Doug comes back and points out that Danny was the dumbass who squirted him with the squirt gun. Monkey Ears puts some weird white shit in his mouth and spits it out, claiming he’s a “Danny Masters zit.” Everyone starts laughing their asses off.

While everyone’s laughing, Danny walks away to sad music. Monkey Ears asks Amanda if she’s going to go after her boyfriend to which she replies “he’s not my boyfriend!” much to a pained look on Danny’s face. I need to point out that this Asian chick says “OooOoOOh, tough luck” during this part, and my friends and I would imitate that line for many years to come.

Later on, Busy and Amanda are in some strip mall and it looks like Amanda’s going to buy something to help Danny with his pimples since “some people can’t get past his complexion.” Probably going in to buy him a bag to put over his head, since it is clear Danny should never be seen in public again.

But no, it’s just some Clearasil, which Amanda gives anonymously via a brown paper bag outside Danny’s apartment door. I’m sure Danny isn’t smart enough to figure out who was the person who left it there.

A few moments later, Danny stops by to confront Amanda about the pimple cream. Amanda plays dumb and says it was free samples, to which Danny replies that free samples don’t have the receipt still inside. Danny then goes on to school her, saying drug store acne cream isn’t going to clear his extreme acne. Amanda’s actually an idiot, and figures he hasn’t even tried, to which Danny says, “I’m on medication for it you dumbfuck.” It’s honestly the equivalent of someone trying to tell a depressed person to “snap out of it and look on the bright side” i.e. pretty insensitive and really stupid on Amanda’s part.

Danny finally catches on that Amanda has become totally vapid, and tells her she should run off and be with Doug/Jake because they’re both superficial and obsessed with appearances. He kicks her to the curb and walks off. Damn Amanda’s personality is terrible, she loses men left, right and centre.

Next day at school Amanda’s bitching to Busy yet again about Danny, except this time she’s saying how mean he was to her. A little self-reflection on her part would go a long way. But even Busy, who hated Danny at first, seems to see his point of view a lot more than Amanda’s. Daisy and Mona come in discussing how Monkey Ears pulled a totally dickish move against Danny at the pool party.  Danny suddenly comes in wearing these novelty sized ears with a banana and starts acting like a monkey.  This embarasses Monkey, but really, I think Danny looks idiotic in this get up. But whatever, I guess he kind of got his revenge, since everyone laughs at Monkey Ears’ ridicule.

At lunch, Amanda’s eating with Doug/Jake, and he’s going on and on about wanting to become a male model. I guess after realizing that really good looking people are boring and self-centered, Amanda stares longingly at Danny, who at least had some personality (even if it was an annoying one). Danny’s playing basketball with Daisy, and you can tell Amanda is one of those women who only wants a man once she realizes other women like him, since there’s this look of sadness in her eyes staring at Danny having fun with another girl. Anyway, she deserves it, Amanda’s been an asshole this episode.

A short scene of Amanda walking through a park with the water gun Danny gave her, shows her looking really regretful at the way things ended up with him. I really think she’s looking at their past relationship with rose-coloured glasses. As I’ve said in the past, these two never had great chemistry. Maybe she’s bummed that she’s not going to have a guy to obsess over now (though we all know that won’t last).

Back at the apartment, Danny comes back and Amanda runs up to him as she’s been waiting in the lobby for God knows how long. She confesses that the reason she was treating Danny like shit was because she was obsessed with her thighs and she thought he would think she was obese. Danny kind of gives her a “bitch please” look, while Amanda begs him for forgiveness. But Danny reveals that he is moving to New York for good, as his mom finally got full custody of him. As they ride up the elevator together, Amanda tries one last desperate attempt to get back with Danny, asking if he wants to hang out on Friday, but he already has plans with Daisy. BURN. You lose every dude to some other chick, don’t you Zimm?

As Danny is leaving the elevator, Amanda decides enough is enough, pulls out a gun, and kills Danny.

Not really, she squirts him with the squirt gun and they chuckle softly to each other. The episode ends with Amanda almost getting crushed by the elevator, but unfortunately not.

Well that’s the end of Danny as a character. I always found it weird that he was Amanda’s boyfriend for so long (I think they dated longer than Busy and Troy) and yet was barely in any episodes together with her. I don’t know, they’re relationship was so lackluster to me, that’s why I supported the short lived Frankie and Amanda union. Oh well, hopefully Danny got laid with Daisy.

Next episode: A famous Canadian figure skater causes a riff between Amanda and Busy.

 

 

Season 3, Episode 6: Three’s A Crowd

Hello peeps. You may notice that there is now a shiny new “Donate” button to the right of my reviews. I’m going to be honest with you guys, like I said before, I’m really hoping to one day make some monetary gains from this website/my writing in general, and right now I’m having a lot of trouble actually getting a “real job.” So I guess that donate button is my way of saying I ain’t too proud to beg. But yeah, if you happen to want to donate some money, that would be awesome, but if you don’t, that’s also totally fine. I figured may as well try, because what do I have to lose beyond my dignity? But seriously, this will be the only time I mention it in a post…and now I’m done! So let’s move on. Edit: I just wanted to mention, if anyone does decide to donate and there is a problem, can you please let me know? I looked at my stats, and it looked like someone tried to potentially donate, but there was an error message saying “there is a problem with the email address provided by the seller”. I tested it out (donated myself a $1 haha) and it seemed to work, so hopefully it’s all good. But yes, please let me know if there is a problem, as I would like to resolve that ASAP. THANKS FRIENDS.

Alright, as mentioned before, this is my favourite Ready or Not episode. Why, you may ask? Well it’s got steamy (for a children’s show) romance, betrayal, Amanda being obsessive, which is always hilarious, and Busy is a pretty stellar friend in this one. All in all it is highly entertaining, so off we go.

The episode opens with a shot of Frankie riding his bike up to the house, while Amanda gazes down from Busy’s bedroom window at him. Girl has a serious case of penis on the brain since their little kissing session.

Apparently it is “36 more hours til school starts” and Amanda’s depressed. Busy points out that Amanda’s the biggest keener and loves school, but Amanda wants to be going to high school since Cornelius is super lame. Poor Amanda, you’ll never get to go to high school as long as your on this program (spoiler alert: they end up going to a junior high for some stupid reason instead of a high school next season).

Suddenly, Frankie’s super fruity music is heard from the hallway. Busy yells at him to turn it down, while Amanda gets excited at the prospect of having an excuse to talk to Frankie. She excuses herself to pee, and then get’s her Lip Smacker’s lip balm out and ready to pounce. After walking by Frankie’s room 250 times, she finally pokes her head in and see’s that he’s also reading (while listening to music? who does that?) and says hi. Frankie wanders over and they make small talk about the book he’s reading.

Amanda makes her move, and comments on how good Frankie’s drawing are that are hanging in his room. Frankie gets super excited about his ego getting stroked (probably because he’s basically ignored by everyone else in the household) and invites Amanda in for a “closer look.” Before he can give it to her good, Busy pulls a major cock block move and calls Amanda out for not peeing. Amanda get’s all flustered and runs to the can, while Frankie gives Busy the stink eye for ruining his game.

We cut to a new scene and it appears Busy has randomly decided to shave her legs. This is also another throw back to the first time Amanda shaved her legs. Are these chicks using rusty razors? I didn’t have that many cuts the first time I did it! Also, we can see here what I call the start of Amanda’s “school girl phase”, where she will now take a liking to wearing knee socks and short kilts. At least it’s better than her Claude Tanner look.

Anyway, there’s a valid reason for Busy’s cuts….she didn’t use soap and water! Jesus Christ that would be painful. Dry shaving…ugh..I am shuddering thinking about it.

Two random girls come up to the Busy and Amanda and they will sort of be their recurring friend’s for this season. I’m pretty sure their name’s are Daisy and Mona if my memory serves me correctly. Anyway, Daisy is hyper and annoying, and Mona is sort of…there. I guess the show wanted the girls to interact with more people. Anyway, they have small chit chat and then head to homeroom. Oh yeah, and there’s some dance that weekend that Amanda and Busy will be attending together…it’s stupid but sort of important to mention for later.

They go into the classroom and Amanda is irritated at how immature the grade 8 boys are. I guess her tastes are refined now that she’s gotten a taste of a grade 10 man.

Next scene is in Busy’s garage where she’s practicing, and once again Amanda is hanging out waiting for Frankie to get home. Dom randomly comes out with some cookies he made for his girl and takes off quickly after. Amanda notes how romantic Busy’s brothers are which makes Busy roll her eyes. Frankie gets back and Amanda quickly tries to start a conversation with him about stupid shit like his t-shirt and school. Busy starts getting really annoyed and tells them to shut the fuck up, so Frankie goes in to get some food. Amanda quickly runs in after him. BTW I need to note that Amanda is wearing way too much make-up in this whole scene.

Amanda runs in and Frankie returns back downstairs with a drawing for her. They kind of stand around, slowly building up some sexual tension, until they finally kiss again.

Busy stops her damn drumming and walks in to see her brother and best friend making out. Also, does anyone else think Amanda’s body is bent really weird here? It’s like the show didn’t want to show them actually moving their mouths? I dunno, she looks hunched back to me, and it’s odd. But anyway, Busy is majorly WTF at this whole scenario.

Amanda comes back outside pleased as punch, and Busy cuts right to the chase telling her she saw her canoodling with Frankie. Busy asks how long they’ve been fooling around, and Amanda confesses to Frankie first kissing her at the go-karts. Busy gets irritated that Amanda didn’t tell her, and Amanda uses the excuse that she wasn’t sure how Frankie felt about her. Not true, she did it because Frankie told her not to say anything, but anyway. Busy brings up a bunch of reasons why it would be stupid if they dated, such as their age difference, the fact that Amanda is still sort of dating Danny and the biggest one being that he’s her goddamn brother. Amanda reassures Busy that they’ll still hang out and do all the same stuff, but everything is super awesome because she has an older boyfriend! Busy gives her major death glare in response to that.

The next day Dom and Frankie are sharing a brotherly breakfast when Busy enters the kitchen. Dom asks her to get milk from the fridge, and Frankie asks for jam. Busy totally snubs Frankie and only gets the milk for Dom. Buuurn. She walks off and Frankie asks Dom “what’s her problem??” Are you really that dense, Frankie?

At school, Amanda is putting Frankie’s drawing up in her locker and bragging to Mona and Daisy about having an older boyfriend. They walk off and Busy comes up offering Frankie’s toenails for her collection, haha. Amanda says she’s not being fair, and Busy sort of clams up. Daisy and Mona run by again yelling at Amanda that they look forward to seeing her man candy at the dance and Busy gets all hurt/angered because she and Amanda had a date to go together. Amanda being as selfish/clueless as ever, thought it might be a swell idea to invite Frankie along and Busy blows up on her and walks away. Amanda stands there like a dumbass with her mouth open wondering why in the world Busy could be upset with her.

In a new scene, the Ramone’s have finished dinner, and it looks like Sam has finally done something domesticated and cooked for the first time. Finally, Busy can’t keep up her silence anymore and lays into Frankie that she “saw him” yesterday, while Frankie tells her to shut her hole because she sucks at shaving her legs. Just before Battle Royale breaks out the doorbell rings. Busy goes to answer it and it’s Amanda, and she’s looking for Frankie. Damn this girl has some nerve/Fatal Attraction shit going on. Busy’s over it, and embarrasses Frankie by loudly yelling “Frankie it’s for you, it’s Amanda!” Sam and Lucy both give a wtf look and Dom starts laughing his ass off.

So Amanda’s going full on crazy girlfriend and dropping by asking Frankie about some dumb class he mentioned once to her. Frankie starts to realize that Amanda’s probably going to turn into that meme Overly Attached Girlfriend and quickly cuts to the chase trying to figure out why she came over. They don’t show her saying it, but Amanda ends up asking Frankie to the school dance.

Frankie goes back to his room (after Dom calls him a cradle robber lol) and Busy bursts in telling him she’s sorry for publicly humiliating him in front of the family, but that she’s looking out for him. She tells Frankie that it would look weird that he’s dating a 12 year old when he’s in high school and it makes him look desperate. I just need to say, I was watching this episode way back when when I was around Amanda’s age (a bit older), and my boyfriend was three years older than me and I felt SO awkward haha. I remember thinking “please don’t think this, I’m not a little kid, I got game!” Frankie totally denies that she’s his girlfriend and more or less says that their kiss meant nothing to him. Busy asks if Amanda invited him to the dance, and that he said no to going to that lame ass event. So I guess Busy figures this is now all over and done with.

The next day during gym Busy comes up to Amanda and asks how she is, figuring things are shitty now that Frankie officially dumped her ass. Amanda says she’s cool, and that her and Frankie aren’t going to the dance, because he has to do inventory  at the butcher shop and they’re going to do something afterwards if he finishes in time. Busy flat out tells her that her asshole brother lied to her, because they never do inventory on the weekend. Amanda then goes on to say that Busy is jealous of  her and Frankie’s love and needs to step off. Busy’s like “you’re a dumb bitch,” all while they are doing some odd yoga position.

Later in the eve, Amanda calls the Ramone residence looking for Frankie. Busy answers the phone and tries to get Frankie to deal with Amanda’s shit, but Frankie refuses. Busy tells Amanda Frankie is out, hangs up and lays it into Frankie for being a douche and basically leading Amanda on. Frankie tries to justify his shitty actions by saying he didn’t want to hurt her feelings, which Busy replies “you think this isn’t going to hurt her feelings?”

The scene shifts to Amanda’s house and Amanda’s making cookies….obviously for Frankie. This girl is the definition of desperate. She asks her mom what it means if someone doesn’t get a telephone message and her mom says the person who took the message might have forgotten to give it. But Amanda thinks Busy didn’t give the message to Frankie on purpose. Amanda’s being a right bitch this episode, seriously. I don’t get how she can immediately think so poorly of her friendship with Busy.

The next day, Amanda decides to go full on stalker, and is now at Frankie’s school with the cookies. By some weird twist of fate, Frankie is standing in front of a window with another girl right as Amanda came along, which gives Amanda a front row view of Frankie kissing her. Amanda is crushed and walks off. Part of me thinks Frankie paid a girl to stand there all day and wait for Amanda to inevitably come by and then made the girl kiss him so Amanda would take a hint and leave him alone.

Now that Frankie has broken Amanda’s heart, she decides to run back to Busy for support. She starts crying to Busy about how she’s such an idiot (true) and she truly thought Frankie liked her. Busy told her he was borderline ghosting her big time, but Amanda didn’t want to see it. Amanda then goes on to say she would “never do that to a boy”…uhhhh you’re still technically dating Danny, so you did much worse i.e. cheating. Busy says she kind of did that to Troy, and Amanda has the gall to  say “maybe it runs in your family.” WTF Amanda. I would’ve slapped her for that remark. Frankie comes home and awkwardly says hi, while avoiding Amanda as much as possible.

The episode ends with Busy twirling Amanda around to try and cheer her up.

As I mentioned, I love this episode. I really wish they could’ve made the Frankie and Amanda romance last a bit longer though. I do think Frankie did like Amanda, but felt way too awkward about doing anything about it, especially after Busy made him feel weird about dating her. To me, it makes it pretty obvious that Frankie and Busy are very close and he does value her opinions. Plus it didn’t help that Amanda got super needy/obsessive about the whole thing. I think this episode was the one that cemented for me how much their friendship means to Busy, as it could’ve been so easy for her to blow Amanda off and be like “fuck you” considering how Amanda treated her during that whole thing.

Next episode: Danny’s back and he’s got a surprise!

 

Season 3, Episode 5: Crossing the Line

Hi everyone. Ok I made it my April resolution to update this once a week. So starting NOW, April 10th, I will be updating by Monday at midnight at the latest. I need to get back to regular updating. BTW I also want to give a shout out to superslabz for liking a bunch of entries the other day. You da real MVP.

Alright, on with this episode. I need to point out that I really enjoy this episode, it is probably in my top five favourite episodes of season 3.

So the episode opens with Busy throwing a ball against a wall while Amanda attempts to tan and get colour on her florescent skin. Busy is truly bored as fuck with the current situation, and starts spraying Amanda with a spray bottle. Amanda tells her to screw off because chilling outside in the summer kicks ass. I agree, I hate when people try to make you do stuff, always let laziness prevail.

Frankie comes out and for some reason kind of flirts with Amanda i.e. by playfully smacking her with his baseball cap on her bare stomach and acts all strangely happy to see her. Yeah there will be an explanation for this behaviour later in the episode, but it’s weird to see now, because Frankie never once seemed to give a shit about Amanda’s existence before.

Turns out Frankie is going to some sports park called Sticklebacks with his friends, and Busy begs him to let her come. Frankie says no, but as if he could stop her. I know for a fact this guy doesn’t drive, so Busy could just go anyway. Does she need Frankie to ride the bus with her for some reason? I dunno. Anyway, Busy tells him she’ll fix his bike, so Frankie gives in. Amanda snarkily asks if the reason Busy wants to go to Sticklebacks is because of the hot piece of ass working at the go-karts. How does Amanda know about this guy? Like who would know about the attractive people working at their city’s amusement parks? Once again, Amanda is so creepy in this pre-social media era. Busy gets really offended by this and says no, she wants to ride a go-kart so fuck off Amanda.

They finally get to the park after Amanda apparently spent an hour raiding Busy’s closet for clothes. Did she not wear her own clothes over to Busy’s house or did she walk over in a bikini. Really, this stupid line adds nothing to the story other then them having a reason for being late, and thus Frankie not being able to find his friends, which leads to…events. Either way, this show always has to set up the plot with weird circumstances that bring it to that point, i.e. the French guys episode and the gym situation. Alright, I’m gonna shut up and move on.

So they decide to do the go-karts first. Busy approaches the hot go-kart guy and asks him which kart is the best. He asks “if she wants to go fast” (foreshadowing) and tells her to take some kart he finished working on. This guy is a vast improvement over the French dude Busy was crushing on in terms of appearance, but that’s about it.

So even though it looked like Frankie had ditched them, he is now riding the go-karts with Amanda and Busy.  They all ride around a track, with Busy and Frankie tied for the lead. Amanda’s in dead last, and every time they show her a sad tuba tune plays, it’s pretty humourous. While this is all happening, creepy go-kart dude is checking out Busy.

Busy ends up winning and wants to continue riding, while Amanda doesn’t and Frankie wants to find his friends. Busy keeps checking out the go-kart dude and tells Amanda to hang out with Frankie, because she wants to ride more than just go-karts. So Amanda and Frankie pair off, while Busy starts another race with the go-kart guy.

So Frankie and Amanda go off to play mini-golf. Slash omg these two are so goddamn cute together, I can’t EVEN. Seriously though, I like Frankie and Amanda together, and Frankie does the cutest little smile to himself when Amanda agrees to play mini-golf with him. Sadly this screenshot does not do it justice. Goddamn Insight Productions, release this show on DVD already!

The scenes shift between Frankie/Amanda and Busy/Steve, whose name hasn’t been officially mentioned yet, but I don’t feel like writing “go-kart guy” anymore. Busy and Steve’s scenes are pretty boring, it’s literally just them riding the go-karts over and over. Amanda and Frankie have small talk, and it really has a first date feel to it. Frankie accidentally drops his sketchbook/journal out of his fanny pack (heh) which Amanda likes because it shows he’s artistic and sensitive like she is. He offers to show her his pics, and she sits beside him and they look at each other awkwardly out of the corners of their eyes and seriously…this whole scene is too cute. I miss being a teenager sometimes.

Busy and Steve finally stop go-karting and formally introduce themselves, though Busy refers to herself as “Elizabeth.” We find out Steve’s dad owns the park and that’s why he works there. He seems to be digging Busy for some reason, and wants to hang out with her, even offering to buy some food because “he gets a discount.” Wouldn’t he get the food for free if his dad is the owner? Anyway, so sparks are flying between our two couples, I wonder what’s gonna happen??

Amanda and Frankie are strolling along, discussing their poetry, when they come upon a super tacky fortune teller’s tent. Naturally Amanda wants to go in, so off they go.

The scene shifts back to “Elizabeth” and Steve, and they are getting to know each other more. Turn’s out Steve’s dad is some amusement park connoisseur, as they also have a park in Florida, and that’s where Steve goes to school. He finds out Busy is only thirteen, and he tries to pass himself off as “sixteen, turning seventeen in the fall”. PFFFFT. This actor looks around twenty seven. He tells her he’s going to enter some national go-kart race and he’s building his own kart for it. Is that a real thing? National go-karting? Probably is, just sounds really stupid. They catch a glimpse of a batting cage which Busy gets all excited about and thus turns “sixteen year old” Steve on.

They go up to the batting cage and then Steve puts his arm around Busy…more foreshadowing.

While in the tent, the fortune teller is telling Amanda that she’s extremely artistic and will do something with arts as her career, so Amanda’s pretty happy about that. Frankie asks if he’s also artistic, and she says he’s athletic, which makes Frankie cry out “No, I’m not!” ‘Tis true, we all remember that basketball episode from Season 1. But the fortune teller could give two shits about Frankie’s future, and would rather talk about the future of them as a couple. They both start feeling really awkward and she starts talking about their friendship blossoming into romance, and makes them hold hands. Suddenly her huge ass cell phone rings and it’s her kid bitching about something. The fortune teller excuses herself to go deal with it, while Amanda and Frankie sit there still holding hands.

Busy and Steve are at the batting cages, and even though Steve has to show Busy how to hold a bat, she somehow ends up beating him. Steve basically comes out and admits he’s got a thang for Busy, and asks if she wants to see the go-kart he’s building. She grins and says yes, while holding his hand also.

Back in the tent AMANDA AND FRANKIE KISS. I don’t even care that Amanda’s technically cheating on Danny, because these two are way better as a couple, and actually seem to have chemistry. As much as Amanda can get on my nerves, I 100% support this union. These two seem to make so much sense together, unlike every other person each girl ends up hooking up with.

So things seem to be blossoming quite lovely for one of the couples…let’s check on the other. Spoiler alert: It doesn’t turn out as great for Busy.

Busy enters some garage where a bunch of go-karts are. She sits in Steve’s go-kart and start acting like she’s in some race, which I guess gets Steve even more horny because he starts awkwardly rubbing her shoulder.  Steve confesses to liking Busy, and leans in for a kiss, which causes Busy to slightly freak out and try and jump out of the go-kart. He starts getting super creepy when she tries to leave, stroking her arm and saying “I thought you liked me, I thought we were having a good time.”

By now potential-rape-situation bells are going off in Busy’s head, and she’s trying her best to vacate the situation. Steve can sense she’s about to run, and goes full on sexual predator, trying to corner her and saying shit like “I saw you checking me out earlier, are you just leading me on?” Finally he goes in for another kiss and Busy pushes him to the ground. She manages to run out, while Steve holler’s “stupid tease, what did you think was going to happen!?” Christ, I’m disturbed to think how many victims he has lured to his rape cave.

Anyway, back to Frankie and Amanda. They leave the tent with huge ass grins, but Frankie asks Amanda not to tell Busy what happened. Amanda agrees, and Busy runs up all in distress about what just happened. Frankie finally see’s his friends and runs off, while Busy runs home. Amanda’s way too pleased with how her situation turned out to really notice/care that Busy is pretty upset.

Later on in the evening, Busy is in her room quietly brooding about the events that happened today. Frankie comes up and tells her Amanda’s waiting for her downstairs, and Busy tells him to say she’s sick. Frankie asks if Busy wants to talk about anything and she says no. I guess this is showcasing Frankie as a sensitive soul and that not all guys are like Steve. Anyway, we already knew Frankie was a decent guy based on other episodes.

The scene shifts to outside where Busy is borderline in tears asking Amanda if she was a tease for not giving in to Steve’s sexual attempts, because prior to that she did like him and held his hand. Amanda says some kind of lame line about how kisses should feel good, not rapey. Then she points out (as I already mentioned) that not all guys are like that, as evident by her macking with Busy’s fine ass brother. P.S. She doesn’t say that, as of now Busy does not know that Amanda and Frankie kissed.

The episode ends with Busy pointing out that she did knock Steve’s bitch ass onto the ground and Amanda nods her head in approval.

I know I said in the beginning this was in my top five, but this is honestly my second favourite episode of the series, with the next episode being my favourite. I really enjoy the Frankie and Amanda romance, and this episode in general was really good. It sucks what happened to Busy, but bastards like Steve need to know that no means no.

Alright, next Monday, Amanda and Frankie’s relationship continues, but will it survive? Tune in, to FIND OUT.

Season 3, Episode 4: Under One Roof

Hi eurrybody. I feel like I haven’t updated this thing for awhile, but according to my stats it’s been less than a month, so yay on that. Last night I spent like two hours trying to figure out how to put ads on here, and then realized you can’t do it on a WordPress.com blog. Booourns I need the monies! Not that I expected anything but figured may as well try…it’s all about the Elizabeths baby. My goal would be to make some monetary gain from this website one day if at all possible. Maybe when I get a real job I’ll hussle on over to .org and get started on making this a real website.

Anyway, enough about me, let’s continue on with our jam packed summer episodes of Ready or Not.

The episode begins with Neon Vomit rehearsing in Busy’s garage for some musical showcase they want to be in. They now have a new girl singer, having replaced the former boring guitarist who wore his shades all the time ala Bono. The Liz is also sporting probably his most ridiculous hair style to date if you can actually believe that. I will attempt to get screenshots at some point. Anyway, NV now puts more than screams and grunts into their music as this song actually has lyrics. For a garage band it’s not terrible either.

Just as rehearsal is getting into full gear, Dom, Sam and Lucy return from somewhere with a huge “Viva Ramone” banner for their family reunion that will be the main plot of this episode.  Dom cuts off the music by unplugging their amp, (and proves their whole singing was pre-recorded as the girl’s mouth doesn’t synch up with the words…yes I notice these things!) and plugging in his own, where he begins playing “O Sole Mio”.  Sam and Lucy dance around acting dorky, but it’s nice to see them getting along. I’m glad Busy didn’t end up with a broken family. But yes, Busy is highly embarrassed by her family’s behaviour as teenagers are wont to be.

But look how cute Sam and Lucy are in this screenshot. They are way too proud of this stupid banner.

The next scene Amanda’s indulging Busy in her pipe dreams of becoming a famous musician one day. Busy’s harping on about how Sam thinks The Liz and Joanie (the girl) are weird looking. Well in terms of The Liz’s case….yeah he is fucking weird looking. Amanda’s excited about going to the reunion because she’s very open about having no life of her own, and thus needs to hang around the Ramone clan almost all the time. Busy then jet’s off to meet up with the band.

The band are at some diner discussing their song. The waitress comes to take their orders, and they all order boring shit like “a side of string beans and a Coke” while Busy orders a veal sandwich. They all kind of make a face, and the The Liz starts preaching about how bad veal/eating meat is in general. Busy makes some squirmy looking face and I guess feels bad about eating meat now. This tactic would not work on me, if anything it would make me order more meat out of spite. I hate people who pull that shit, thankfully my vegetarian friends are normal and keep their traps shut. P.S. Here’s a screenshot of The Liz’s hair. I don’t even know what to make of this.

The next scene is Busy deciding to get her nose pierced, because Joanie has one and now Busy feels like she must emulate all the cool people in Neon Vomit. I wish she had decided to get dreads like Petrocelli instead. I feel the nose piercing is a wasted scene as we don’t see it happening at all. We had to watch Amanda wax her legs, they could’ve easily added some scene of Busy almost having a freak out during the session. Anyway, moving on.

Busy arrives home right as her family is setting up dinner. Of course they immediately notice her nose ring and their reaction is pretty much what you’d expect. Sam is like “wtf take that bullshit out now” and Dom and Frankie make fun of it.

They go outside, and Sam is clearly getting more and more irritated by the second with Busy. Lucy passes her the steak which she passes to Dom as she is now a newly found vegetarian. The whole family kinda scoffs and Frankie calls her trendy, which I definitely agree with. Busy say’s meat is murder which pisses Sam off even more as meat is the reason that family isn’t living in some shanty town. Plus Sam isn’t the one actually killing the animals, he doesn’t work at the slaughterhouse, he just packs the meat up, the deed is already done so get over it Busy. Sam’s had about enough and then starts ranting about how her band is a bad influence, that they’re druggies, they dress bad etc. and Busy starts getting lippy back as a result. Sam then grounds her and Busy runs off pouting. It’s very typical teenager and parent fighting stuff.

The next day Sam and Lucy are going grocery shopping for the 700th time and Sam yells at Busy to make sure she doesn’t leave the goddamn house or he’ll cane her backside upon his return. Naturally Busy ignores this threat as the next scene is her at the audition with her band. They play their music for about ten seconds and the guy in charge decides that’s enough and they’ll do. Must not be much competition for this showcase. But of course there must be a conflict, in that the showcase had to move up a weekend and is now the same one as Busy’s family reunion. Also what is with this concert promoter’s outfit? This looks like an amateur Shakespeare actor came inside from his smoke break and decided to eat pretzels and judge some teenager’s music.

Busy manages to get home literally right before her family does. She also has removed her nose ring, I guess to begin buttering up Sam for the eventual bomb she’s about to drop. So Busy casually asks if it would matter if she didn’t go to the reunion because her band got into the showcase and it’s amazing because “they only pick twenty bands!” Yeah this isn’t Lollapalooza Busy, I bet twenty bands didn’t even audition. Of course Sam and Lucy are disgusted with her lying and general behaviour. Sam tells her to get her goddamn ass back upstairs because she’s sill grounded. Of course Busy has to get in her little statement before running off claiming “you don’t know anything about me!” Of we know Busy. The whole Ready or Not universe and the like knows that you think your mediocre musical aspirations come above any and all else. We’ve all had that friend, haven’t we? The one that believes they are so talented despite evidence to the contrary, and their talents justify their shitty behaviours and attitudes. I’m over this music shit with Busy, and we basically have to endure this until Season Five.

Dom comes up to Busy’s room and more or less asks her why she’s being a rat bastard and ruining the reunion for Sam, because it’s clear that this is something he cares about a lot. She brings up her usual “my music means a lot to me” spiel and that they are ruining her life as a result. Dom kind gives up and leaves because it’s obvious Busy isn’t to be reasoned with. I guess this is realistic in how a teen would act;  with the melodramatic “my parents are ruining my life” crap and thinking anything going on in their life is more important than anything else, despite the fact that Sam’s family is flying in from Italy for this party which makes it a lot more important in the grand scheme of things.

Busy comes downstairs and Lucy tries to get Sam and Busy talking about the reunion. Sam tells Busy that it’s very important for him that she’s at the reunion because 10 000 of their long lost relatives are coming in from Italy, and she should be there to meet them all. Lucy even suggests that Busy play a drum solo at the reunion because they do support her musical aspirations.

Of course this isn’t good enough for Busy though, and she remarks by saying “why would I want to play for a bunch of boring immigrants who stink of garlic and pinch my cheeks too hard?” I’m not a fan of Sam sometimes, but that was a pretty low blow on Busy’s end. Lucy tries her best not to backhand slap her daughter across the face, while Sam looks shattered that Busy would say such mean things about his family. He tells her to fuck off to her showcase because he doesn’t want her at the reunion anymore.

So the next day Busy is meeting up with the band and guess what? Their showcase has been cancelled because of some Ukrainian wedding. So this will set up a convenient conclusion to the episode.

We go back to the Ramone’s, and their reunion is in full swing with many Italians scampering about in the backyard and Amanda being victim to their cheek pinching.

Busy’s upstairs in her room pouting or something, I actually have no idea why she’s not at the reunion now. Amanda comes up and gives her a hot dog which Busy happily eats because who actually wants to be a vegetarian? Busy asks Amanda if she really thinks she wants to go downstairs and hang out with her relatives and hear stuff like how much she’s grown. Amanda tells her to swallow her goddamn pride and come down.

Busy eventually sanders down and makes up with her dad, though never actually apologizing for what she said. Lucy asks if Busy still wants to do her drum solo, but Busy has a “better idea.”

Which results in Neon Vomit coming by (because what else would they really be doing?) and playing a rock version of “O Sole Mio”. The episodes ends with everyone jamming out and having a grand old time.

This episode was alright to slightly dull for me. I feel like since there hasn’t been much conflict with the Ramone’s lately, the show had to create some mild drama that would resolve quickly. Plus showcasing Busy as a typical teen aka being as equal a wannabe as Amanda in regards to trying to impress people she likes, and thinking everything she cares about is the only thing that matters.

Next episode: Shit gets real.