Hey guys, guess what, I got a job! I’m going back to my barista roots, working at a new cafe opening soon in a city next to mine. I’m really excited, as having no money sucks and the people I’m working for seem really cool.
Well we’ve now come to the episode where the Zimm’s reach the cusp of their downward spiral and it results in Amanda doing some fucking weird shit. But I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s start from the beginning.
The episode opens with Amanda painting some huge mural and you can hear Phyllis and Leonard arguing in the background. You hear Leonard yell “Goddamnit, that’s it!” and leaves the house. Amanda looks sullenly into her paints as she knows her family is on the brink of separation.
The next day Busy and Amanda are walking around the mall and Busy actually notices some hot guys that Amanda didn’t, so you know something’s wrong with Amanda. Busy asks her what’s up and Amanda starts talking about some weird childhood fantasy she had about living in a mall. Busy naturally scoffs at this, while Amanda points out that you could fully live well enough in a mall aka by eating the cafeteria food, playing with the toys etc. Hey, it worked in Dawn of the Dead until the zombies tore everyone’s shit up.
They walk into what is probably Sears or The Bay and find an extravagant bed, which Amanda immediately wants and refers to as “an environment.” Busy asks if she could ask her parents for it and Amanda says no because her dad is still an unemployed bum, plus having the marital strife. Amanda asks Busy how her parents are doing and Busy acts kinda weird about it, but says they are doing fine. Then she see’s some kid playing a Sonic the Hedgehog game and immediately runs off to play it. It’s scenes like this where Busy seems like such a little effing child compared to Amanda.
Amanda comes home and her parents are sitting on the couch in a serious manner, so you know Leonard’s getting his ass kicked to the curb. Amanda asks how long til he goes and he says he’s leaving tomorrow. Also Phyllis is wearing the worst jeans in existence in this scene; they weirdly bunch at the ankle, perhaps because of spandex and they’re that gross light blue colour that was big in the early-mid 90’s. They just look awful, it was all I could focus on in this scene.
The next day Busy is at Amanda’s place and you can tell she feels super awkward because Amanda’s trying to put on a brave face with her father leaving, but isn’t really succeeding. She keeps lying to herself saying that things will go back to normal once her dad finds a job and all that other crap kids tell themselves when their parents break up. Leonard comes in and again it becomes awkward because he’s leaving and Busy’s there which doesn’t really allow him to have a heartfelt goodbye with Amanda. He goes and then Busy can’t handle the awkwardness and leaves as well. Amanda cries softly into her yellow paint.
Amanda goes downstairs and notices Leonard took all the furniture. Pretty shitty move I’d say, but then I guess he’s broke and most likely paid for it so felt right in taking it. Just seems a bit fucked to me that he’d leave them without a damn chair. Amanda starts giving attitude to Phyllis, saying shit like “are you satisfied now?” even though they both agreed to separate. I think in the eyes of a kid, whichever parent is the one that has to go will always look like the “better person” even if they aren’t (which is the case with Leonard, and not even just cuz of his lack of job, it will be revealed in later episodes the other bullshit he did).
Phyllis tries to tell Amanda right now it’s complicated, but she doesn’t make herself look any good when she says shit about Leonard only “loafing around” when he was there. Amanda gets really pissed at that and yells at her mom saying she was too mean to Leonard and always yelled at him. Phyllis starts getting emotional and Amanda yells “Why are you crying, you’re the one that made him go!” and runs off. I found this an extremely accurate portrayal of how a kid would react in this situation, blaming the one parent, getting in one good hurtful jab before running off etc.
At Leonard’s Amanda’s having a spaghetti dinner with her dad. What is it about spaghetti dinners with recently separated fathers? It’s always either that or Kraft dinner. Least they’re not having pancakes for dinner like in the Babysitter’s Club movie. So Leonard is trying to make the best of the situation saying shit to Amanda like “now we can get to know each other as people” to which she replies yeah we can do that at home and have an unbroken family. Just like Phyllis, he tells her it’s not that simple blah blah.
Amanda starts looking at some newspapers and tells Leonard he needs to get a goddamn job so things can go back to normal, but of course it’s more than that because clearly Phyllis and Leonard hate each other now. Amanda then gets all mopey because Leonard took one half of the couch section and it clearly symbolizes the breaking up of the family unit all set to the heartfelt piano this show loves. Oh Ready or Not, you’re so melodramatic.
The next day Busy and Amanda are walking home and Busy asks how Amanda’s dad’s place is and if it’s a “swinging bachelor pad”. Of course Amanda gets pissed off at this remark and says her dad isn’t a bachelor and that his apartment is depressing as fuck. Stupid Busy. Amanda then asks if Busy wants to come over and study and Busy once again lies in a terrible fashion and says she has to go help her mom make dinner. So clearly Busy is totally weirded out by Amanda’s family shit, probably because it hits a bit too close to home with her own family.
Later on at her house, Amanda hear’s Phyllis and Leonard arguing about money over the phone. She picks up the receiver and yells at both of them to shut the fuck up and then runs out of the house in a dramatic fashion.
Amanda goes to Busy’s where she’s in the middle of a poker game with her brothers. Amanda wants Busy to go to the mall with her, but Busy’s being really dismissive about it, clearly rather hanging out with her bros. Sam and Lucy come in with a huge pizza and it’s just one of those perfect family moments where everyone is happy and content. Amanda decides to go and Busy is basically like “ok PAYCE” aka doesn’t care at all. Lucy kinda notices since Lucy is the only one who seems to be aware of people outside herself. Anyway, so yeah Busy’s being a shit friend in this episode. Actually Busy’s been pretty shitty this entire season now that I’m really paying attention to these episodes. I am by no means a huge fan of Amanda, but Busy’s been pretty craptacular lately.
Amanda goes to the mall by herself. She starts writing in her diary which actually looks like a napkin, and she’s writing with one of those thin Crayola markers. She then notices some gross dude’s checking her out and high tails it out of the cafeteria. That one guy legit looks like he’s rolling a joint haha.
Amanda wanders aimlessly around the mall. She then comes back to that bed her and Busy were at before, right as an announcement comes on the PA saying the mall is closing soon. She then decides to hide under the bed and live out her fantasy of residency in a mall.
We then see a montage of Amanda doing random shit in the mall such as trying on make-up, trying on clothes, playing video games, going to the food court and other various things. She finally wanders off and settles into the bed.
Back at the Ramone’s Lucy is asking Busy if anything is going on between her and Amanda, probably on account of how lame Busy was treating her earlier. Busy says no and Lucy tells her she knows about her parents splitting up and asks Busy if she’s scared to talk about it because of her and Sam’s issues. Busy says yeah and that’s basically why she’s ignoring Amanda. Lucy tells her to remember Amanda has no siblings so maybe try and actually talk with her. This is why I love Lucy, she just seems to care about everyone. So Phyllis calls and she’s probably freaking out because Amanda’s missing and you can tell by Busy’s face that she probably has an inkling where crazy Amanda went.
Finally just when you think this mall has no security whatsoever, a security guard catches Amanda in the bed and drags her ass off the office to call the police/her parents. As this is occurring, Lucy and Busy are pulling up to the mall’s parking lot. Lucy asks Busy why she thinks she’s here and Busy says “because she’s Amanda.” I think this reasoning will be used again later on in this series.
The security guard starts writing her up and Amanda tries to reason with him saying she only did it because of her family strife. He doesn’t seem to really care, but conveniently just as this convo is occurring they see the Ramone meat van on the security camera. Amanda begs him not to call the cops and he gives in pretty easily, probably didn’t want to deal with all the bullshit.
Back at Amanda’s place her parents give her the whole spiel about being worried and asks why she ran away. Amanda says she doesn’t know and she just wants them to get back together, which they say nope, not happening. The episode ends with Amanda quietly going up to her room and laying in a fetal position over the soft piano.
Overall this episode was much more boring than I remembered it being. For some reason I thought the mall antics lasted way longer, but they were about 10% of this episode. I guess I also find Amanda’s family drama much less interesting than Busy’s family drama.. Most likely because I don’t like the Zimm family all that much in general. Busy continues to irritate me as a character this season, but thankfully(?) we are introduced to a much more annoying character in the next episode. So look forward to that!
Ready or Not Reviewed! 