Hi everyone, how’s it going? Can you believe the summer is over? I just had my 37th bday two weeks ago, (aka September 14th cuz knowing me this could be posted in December). I’m so glad the weather has pretty much jumped almost straight into fall, which is my preferred season (yeah I’m a basic bitch, sorry I like pumpkin spice and hoodies). I think it’s more I really dislike summer. My theory is most people like summer because they think back to when they were in school and getting months off for summer, because why the hell would anyone enjoy humidity?
Anyway, I’ve been working still, going to therapy and also working out semi-regularly and I started a high school biology course as I am hoping to go back to college next September. So yeah I’ve been busy and I definitely still have down days but I’m sure we all do considering the state of the world and such. But all we can do is keep trying to move forward.
You guys may also have noticed there are ads on the site now. I decided to try out a paid account at least for a year. I always wanted to see if I could ever make money from this site… well so far I’ve made a pretty penny…literally one penny haha. Well to me this site is more about my own enjoyment than profit, so I’m ok if things stay exactly as they are but if you do or have supported me anyway at all in the past or present I thank you. 🙂
Anyway, enough rambling! Let’s get on with the review.
The episode opens with Busy making a banner for a swimmer named “The Butterfly” who Amanda and Busy is a fan of, and who is retiring soon. Apparently he’s big in their district, but are highschool athletes really that big they have fans? Maybe it’s a thing, I don’t know, because sports in general mean little to me. Behind them, there are three girls who are clearly supposed to be snobs as they have really fake posh accents and are discussing various restaurants they’ve been to and hated in their lives. Amanda is kind of eavesdropping as you guys all know shes all about wanting to get in with the worst kinds of people. I guarantee you these girls are all named Caitlyn, Ashley or Meagan. I’m going off of my own high school experience where 98% of the female population in my grade had one of those names.
Nah, I heard one of them say a name and it was Diana but pronounced “Dee-ana” so you know they extra pretentious. Busy is still going on about the sign for The Butterfly, while Amanda continues spying on these girls, clearly looking for an in to interrupt their convo. Finally one of them mentions tiramisu and Amanda jumps on it, inserting herself into their inane conversation by mentioning she loves tiramisu and her cool ass loft has some sweet restaurants by it. The three girls inform Amanda they are starting a dinner club and trying new places each month. One of the girls mentions liking Amanda’s sweater which has her going on and on about her mom getting it in NYC where she went on a massive shopping spree and had backstage passes at some musical, all courtesy of rich Steven I’m sure. So it’s clear already Amanda is trying to impress these three randoms. Busy gets tired of hearing Amanda be fake and flicks her with the marker to shut her up.
This results in a marker fight with Amanda and Busy going to town on one another (sounds bad). Unfortunately a marker ends up going flying right in front of goddamn Clemmer. Of course he’s not having it, because this man hates seeing joy on the face of youths, and decides to give Busy and Busy only a detention. Man I feel like all the teachers in this school hate her.
Later on they’re in the washroom, and Busy is complaining that it’s bullshit that Amanda never gets in trouble and she always does. Amanda basically agrees with her. Busy reminds Amanda to come over later to work on the banner for The Butterfly. Amanda is pretty meh about the whole thing, which Busy takes notice of and asks if she still wants to go. Amanda says she’s kind of losing interest in stuff like that to which Busy states well he is your favourite damn swimmer. Amanda says yeah when she was 12 (ummm you’re like 14 now, 12 wasn’t THAT long ago). Amanda agrees though and says she’ll make sure to come by and decorate it up. I think this was the first real inkling of a theme that will start to slowly emerge more and more in that Amanda begins to subconsciously pull away from the friendship and seems to want more independence, while Busy starts to become more clingy. It’s something that will definitely come up in future episodes but upon rewatching this episode I was “hmmm emoji”.
In the hallway one of The Heathers (that’s just what I’m calling these three girls cuz I only know one name so far) stop Amanda and gives her their number. I guess that riveting 10 second conversation about tiramisu made them decide she’s worth talking to. Busy gives Amanda a major WTF look and asks why she’d want to hang out with those bimbos. Amanda as usual is open to befriending pretty much anyone and seems ok with branching out with these chicks. Busy asks if she’s actually going to call this girl and Amanda says probably not. It’s pretty obvious Busy is scared of losing Amanda’s friendship and is becoming a bit possessive with these new girls. But you know what, that’s pretty common in young female friendships. I definitely got jealous when my best friends met other people so it’s a pretty realistic portrayal. P.S. God bless Lani Billard’s facial expressions.
At Amanda’s house (I thought they were doing this at Busy’s?…meh) they are painting the poster and discussing Busy’s detention. Busy mentioned all the stupid weirdo things Clemmer does while in the classroom and then points out that Amanda has never had detention before because she’s so goddamn perfect and leads a perfect life with no problems. Amanda points out some really dumb ways she isn’t perfect, such as being bad at long jump and being afraid of heights. Busy rightfully rolls her eyes at these lame ass examples. Amanda decides to pull out the big guns and whips off her shoe/sock and shows Busy a gnarly plantar wart she has. Busy is grossed out but definitely tucks that little nugget of info into the back of her mind for later use.
The next day after gym Busy asks Amanda again about her toe fungus and Amanda tells her it’s getting bigger and she’s removing it soon, but she can’t take a shower because it’s contagious. The Heathers stop by on their way to the shower and ask Amanda why she isn’t joining them. Busy saves her ass by using the excuse that she’s wearing contacts and the water will knock them out of her eyes. (FYI you can shower with contacts I’ve done it millions of times). The Heathers ask Amanda what she is doing tonight and invite her to their first dinner club meeting. Amanda of course says yes and Busy is like “wtf we’re going to the swim meet tonight.” Amanda states Busy was also clearly invited (even though she clearly wasn’t, as the girls were blatantly ignoring her the whole time), and that they’ll have fun at the dinner club meeting. Busy is just like OK, sis.
After school Amanda comes up to The Heathers and lets them know she and Busy are very excited about the dinner club thing tonight. By their expressions you can tell they are none too pleased that Busy is coming along. I don’t know how Amanda cannot read these social cues. They basically say they didn’t think Busy would be into this type of thing, which I think is a fair assumption. I mean, these girls are obviously snobby and do probably see Busy as a poor provincial soul, but Amanda should know Busy well enough that she wouldn’t dig going to some pretentious restaurant. But no, Amanda is clueless as ever and says that Busy will love it because it’s an Italian restaurant and because there is pasta Busy will be all about dat. The girls kind of accept their fate that Busy Ramone will be crashing their club tonight.
At the restaurant it’s clear The Heathers are doing all they can to make Busy’s time there not fun, starting with “forgetting to change the reservation” so she has to stand around waiting for a chair for awhile. While looking over the menu the girl’s stumble over some Italian food names/what’s in the dishes and Busy politely corrects them. This causes the betches to roll their eyes and just be over it with Busy even though she wasn’t being her usual rude Busy self at all. So I feel important to mention this next part because it has stayed with me me all my life. Busy mentions how there’s a bunch of different forks and one of the girl’s says “an easy way to remember is to start on the outside and work your way in” and that stuck with me til now hahaha. Legit when I’ve been on a cruise or a restaurant with more than one fork I go back to this wise sage’s advice. So thanks random girl from Ready or Not whose name I still don’t know, because that info was useful.
Amanda leaves to use the can and Busy is now alone with the ghouls who start full on ignoring her now. She decides to leave this awkwardness and go find a new fork. As soon as she gets up they start bad mouthing her, basically saying it’s bizarre they are friends and that Busy should be super embarrassed that she begged Amanda to let her tag along. Busy of course hears all of this. As soon as Busy returns they start a new fake convo about Amanda saying how she has amazing hair/skin etc and that she’s likely never had a pimple ever. Busy scoffs and is like umm ok she’s had a lot worse. The convo starts spiraling at that point as the girls grill Busy for more info, with Busy finally saying she has a contagious wart. The Heathers full on start freaking out about it. You can tell Busy did not mean to let it go as far as it did, and these girls are honestly acting like Busy said she has genital warts (maybe they do think that because Busy never specified where the wart was). They go so far as to think she has ring worm and borderline start hyperventilating.
Poor Amanda comes back minutes later, with no idea the damage that Busy has caused with her big mouth. The Heathers immediately start acting weird around her, which Amanda tries to ignore at first. Some bread and oil comes out and Amanda dips her piece in. The girls then act like she’s time traveler from the year 2020, and has contracted a then unknown virus called COVID-19, and immediately pull away from dipping their own bread in. Honestly surprised they didn’t pull out face masks or hand sanitizer at this point.
So Amanda definitely noticed them acting weird when they did that, even she’s not that socially inept. She mentions how she’s excited to try sushi next month (because they were talking about it before) and The Heathers were like “mmm yeah, no gotta avoid parasites”, and continue to full on ignore Amanda in the same manner they treated Busy. Amanda is entirely befuddled by their actions.
Later on while walking home Amanda is like why the heck were they being so weird to me, did I say something really stupid? Busy of course keeps playing dumb and was like nope you are imaging things. She certainly was not, those girls didn’t even attempt to be slightly normal around Amanda. I’d be paranoid too.
A short scene in the hallway the next day and Amanda see The Heathers and goes to say hi and they are full on ignoring her now, don’t even attempt to be fake friendly. Amanda of course is crushed by this, why I am not sure because she’s literally been “friends” with these chicks for two seconds. But you know Amanda, always worrying about fitting in with the worst of the worst.
Now here comes the most humiliating experience for a high school kid, or so TV/movies would have me believe. In gym class the teacher tells them to divide into two teams and of course two of The Heathers are team captains. As we go down the line we see more and more girls get chosen before Amanda, they even pick friggin’ Busy, who they have openly hated on a daily basis. So poor Zimm is the last one left to be picked. Man you think she had the bubonic plague or something.
Later on in the bathroom (I feel like so many events take place in the school bathroom at this school), you can tell Amanda’s pretty bummed about the continued snubbing by The Heathers. Busy reminds Amanda today is the last day to see The Butterfly swim and Amanda really doesn’t care as she’s too sad about not being friends with these girls. Busy starts getting mighty irate because she can’t understand Amanda’s need to be friends with these girls. Amanda figures if she talks to them she can figure out why they are treating her like shit. Busy says that’s not a good idea, mostly because she knows her ass is about to be toast. Amanda keeps pestering Busy to fess up as to why these betches are ignoring her, as Busy attempts to flee her in the hallway.
Finally Busy tells Amanda the truth about the wart stuff and of course Amanda is fucking pissed. She states that Busy did it on purpose to turn them against her which Busy denies, but I dunno y’all…. I think Busy could’ve stopped herself or made up some lie when it was happening. I think Busy kind of did want to make Amanda look bad, especially since this whole episode has been on and on about how Amanda leads this super charmed life. But anyway, Amanda storms off in anger at what dum dum Busy did.
Later on we see Amanda at home and Busy keeps calling and Amanda is hanging up/ignoring. She must have her own phone line cuz I feel like Phyllis would lose her shit over hearing the phone ringing non-stop. The scene shifts to Busy’s house and she’s sitting glumly on her bed with The Butterfly banner her and Amanda made. Frankie comes in and is being rude, but then notices that Busy looks super sad. He asks why and Busy says “did you ever do something to hurt someone, not really on purpose but kind of?” so yes, she definitely spilled the beans on the wart on purpose. To be honest, I can kind of see it from Busy’s point of view, it would be hard to be friend’s with someone like Amanda, someone who is pretty, makes friends easily, never gets in trouble etc. etc. so yeah, maybe the bad/human side of her wanted to see a tiny shitty thing happen to her. Unfortunately it definitely did not end up being worth the fall out. Busy tells Frankie she messed up and hurt Amanda and Frankie says she will probably get over it and there’s more than one way to say you are sorry. Awww I wish Frankie and Amanda were still dating…hahahaha I will never get over that lost opportunity. OMG I hope the reboot has it so they somehow got married or they end up hooking up again! ANYWAY… continuing on…
The next day Busy tries to apologize to Amanda, but she is still not having it. Later on we see Amanda sitting alone on a bleacher eating lunch and The Heathers are walking around complaining about the differences between Belgian and Swiss chocolate (I love how stereotypical snobby the show made them). Busy comes up to them and basically takes one for the team aka Amanda saying she lied about the warts and it was actually her who has them and that Amanda is an awesome person who likes their asses for reasons she can’t figure out. Honestly when push comes to shove, Busy is an amazing friend, and this is not something I think most people would be willing to do. The episode ends with The Heathers wandering over to Amanda to be pretend to be super fake nice with her again and Busy hoping to God that throwing herself on the sword saved their friendship. Amanda was in clear view of all this happening FYI so hopefully she puts two and two together and see’s what Busy did for their friendship.
I really liked this episode, to me it put Busy is a really human light. She did something I think a lot of teenage girls would’ve done, in terms of maybe putting someone down to make yourself feel better, but in the end it almost cost her their friendship (spoiler alert they are all BFF’s again by the next episode). She swallowed her pride and even though she couldn’t understand why, she still fixed things with The Heathers and Amanda.
Next episode (2nd last of season 4…holy crap finally!) Amanda and Busy try to watch a soft core porn while Sheila gets in the way.
P.S. I updated my “About” page as I don’t look like that anymore and sadly I haven’t been 32 for many a year.
Ready or Not Reviewed! 