You can feel free to discuss any of the recent episodes of the show in this post, but since I had some time, I wanted to write about this one, which I thought was one of the best episodes of the season.
Ben is revealed to be both a kleptomaniac and really good at it. Chip works on scheming his way into being the junior prom king. (That’s not what the dance is called, but I don’t remember what it’s called. Also, I think the actual title is “Prince.”) Sabrina wants to learn how to dance. We have our three plots and they intersect rather nicely.
I’m gonna start with my favorite. Sabrina / Jimmy is one of my favorite pairings, because the two seemingly couldn’t have less in common on the surface. Of course, Jimmy is possessed with a wisdom Sabrina lacks (and weirdly, a wisdom about things she cares about, that no forty-year-old man should care about). Mickey catches Sabrina’s hilariously awkward and horrible dancing in her bedroom, and suggests to her that Jimmy is actually the expert she should consult on dancing. Jimmy accurately susses out something strange here; “Sabrina Pemberton, the coolest girl this school has seen, maybe ever, wants to go to a dance now? Something doesn’t add up.” Sabrina tells him she wants to confound expectations; fair enough. Jimmy gives her an address and time to meet up the next day, then wastes half her day waiting until she’s ready to leave to reveal he’s been there all along.
(Jimmy says the name of their school, but I don’t know what it is, and the Internet was completely useless in that regard.)
Their montage of dance work is scored to INXS’ “The One Thing,” a classic song with an all-time great riff that doesn’t get enough love among their oeuvre. So Sabrina is ready for the dance. Let’s pick that up in a bit.
Chip is trying to get himself named junior king so he can hook up with the expected favorite to be named junior queen, Madison, and in Chip fashion, does so by undermining all the other contenders (as Mickey learns when he reveals he ratted out a drug dealer and ruined the after-party). But then a kid comes back to school in a wheelchair, and Chip flips out, thinking he’ll get the pity vote, and seeks to undermine him by stuffing a backpack full of fake ballots and trying to plant it on him at the dance.
Now to Ben. The cold open has Principal Gibbons confronting Mickey that Ben stole a golden apple from a teacher. Mickey, of course, thinks he didn’t do it, because Ben tells her he didn’t… until she finds it among his belongings. Mickey and Alba decide to lay a trap for Ben to see if he’ll confess– and when he swears on her grave he didn’t do it, they then try to freak him out by telling him the cops are coming and they all have to flee to Mexico. He loses it and finally confesses… and reveals he stole a whole lot of other stuff from the school cop. Including a gun.
Mickey, naturally, while trying to safely dispose of the gun, empties the clip but forgets the one in the chamber and shoots herself in the leg– which she has to cover up from the other kids. Chip mistakenly takes the backpack with the gun to the dance. Mickey and Ben head out there to bring it back, resulting in a bit of hilarious farce as a slowly-bleeding-out Mickey tries to wrestle the backpack away from Chip. Then Principal Gibbons confronts him, Ben reveals the backpack is his– and returns the apple, buying them all a reprieve, because Gibbons doesn’t search the backpack any further than that. And Chip is crowned prince!
Unfortunately for him, Madison is not the princess– the girl whose name I can’t remember that starts with F, that we saw explaining who the kid in the wheelchair was to Chip on the soccer field, wins, because her dad is in the military.
Also, Sabrina is nowhere to be seen at the dance… because she’s at Bert’s (Jay Mohr) strip club, where she’s entering amateur night. Jimmy figures this out after seeing a flyer in her room, and rushes over to stop her, in what would be a genuinely heartwarming moment of paternal / fraternal affection… and then comes the announcement that top prize is $2500. Smash cut to the two of them in Jimmy’s car counting the money.
A real winner in my book. I wish I had taken notes or could remember any of the damn guest characters’ names. One more episode to go this season before New Girl takes over the time slot for its final season.
STRAY OBSERVATIONS
- Wow, Chip’s fantasy of throwing a javelin through that kid happened so fast it actually had me believe it for a second.
- Mickey giving the cop an apple, then telling him to turn himself over in two hours? Pretty, pretty, pretty good.
- Alba tries to reassure Mickey that her gunshot wound isn’t that bad. Then she actually looks at it and faints.
- Jimmy’s entire shtick as Sabrina’s dance mentor absolutely kills me. I’m so glad Scott MacArthur wasn’t actually leaving the show.
- Sweet moment when Jimmy says he’ll take Sabrina for ice cream afterward. Then, of course, his car doesn’t start.
- The header photo isn’t from the episode, but FOX’s stupid press photos aren’t working right, so the only place I could’ve gotten a full-size one is spoilertv.com, and they watermark theirs. So I found you a photo of Mickey wielding a shotgun, which is close enough for an episode where she shoots herself in the leg with a handgun.
- Previous episodes we haven’t covered: “The Accident,” “The Night Off,” “The Car.” Feel free to discuss in comments. I’ll try to post my brief thoughts.
- One more episode this season. No word yet on renewal, but the prospects seem promising.