11-06-00

Hail,

I haven't been Rambling about episodes the same night I post the summary, but I've changed how I'm doing this slightly, so now I will sometimes. I've also been thinking about changing the format in the Annotation File, and starting with Fourth Season I will. I'll be going back and converting the other ones, but it's not a priority.

I can't say this was among Glenn's better works. There's certainly a lot of good stuff in it, but the ending is pretty shaky to me.
We get a slight bit more of Tom in this episode. Most interesting is Jane's story about the rude guy at the theater. Since we also find out he's in a prep school, it's pretty clear his parents have money, and regardless of his car, he's used to having it around and using it to solve problems.

Seeing more Jodie is always nice, but I'm liking her less as a character after this episode. From her behavior in this episode, it's pretty clear why she'd find Ayn Rand a little disturbing (see "Gifted"). Jodie is definitely a subjectivist, and that's probably why she reacts so harshly to being accused of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy isn't in and of itself a bad thing; a change in situation can change what's appropriate, after all. But when your moral standard doesn't have any concrete basis saying one thing and doing another is a "Bad Thing". And she is a hypocrite; right after her speech on being judged for herself she makes sure she isn't. Daria was right about that, and she shouldn't have had to apologize.
This brings up Helen's speech, one of the two other things about the ending I didn't like. The implications that strong morals are a hindrance isn't exactly a good message to be sending, although it is perfectly in character (her earlier quote from this episode is a good illustration). Daria compromising her principles is not something I want to be watching.

The other major theme is the Daria and Jane fight, but there's a little problem here. We don't have enough information to actually get a handle on it. They're still fighting, okay, that was left unresolved in "Jane's Addition." However, what's happened since? We don't know how long it's been, and aside from Jane going on her ride with Tom we don't know how much time she and Daria have been spending together. Daria's jump to a conclusion after Jane comments on Kevin and Brittany's fight is an indication she's going overboard, but we simply can't tell how far, or how appropriate that apology at the end is. If this resolves their fight, I'm going to be pretty disappointed, there's just not enough substance to this.

Now, that's not to say this is a bad episode. It was pretty good until the second commercial break, but it just didn't have manage to carry through.

Wraith