Guber to Hook Lady: “Are you sure you want to play the mental stability card?”
Her response: “When you say things like that, it makes me think you still doubt me.”
D’oh!
Tibs.
Oh, I completely agree. I wish Billy Zane’s addition to the show was as hyped as Jerri Ryan’s. I don’t care how hot she is, she’s really not doing anything for me in the acting department. And her character isn’t that interesting either.
But Billy Zane’s character makes me smile. 
Marla Hendrix.
I liked the speech too especially since I was worried what exactly he was going to talk to her about. Remember he told hook-lady he’d talk to Marla? I thought he would do something stupid like fire her! But it was nice to see that’s he’s not completely smitten.
ROFL
Yeah, I too liked Guber’s schpiel to, er… shit, now I forgot her name, too! LOL But it bothers me that he keeps playing the “crazy” card on her.
There is some not-so-subtle hints (akin to groin kicks, IMO) that hook-lady will be using Guber to wreak her own havoc in the school system… because she can no longer control her son?
I’m not that impressed with Stephen’s daughter, however cute she is (and I do think she’s cute). And Billy Zane? Ugh. I just don’t like the actor himself, so all his characters always get on my nerves.
I am eager to see the dynamic with Guber and the new teacher now that he won the case. I think Scott was happy to beat the teacher, but not to beat the students. We’ll see.
I think Guber’s reaction is more complex. I think he’s surprised whenever he wins, because he’s not used to it.
Disturbing moment of the show, the season, and the history of television: Hook lady: “Some women even enjoy orgasms while breast feeding. I used to have them with Jeremy all the time.” <shudder>
Something’s been bothering me since the begining of the season. Isn’t Mandy Patinkin supposed to be on the show this year? I seem to recall him being on the season finale and Steven convinced him to teach at the school. Maybe I missed something, because I watch the show at work and when I get a customer I, unfortunately, have to take my eyes from the screen. Did I imagine this?
Oh and I agree with Otto, the breast feeding orgasm thing was the creepiest thing hook lady has said yet. shudder…
le sigh…
o.k… once again -as I now work nights- I am asking for a wonderful recap by the Wizard of Otto (you’re just too damn cool not too now).
Oh - and a slight hijak… IMO Billy Zane has been the official Mack Daddy since his lead bad guy role in Demon Knight. What a great B/camp movie.
rock
LOL yeah, the breast feeding thing was quite creepy. And remember when Guber says, “How do you know me so well?” and she replies, “I was at our therapist’s, and when he wasn’t looking, I went through your files,” and then he realizes a second later that she’s kidding. Or…is she? Knowing her…Ahh.
I’m not so fond of Stephen Harper’s daughter. I like Mr. Hanson more and more…and next episode he gets arrested. Anyone notice there’s a lot less emphasis on Lauren Davis now? And hopefully they’ll do the same with Harry Senate- he’s had his season.
I like Lauren… 
(But I was starting to feel an little Ally McBeal in there last season with all her relationship garbage).
My question is, why if that is true would she not use the saw to cut the chair enough to free herself?
Of course, I’m new to the show… Maybe I missed something.
And furthermore, wouldn’t she have lost a lot of blood and gone into shock if she had cut off her own hand?
No, dudes, she didn’t cut her hand off on purpose. It was while trying to free herself from the chair, or whatever, that she accidentally cut her hand off with the chainsaw. There was massive blood and all that, but Jeremy found her and took her to the hospital, where they lied about the incident.
What am I, a VCR?
We open on Stephen getting an emergency phone call from his ex-wife stating that their daughter may have killed someone. He goes to the daughter’s private school to discover that the death is that of the school mascot, a goat. Daughter claims that she liberated the goat as a political statement against the school’s using “Rebels” as its nickname. Daughter gets expelled because of this and a number of other incidents (refusing to shower for a week, burning a book, all supposedly for political reasons) and ends up at Winslow. She immediately becomes the associate editor of the school paper, which is under fire for an explicit sexual health column it runs. The latest topic (protested by the shoe lady, this time demanding that we smell “the boot of smut”) is breast orgasms (which of all people the school secretary defends as a way to convince girls not to engage in full-on intercourse. No evidence, but I think the secretary is writing the columns). We have not one but two scenes of Stephen’s maudlin self-pity about not being as close to his daughter as he could be, but they hug each other at the end so everything’s all right again. Until next week.
We see a couple making out in a school hallway. The guy has rounded first and heading to second, when Marla interrupts and says if she ever sees the boy’s hand up a girl’s shirt in the hall again he’ll end up like Hook Lady. Marla turns and Hook Lady is standing there. They get into a verbal tussle, capped by HL smoothing Marla’s collar with her hook and saying “it would be interesting if we fought.” We find out that Marla was really looking for Guber, to talk to him about the junk food in the vending machines. Guber, when he and Marla finally sit down together, tells her that while he’s uneasy about selling junk food too, the school makes $100,000 a year that the school needs for books, sports uniforms, and so on. he also tells Marla that she comes off unstable when she talks to people. She jumps on the issue of the week and beats it to the point where no one listens to her about anything.
Ronnie’s class rebels against learning Shakespeare, claiming that he’s just like any other playwright, putting in sex and death and incest and what-have-you just to put butts in seats. Ronnie’s drippy (ex-) boyfriend is apparently or was at some point an actor so he volunteers to come in and act out a scene. Trouble is, he sucks. Ronnie tries to dissuade him but can’t. He sings the haunting love theme from Ziferelli’s “Romeo and Juliet” and the class destroys itself laughing at him. After class, Ronnie and EBF commiserate and he deludes himself into thinking they laughed as a defense mechanism because the real emotions he stirred up were too much for them to deal with.
Guber and Hook Lady go out to dinner again. She pops off with some insight into his character and he wonders at how well she knows him. She says she read his file at the therapist’s office. Just kidding. Or is she? She asks him to fire Marla because she’s motionally unstable. Guber asks, “Are you sure you want to play the mental instability card?” and apologizes immediately. He tells her not to ask him for any special favors because they’re “courting.” They talk about the school paper and Guber asks if it’s true that women can have orgasms just from breast stimulation. Hook Lady says yes, that some women even have them while breast feeding and that (ick ick ick) she used to have them all the time while breast feeding Jeremy. She invites him in for cookies and she ends up inviting him to stay the night (or maybe that was the previews).
The girl the class chose to represent the student in the lawsuit against Lipschitz is having qualms. Mr Hanson tells her that she should never be afraid of opportunities, or something equally as treacly. Guber argues a motion to dismiss the suit. He argues that there are no damages. The student argues that the damages are putative (potential) because the kid is going to be trying to get into college and how his high school faculty perceives him and speaks of him can affect his chances. Guber ends up winning the motion and the case is dismissed without prejudice, meaning the student can refile in future if actual damages present themselves. And I must nitpick this whole scenario. I don’t know the law in Massachusetts, but in Wisconsin it is way, WAY illegal for a non-lawyer to represent a client in court. They said last week that the suit would be argued pro se, but that means that the student himself would argue on his own behalf. There is just no way that a judge would let a student represent another student.
Am I leaving anything out?
“I want you to ravish me.”
shudder
I think this episode had to much emphasis on Goober and the hook lady. I find both characters creepy, but dull overall. Of course, the more I think about it, the more I think all the characters are dull.
Best line:
Goober:Are you scared?
Hooky:Are you?
Lipshitz:I’m terrified. You two aren’t having sex are you?!
Michael Rappaport does angry so much better than goofy. His little hissy-fit reminded me of Higher Learning. All in all, I’m enjoying his character.
The Hook Lady/Guber thing is getting old. I keep hoping some other household object will mysteriously drop in Guber’s direction. Though the therapist scene was kind of amusing.
It’s official. Steven is just a big asshole. I’m tired of the over-reaction thing. And why is Marla the only one who actually rips into him? He’s becoming a real bully.
Not bad this week, but next week’s looks interesting.
Um…Otto? Boy, I sure hope you didn’t miss last night’s episode…cause I did.
Please?
Tibs.
I’m a big fan of the show, but last night just didn’t do it for me. I didn’t know Hanson was engaged, I didn’t know Lauren was going to see a gig by a student at the beginning of the episode. Those things threw me off, and it didn’t let me enjoy the episode like I normally would’ve.
Having Louisa (spoiler)be Ask Helen(/spoiler) was a big letdown – who still writes letters to a school’s advice columnist; don’t these kids have e-mail? It just seemed too convenient for her to spill her bag full of letters when Harper could’ve just been walking by when she checked her ask.helen@hotmail.com e-mail, doncha think?
OK, we open at a club with a student named C to the A to the R to the A performing and Lauren dancing like a white girl. Cut to Mr Hanson coming home to find his fiancee making the beast with two backs with some skanky guy who then ASKS TO USE THE PHONE. Hanson throws the phone and knocks him unconscious. Hanson is arrested for aggravated assault but Ronnie convinces the guy not to press charges so he is released. We also learn that he’s been arrested twice before, once for joyriding in high school and once for drugs in college. Rumors fly around the school (he threw a guy out a window, he hijacked a bus) and his class is disappointed in him because when their classmate was being abused by Lipschultz he encouraged them to work within the system and he responded with violence, and he owes them an apology. He tears into the class, especially the girl who was the “lawyer” in court, saying things like she has a “big fat mouth” and needs to learn when to keep it shut and that he’s sorry he always calls on her. That night at home his fiancee tells him that she loves him but she doesn’t think her dreams will come true with him and she doesn’t want to be stuck at home “with old furniture” waiting for him to come home from school. He tells her he doesn’t trust her and never will again. next day at school, Lipschultz tells him that the same thing happened to him. Harvey says that lots of people probably told him time heals all woounds. Harvey says time can’t heal this wound. Hanson gos to class and apologizes for being an idiot the day before. That night he goes home and his fiancee has left her engagement ring on the table for him.
Cara comes to school excited because a record exec saw her perform the night before. She tells Lauren that he wants to sign her and send her on tour for four months starting in December, meaning she will have to drop out of school. Lauren encourages her to stay in school but also tells her to get a lawyer and an agent to look over the contract. Later Stephen tells her the parents are pissed that she’s “supporting” Cara in dropping out of school. The parents, Stephen and Lauren meet. Lauren explains that she doesn’t want Cara to drop out of school, but that Cara is a struggling C student but she excels in music and maybe she’s destined to lead a life in music.
Guber and Hook Lady are in her apartment. She invites him to stay the night. “Make love to me, ravage me,” she says. He says, “It’s a school night.” Next day at school he confesses to Stephen that he’s scared because he hasn’t sexed up a woman in nine years and he’s afraid he either won’t be able to get it up or that he’ll ejaculate prematurely. Stephen suggests Viagra for the former and notes the existence of de-sensitizing creams, which coincidentally are the topic of this week’s “Ask Helen” column. Guber and HL talk in the teacher’s lounge and confess their mutual fears. Harvey overhears part of it and agrees they hould be scared. “Are you two having sex? I’m terrified.” Guber and HL go to therapy together and the therapist tells them it’s normal to be scared. HL says she feels like Guber thinks she’s “odd.” Guber initially denies it then acknowledges it, citing her orgasms while breast-feeding Jeremy as an example of something that gives him a wiggins. he’s worried that he won’t be able to stimulate her like her son did. Therapist asks HL if it’s true she orgasms while breast-feeding. She says not recently and goes on to wig out the entire viewing public by saying “I never suckled my son for the orgasms. They were just…a windfall.” Later Guber and HL are looking through a catalog and decide to go in on something in the catalog together, something they feel will make them “an official couple.” Turns out to be a hand catalog and they’re choosing an artificial hand for HL.
Stephen tries to strong-arm the editor of the school paper into dropping “Ask Helen.” Editor refuses so Stephen says he will cut funding. Back in his office, Stephen discovers that Luisa the secretary is “Helen” (as I predicted last week). He’s angry at her for “committing fraud” by saying she’s a student in the column. She defends herself, saying that studenst don’t listen to faculty. They later have another meeting and Marla is present. Stephen goes off on Luisa again and asks her why she thinks she has to do the column. Luisa says that her job is nothing but “answering phones and telling you who’s here” and she wants to do more. Then she leaves the office. Marla lays into Stephen, telling him not to underestimate the desperation Luisa feels and imploring him to giver her a second chance.
Scnes for next week include Guber searching for HL’s stolen prosthesis.
Yeah I wanna see more of Jeremy…<evil grin>
The “I’m terrified” line was one of the show’s best moments. Danny Hanson looks kinda hot when he’s mad…Poor Debbie. She was kind of out of line, but he was pretty mean to her.
Ah, otto, what would we do without you? And nice Othello ref, btw.
Can’t wait to see the “stolen” prothesis- what do you bet it’s just lost? And we have another “hunt down the students, school under total lock down” episode coming up only this time it’s statuatory rape, not murder.
Oh yeah, whoever said that Louisa was really Helen of “Ask Helen”- good show. 
I loved this weeks show! The funeral for hook lady’s hand had just the right amount of quirkiness. And the look on Steven’s face during Jeremy’s speech was priceless.
Yet again Michael Rappaport puts in a great little preformance. The whole “I used to do drugs” speech wouldn’t go over too well in reality, but it was good.
Jeremy steals the show every time. The dear Hustler eulogy he gave for his Mom’s hand, had me in stitches.
The Louisa sub-plot is getting a bit obnoxious. She is the least engageing character on the show. Get rid of her! BRING BACK MILTON BUTTLE!!!
Do you get the feeling Lipschultz was in on the hook-up-the-ass prank?
Milton rocked! Oh, the good ole’ days…
Hey Otto, notice I didna ask you for a recap this week? 