The Moral of the Story: When writing a series, you eventually won’t even have to come up with new storylines. You can just recycle old ones.
The Big Deal: Party for Jeremy’s 18thbirthday
Synopsis:
Jessica forgets how awesome her boyfriend is: Tia, Trent, Jessica and Jeremy go out together and start talking about Ken giving up his scholarship. Jeremy and Tia agree that he did the right thing, but Trent and Jessica think he should have just taken it. Tia gets annoyed because Trent spends the rest of the evening talking to Jessica. Jeremy’s birthday is coming up and Jessica wants to plan a surprise party for him. She can’t get a hold of Tia to discuss it, so she calls Trent instead and they get together to start planning. They decide to have the party at the arcade where Jessica and Jeremy had their first date, so Jessica and Trent head over there to talk to the management. Then they start playing video games and somehow fall all over each other. They almost kiss but Jessica runs away. She pours her heart out to Liz, who talks her down and makes her realize Trent was just a passing interest and she doesn’t actually want to be with him or anything.
Trent, however, feels differently. The night of the party, he tries to get Jessica to talk to him about the fact that they almost kissed. Tia overhears and tells Jeremy. Jeremy freaks out and tells both Jessica and Trent he never wants to see either of them again. Poor Jessica. She actually didn’t do anything wrong for once. Sort of.
Conner is moody: Conner’s been avoiding Alanna since the last time we saw her, and she finally calls and says she wants to see him. He can’t think of a good excuse not to, so they get together for lunch. Conner says he thought maybe she’d started drinking again and she lies and tells him that’s crazy talk. When he drops her off, her parents are just getting home so Alanna introduces Conner to them in the driveway. Alanna’s parents are a couple of snobby bitches and they don’t think much of Conner. Mrs. Feldman later says she doesn’t think Alanna should see Conner anymore. Alanna convinces her to give him another chance and let him come over for dinner on Wednesday. I don’t know why Alanna thinks this is a good idea. She’s probably drunk.
Dinner is pretty much a disaster. Right after Conner gets there, the doorbell rings again and Mrs. Feldman goes to answer it. She comes back with Justin Witherspoon, some rich kid Alanna’s parents have been trying to hook her up with for years. They “just happened” to run into him at the club and they invited him to dinner. Conner tries to get through it, but after Mrs. Feldman says something snotty about his mother, he gets up and storms out. After Justin leaves, Alanna’s parents yell at her because they suck, and Alanna figures the only thing that will make her feel better is a drink.
Maria freaks out about school: Maria has spent so much time recently dealing with Ken’s problems that now she’s behind in her schoolwork. She gets a B- on a paper and starts freaking out. She has all kinds of projects due this week and they’re all too important to let any of them slide, so she goes into Super Study Mode and neglects everything else in her life besides school. She hears a rumor that a guy named Tom sells term papers and the like, so she tells him she needs a paper for her psychology class. She gives him a hundred dollars, takes the paper home, retypes it in her own words and hands it in.
Ken blah blah blah: Ken’s dad hasn’t spoken to him since the scholarship fiasco. Ken tries to explain himself again, but Mr. Matthews doesn’t want to hear it. Ken sits around feeling sorry for himself. Like seriously, just sits in a chair staring at the walls and feeling sorry for himself because his dad sucks. He suddenly NEEDS to talk to Maria, but she’s all distant and stressed because she has to study. After they hang up, Ken starts to wonder if Maria doesn’t like him anymore because he has no future. He sees Maria talking to Tom at school the next day and assumes she’s been cheating on him and that’s why she’s been so distant lately.
The Cover: I wonder why Trent doesn’t get to be on this cover.