Season 1, Episode 10, "Sex, Lies, and Teenagers"

 

The episode opens with Joey crying for Nick to cut him some slack. They’re both exiting the kitchen with Anthony in tow.

Nick says Joey’s grounded, he was caught cheating dead-to-rights on his history assignment, and what other choice does he have? Joey gets caught cheating and Nick still has to explain himself? Since money is really no object to this family, how about sending Joey off to boarding school?



At least Nick tries to strangle him.

Nick says Joey’s grounded, to establish that Nick has the authority to punish his children, and that sometimes he will. This will be important later, and it’s another instance of the writers actually doing something clever with the format, which of course in turn means there will be a hundred things that make no sense whatsoever.

Anthony tries to play good cop but of course Joey’s such an annoying puissant that Anthony tries to strangle him, too. I guess the lesson is, Joey should never be alone with any member of his family.

Blossom and Six storm in through the front door, and Blossom kvetches, “How could I be so dumb?!” Too easy.

Nick inquires and it turns out a boy named Jason Bickler asked her what time it was and she told him without any kind of follow-up. Even though this was the thing most prescient in Blossom and Six’ heads, they only began talking about it five seconds before entering the house.

Blossom says she should have said something else, to let him know that she was interested, and that she thinks he’s “really hot.” She slips in a “Don’t worry, Dad,” casually to Nick, as if this does any kind of damage control. And now on Saturday night while Six is out with Ricky’s friend, Blossom will be at home alone like every loser, which immediately spotlights Nick, who says he hasn’t been dating lately. Man, Blossom doesn’t usually dig herself this deep so early in an episode. Also, can’t she be remotely happy for her best friend?

The girls go into the kitchen just in time for the phone to ring. Nick picks it up and it’s Jason Bickler. Blossom and Six bolt upstairs to take the call, screaming, as though Jason wouldn’t be able to hear this over the telephone. And how did he get Blossom’s home phone number if they had an awkward exchange with no follow-up, which was the conflict in the first place?

Pop Culture References: Sex, Lies and Videotape (title)

Blossom and Six get upstairs and Blossom picks up the phone. She says some bland such-and-such about how “Mr. Farber certainly does make algebra come alive” (ha) while Six runs back downstairs to make sure Nick hung up.

When the coast is clear, Jason asks Blossom to a double date with Ricky and Six, which was never really checked with Six, but about which everyone involved is thrilled nonetheless. 

Down in the kitchen, Nick’s on the phone with someone named Diane. No problem, he says, he’ll try her again some time. He hangs up the phone and hangs his head.

Anthony asks if he was shot down again, and Nick says he doesn’t get it. Diane is a clarinetist he’s been doing session work with for ten years. They’ve always been flirting but have never been unattached at the same time, and now they are, but she turned him down anyway. Maybe she heard how he lets his teenage children have run of the house while he gets advice from a recovering drug addict. Anthony makes a dumb joke so the scene can end.

Some day later, Six runs into Blossom’s room with big news. It’s always strange to me when sitcom characters do this, because you really have to wonder what Six’ interaction with whoever answered the door was. Did Nick answer the door with Six so excited that she was unable to speak? Actually that would be pretty funny, so of course we don’t see it.
 

Blossom assumes they’ve been dumped, you know, because she and Six are annoying and principled, but it turns out the boys actually want to go to one of Sheila Osterman’s parties instead. Sheila Osterman’s parents are apparently never home ever, so all of her parties are makeout parties.

While she mulls it over Blossom has a whole speech about how daunting this is, because while she has been kissed before, she’s still mostly inexperienced and has no actual technique. Premeditated kissing is a lot of pressure, especially at a party known to have something called “The Room” where all sorts of unspoken rites of passage take place.

It’s so weird how this show picks and chooses what is and isn’t expository. It’s probably a good choice that Blossom has already had her first kiss (because who really wants to see that) but beyond that, the writers choose what else she is and isn’t experienced with based on whatever the story needs at that moment.

Case in point, the girls decide they will go to this party after all, and rely on the buddy system if the other is in trouble. How will they explain the change of plans to their parents? “Lie,” they say in unison, suggesting they’ve done this a million times before.

Blossom and Six head downstairs to go out somewhere which is not the date in question. Nick is working on a machine of some sort on the nice family coffee table since there are only two sets on this show, and he stops them to make conversation. Blossom asks what he’s doing and Nick tells them how now that he’s blown out the speakers, he’s trying to ruin the tape recorder. This is supposed to demonstrate Nick’s unconscious vulnerability, now that it’s established Blossom will be actively lying to him, but did it really have to involve his occupation? Professional session musicians absolutely must know how to use their equipment in the real world.

Anyway Nick asks the double daters what movie they’ll be seeing on Friday, and Six, who along with Blossom is supposed to be showing off her lying skills for this plot to move forward, bolts out the door in a completely conspicuous fashion.

Still not consciously aware of the wool getting pulled over his eyes, Nick nevertheless prods Blossom about the double date. And even though the previous scene was meant to establish that lying to Nick was something Blossom had done so many times before that she and Six have a readymade catch phrase for it, Blossom is uncomfortable the whole time. Especially when Nick says he just cares about her and this jumps into After School Special territory. There is no one on this earth he cares about more than Blossom, Nick tells her before she runs off. Yikes.

Pop Culture References: Woody Allen, Mel Gibson

Next we’re in an episode of The Phil Donohue Show. This is kind of interesting, because after researching the topic (God help me) I think this might be the very first “characters vent their issues through the lens of a real world talk show” done for a sitcom. This was almost two full years before Fresh Prince’s “A Night At The Oprah,” which pretty much set the standard, and for the first time ever Blossom did something that would only be considered cliché after the fact. To demonstrate the stagnancy of this plot device: Margaret Cho’s short-lived All-American Girl had a similar episode a few years later that was also called “A Night At The Oprah.”

Anyway Donohue introduces Blossom in a segment called “Women Who Lie To Their Fathers.” Since this device was done by virtually every other successful three-camera show of the 90s, you know the drill: the regular characters are worked into the talk show’s little format moments. Joey calls in, Six offers testimony from the audience, and Nick is on a TV screen live via satellite.

Pop Culture References: Donohue, Madonna

Blossom wakes up. It’s also worth noting that since this plot device was so new at the time, the first few shows that used it had to do so as a no-consequence dream sequence, since the idea that ‘regular’ people would appear on a talk show was considered too much of a stretch. Which makes sense in Blossom since this universe would only have us believe that Nick once received a Little Richard-shaped pepper mill from Little Richard.

At some later point Joey and Anthony Joey says he’s learned one thing during his time being grounded: that Nick keeps condoms in his sock drawer.

Blossom enters. Anthony tells Blossom she looks great, and she most certainly does, like a young Dinah Manoff! Anthony asks where she’s going, and Blossom says she’s going to the movies. Anthony says those look more like makeout clothes.

Anthony says in his day, all of five years earlier, a turtleneck was called a “hide-a-hicky-dickey,” and everyone—Mayim Bialik, Michael Stoyanov, and the entire studio audience—finds this uncontrollably hilarious, I guess because of the word “hide.”

After the uncontrollable laughter has died down, Anthony tells Blossom turtlenecks totes don’t work. Instead of telling her why they don’t work, Anthony instead turns the conversation toward a time when he came home with a hicky the size of Maui on his neck, which Maddy noticed. He convinced her it was a birthmark she never noticed before. Joke? I dunno. I’d say this concludes Anthony’s advice about the turtleneck, but it actually ended five or six lines of dialogue ago.

By the way, Blossom says to Anthony, don’t tell Dad she’s going, because he doesn’t know. Duh, Blossom.

The doorbell rings, and Blossom heads to the living room.

Nick greets Six at the door, and tells Blossom and Six they both look smashing in their turtlenecks, momentarily suspicious. The machine that keeps a person being lied to from realizing it flips on as Blossom tells nick it’s a retro thing.

Hang on a second, Nick commands. Alright, maybe the jig is up. Nick instead asks if Blossom has that extra money he gave her. And the quarters in case she needs to use the phone in case of emergency. “Five dollars in quarters,” Blossom says, shaking her purse, which actually sounds like it has twenty quarters in there. Because Nick would rather her be slowed down by an amorphous blob of metal in the event that someone’s chasing her.

Outside the door, Blossom says she feels like a total creep, and Six says she does, too. Then they look at each other and say, “LET’S PARTY!” which makes sense because this will never be their attitude the entire time they are actually at the party in question.

So they get to Sheila Osterman’s house, where kids dressed in early 90s clothing dance to some unlicensed Saved By The Bell music. I wonder which contributed more to the death of metal, Bon Jovi or NBC between the years 1987 and 1992?

Blossom’s date is Johnny Galecki which means a whole lot because during the production of this episode they had no idea they’d work together twenty years later.

For some reason Blossom is the alpha in a group that includes two forward males and her much more outgoing friend. Blossom comments on the party and whatever. Johnny Galecki asks Blososm if she wants to dance, and Blossom says she and Six have to go up to the bathroom to bond first. While this is happening, Six’ date has his hands all over her sweater, which is as awkward, lifelike, and hilarious.

They go to the bathroom which at a party with a dozen other teenage girls is somehow unoccupied. The girls pump each other up in a scene that’s actually not terrible. They’re scared because they’re in a different league now. They do a breath check; Six’ smells like green Tic-Tacs, and Blossom’s smells like root beer. Cute.

Pop Culture References: Tic-Tacs

They head back downstairs and some curtains at the back of the set lead into black stage space, which for the purposes of the scene is the entrance to “The Room.” Blossom and Six peek in but can’t see anything.

The boys return even though they were not going anywhere and the bathroom was occupied, so who knows. Johnny Galecki asks if they want to sit down. Blossom gets super defensive, saying if they think they’re going in “there,” meaning "The Room," they’ve got another thing coming.  Johnny Galecki tells her to relax for fuck’s sake, he meant sit down anywhere in the giant living room. Blossom’s a real fun date.

 

Back at the Russo residence Nick continues breaking the stereo equipment that’s ostensibly part of his livelihood. The door rings and it’s Diane. I had to check with IMDB to see if this woman, who could be described as “Every single character Brenda Strong has ever played,” is actually being played by Brenda Strong. And she is!

Anyway Diane begins talking and I’m not really sure what she’s saying because everything Brenda Strong says and does is hypnotic. Halfway through her speech her powers of hypnosis prove no match for the clunky, forced dialogue of Blossom and she admits she came over just because she wanted to talk to Nick. Oh, see, even adults get nervous and lie in their attempts to mate. That wasn’t obvious.

Nick asks oh whatever does she mean, and Diane is like, for fuck’s sake Nick, we’ve been building up to this for a long time.

They kiss.

Joey comes down crying that the Nintendo’s broken. So he’s grounded, but he’s allowed to play video games? Joey cockblocks Nick but we’ve been well aware that something would have eventually. If it wasn’t Joey, Anthony would have come in with plans to start a singing telegram service or something.

Since banging Brenda Strong is literally the only thing that will allow Nick’s conscious to finally abandon Joey, Nick follows Diane out the door so they can go to her place. But then at the last moment Nick realizes he can’t go because Blossom might call.

Wait, what?

Nick shoos Diane away when he’s got plenty of other options. He could follow Diane to her place, and have Joey, who’s being forced to stay at home, answer the phone then relay any information to Diane’s house if anything happens to poor Blossom. Or if that fails he could have Joey give Blossom Diane’s number. If he’s worried about Joey skipping out on his grounding, Nick could have Anthony be the authority figure and shift all those prior responsibilities to him.

Finally, Nick could also just hook up with Diane in his own house like an adult and not give two shits about Joey. It’s already been established in “Dad’s Girlfriend” that Blossom is the only one who has a problem with Nick dating anyway, and Blossom’s out of the house for once. Where any obstacle is present in this part of the story is a fucking mystery to me.

Anyway Nick asks Diane if worrying about Blossom makes him sound overprotective. Since she’s a guest star, Diane is rational and understanding about it. She says she wishes they didn’t have such lousy timing but they kiss anyway. Joey starts perving on it. Diane tells Nick to call him, and it’s a good thing they created this ten-year backstory between the two characters because Nick’s longtime friend and love interest will not be seen or mentioned again until the next season.

Pop Culture References: Nintendo

Back at the party Johnny Galecki asks if Blossom wants to sit down now. Blossom is finally ready for it, so they sit down on one of the several couches Sheila Osterman’s house has, the one closest to the cameras.

Johnny Galecki fakes a line about getting soda so he can put his arm on Blossom’s shoulder. Slick.

Suddenly Nick appears in place of Johnny Galecki, and he asks if Blossom is enjoying the “’movie.’” Blossom screams, and Dear God please let that be happening in real life.



Nick turns back into Johnny Galecki and Blossom asks if she just screamed, her grip on reality dwindling in the high-pressure world of a party with no alcohol or drugs.

 

They finally kiss and all of the sudden a girl runs out from “The Room” in a panic.



Since there will be no consequences now that the story is drawing to a close, Blossom tells this girl who is apparently the unseen Sheila Osterman to take a hike, and Sheila naturally directs her attention at Blossom out of every other person at her party when she announces that her parents are home! Everybody run!

Blossom and Six catch up with each other and run into the bathroom, because this show will simply not build a set that it only uses for one scene.

“Nobody leaves,” says a woman’s voice. “I want all of you to call your parents.” So Blossom and Six, the seasoned liars, don’t know their ABCs here, and finally we have our Intentionally Absurd Element of the episode.

For the next part of the story to happen, the writers need to have Nick come get Blossom and be super mad about it, so that means that Blossom and Six are totally amenable to being fucking kidnapped by Sheila’s parents. The Ostermans have no information on these kids, let alone any authority. The police would most certainly laugh at being called in to break up a party where everyone is invited minors and there are no drugs, alcohol or public disturbance. Even if this is supposed to take place in a gated community, there’s not much that private security could do beyond escorting everyone off the grounds.

If Blossom and Six choose (as they should) to say absolutely nothing, Sheila’s parents would be guilty of keeping teenage girls at their house against their will, which lo and behold is an actual crime. Obviously the point of the episode is that despite her and Six’ delusion, Blossom has no lying skills whatsoever, but giving no information to these people with no authority over her would solve every problem here. I’m assuming the subtext is that Blossom unconsciously wants to be caught so that she can finally have an honest dialogue with Nick, but this is just a stupid move. I’m starting to wonder what help Six actually is, since she’s usually presented as being somewhat worldly yet doesn’t know the basics.

Then again maybe this is a subtle dig, since Blossom and Six could save their skins by simply shutting their mouths for once, and no teenager would ever do that, ever, a-hardy-har-har.

Back at the Russo residence, Joey and Anthony sit on the couch. Blossom enters, crying “But that’s not fair!” with Nick right behind her, mirroring the first scene. “Good,” Nick shoots back, “that’s exactly the way I feel: not fair. Get used to it.” I dunno what that means.


 

Joey can’t get over it. “Blossom at a makeout party, what was she, the lookout?” Nick shouts for him to to leave him alone. Joey, being a Russo and all, won’t let it go and decides to prod Nick further, asking why he’s the only one who gets grounded around here.

Nick tells him he grounded Blossom for six months. Joey is shocked, and so are the people the audience. There’s more than one “Oh my God” said in complete clarity, which is fucking hilarious because, seriously, Nick. Joey runs up to his room and Nick tells him to stay out of his sock drawer. Ha.

Nick does his best impression of a Marvel Comics supervillain from the Hanna-Barbera era to demonstrate his frustration. Anthony, since he hasn’t interfered with Nick’s parenting for a while and was noticeably absent when he could have solved Nick’s earlier problem, again plays good cop and asks Nick if maybe he’s overreacting. Nick says Blossom outright lied to her, and Anthony puts out the idea that maybe it wasn’t the lying, it was the fact that she went to a makeout party.

Nick says it was the lying, then realizes it wasn’t, looking completely overpowered by Anthony.



If this scene seems familiar, it’s because Nick is wearing the exact same outfit he was when Anthony overpowered him in ‘School Daze,” which must be intentional.

Nick goes up to Blossom’s room. Blossom is going to collapse from the looks of disappointment Nick is giving her so he faces away from her. They hash things out and it isn’t terrible.



Nick has every reason to feel the way he does, and Blossom explains that she’s gonna be going through her rites of passage and Nick’s gonna have to learn to look the other way.



So after all these episodes Blossom finally says something wise. It must have been sweeps.

Intentionally Absurd Element: The conflict hinges on a point which could be easily solved by Blossom doing nothing

Pop Culture Reference Tally: 7