I Believe In Symmetry

Sugar Rush 2x02 - "One Way Or Another"

Episode Grade: B


KimVo gives us the lowdown on what happened last time, in case you missed it: "while Sugar was in the slammer, I had a run-in with an older woman, who initiated me in all things lesbian. Psycho bitch. But that's OK, because I met this girl..." And credits.

Return to... more KimVo giving the lowdown on what happened last time. "The way I see it, there are two types of women; manipulative bitches..." At which point we transition from scenes from the previous episode to new footage and discover that this is in fact not KimVo, but Actual Kim, reading out an essay in college. She continues "...and those of us stupid enough to be taken in by them. The fact is, feminism got it wrong. It's women who are the bastards, not men", the rest of the class give her strange looks and the professor incredulously asks if she actually even read the book that essay was supposed to be about. As Kim returns to her seat, she accidentally knocks her pile of books and stuff on the floor, and among that pile is the napkin with Saint's number written on in lipstick. The girl sitting next to Kim hands it to her and gawks quite openly at her, and let's take a moment to marvel at how horrible this girl's sweater is. Oh my. She is also wearing thick glasses, so this is all pretty clearly an attempt to make someone who is actually probably pretty good looking appear hideous, in the finest TV tradition. They have pretty much gone way overboard with it, I must say. Except her hair, which looks exactly like Kim's has done in the past, I think; this is by no means an accident.

Anyway, that's rather a lot of words for someone who is only on screen for, like, two seconds in ths scene, so let's move on; flashback to Saint giving Kim her number. Again. But, you know, that scene is obviously going to be weighing on Kim's mind pretty heavily, and since we are sort of watching from inside her head, I san't complain too much. KimVo informs us that it's been ten hours since then, and we get another flashback to a few seconds, possibly minutes after Kim bumped into Saint, and she has already caved to her desire to call that lipstick number. Going from 'reasonably casual' to 'extremely desperate' in five seconds: "Hi, this is Kim. I know we only just spoke, but I thought, there's no point in beating around the bush, and all that. So... I just was wondering if you wanted to meet on Friday. That's the day after tomorrow. Yeah. Friday. Um... Give me a call. Bye." Oh, Kim.

Back to the present; Kim's leaving college, KimVo frets that it's been "nine hours and eighteen minutes" since she made that call, and she's still heard nothing back. "Call me paranoid," KimVo muses, (and I'm afraid I must cop to that request; Kim, you're paranoid.) "But if you want to talk to someone, you'll find a way." She's fortunately interrupted from all this paranoia by the NEEEEEEEERD girl running up behind her all butt-monkey Tom-like. NEEEEEEEERD introduces herself, with much off-putting nervous laughter, as Melissa, and manages to simultaneously bray like a donkey and... "joke", I guess, "You probably don't recognise me without the desk!" which is as impressive as it is terrifying. Kim gives her a blank stare as she babbles on and on about how interestin', yet terrible and wrong Kim's speech was and how opinionated Melissa is about Chaucer and Hardy and so on and so forth, and Kim eventually interrupts to give a bemused "Maybe some other time," and leaves Melissa staring wistfully after her.

KimVo unnecessarily tells us that, of the two types of women, she tends to be the type that falls for the manipulative bitches. I think anyone could figure that out by watching any arbitrary ten second segment of the show. She is, of course, segueing us into a visit to Sugar, who makes a big and not remotely convincing show of being terribly distraught tightly embracing Kim as she enters, which is a poorly orchestrated attempt to hide the transfer of a bag of marijuana from Kim's cleavage to her own from the guards. I guess they're hoping the guards might just think they're giving each other some good old fashioned fondlin', given the regularity of Kim's visits and what they were doing when they first got arrested. Transaction complete, Sugar immediately reverts to the usual tough girl persona, Kim settles down to update her on the Saint situation. Well, that made all the consipicuous fondling many times more conspicuous. Sugar tells Kim she's going to come off as a desperate nutcase and makes her vow not to call Saint again, which she reluctantly does. Sugar takes a long critical look down her own top, just in case they hadn't made the drug smuggling obvious enough to the guards yet, and tells Kim "It's a bit small, I did ask for a quarter." Kim evasively explains "As you said, I need to chill", and Sugar gapes at the audacity of this.

Kim sits on a seafront bench, uh, chilling, and KimVo, not chilled, worries that Sugar is right and Saint will think she is a "fucking nutter". She bemoans her vow not to call so more and then decides that no one said anything about texting, and gets out her phone. She gets as far as typing "Soz for fucking nut" before Melissa appears out of nowhere and startles her into accidentally pressing 'Send'. Wacky, wacky hijinks. Melissa babbles about whatever books she is carrying and how difficult it will be to get it all into an essay by next class, Kim's eye glaze over and she vaguely asks "Essay...?" Olivia's giving good "chilled" here. By the way, I think she is a good actress. Just in case I hadn't mentioned that. Melissa reminds Kim of the details of their essay and invites her over to her place to work on it, to which invitation Kim does not RSVP, or at least not yet.

Meanwhile, Nathan's telling the sex therapist about how he and Stella walked in on Kim being a naughty, naughty girl. Stella complains that she doesn't see what this has to do with anything, the therapist clichés "How did that make you feel?" It made Nathan feel small and threatened and pathetic. That is certainly a big change from the status quo. The therapist explains to Stella that she is making Nathan feel inadequate, and thus rendering him unable to satisfy her appetites, which makes her put more pressure on him in a "negative feedback loop that basically leaves him impotent and destroys your sex lives." She then asks Nathan frankly when the last time he took a really good look at his penis was, and suggests that maybe it is not so small, it just looks that way when compared to Stella's gargantuan vagina. This is the kind of work that you have to take pride in. The varying levels of freak-outedness on Stella and Nathan's faces throughout all this are pretty awesome, by the way.

Outside, Nathan's all upset about something, Stella tries to assure him that, given the circumstances, it's really not a big deal that he couldn't get an erection. In hushed tones, Nathan moans "I was under the national average!", Stella continues attempting to persuade him that he's making a big deal out of something totally insignificant. So to speak. And then she starts pawing at his crotch right there in public and insisting that if they can just "coax out Mr. Perky", everything will be right as rain. Look, if I have to hear that, you do too. Nathan complains that she's not listened to a word he's said, and Stella retorts that she's really getting bored of his unwillingness to jump back into bed with her after her massive betrayal of trust and undermining of everything they'd worked for in 15 years of marriage. And so the negative feedback loop continues! I've got some negative feedback for you vis á vis Stella and Nathan's storyline, but I guess I'll save it for later in the season when the writers' inability to find something believable and/or interesting for them to do really becomes obvious. Aside from that sentence, of course.

In her room, Kim's doing her essay, so I guess she didn't take Melissa up on her invitation. Shocker! Stella stomps past and announces that Kim is lucky to be a lesbian, which Kim raises an eyebrow at, and KimVo informs us that the homework is really a front for continuing to obssess some more about Saint. She stares forlornly at the "Soz for fucking nut" sitting in her outbox and insists to herself that she isn't going to call or text again, because she doesn't want to "come off as a Melissa". Really though, Kim, I don't think an explanatory message for the first one (or at least a resend of what you were originally planning to say) would cause any more damage than has already been done. Anyway, Kim notices her CC flyer and hatches a Cunning Plan.

CC. KimVo reassures us/herself that stalking really isn't her style, despite quite some evidence to suggest otherwise. While she's busy totally not stalking Saint, honest, she runs into Anna, who bitchily taunts Kim about being on her own again and introduces her newest victim, Etty, who looks a lot like Beth, and oh man, I get sad just thinking about her. She's a little younger, as of course she would be, given Anna's creepy predelictions. And not as hot, of course, because, man, who is. Anyway, Anna tells Etty that Kim is "an old friend", to which Kim snarks "Comparitively." Ha! That's my girl. Anna, obviously worried that conversation will continue along those lines, sends Etty off to buy a bottle of champagne, and then tells Kim to stop following her, it's over. Kim looks moodily in Saint's direction, and KimVo declares that "Anna was right, I was behaving like a prat." I'll take the second half, at least. Kim's outside, doing the classic lean over the edge of the pier, staring into the vast depths of the ocean and reflecting on the meaning of life and what have you. KimVo stupidly Murphys herself asking "Could life get any shittier?", and so she recieves both a literal and a figurative answer, as a fucking seagull craps on her shoulder, and Saint sends her a text saying simply "Can't do Friday. Soz". That's a little excessive, universe!

Of course, we head immediately to Ballymeade for Kim to get in some good moaning about the sorry state of her life to the convicted felon. Sugar overshadows her pain by telling Kim that her release date might get put back, thanks to their decidely conspicuous drug smuggling operation earlier. So she's off to see the guvna tomorrow, and she doesn't know what the hell she's going to do, but she's sure she'll think of something. But, that's enough about Sugar's problems, Kim is of course the priority here. Sugar asks how many times she called Saint, Kim proudly tells her it was just the once, but Sugar's wise to her tricks and asks about texts as well. Kim admits to one of those and then grudgingly confesses to an attempt to bump into Saint last night as well. Sugar despairs of Kim's sanity but decides to make a good go of schooling her in the ways of Not Being A Damn Stalker anyway because, hey, it's not like she has anything better to do. So, lesson 1: "Make yourself unavailable. Get a girlfriend." Wait, but isn't that the end goal of this exercise in the first place? Oh, a fake one. Yeah, that's sure to go well. Kim scoffs at Sugar's suggestion of Melissa as the prime candidate for this role...

...And cut to Melissa appearing at Kim's door. Well, it's not like Kim could have inherited any proverbial balls from Nathan. Melissa burbles "I had to go back, I forgot my thesaurus!" God, she's annoying. I know that's sort of the point, but... God, she's annoying. Flashback to Ballymeade, Kim continues trying to convince Sugar that this is a terrible idea, noting that if the point is to make Saint think she's not desperate, associating herself in any way with Melissa is a pretty horrible way of going about it. Harsh but true. Also, Melissa is totally not going to agree to go out on a school night. Sugar ignores the first point, but tells Kim the second is easy, just invite Melissa to her place for "study", get her wasted and Bob's your uncle. "You should know, Kizza, it's always the good girls that are desperate to be shown a good time." Heh. She should know indeed. And that's apparently all it takes to persuade Kim to go through with it, because, as she so succinctly told us in the beggining of the episode, there are two types of people; the manipulative and the manipulated. Dominant and submissive. Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. That's all manner of bullshit, of course, but it works for Kim, so she's let herself be manipulated into acting as a manipulator. Fun times for all.

So, Melissa's over at her place now, and Kim tries her hardest, but an offer of a drink gets "Water would be lovely, I don't do caffeine after six." Oh dear. She gives up on that front and tries another approach; picking up a red folder and holding it in front of Melissa's face, she muses "Red is really your colour, you should wear it more often. Melissa looks confused while Kim roots through her cupboards and finds a nice slinky red dress. I think it may well be the same thing Sugar got her into back in the day, it's certainly remniscent of it, because Kim is being the Sugar to Melissa's Kim here, and it's all a wonderful representation of how far our Kimmy has come since those days. Which she certainly has, if not necessarily in the right direction. Melissa's still pretty doubtful, so Kim resorts to flattery and further callbacks to season one, and eventually gets Melissa into it.

Meanwhile, Kim is, as her VO puts it, "not the only one trying to get [her] own way", because Stella's looking to a different early episode for her inspiration and slipping Viagra into Nathan's wine. That'll end well.

Melissa's now into the dress, and Kim is surprised by just how much of an improvement this is, but I am not, because the is the way of the TV. Kim breezes that she'd better hurry up and get herself ready, Melissa is all "Ready for what?" but Kim is into her stride and reaching the level of unstoppable force. There's certainly no way Melissa is remotely prepared to resist, anyway.

Downstairs, Nathan is confused by his sudden erection, of course, Stella comes down in a nightgown to flirtily make herself a cold drink and make it worse. Things are about to get heavy when Kim and Melissa appear, Kim is not even fazed by her parents shennanigans any more, even when Nathan hastily covers his crotch with a book, which has the effect of making his erection infinitely more conspicuous than it was. And not just because he's under the national average. Ho ho. Anyway, Kim just quickly introduces Melissa, says she's heading out, and leaves them to get on with it. Which they do, "Mr. Perky's back in town" and all that. Ugh.

CC. KimVo says "I know what you're thinking, this is horrible", Melissa totally disagrees; "This is amazing!" Kim oozes a lot more confidence than I am used to seeing from her and acquires herself a nice straw hat while she's getting drinks for herself and Melissa, but belies the confidence a little with the frequency of her glances in Saint's direction. Saint is, as ever, too absorbed in her DJing to actually notice at the moment. Kim and Melissa dance, and meanwhile, Stella and Nathan fuck. A whole lot. Hoo boy.

Back at the CC, Kim's starting to get irritated by Melissa's "joined at the hip"-ness in conjunction to Kim, and shoots some more worried glances Saint's way. Saint remains completely oblivious to it all. KimVo declares that the time to make her move is upon us, and tells Melissa she's getting another drink. Melissa is too busy dancing like a spaz to even notice Kim leave, so so much for "joined at the hip", eh, KimVo? Back in the good old ForniKitchen... oh, wait, they've moved to the ForniStaircase. That one doesn't work so well. Anyway, Nathan has discovered that now that Mr. Perky is back, he doesn't intend on leaving again any time soon, thanks to Stella's ingenious Viagra plan. Well, I say 'plan'...

CC, again. Saint's at the bar now, and says hi to Kim when she appears, Kim does a pretty poor job of feigning surprise at seeing Saint (Olivia is doing a great job of doing a poor job of it though, of course. Have I oraised her yet this episode?) Saint apologises again for not being able to make Friday, and adds "I was hoping we could fix up another time, but it looks like someone beat me to it." Kim tries her hardest not to look devastated by these words. "She seems sweet," Saint adds, supressing a smile, which will make perfect sense soon enough. "Sorry. Guess I'm just bitter 'cause I missed out again." Saint ducks out of there now lest she burst out laughing, and Melissa immediately takes her place and tells Kim "No coke with the vodka. The caffeine! I'll never sleep!" Jeeee-sus. Would someone get her out of my show already? I'd be so grateful. Kim is despairing of life, as is her wont, but then she spots Anna! Standing right next to her, and yet not a sardonic comment in sight. I mean, not that you can see sardonic comments, but you know. Anyway, long (and kind of stupid) story short, Anna takes Melissa off of Kim's hands for us. The good news is, we'll never see either of those two again after this episode, and Kim can now go to Saint for tea and sympathy, thus creating a much happier Kim. These are all good things.

Outside, KimVo muses that it may have been mean of her to throw Melissa on the sword like that. Flashforward to Melissa stumbling into class late the next morning, looking extremely dishevelled. "OK, very mean," KimVo continues, but, of course, concludes "It was totally worth it." Saint appears next to Kim to note that Anna stealing her girlfriend after everything else is "pretty rough", and tell her to come along to wherever it is she's wandering.

Back at the Daniels household, Stella has now admitted to her crime, and Nathan is of course mad at her again for totally breaching his BLT. Sigh. At Ballymead, meanwhile, a fellow inmate tells Sugar to watch out, because the guvna is hanging out in her cell. In response, Sugar pulls her knickers down from under her skirt, hands them to her friend and grins a cocky grin, earning her a fairly impressed "You filthy cow." KimVo reminds again that there are two types of women, top and bottom. North and south. Chaotic evil and lawful good. And then we get to actually see Sugar seduce the guvna, which is a little unnecessary, really, but I guess that, considering her titular status (...don't even go there), Sugar is barely in the episodes as it is right now, which just reiterates the fact that, fun as her master guru act is, they really need to get her out of prison as soon as possible. But anyway, Sugar wants to know why the guvna thinks she'd do drugs when the guvna is watching, "And I know you're... watching me." The guvna is decidedly flustered, and I do not blame her, because watching Sugar uncross her legs like that was pretty much worth the price of admission.

Over to Kim's college again; Kim starts to apologise to Melissa and suggests they go for coffee, but before she can finish that thought, Melissa is apologising to her and saying "Let's just be friends, yeah?" Irony of ironies. Anyway, now that all of those many things are out of the way, we can get to the totally awesome ending. Yay!

Back to last night, Kim and Saint sit on a wall looking out to sea and drinking from glass bottles. Saint asks Kim where she met Melissa, the time for manipulation is done, so Kim answers honestly. Saint is for some reason surprised that she met her at college, and I really can't figure out why, she must have surmised by now that Kim is that young, and I can't think of any other reason for it. Saint comments that Melissa really doesn't seem like Kim's type, Kim pathetically attempts to deny this fact by listing all the things they have in common, which is exactly "literature." Saint rolls her eyes a little and then says these words right here; "You know, she could never have been your girlfriend." And then they kiss, which is all very sweet and tender and wonderful, of course, but let's just reiterate the main point here; Saint knew what Kim was doing the entire time. Saint saw the crazy hoops Kim finds it necessary to build herself and then jump through just in order to get herself into a relationship with someone who has basically stated unequivocally that they want to be in a relationship with her. And Saint found these things hilarious and endearing, and even played along for a while just for the sheer hell of it. That is awesome.