1×13 Recreation

….. by TeeJay

“Note to self: Do not encourage parental unity.” That’s what Joan tells Adam when he asks why Mrs. G. signed his late slip without any questions. And it’s so cute when Adam’s all worried before Joan can explain why her mom is acting all weird. “Your parents are getting divorced?” he asks. “Worse, they’re going on a married weekend, something the siblings and I devised, thinking we’re helping the universe.” Joan tells him. Adam’s all about it. “That was a nice thing to do.” Joan hates it that her parents are all over each other like horny teenagers. Adam thinks it’s cute. And then Grace joins them, telling them there’s an anti-drug lecture that Helen organized. What fun.

The lecture is about the effects of drugs on the brain, and the lecturer explains that romantic love is kinda like drugs. It’s like a mental illness. And when the guy speaks about experiencing good kisses, Adam and Joan can’t help but share this deep, knowing and slightly embarrassed look. Price quickly interrupts the lecture when the lecture guy starts speaking about love and human behavior, which is getting kinda creepy—for a high school lecture.

And even though Joan can feel the attraction to Adam crackling in the air when they’re together, Grace opens her eyes. She asks Joan what she’s done with Adam. Joan says, “Nothing. Why?” Grace explains to her that Adam thinks he and Joan are a couple now. And that he’s stupid about her. Joan is oblivious. “I didn’t do anything!” Grace points out that she kissed him. And Joan stresses that technically, he kissed her. “Good luck with that,” Grace just retorts and walks away.

Adam runs into Joan in the school hallway again. And he’s all excited about Joan’s big party. You see, God told her to have a party while her parents are away. Luke told Friedman about their preliminary plans and suddenly it’s all over school. And Joan doesn’t even really want to have a party in the first place… Of course Adam heard about it too. “Am I invited?” he carefully asks her. Did he really expect no for an answer? Yes, sure he can come, Joan says to him. “Am I coming as the guy who knows the girl who’s throwing the party or…” he trails off. Joan is clearly not sure where they stand either, because she says they should probably talk about that later. And just then Mr. Price breaks up their little moment there.

The party is already in full flight when Grace and Adam arrive. While Grace is her usual abrasive self, Adam just looks at the commotion around the house as if he’s never seen anything like it. He’s got that dreamy smile on his face. He’s in Joan’s house, at her party. Wow. When Luke and Grace stalk off, Adam moves closer to Joan, the intention clear that he wants to give her a kiss. Joan awkwardly backs up. “I have to host, so…” Adam is clearly disappointed, uttering, “Sure.” Joan then walks off too, leaving him standing there. Maybe this party won’t be as much fun as he first thought.

Joan freaks when Friedman, Glynis, Grace and Luke look at her old baby pictures. What did she let herself be talked into? Adam comes walking up, asking innocently, “Hey, do you wanna dance?” Clearly, he couldn’t have picked a worse moment. Unnerved, Joan tells him, “Adam, I can’t. I’m at a party here.” Well, duh! You don’t dance at parties or what, Joan? Again, she just leaves Adam standing there like a wet puppy in the rain with no way home.

A while later, Adam is sitting on the couch by himself, playing with a deck of cards in his hands, thumbing through them. Joan plops on the couch next to him. And he just can’t help by try again. “You wanna dance?” Wow, Adam, if you’re one thing, you’re tenacious. Joan doesn’t wanna dance. She wants everyone to go home. Adam offers to get her a drink. She says yes, she’d love some water.

Next thing she knows, CuteBoy-God is standing in front of her, asking her to dance. Can she say no? Wouldn’t matter if she did because he takes the cup from her and takes her hand. So they start to dance. God tells her that the big idea here is recreation. To re-create. To begin again, start over. He wants her to start over with Adam, because Adam is confused. “Adam is always confused,” Joan says to him. “Okay, well, you’re introducing new levels of confusion.” Can I get an amen!?! But Joan tells Him that she’s not ready to couple. And all God wants is for her to tell Adam that. Just then he comes back with their drinks and sees Joan dance with the cute guy in the brown corduroy jacket. And it dawns on him that Joan doesn’t seem to be feeling the same way he does, the disappointment all over his face. (And can I just quickly say that Joan acted like a big, dumb-ass jerk the whole time. How could she just push him away so readily? How could she resist those sad and longing eyes that were so rapt on her, wanting her approval so badly? I don’t get it, especially that he finally forgave her for her stupidity and she just shrugs it off without a second thought. -TeeJay)

The party is soon broken up by Will’s colleagues, Det. “Chewy” Carlisle and Sgt. Toni Williams after a noise complaint. (Taking the call at the Girardi’s ends up saving Chewy and Toni from being caught in the explosion of a crack house they were just about to bust. Apparently, this was God’s plan all along.) Joan is more than happy to see this out-of-control party end. When she looks out the window, she sees Adam standing in front of her house, forlorn and lonely looking. She quickly throws on a coat and meets him outside. She asks him what he’s doing out there. He’s waiting for his father to pick him up. She notices something’s not quite right, so she asks if he’s okay. “Yeah, Joan, I’m fine.” Waiiiiit a minute. Something’s definitely amiss here. “I liked it better when you called me Jane,” she says a little awkwardly. Adam tells her those days are over.

“Why are you mad at me?” she asks him bluntly. (God, she can be so oblivious I just want to smack her! -Deb) And he rubs his toque-covered head and removes his hood from it. And what he then tells her is a pretty big admission. “Maybe I’m bad at stuff like this. But we kissed. It’s not exactly that I’ve kissed a lot of girls… Maybe I’ve only kissed one.” Joan doesn’t know what to say, so she just mutters, “Right.” He looks at her. “Well, maybe it meant something to me.” Almost whispering, she admits, “Maybe it meant something to me too.” And there are the new levels of confusion, because Adam can’t figure out what to do with it now. Joan doesn’t know either. And Adam thinks the anti-drug guy was right. Romantic love is like a mental illness. “Just happens, you know. And then what are you gonna do?”

And then Joan remembers what God told her. “Maybe we just aren’t ready,” she carefully says in a low voice. It’s not what Adam wants to hear, and his face falls. “Yeah, okay, I accept that. But were you ready for that other guy?” he asks. Oh, right! It dawns on Joan. He saw her dancing with CuteBoy-God. “That’s different,” she tells him. Of course Adam doesn’t understand.

How can she make it up to him? She looks at him, capturing his attention by addressing him. “Hey. You wanna dance?” she carefully asks. He gives her a long look. Is she serious? Her smile tells him she is. So he smiles back, turns to face her and holds out his arms for her to dance with him. She readily moves into his arms, her chin in the crook of his neck. Slowly and close they sway to Andrea Martin’s “Tell Me”, holding on to each other out there in the street. What a sweet ending for this episode. (Click here to watch this scene.) (Only one problem with that. As lovely as it is, Joan is still not even close to being ready to couple. Which left me wondering, is she nuts? –Deb)