by SpiderBraids
Okay, let's get the (well-montaged) title sequence with the (BRILLIANT!) season 1-3 theme song out of the way, and get to the Joe Purdy-penned storyline. So we open at Footballhead's school, where in the auditorium, Footballhead, Tall Hair Boy, fashionista Rhonda and her spider-braided lackey Nadine (hey, that's why I called myself SpiderBraids... I think she's cute) are getting their butts handed to them by Four Eyed Dweeb Phoebe in the school's team academic competition, with Helga Pataki doing a Kim McAllister and sitting on her hiney waiting to be crowned the winners, letting the Dweeb do the actual work answering Mr. "Special Guy" Simmons' questions on the US president with the shortest term, the capital of Iceland and the 2nd fastest animal in the world (William Henry Harrison with 31 days in 1841, Reykjavik, and the pronghorn antelope, respectively).
Now we get to the main portion of our story, as Simmons (after another "Everyone's Special" waffle) announces that there will be an individual competition for the upcoming All-City Tournament tomorrow. Greeeat. Anyway, the winner gets to represent the school in the competition, yada yada yada. Arnold and Gerald point out no one can beat Phoebe, blah blah. May the best girl win, blah blah.
We head over to Big Bob's where dad is giving her another one of his history lessons on Olga's achievements, or rather, her sole non-achievement that sticks out. Three guesses at what it is. Yep, Olga lost the Bowl in her go when she was critically out-buzzed on a question about the state bird of Maine (the chickadee, or "chicka-bleeping-dee" as dad says), leaving an empty spot (small, but empty nonetheless) where the trophy for that competition would otherwise have gone (once again [["Spelling Bee"]] showing that Big Bob is very confident about his daughters... okay, so he's more confident with Olga, so?).
After being given advice to the tone of "Don't get upset if you blow it", Helga ponders her course of action, knowing that this is, like, her best shot at becoming Big Bob's golden girl for once. "The honest and right thing to do would be to study hard, acquire a tremendous amount of knowledge in an incredibly short period of time, and beat Phoebe tomorrow fair and square so I can go to the finals. Or on the other hand, I could ..."
Before she's even done expressing her thoughts for the viewers' benefit, we abruptly jump cut to under the elevated highway the next day with Helga making Phoebe an offer to lose the contest. Lay down, take the fall, you name it. After being asked why, Helga repeats Big Bob's history lesson to Phoebe, yada yada, adding "If I won I'd have one up on [Olga] forever." After Four Eyes agrees to the offer, Helga tells her thusly: "Look. There'll be a lot of competitions in your life and you'll probably win most of them... EXCEPT this one! Just think of it this way: it's not your night."
And so, we're back at the auditorium, where Arnold, Gerald are simply making up the numbers before geting elimiated from the individual competition after a quick montage of questions on Mercury, Antonio Stratovari, Muhammad Ali (figures Helga would get this one, since her dad is a boxing addict [["Helga vs. Big Patty"]] and she reads wrestling mags [["Helga's Makeover"]]), and Vincent Van Gogh (this is a question I doubt Helga would ever have gotten, other than a Phoebe whisper). The scores heading into the final question are Helga with 46 points and Phoebe with 49 points (a pre-Arnold's crush Lila is keeping the score). Don Del Grande doubts that the competition could have been this close.
Your final question is about priveleged warrior classes in Japan, and Four Eyes buzzes in first, but remembering her offer, answers "Sumo wrestlers?" A Phoebe whisper gives Helga the correct answer of samurai, the 5 points, the win, and the spot at the All-City. Shown: Simmons also mentioning that Phoebe will be the alternate. Not shown: Arnold and Gerald going "WTF?"
After Helga claims the spot, we're back at Bob's, where she's lugging out this Big Book of Contest Questions and Answers (seriously, that's what it's called), and dad says if she needs any help he'll wake up mom. (At least she doesn't actually have a speaking role in this ep...) After seeing the math section's complex first page (why would there be math portions in this kind of quiz?), we cut over to...