by SpiderBraids
Well, it's the big moment for Susie now, as she's at the auditioning address. She's wearing hip-to-the-groove clothes (two words, folks: bare midriff), and her hair's all "Donnied [The Wild Thornberrys]" up. Some guy's asking her if she's renting the place. She's asking about Beverly... and as it turns out, there's never been a recording studio here. Three words: She's been had. Ouch.
Later on, as she's sitting on a nearby bench, an enthusiastic Kimi arrives and asks how it all went... and a disappointed-slash-mad Susie drones: "I let someone talk me into thinking I had talent, but what she was actually trying to do was talk me out of a thousand dollars. [...] She picked the perfect person: I was just talented enough to trick me into thinking I actually had what it took to make it big." Given the success of Britney Spears, that would make her not that talented at all, which is pretty far from the mark. And on top of that, when Kimi is consoling her, "She didn't take your talent... You'll feel better when you sing tonight," she snaps back: "I'm not singing tonight! Maybe not ever again!" Double ouch. So, she's giving up singing, and any potential future career doing so, just because a "talent scout" conned her into giving her $1000. Riiiight.
Back to the Carmichael house. Susie's back in her previous outfit, and promising to pay Alisa back. You'd think that they'd show the parents telling Susie "I told you so," but nope. Anyways, upon hearing about the incident, big sister reckons she's lucky not to have suffered even more: "You hang out with someone you don't even know, say yes to whatever she ask you to do... She could have taken it further than she did. Think about it!" Talk about your heavy-handed moralization... as for the money, they're not going to track down Beverly and teach her a lesson. No sirree, Alisa is letting Susie pay the money back in "1000 easy installments". And because of this, Don Del Grande says: "This show suddenly became about 1000% more interesting..."
Right. Now that monetary issues have been cleaned up somewhat, Alisa sez, "Get on with the important things in life." No doubt that by that she means her education, as when Susie mentions that singing is important in her life, all she says is, "It's a great hobby." Prompting this response: "Hobby? Singing isn't just some knitting needle book-clubbing thing I do in my spare time. It's who I am. It's what I want. And still do. And I'm not gonna let some con artist in a fake designer suit stop me." Nope, she's not, and she's headed over to...
... the Java Lava talent night. Where first up is Chazz telling a joke about two eyes and a nose. "Don't look now, but something between us smells." Yeah, something smells alright: your pathetic attempt at comedy. Next is Slambang and his poetry. No one likes him either. Chazz wonders why Susie isn't here by now. Angelica sez, "Talk about unprofessional... You're looking at your warm up act and headliner." As for Slambang, Betty's telling Chazz to "get him off the stage before furniture starts a-flyin'." Chazz: "Oh, you don't really think they throw furniture at him do you?" Betty: "That's Slambang Pangboarn, he'd throw it at them!" Thanks for the gag, Betty... I guess.
Anyways, back to the stage, and Slambang is being pelted with paper. Chazz tries to force him off stage, and failing that, Betty forces them both off stage, clearing way for Angelica and her symphony of destruction. After about half a minute or so or this crap, Susie, back in her "audition" outfit, arrives, much to Kimi's delight. "She didn't steal my talent right?" "No, but someone stole hers." Or maybe she didn't have any to begin with. Whatever.
Angelica falls off the stage, clearing a path for Susie to upstage her (no pun intended ;)) with her song some people refer to as "No Getting Rid Of This Dream" (that is the refrain of the song, and duh, it's supposed to fit the story), and to paraphrase Helga Pataki [HA!, "Helga's Love Potion"], "That's more like it!" Everyone eats up the song, and Alisa even pops in, to boot. Meanwhile, Slambang has some unfinished business with Tommy and Chuckie. Or rather, they have unfinished business: they'll be chiseling glue off the bathroom ceiling tomorrow.
After complaining about not getting something like a leglock, Finster sez to Tommy, "I'm not finished flirting with danger, and it's not finished flirting with me!" And speaking of flirting, he goes off to flirt with some chick named Marcy, as Susie finishes up her song, and we finish up this ep.
In regards to the missing money, I had an email discussion with the aforementioned Del Grande, in which I insisted that like the ["Bag of Money"] episode of [[Hey Arnold!]], the money would never be brought up again. Del Grande replied that he'll only believe it when a) he's seen all the eps of the 2nd season, and b) AGU!'s not picked up for another season. He's more convinced that Tommy and co. will probably try to run a sting operation to get the dosh back. Hmm...
Anyways, to recap, when the biggest surprise of the evening is the fact that Susie ain't getting all that dosh back from the con artist, it makes for a rather (if not totally) formulaic evening. Good night!