5-7 “Advanced Placement”

Natalie Green is one of the greatest female television characters in the history of ever. The unsophisticated critic of Factswill refer to Natalie as “the fat one,” which is such an oversimplification for so many reasons (including the period of time when the girls were all basically the same size, but Natalie was made to “dress fat” and the other girls were made to starve to keep the character arcs. Not the finest moment in series history).

Natalie is a writer and an activist and a sex-positive goddess who always has dates and is snarky and funny and brilliant. She’s also human, and she does stupid shit on more than one occasion. This is one such occasion. The show does not fear going all-in on the fact that in this episode, Awesome Natalie is just a straight-up asshole.

The episode wastes no time on intros or background as Natalie bursts into the shop with Mr. Parker, headmaster of the Eastland School, on her heels. She has news. It seems that Eastland and Langley college, which Jo and Blair currently attend, have decided to partner to offer an advanced placement program. Natalie is the first beneficiary!

Everyone is just tickled that Natalie gets to take one class at Langley, which she will choose with the help of her “freshman advisers” (Blair and Jo), who Mrs. Garrett is sure will be invaluable, what with their weeks of experience. It is not explained how Natalie is expected to catch up on the weeks of material she’s already missed, but who’s nitpicking?

I am. I am nitpicking.

Natalie’s first choice is “The Works of Norman Mailer,” taught by Norman Mailer. But Blair points out that it’s an eight-a.m. class and no one wants to take a class that early. I agree as a matter of principle, but I imagine that Natalie usually has to be at class that early. High school concurrent enrollees are precisely who those early classes are meant for.

“Animals in Art” gets a chuckle from the studio audience, which I don’t think is fair. It would be fascinating to study how animals are depicted in art across eras and cultures. Natalie has no objection to the course, which meets at 11, but Blair warns that it’s all the way on the other side of campus and Natalie would have to leave ten minutes earlier. Jo scoffs at Blair’s standards and suggests that Natalie look for a class that meets in the living room.

Blair and Natalie decide that the noon class in McClendon hall is just right; who cares what the course is? It’s “Modern Drama,” and that actually sounds like a good fit for Natalie.

Natalie (looking plaintively at Blair and Jo): “What do I wear?”
Jo: “Clothes.”

In the Langley student center (which looks suspiciously like the common area of Blair’s old dorm) three weeks later, a generically attractive 80s guy, named, believe it or not, “Guy,” asks Natalie how she did on the Chekhov paper. That’s Chekhov’s Chekhov paper. Not really, but I thought it would be funny to say that.

Anyway, Natalie got an A on the Chekhov paper, “If you don’t count the plusses,” Jo adds. Blair jokes about how far Natalie has come since her first day when she showed up with a Return of the Jedi notebook, and I have no idea what’s supposed to be wrong with that.

Another girl reads from the school paper that the soccer team lost again, and Natalie says she thought the game was great. Why? “The guys wear shorts.” Everyone chuckles. Natalie fits right in.

Enter Boots St. Clair, whom we met a few episodes ago when Blair rushed the Gamma Gamma sorority. She bubbles and enthuses and annoys. Blair and Jo roll their eyes in the corner while Natalie stands up to get Boots a chair. Boots suggests that Natalie’s “adolescent’s eye view” would be great for a piece in the school paper, and since the editor of the paper is a Gamma Gamma, she’ll make it happen. Natalie glows as she tells Boots how terrific she is, and Boots flits out of the lounge.

Natalie effuses about what a great opportunity it is to be able to write for both papers. Blair warns that she might be overextending; after all she has to write the senior spoof. Blair explains to Guy that the senior spoof is the annual event in which the underclassmen roast the seniors.

Guy wants to know how Blair and Jo were spoofed, and Natalie, not in her finest moment, loose-lips about the time that Blair got sprayed by a skunk in the woods during a dance and everyone called her Pepe Le Pew for weeks. A crowd gathers as Natalie regales with stories of Jo being mistaken for a guy at Stone Military Academy, and the time that Jo wanted to become a nun. Neither Blair nor Jo is pleased.

At Edna’s Edibles, Natalie stands at the cash register, and when a customer approaches to pay, Natalie summons Tootie (who is helping another customer) and walks away. She’s working on the notes Boots wanted on the Pia Zadora film festival.

Natalie brushes off another customer, and Tootie neglects her too in order to argue with Natalie about her worthlessness. Tootie is still waiting for the spoof skits, which Natalie says she can knock out in half an hour and labels as “stupid.” Mrs. Garrett interrupts and tries to appease the now-unhappy customer.

Natalie is generally awful as Tootie calls her out for not helping around the store and not being caught up on the senior spoof. Jo and Blair return to the shop, and we find out that Blair has become known as “Pepe Le Pew” around Langley, and the men’s wrestling team attempted to recruit Jo. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that last thing. Enter Boots.

Boots has come to collect Natalie, who has agreed to help her pack to move up a floor in the sorority house. She reminds Natalie that she forgot something and Natalie shuffles off to get it. Before she can return, Boots notices that her Volvo is getting ticketed and she rushes out of the shop. Natalie returns with Boots’s dry cleaning.

Dry cleaning, the 80s symbol of servitude. Blair and Tootie are appropriately horrified by Natalie’s Boots-licking. Natalie protests that everyone is just jealous that she’s such a hit at Langley, and that she’s doing better at college than Blair is anyway. Mrs. G tries to bring Natalie back down to earth by reminding her that it’s only one class. “For now,” Natalie snots.

“I happened to drop in on the Langley admissions office. We chatted for a while. It’s all worked out. If I take a couple extra courses this summer and keep my grade point average up, I can skip my senior year at Eastland, and enter Langley in the fall. Ta!”

An unspecified amount of time later, we’re back in the shop, where Tootie complains that she needs some dirt for the senior spoof. Natalie was supposed to be the one working on that, but she’s gone missing. Jo reports that when last seen, Natalie was polishing the pennies in Boots’s loafers. Before that, Blair notes, she was trying to get into the German club. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t speak German; she’s doesn’t speak French either and she already joined that club.

Blair and Jo, visibly annoyed, moan that Natalie is everywhere on campus all the time, wearing her Langley sweatshirt. Mrs. Garrett thanks them for the extra hours they’ve been putting in to cover for Natalie’s sorry ass, which segues into the fact that it’s payday. Mrs. Garrett hands checks to Jo, Blair, and Tootie.

Natalie flits in the front door and sighs about what a day it’s been. As the others roll their eyes, Natalie apologizes for being late and says she lost track of time at the coffee shop but she’s there now and ready to work. Whoopie, Mrs. Garrett says, Natalie arrived just in time to flip the “Open” sign to “Closed.”

As Natalie expresses surprise that it’s that late, Tootie protests that the sketches Natalie gave her for the senor spoof are lousy; no one on the spoof committee liked them. Natalie snots that those “kids” probably just didn’t get her jokes and suggests that they’re better served for a “college mind.”

Jo: “Do you want me to kill her for you?”

Tootie demands that Natalie punch up the skits, and Natalie says she doesn’t “punch up” anything.

Tootie: “Jo, punch her out.”

Natalie gripes that she doesn’t have time for kid stuff and she’s not going to do any more work on the spoof. Mrs. Garrett has just announced to Natalie that it’s time to have a talk when Boots flits in. After declaring that she saw the closed sign but assumed it didn’t pertain to her, Boots says that she’d hoped for some duckling paté (oh yay! Delicious baby torture!). But don’t reopen the books just for her, Boots insists, because she knows how “tradespeople dislike doing that.”

Oh hay! The real reason for Boots’s visit is that the issue of the Daily Langlian with Natalie’s article is published and Boots has brought a copy hot off the presses! Natalie, initially smug, opens the paper and reads the incredibly creative headline: “An Underclassman Looks at Langley.”

Oh my, it seems that the editors at the Langlian edited Natalie’s article, and she is not pleased. She protests that she is an editor, and Boots reminds her that she’s the editor of a high school paper.

Natalie actually whines, “It’s not fair!” and Boots is ice cold. She exits as Natalie wonders what else could go wrong.

Her check is a whopping eighteen dollars. After joking that her check seems to have been edited too, Natalie objects that she hasn’t missed that much work. Mrs. Garrett points out that she showed up for seven out of sixteen scheduled hours last week. The federal minimum wage in 1983 was $3.35 per hour, so that’s probably about what Natalie was making.

Natalie’s protest has taken her and Mrs. Garrett to the living room when the doorbell rings.

Hi, Mr. Parker! Mr. Parker has dropped by to book Mrs. G to cater his wife’s birthday and to make a gross joke about Mrs. G being his property, but he has mostly arrived to inform Natalie that the Eastland administration has noticed her recent academic decline, and she’s in big trouble. Her grades have been slipping to Cs and incompletes, and she’s been cutting classes. The final indignity: Langley rescinded their offer of early admission.

Natalie: “They said I was an exceptional student!”
Mr. Parker: “When they made the offer, you were!”

Burn.

There’s nothing Natalie can do as Mr. Parker excuses himself and she’s left wallowing in her humiliation. She has the bright idea to ask Mrs. Garrett to write a letter to the Langley admission board saying that Natalie has been putting in long hours at the shop and having family problems and otherwise is not responsible for her downward spiral.

Ha. As if honest-to-a-fault Mrs. G would lie on Natalie’s behalf when she’s been such a disaster. Indeed, Mrs. G straight up tells Natalie that she blew her chance. Natalie pleads one more last time for Mrs. G to “be a pal” and to put herself in Natalie’s place.

Mrs. G: “Let’s see: I’ve just gotten a warning from the headmaster; my grades are in the cellar and my parents are going to hit the roof; I’ve insulted and humiliated my best friends – I don’t think I want to be in your place.”

Natalie has begun to internalize what she’s done. She laments to Mrs. Garrett, “Do you think they hate me as much as I think they hate me?

Mrs. G: “Well, right now…”

“…YES.”

Natalie says she’s glad to not be on speaking terms with the other girls so she doesn’t have to tell them about Langley, but Mrs. Garrett warns that they’ll figure it out once they notice Natalie has stopped swaggering. Natalie admits that she’ll have to eat humble pie and tell them. Right on cue, Tootie enters the living room.

Natalie: “Oh, Tootie! My world has crumbled around me! My grades are in the toilet; Mr. Parker just gave me a lecture; I can’t go to Langley next year; and only now do I realize what’s really important. My friends. I know I can count on you to stand by me in my hour of need.”

Tootie: “Don’t hold your breath, bozo. Blair, Jo, Natalie bombed out!”

Jo: “What do you mean she bombed out?”
Tootie: “She can’t go to Langley next year!”
Blair: “Well it’s about time someone cut her down to size.”
Natalie: “You guys have the sensitivity of a skunk.”
Blair: “They don’t call me Pepe Le Pew for nothing!”

Mrs. G: