2-1: “The New Girl – Part 1”

I haven’t put up a new post in a couple of weeks due to vacation followed by the opposite of vacation. But now that I have given my presentation to complete my summer class and I’m a week into fall classes and the National Lawyers Guild conference is over, I am excited to be back in the Facts of Life blogging biz. And what better way to come back to the table than by bringing you what I know you’ve all been waiting for.

JO FREAKING POLNIACZEK

After season 1, apparently the powers that be felt that there were too many girls on the show and they were going to streamline it. Blair was the standout star, so she stayed. Presumably they kept Token Tootie for racial diversity, and Natalie and Tootie kind of went hand in hand. According to Molly Ringwald, her “Molly” character was supposed to be the fourth girl, but they decided to go with a new character, Nancy McKeon’s “Jo,” instead. And so it was that we gender non-conforming, wannabe tough talkers got a childhood idol.

Our episode begins with the girls returning to school after summer break. They head straight to the cafeteria, ostensibly because that’s where they’re supposed to get their room assignments, but really because Mrs. Garrett has been promoted from dorm supervisor to school dietitian and it’s important that all of our stars be in one place. Y’know, I never thought about this before, but it’s an awfully small cafeteria for an entire school. We’re never privy to the enrollment of Eastland School, but I think it’s supposed to be more than two dozen.

Natalie is already there when Tootie, who has matured significantly in the last year and no longer needs to be on roller skates, comes in. Blair soon joins them, while two amused extras look on in the background.

We learn that the cast of Diff’rent Strokes is still around when Mrs. Garrett chases Arnold from the kitchen into the cafeteria trying to recover a lobster, whom Arnold is trying to save from being boiled alive. Good on you, Arnold. But what school cafeteria serves lobster? That seems a bit much even for fancypants Eastland.

Apparently over the summer Arnold has gone through puberty and he now has a thing for Tootie. He invites her to help feed the lobster, whom he has named “Claude,” and although she seems quite uncomfortable with it, she agrees. Which makes me uncomfortable. But all of this has just been set-up for the main event.

Mrs. Garrett and the girls hear a loud and unfamiliar noise outside and wonder what the ruckus is. I find it difficult to believe that none of these people have ever heard a motorcycle before, but perhaps the confusion is because the sound people don’t seem to have had a motorcycle recording so they used a chainsaw instead. The noise dies down, and she walks in.

Blair and Natalie mistake Jo for a boy, and Jo responds with a clenched fist. Mrs. Garrett figures out that she’s the new student and encourages the girls to make nice before reminding them that the dorm and roommate assignments are posted in the next room.
Apparently this school, which only needs its cafeteria to seat two dozen people, is big enough that girls who are lifers at the school don’t know all their potential roommates. Blair comments that she can’t even pronounce the name of the girl she’s with and hopes her new roommate brings an interpreter, without figuring out immediately that the unfamiliar girl she’s roomed with is the new student right behind her. Jo freaking Polniaczek, of course, has her “interpreter,” that is, her clenched fist.

Blair and Jo exchange a few more barbs before Mrs. Garrett sends Natalie and Jo out to repark Jo’s motorcycle. Alone with Blair, Mrs. Garrett informs her that she’s the one who suggested rooming Blair with the new girl. Before we have a chance to reflect on Mrs. Garrett’s dreadful lack of judgment, she explains to Blair that she thought it was a good idea because Blair and Jo are both very special. When Mrs. Garrett tells Blair that Jo did very well on the entrance exam, Blair reminds her of Blair’s own score of 96. Oh yeah? Well Jo got a 98.

Mrs. Garrett tells Blair that Jo was doing very well in public school until her dad left home a couple of years ago and she started having problems and running with the wrong crowd. Apart from being a gross invasion of Jo’s privacy, I’m not sure that this story is consistent with other episodes. I seem to recall that in the first episode with Jo’s father, we learn that he’s been in jail for at least a few years. Perhaps by “left home,” Mrs. Garrett meant “got locked up.” Well at least she kept that secret.

Mrs. Garrett apparently thinks that “when someone’s got their act together, they ought to help someone who doesn’t.” Holy condescension, Batman! And since when does Blair “have her act together”? She’s a self-absorbed, judgmental mess! And I doubt that Jo needs Mrs. Garrett to tell her who she ought to be hanging out with. If I were watching this for the first time, this is where I’d say, “Nothing could possibly go wrong with this idea.”

Well, she may have questionable judgment, but Mrs. Garrett is also a genius. She tells Blair that she did this because Blair is “warm-hearted, compassionate, and sensitive,” indeed, “just about perfect in every way.” Flattery will get you everywhere.

We cut to Jo hanging out in Mrs. Garrett’s room, where Jo suggests that maybe she could live with Mrs. Garrett instead of with “Blairsie in snobbo city.” Mrs. Garrett encourages her to embrace the opportunity to learn to live with new people. Jo accurately describes Blair as a Barbie doll, and Mrs. Garrett tells her not to jump to conclusions.

Blair shows up in Mrs. Garrett’s room, and Mrs. Garrett makes an excuse to leave the two girls alone. In her room. Why have neither of them been to their own room yet?

The girls trade some more barbs before agreeing that they’ll try rooming together, and we’re reminded that The Facts of Life really loves its mirror shots.

The cease-fire is short-lived however. After a brief interruption by Tootie and Arnold which ends with Arnold’s departure and Natalie’s convenient appearance, Jo asks Blair what the Eastland girls do for men, which makes no sense because in two or so episodes Jo will be gushing about her boyfriend the best in the world. But we have a plot to advance, so Blair tells Jo about Bates Academy and offers to fix Jo up. But Jo isn’t interested in high school boys. She suggests that she can have the men and Blair can have their little brothers. Blair is indignant, and protests that if she and Jo moved in the same circles, they could figure out which one of them a “real man” would go for.

And here’s where it gets good. Sorry it took so long.

Tootie suggests that Blair and Jo can have their contest at the Chugalug bar on the highway, where all the college guys hang out. Jo shows Blair her fake ID (which, by the way, just says she’s 18, reminding us that this all takes place before the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984), and offers to make one for Blair. Blair, it turns out, keeps an entire wallet full of pictures of herself, so she turns one over to Jo (the one with her perfect “coconut oil” tan – reminding us that this all takes place before we knew about skin cancer and sunscreen).

After a fade-out, the girls regroup in the cafeteria, and we learn that Tootie and Natalie expect to accompany Blair and Jo to the bar and spy through the window. Obviously that’s a really stupid idea, especially since Tootie can’t be older than a freshman in high school at this point (I really need to make that timeline I keep promising myself that I’m going to make). But Tootie and Natalie know what Blair and Jo are planning to do, and we know Tootie is a gossip, so they are able to extort their inclusion in the adventure.

It suddenly occurs to Blair that they have no transportation to the bar, which is five miles away, and Jo increases her felony count to two by suggesting that they hotwire the school van that she saw behind the cafeteria. Now, I admit that it’s been a long time since I’ve been in high school. And I do recall that fake IDs were pretty common back in the day. I never had one, but I probably would have accepted if someone had offered me one. But I probably would have drawn the line at grand theft auto. But the girls press on, arriving at the Chugalug Bar after the commercial break.

I wonder if that neon sign was custom made for the episode. If it was, and it still exists. I want it.

Jo, inexplicably, is wearing four-inch heels, which seems rather out of character. She hobbles to the door, but somehow is able to walk fine once they go in. They show their IDs to the bouncer (actually they hand over their entire wallets. Is that something people did in 1980?), who has not noticed that there are two 13- or 14-year-olds peering in the front window. The bouncer stops Blair, but surprise! It’s not to bust her for the fake ID, but rather to comment about how good she looks in her picture. And they’re in!

Jo orders two brews, and we get a cheap laugh out of Blair saying, “One brew. I’ll have a beer.” And in 2014, we get an even better laugh at the bartender’s classic 70s look.

The man they’ve set their sights on is slightly less 70s, and he’s not my type at all, but according to Blair, he’s “gorgeous.” He’s also a creep, commenting “Who says the beautiful ones never travel in pairs?” and putting his arms around both of them, uninvited. Gross.

But we don’t yet find out just how the girls’ illicit adventure is going to go wrong (although surely we know it is, even if we hadn’t seen it before), because first we have to go back to Eastland, where Arnold interrupts Mrs. Garrett doing leg-lifts and reading War and Peace. Seriously.

Arnold laments that he hasn’t spent as much time with Tootie as he wanted to, and complains that the girls took off. He then outs the girls’ stealing the van and taking off to the “Slugabug.” Mrs. Garrett quickly figures out what happened and goes after them.

Back at the bar, Creep asks Blair and Jo what college they go to. Jo tries to cover with “You haven’t heard of it,” at the same time that Blair tries to cover with “It’s not around here,” so Creep guesses that they go to different schools and offers to try to figure out where. He comments on Jo’s “last year’s jeans” and “couldn’t be bothered hairstyle,” which, along with the “touch of punk in those high heels” leads him to guess that she’s at Sarah Lawrence. Blair’s “great makeup,” “perfect hairdo,” and wardrobe “straight out of Vogue,” on the other hand, puts her in secretarial school or beauty college. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Blair however, is incensed, and angrily shouts, “Have you ever heard of Warner Textile Mills?” To which Creep responds, “Oh, that’s why you’re so sensitive. You’re a working girl. So what do you operate a loom or something like that?” That goes over about as well as you imagine.

Tootie and Natalie see from outside that Blair is arguing with this guy and they become concerned, so they DECIDE TO GO IN THE BAR. Please remind me the next time some creep is giving me shit in a bar to summon the local junior high school for backup.

I’d let Mrs. Garrett be my wing man, though, and she soon shows up, incensed. But before she can say anything, we learn that our creep is a cop! He was on to them from the second they walked in! Mrs. Garrett tries to talk the officer out of taking Blair and Jo downtown. He points out that they committed offenses when they drank the beer and when they used fake IDs, and Mrs. Garrett helpfully points out that they also stole the school van. And just as she tries to change her characterization of the situation to “borrowed,” the van, which apparently was illegally parked in a one-way alley, gets hit, and we get Tootie’s catchphrase.

Officer Creep announces that he’s taking Blair and Jo in before they can do any more damage. Mrs. Garrett protests that it’s entrapment (it isn’t), Natalie pushes him, and Tootie, whose lawyer parents apparently didn’t teach her not to assault police officers, does this:

I told you he wasn’t my type. But he is a cop, and the charges are piling up, so he announces that he’s taking all four girls to jail. But we won’t find out what happens until the next episode! I’ll see you then.