4-24: “Graduation: Part 2”

When we last left our heroines, everyone was fighting with everyone on the eve of Blair and Jo’s high school graduation. I mentioned that a giant multi-family fight sounds like an average graduation to me. I also noted that my family didn’t have even one fight during my law school graduation, and speculated that perhaps when the graduate is old, the family is less likely to fight. A few days after my graduation, I went to my niece’s high school graduation, and gathered another data point in support of my hypothesis: we fought. I’ll keep my eyes open for more data.

Now, though, we’ll return to Eastland, where it is graduation day, and Natalie and Tootie handle the entire breakfast service while Jo and Blair sullenly pick at their food. Tootie and Natalie are clearly still hurt from the previous day’s drama. Blair and Jo’s apologies are on the aggressive side, and it appears that things are about to get heated again, but the graduates realize that the graduation is just making everyone tense. Blair sincerely apologizes to Natalie for mocking her diary, and Tootie drags an apology out of Jo for saying that there’s nothing about Eastland that she wanted to remember.

All may be well with the girls, but Blair and Jo still dread the actual graduation/family drama. When Mrs. Garrett asks them why they haven’t started getting ready, Blair suggests going to Las Vegas for a quickie graduation. I have to admit that despite the irritating prep and the expensive gowns and the silly hats and the tedium of sitting through the thing, I like the ceremony of graduation. A number of my classmates didn’t do the ceremony thing. I couldn’t imagine. I like the sense of closure and the celebration with others who have gone through the whole thing with you.

And of course, Blair and Jo aren’t going to miss their graduation. They begin to bicker about allocating bathroom time (Blair needs three hours to wash her hair, natch). Natalie wants to get their fight on tape so she and Tootie can listen to it whenever they miss them.

Blair’s problem with it is not that it’s kind of messed up to record people’s fighting, but that her fights with Jo are works of art and they can’t be expected to just produce one on command. Ha. But all of this is just preface for when Blair and Jo have to face their families, and sure enough, Blair’s mother and Cousin Geri (!) enter the dining room. Monica Warner is feeling a bit better; apparently she and Geri had a quiet dinner at the Inn, at which Monica made them set a place for Blair’s father which she yelled at the whole time (recall that Blair’s father was supposed to come to the graduation, but he left for business). Monica is still furious; she suggests buying a full-length sable coat for Blair and sending dad the bill. Blair just wants to get through graduation, and she quite reasonably tells her mother to calm down; that she has accepted what her father can give, because if she doesn’t, she’ll be angry for her whole life.

We fade to Jo’s conversation with her mother. Rose Polniaczek ate at the coffee shop last night, and Jo disapproves. Also, Charlie Polniaczek is late, and Rose won’t just go and save him a seat, she wants to wait around angrily and see just how late he is. Jo, annoyed, takes off on her own.

Things are getting intense, so we get our comic relief in the form of bread delivery boy and sex offender Roy. Jo tells him that graduation is the other way as he not-so-subtly attempts to hide the flower he is carrying behind his back. He’s not going to graduation, it turns out, he has a date with incompetent princess Alex! He tells Jo not to be sad, that people change. Jo, of course, is delighted.

Our comic Roylief goes into the kitchen, just as Jo’s dad shows up. He’s been in town, he says, and he wants Jo to see something. It’s a pin, which Jo says is beautiful. Rose yells at Charlie for wasting money on something impractical when they have to put Jo through college. Jo reluctantly gives it back, saying it’s too fancy for her anyway, and we learn that it’s not even for Jo!

It’s for Rose! Now she’s even more pissed, saying that if anyone needs the pin less than Jo, it’s her. Charlie protests that he just wanted to thank her for doing such a great job with Jo while he was a deadbeat and in jail. He wanted to make the weekend special for her with some nice things they don’t usually get. As Charlie sees it, it’s Rose’s graduation too. Rose is touched. There’s something in my eye.

And now, here we are at graduation. The girls seem more nervous than is warranted, but I guess it’s been a long time since I was 18. Blair runs around checking wardrobe, while Jo frets about her speech. Mrs. Garrett arrives with an emergency kit for last minute repairs, Tootie arrives, also panicked, making sure everyone has their tassels on the correct side and apprising the graduates of their expected behavior on stage. We got an e-mail from our Dean of Students with our instructions.

Jo has begun panicking that she can’t remember her speech. Blair reminds her that there’s something about sweaty socks in a gym locker, and we get to hear the most classic line from Jo’s speech a second time!

“We must fill the gym locker of life with splendid achievements.”

She continues.

“Graduation is traditionally a time of looking forward. But let us consider a moment how we arrived at this moment. None of us did this alone. We have received support in the hard times, encouragement when we needed it, and most important, love from our family and friends. All this leaves us with a debt that cannot be measured or repaid.”

Awww. This lovely sentiment, if trite, is accompanied by black-and-white flashbacks of scenes from previous episodes. I enjoy it, because I am a disturbed individual utterly obsessed with this show. Also I instantly recognize which episode each scene is from.

“Pomp and Circumstance,” which I’m glad did not appear at my law school graduation, begins, and the girls are instructed to start filing into the auditorium. Jo and Blair are at the end of the line, in that order. I imagine that at a small school like that they go in alphabetical order, so I am forced to believe that there is no one at Eastland with a last name that comes between “Polniaczek” and “Warner.” I can reluctantly buy that with a school that tiny. I do wonder where Sue Ann Weaver is, though.

The girls take a minute to revel in their excitement that there will be no more uniforms, no more curfew, and no more living over the kitchen.

And then they remember that those ends mean the end of them (ha! That’s what they think), and they solemnly file into the auditorium.

AND I AM SO MAD THAT WE NEVER GET TO HEAR ALL OF JO’S SPEECH!

Yada-yada ceremony, and we fade to the girls’ room, where Blair and Jo are in the process of moving out. Natalie heisted a bunch of cookies from the reception to prepare a care package for the girls as they go into the city. I guess they’re both going home with their parents now; it’s convenient that they’re both from NYC.

Tootie notices that the room will be nice and big with Blair and Jo out of it. Tootie plans out loud to plaster the room with Michael Jackson posters the next year. Natalie asks her which bed she wants. Jo gets a little indignant that they’re making all these plans before her bed is even cold. Can you blame them? The girl’s been a shrew for at least the past several days, not to mention that it’s her fault they ended up living above the kitchen together to begin with.

I would also like to take a moment to point out Jo’s hideous, mismatched, unflattering outfit.

I point this out only because this is exactly how I used to dress. What Jo is wearing was basically my standard costume when I was in competitive debate: some kind of hideous patterned skirt too long for my height, and some sort of solid colored blouse (whether it matched or not). My outfit under my graduation gown was much cuter. Too bad I didn’t take any pictures after I took the gown off.

Enter Mrs. Garrett with two wrapped boxes – gifts for Jo and Blair. She says she likes to see people’s expressions when she opens gifts, and indeed she gets one from Jo, who opens her box to find a rock.

No, Jo isn’t Charlie Brown on Halloween, Mrs. Garrett’s gift to her is actually a geode. She got it for Jo because it reminded her of Jo: “There’s a lot more there than meets the eye. It’s tough on the outside, but inside, there are all all sorts of marvelous things going on.” Jo is touched. Mrs. Garrett makes Jo promise not to throw the geode at Blair.

For Blair, Mrs. Garrett has knitted a hideous sweater.

Blair is touched that Mrs. Garrett went to all that trouble for her, and asks what her story is. Mrs. Garrett tells her that she thought the style would be becoming on her, and the colors would bring out the green and gold flecks in her eyes (continuity bonus: we hear about Blair’s green and gold flecks throughout the series. Even in season one, I think). Blair is a little insulted that Jo got a parable and she didn’t, and she whines that Mrs. Garrett didn’t give her any words of wisdom about her inner self while Jo got her rock. There’s a great opportunity for a joke about Blair’s inner self, but Mrs. Garrett takes the high road, and tells Blair that she’s grown more than any other girl she knows, and that she’s sensitive and caring, and Mrs. Garrett considers herself lucky to have Blair as a friend. Awww. There are hugs all around, tears, and bittersweet looks. Mrs. Garrett goes downstairs to start cleaning up, and Blair and Jo start to reflect that Blair and Jo will be together, and Natalie and Tootie will be together, but it’s the end of the road for these four.

Natalie sensibly points out that Langley is only twenty minutes away, and they can handle the fifty cent bus fare. Tootie points out that she hasn’t even fallen in love yet, and they all agree that they have to be around for that. Blair points out that she has to come back to crown the new Harvest Queen (continuity error: during season one, she says she’s been Harvest Queen for the last two years already, and in a later episode, it’s pointed out that she was Harvest Queen three years in a row. I suppose it’s possible that she had her three in a row, then lost for a year or two before winning again this past year, but mostly I think they just assume that Blair is always harvest queen and they put the number of years in at random). They all figure out that there are so many things for them to get together for that they can’t possibly lose touch.

Natalie then wisely comments that people always say they’re going to stay together and they never do. Jo says that they just have to. That’s good advice. I’m going to try to keep it in mind myself when it comes to people like those three dudes in the first picture in this entry.

Tootie then breaks down and hurls herself on Blair’s bed in a crying fit.

But surprise! She’s just joking

Now in a lighter mood, Natalie promises to write a book about the four of them that’s a cross between The Group and Peyton Place. Blair wants Candace Bergen to play her. Tootie will play herself and direct, and they all agree that the perfect choice for Jo is Charles Bronson.

Natalie opines that the best thing about Blair and Jo moving out is that they’ll be able to introduce Natalie and Tootie to older men. I’ve told you before that Natalie was the biggest player among the girls. I’ll file this away as another data point. Blair thinks the best thing about them leaving is no more kitchen duty! And no sooner has she said this when Mrs. Garrett comes into the room. She says she’s in a bind because the help she hired to clean up the kitchen got the dates mixed up, and could Tootie and Natalie please come help? Of course they will. Blair and Jo are offended at not being asked (even though it’s clearly because they just graduated and shouldn’t be forced to work, duh). But of course they want to help, and the team is together one more time.