[8.3/10] Particularly good episode. I liked the A-story with Lindsay and Nick a lot. It gives you insight into both characters, where Lindsay means well and is caring for her friend (and nascent boyfriend), but also a little naive, both about him and how the world works. She believes that if Nick just tries hard and gets the right opportunity, he can make a living as a drummer, little understanding both (a.) how unlikely it is that Nick will try hard enough and (b.) how hard it is to make a living as a musician.
But why wouldn’t she feel that way? She’s someone who’s worked hard and found that hard work pays off. But Nick isn’t necessarily capable of that on either front. None of the freaks are (as we saw with Daniel’s faltering attempts to learn math in the previous episode). Nick means well, and he loves the drums, but he’s trying to go from somebody who likes to imagine himself in an arena to someone who could actually get there through hard work and practice, and he just doesn’t have it in him.
Daniel seems to know that. He seems to know it about all of them. For all Daniel’s flaws, he’s a little more aware of how the world works than Lindsay is, and while he and the rest of the gang’s resistance to turning “the band into school” is a bit mean, he’s not wrong that Nick probably won’t make it, and that the army might even be good for him.
It’s a hard lesson that just because you earnestly and innocently want something doesn’t mean you can achieve it. And it’s a harder lesson to learn that people you care about, even people you may love in a teenage sort of way, don’t necessarily have a future ahead of them, or the future you might want for them. Lindsay’s worldview is expanding bit by bit, and while she has the moxie to kiss Nick when he’s down, the look on her face when she’s filling his dry ice container as he fiddles around on another song for fun, for a brief escape from the inevitable, suggests she knows something isn’t quite great about all of this.
Sam’s B-story is much more lighthearted, and it’s tons of fun. The teenage fear of having to be naked at a time when (a.) your fellow students are at their cruelest and (b.) you’re the most insecure about your changing body is a relatable storyline. And Freaks and Geeks wrings all kind of great laughs out of it.
For one thing, the Weir’s dinner table exchange about Sam having a “beautiful body” was laugh out loud hilarious. The slow motion images of Neal and Bill getting pummeled with towels, shot and scored like a Vietnam movie, was great comedy. And the piece de resistance is the uproarious, energetic sequence where Alan the bully shove Sam outside the gym while he’s naked, and a frantic effort to find clothing ensues, replete with a blue dot for televised modest, and a manic caper around the school that just kept providing the laughs.
The fact that rather than heightening Sam’s bodily insecurities, his inadvertent “streaking” actually gives him credit with girls at school is a nice way to pay off the more comic storyline.
Overall, a great episode with very human story for Lindsay and a very funny (and ultimately heartening) story for Sam.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2018-01-31T03:53:50Z
[8.3/10] Particularly good episode. I liked the A-story with Lindsay and Nick a lot. It gives you insight into both characters, where Lindsay means well and is caring for her friend (and nascent boyfriend), but also a little naive, both about him and how the world works. She believes that if Nick just tries hard and gets the right opportunity, he can make a living as a drummer, little understanding both (a.) how unlikely it is that Nick will try hard enough and (b.) how hard it is to make a living as a musician.
But why wouldn’t she feel that way? She’s someone who’s worked hard and found that hard work pays off. But Nick isn’t necessarily capable of that on either front. None of the freaks are (as we saw with Daniel’s faltering attempts to learn math in the previous episode). Nick means well, and he loves the drums, but he’s trying to go from somebody who likes to imagine himself in an arena to someone who could actually get there through hard work and practice, and he just doesn’t have it in him.
Daniel seems to know that. He seems to know it about all of them. For all Daniel’s flaws, he’s a little more aware of how the world works than Lindsay is, and while he and the rest of the gang’s resistance to turning “the band into school” is a bit mean, he’s not wrong that Nick probably won’t make it, and that the army might even be good for him.
It’s a hard lesson that just because you earnestly and innocently want something doesn’t mean you can achieve it. And it’s a harder lesson to learn that people you care about, even people you may love in a teenage sort of way, don’t necessarily have a future ahead of them, or the future you might want for them. Lindsay’s worldview is expanding bit by bit, and while she has the moxie to kiss Nick when he’s down, the look on her face when she’s filling his dry ice container as he fiddles around on another song for fun, for a brief escape from the inevitable, suggests she knows something isn’t quite great about all of this.
Sam’s B-story is much more lighthearted, and it’s tons of fun. The teenage fear of having to be naked at a time when (a.) your fellow students are at their cruelest and (b.) you’re the most insecure about your changing body is a relatable storyline. And Freaks and Geeks wrings all kind of great laughs out of it.
For one thing, the Weir’s dinner table exchange about Sam having a “beautiful body” was laugh out loud hilarious. The slow motion images of Neal and Bill getting pummeled with towels, shot and scored like a Vietnam movie, was great comedy. And the piece de resistance is the uproarious, energetic sequence where Alan the bully shove Sam outside the gym while he’s naked, and a frantic effort to find clothing ensues, replete with a blue dot for televised modest, and a manic caper around the school that just kept providing the laughs.
The fact that rather than heightening Sam’s bodily insecurities, his inadvertent “streaking” actually gives him credit with girls at school is a nice way to pay off the more comic storyline.
Overall, a great episode with very human story for Lindsay and a very funny (and ultimately heartening) story for Sam.