Everybody is less than enthusiastic
about the idea. Dana, Zoey, and Nicole are walking outside after class,
discussing
the dance. Since the school is only 10% girls, they
will probably
be paired with awesome guys! They have a fantasy dream of three handsome guys
walking down the hill.
Logan,
Chase, and Michael are also walking outside after class,
separate from the girls. They also are discussing the
ratio,
realizing that there are only 10% girls, so they will probably end
up getting paired with somebody awful! They
have their own fantasy
dream of girls walking down the hill - very
unattractive ones who
look a lot like the boys the girls saw in drag!
Michael leaves Chase and Logan; he has volunteered to help a foreign
exchange student. Chase and
Logan sit, and Logan knows Chase's
dilemma - Chase wants to ask
Zoey, and this computer survey messes
that up. Logan has a way for
Chase to be paired with Zoey. Chase
protests that he and Zoey are
just friends, but asks - just in case -
how to make sure he gets
paired with her. Logan tells him all he
has to do is answer the
questions the way Zoey would, and he is sure
to get paired with her by the
computer!
Michael
looks for his foreign exchange student. He is sure it is a
girl - and finds a pretty girl
he thinks is "Ollie." No - and she
has a boyfriend. Ollie comes up and
introduces himself, and Michael is surprised to find it is a guy, even more so
that the custom in
the guy's country is to greet with kisses
on the cheek! Michael
rebuffs that - saying that is how you get
punched in the US.
Chase logs
into the personality quiz. The first questions are about
your favorite fruit and are
you easily frightened. So he finds
Zoey, sneaks up behind her to startle
her, and finds her eating an
apple. Two questions answered!
Nicole is
answering her personality profile - what is your favorite
activity, to which she answers
"meeting cute guys." And her
favorite pet peeve? "Not meeting cute
guys."
Chase finds
Zoey again, this time with a gummy worm collection to
find out her favorite
animal. Knowing that an octopus is not likely
to be her favorite animal, he
eats it and offers her one out of the collection, and it might as well be her
favorite. She picks a
zebra.
Logan has
paid a boy named Patrick $9 to fill out his personality
profile. What is his best
quality? ALL of them! Nicole sees all
this and is disgusted.
Nicole and Zoey are at a table when Chase comes up with a boom box.
He turns it on and country
music blares out. When the girls object,
he asks Zoey what music she
would prefer - which is hip-hop. Another answer for Chase, who rushes off.
Todd and
Debra announce to the kids that the results are in – and
are almost trampled!
Michael
gets paired with Ollie somehow.
Nicole gets
paired with a boy named "Nicholas Webber." Trivia:
Alexa's last name is "Nikolas,"
and she has been known to be on the
web writing fans! Nicole's date is
every bit as hyper as she is!
Dana gets
paired with Logan! Neither is very happy about it.
Chase IS
matched with Zoey, but Zoey is matched with "Glen Davis."
Glen shows up and there is
friction between the boys from the start.
Michael and
Ollie go to Todd and Debra with their problem. Todd and
Debra don't see the problem?!
And they just say that Glen and Chase
tied - then beat a hasty
retreat to avoid more discussion of the problems their computer survey had.
Glen,
Chase, and Zoey are left to discuss the problem. Glen is a
bit nicer, and says let Zoey
decide.
Zoey
decides on Glen, because she is already friends with Chase and
the whole idea of the dance is
to meet new people. Chase protests
that there are a lot of things that
she doesn't know about him - but it is to no avail. She says "don't be sad" to
cheer him up.
Zoey and
Nicole are getting ready for the dance. Fancy hairstyles
don't suit them, so they shake
their hair loose.
AT THE
DANCE:
Chase is
miserable. He refuses Glen's condescending invitation to
hang out with them on the
dance floor. Chase would rather hang out
with the punch bowl "buddies"
who look like a bunch of nerds.
Nicole and
Nicholas are TOO compatible. He is so much like her, it
is getting on her nerves big
time.
Dana and
Logan are not having a good time. Logan complains that she
has no dance moves, and when
he shows off his moves - she leaves him.
Dana finds
Nicole, and they both discuss their awful dates. But
Dana reminds her that Nicholas
is exactly like her.
Chase keeps
getting more and more depressed, and more than a little
angry. Michael comes over to
talk to him; he ditched Ollie by
saying he was sick. But - Ollie came
to the dance without
his "date," and finds Michael. They
argue over the way to eat
corn. Then Ollie insists on dancing, and
since it is a solo, non-touching dance, Michael joins in doing the same moves.
Ollie
is really good, and it cheers Chase up
for a moment.
But only a
moment, because he sees Glen and Zoey getting closer
together.
When Glen
goes over to the punch bowl to talk to his friend Kevin,
Chase comes over to listen
in. Glen doesn't know anything to talk
to Zoey about, because he
stole her test to copy her answers! After
all, she is "hot." Chase
confronts him about it, but Glen has heard
of the way Chase ran around
getting Zoey's answers. What neither
boy knows is that Zoey has
walked up and heard the whole thing. She is mad at both of them!
Michael is
hiding from Ollie behind a Tiki statue. But Ollie is
right there on the other side,
and tells Michael that he must go
pray to the moon! But would Michael
please escort his sister
Farfala. Michael isn't sure until he
sees her, and she is gorgeous! So Michael finally gets his date to the dance!
Zoey and
Nicole are discussing their bad experiences, but notice at
least Michael is having a good
time. And they see that Logan and
Dana are dancing again - they haven't
killed each other yet. But
when Logan tries to kiss Dana - she
stomps his foot. He still
doesn't get the idea "she sooo wants me."
THE
NEXT DAY
Chase is by
himself, throwing rocks into a duck pond. Zoey walks
down the hill to join him. He
immediately apologizes. Zoey wants
to know why he did it - and rather
then tell her his feelings, he says it was to protect her from guys who might be
jerks - even if
it meant being a jerk himself. Zoey
accepts the explanation at face
value, and then tells him he is lame at
skipping rocks. So she demonstrates, and everything is OK between them. We are
treated to
a piano rendition of the Zoey theme song,
that fades into Jamie's
version.
ANALYSIS
Paul
Butcher (Dustin) and Erin Sanders (Quinn) are not featured in
this episode. There has been
a lot of discussion about who Quinn
would have been paired with, since
she couldn't go with her new boyfriend from episode 1.8 - Quinn’s' Date (due to
the computer match-up). I will leave that to your imagination!
Several
themes are played out in this episode.
It appears
that the sub-plot of Michael and Ollie may have been
added to squelch discussion of
sexual orientation on discussion
boards. I think this is a good idea,
because the subject is still
controversial and probably would hurt the
show with family advocacy
groups. The actress who plays Farfala -
Ollie's eventual date at
the dance - also portrays Susie Crabgrass
on Ned's Declassified Guide
to School Survival. If they were going
to give Michael a
girlfriend, they sure picked a pretty
one!
This
episode also reinforced animosity between Nicole and Logan -
probably a good idea because
she has smiled at him a couple of
times, leaving the idea she would
like to go out with him.
Zoey is
either fully aware of Chase's crush, and graciously ignoring
it, or she is totally
clueless. This episode does nothing to change
that status quo.
Tough girl
Dana answering questions the same way as egotistical
Logan? I will have to think
about that one for a while. Perhaps
the test was slanted towards
"opposites attract" - but then that
would destroy the premise that Glen
and Chase could land a date with
Zoey by having identical answers.