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SAVE THE ROBOT
The 1999-2000 Season
The 2000-2001 Season
The 2001-2002 Season
February 14, 2000
Valentine's Day
Jessica Biel, that misguided slut.
That's all I could think all the way through this Monday's episode of Seventh Heaven. Sunday (fittingly) I went and got that issue of Gear magazine that has Jessica Biel on the cover. I figured she'd be rolling around in her underwear, trying to look all sultry and exotic. Nothing prepared me for this photo spread. Jessica - topless in every photograph, crouching, sprawling, putting on lipstick, showing nipple - I didn't know they showed nipple in these magazines! And there's one photo where she's crouched in a bathroom sink. Why? What if the sink broke off the wall? Totally freaky.
Also, it turns out Biel isn't 18 until March 3, which makes this kiddie porn.
I know that Melissa Joan Hart recently did a "I'm on a show for kids but I can be slutty, too" spread for Maxim, but I wasn't impressed - it was like seeing your 15-year old sister try to wear lingerie. But Jessica Biel seems to be the genuine article. The article depicts her as a typical rowdy Boulder, Colorado teenager, raising a ruckus, trying to get a fake ID (bouncers are unlikely to read a soft-porn men's magazine like Gear, so I'm sure she's safe announcing that to the world). She agreed to this photo shoot so she could be a punkass and throw the only big break she's every going to get back into Aaron Spelling's face. Clearly she doesn't realize that a chance to be on a famous TV show and make the cover of Entertainment Weekly (ah, remember those simple days) comes along basically never.
Where was her manager? Where are her parents? - Actually, according to the article, Biel's dad attended the photo shoot. That's about as fucked up as it gets.
So: I caught Seventh Heaven this week. In addition to picturing Jessica Biel's nipples every time she was on screen, I also couldn't help but think about her revelations of her pill-like behavior on the set: pissing off mocha love child MacKenzie Rosman and grabbing Beverley Mitchell's tits and saying, "Look at the size of these things." No wonder the dog is traumatized.
But everything was lovey-dovey on screen. Valentine's Day was coming to the Camden household. Valentine's Day also happens to be the twins' birthday. They're only one year old and could give a shit, but Mom Camden insists on throwing an extra-special b-day bash for them. Things go awry when nobody gets them good presents. Lucy and Mary give them leftover cowboy hats that don't even fit them. Ruthie gives them eggs - no shit - just plain brown eggs that are slightly darker in hue than she is (symbolism?). I don't remember what Simon gave them, but he and his little girlfriend show up to the party with matching hickies, which proves to be a showstopper.
Matt and Shauna finally call it quits on their farsical bi-coastal relationship. Matt's ex-girlfriend Heather shows up, and Matt, instead of being honest and telling Shauna about it, decides to be a weasel and hang out with Heather while ignoring the 10-20 messages Shauna leaves every day on his answering machine. For those who just joined us, Matt broke up Heather's wedding at the end of last season by pulling up mid-ceremony in his convertible, grabbing the bride, and driving away with her. That took a lot of explaining. Shauna and Matt's relationship somehow survived that fiasco, but once Shauna (tipped off by Jessica Biel, that misguided slut) finds out that Heather's in town, all bets are off. She and Matt decide enough is enough, and minutes after hanging up the phone, Shauna finds out that her New York roommate has a thing for her. Why go across town when you can go across the hall? She's out of Matt's life and presumably off the show for good.
One thing I found beautifully tacky was when Matt and his roommate hold a private conversation out loud right in front of Heather. Heather's deaf, so they can say whatever they want around her as long as she's not facing them. That trick, last seen on Seinfeld, is so low and underhanded that I was surprised to see it casually used on Seventh Heaven. What would Jesus say?
But this is all warm-up to the main attraction: Jessica Biel, behaving herself and leaving Beverely Mitchell's tits alone long enough to sit still in front of the camera for ten minutes and deliver some more of Brenda Hampton's crappy tin-eared dialogue. Mary's dilemma this week concerns her sleezy boyfriend Robbie. Robbie tricks Mom and Rev Camden into letting him take Mary out on Valentine's Day night, saying that he's bringing her out to dinner with his parents.
"I feel like I'm falling in love with Robbie. And I think he loves me too. Or maybe he just saw me squatting in a bathroom sink in my panties and would like to jerk off to the genuine article," muses Mary.
Robbie seems all sweet and romantic when he picks Mary up for their date. But is he? Thinking they're going to a cute 50's restaurant, Mary's somewhat confused when they end up in front of a cheap motel in some slum.
"Wow, is this the barrio?" she asks.
Robbie explains that this is where his parents met - a cheap motel where they would meet to cheat on their spouses and conceive all twelve of their children, including Robbie. "This is where my parents first made love - and they haven't even changed the sheets!" He brought Mary there because he thought it would be a romantic place to have sex. She disagrees and belts him one, knocking him to the ground. He brings her home (or she takes a cab?), tells her parents the whole story, and they are relieved and decide that, in spite of all that's happened this year, they really can trust their daughter. Mary is a GOOD EGG. A real treasure.
Until next year, that is, when Aaron Spelling sends her to college far, far away from Glenoak. That poor, misguided slut.