S2, E26: "Ransom" / "Ms. Perfect"

"Ransom"

Meet Timberly, everybody. Gerald's headache of a sister. What kind of name is Timberly, anyway? It sounds like her parents couldn't agree on whether or not to name their kid "Timothy" or "Kimberly," so when she was born and discovered to be a girl, they mashed the names together to form "Timberly."

For our first  introduction to Timberly, we find her watching an obvious Barney parody called Wallie, and he's encouraging all the children at home to succumb to capitalism and tell their parents to buy every Chinese-made product with his big, blue face on the front. And Timberly eats this shit up like candy.

It's like modern-day Frozen.

Granted, Timberly is only like, what, four? Five? I don't blame her so much as I do the writers for the Wallie show. It's bad enough that the parents have to listen to every Wallie song blasting from the TV when they come home from work, but now they have to fill their house with that goofy alligator's face on everything. I honestly don't remember if young children's TV characters ever came right out and said, "Buy products with our characters on them to show off to your friends!" but I'm damn sure something like that had to happen for Hey Arnold! to parody it.

This is the reason why I'd buy the generic form of every toy along with a pack of dollar store stickers of my future kid's favorite characters to stick to the front of each toy... secretly, of course. Cheaper and satisfying to the tots!

After the show ends, Timberly walks into the kitchen and starts pissing off Gerald, who's just trying to play a wholesome game of knockoff Clue with his friends. What's with all the parodies this episode?

Gerald says that Timberly can't play because it's a detective game she wouldn't understand, and after enough screaming to leave him the hell alone already, Timberly leaves in a huff. Not five seconds later, she screams for help because her plush Wallie has gone missing after leaving him on the windowsill. Gerald refuses to help her find it, prompting this face:

Later that day, Timberly runs up to Arnold and Gerald with a ransom note from the thief to bring $20 to the local park, and there's also a photo of Wallie with a mask over his eyes being held over a trashcan as a threat to what his fate will be if they don't comply. At this point, it's quite obvious that Timberly is behind the kidnapping of her plush so she can get Gerald's attention (but we're not supposed to know that now, so hush!). But really, even if this is your first time seeing this episode, how can you believe someone else wrote that ransom note and took that Polaroid picture, only for Timberly to find it so much "later"?

Plus, the horrible misspellings give her away immediately.

Gerald really doesn't give a flying fladoodle about Timberly's missing Wallie, but Arnold convinces him that he has to help her find him because she's an adorable little girl. So, Gerald reluctantly agrees to help.

In the bushes in front of the house, Timberly finds a chocolate candy wrapper, and for some reason, this leads Arnold and Gerald to assume it was left behind by Chocolate Boy. Oh, two new recurring characters are introduced this episode! But why Chocolate Boy, as if no one else in the neighborhood could have possibly tossed a candy wrapper into the bushes?

Just to establish him, Chocolate Boy is the neighborhood chocoholic, who is probably also homeless. If this were an adult show, he would be Crack Boy, or Johnny the Junkie. Either way, whether he's a drug addict or a Hershey's addict, he's still doing damage to his body. Die by overdose or die by sugar: how would you prefer to go down?

He must have the metabolism of every foodie's dreams. 

But let's not get into the health aspects of this episode--we've got a plushie to find!

The plan is to corner Chocolate Boy and hold him down long enough to question him. Arnold and Gerald chase him into a corner and begin interrogating him using malted milk balls as encouragement. It turns out Chocolate Boy did in fact leave behind a wrapper in the Johanssens' bushes in the late afternoon yesterday. Why those incredibly coincidental circumstances exist other than to fuel the plot, I do not know, but bear with me.

Chocolate Boy also reveals that Harold was around at that time, too, which leads to Gerald, Arnold, and Timberly to go and question Harold. Where is he? At the diner, eating, of course. They discover a Wallie plush in Harold's backpack (because ha-ha, big tough bullies who have embarrassing kid toys is funny!), but it's not Timberly's. I feel like this scene exists purely to embarrass Harold.

"It's not mine. On mine, the stuffing's coming out of the tail. And plus, this one looks like the eye was bitten off." - Timberly
"I was hungry." - Harold

Harold explains that all he was doing was buying a creamsicle from that psycho Jolly Olly Man, and Curly was there causing chaos. In other words, time to question Curly. Of course, it might be best to question him from behind bulletproof glass. Who knows what that kid is capable of?

I find it interesting that Curly lives in the projects, as per the wide shot establishing his house. I find it disturbing, however, that his parents' apartment is full of holes in the wall and practically looks abandoned.

Arnold and Gerald try to shake Curly down, but he denies stealing Timberly's plush. He does prove his innocence, however, when he tells the boys where he really was at 4:00 yesterday afternoon. A ballet lesson (ha-ha, because boys doing ballet is funny!). If Curly lives in the projects, how can his parents afford ballet lessons for their son?

Anyway, Curly demonstrates his fabulous ballet moves to prove his innocence, and it's enough to send Arnold and Gerald along their merry way.

After a whole night of tossing and turning, Arnold and Gerald stress over the fact that they owe this plush-napper twenty whole dollars for the safe return of Wallie. The next day, they stash a bag of candy in a tree in the park and wait for the thief to arrive. She comes almost instantly, in a fairy tutu costume, going right for the bag of candy. Arnold and Gerald chase her down until they realize it's Timberly. Here come the Puss in Boots eyes:

Gerald goes in, ready to tear this little brat a new asshole for making him and Arnold run around looking for this plush alligator, but Arnold stops him to make him watch his little sister cry. And then Gerald suddenly feels bad for Timberly. All she wanted to do was play with her big brother. She had fun being a detective, like she told Gerald the night before when she went to bed.

Before Timberly makes a scene, Gerald gives her a hug, and forgives her.

Gerald vows that he will play with Timberly next time, which may or may not be true since he just wants her to stop crying. Timberly looks into the bag to grab some delicious candy, but it turns out the bag was empty. And now she's pissed off at Gerald. Hey, guys, what if the supposed Wallie-napper had some kind of blunt object he could have beaten you with for not providing him with candy? You were just lucky all the real thief had to beat you with was a plastic wand from Claire's. 




"Ms. Perfect"

The alternate title for this episode should be, "Mean Girls of P.S. 118".

We've got a new student joining Mr. Simmons' class. Everyone, meet Lila Sawyer:

Three new characters in two consecutive episodes. That has to be a new record.

Lila just moved here from the country, which is glaringly obvious given her Laura Ingalls braids and quaint dress. At least her voice actor sounds like she's nine years old, whereas everyone else in class sounds like they're teenagers.

During recess, some of the girls from class decide to break Lila in. They give her the down-low, if you will, about how things are run in the city. Helga leads, explaining how there are certain "rules" that must be followed in order to survive at P.S. 118. I think this is the scene that inspired Mean Girls. In fact, it's almost exactly the same. Lila is Cady Heron--the redheaded girl from a faraway place. Helga is Regina George, obviously. Rhonda is definitely Gretchen Wieners, being rich and all. But who will be Karen? Ah, we'll figure it out along the way.

Helga persistently warns Lila about how difficult it will be to make friends here, and then in an ironic twist, some other girls walk over and ask Lila to play kickball with them. So much for difficulty making friends.

So, it seems like the girls like Lila, but very quickly she gets on everyone's nerves. She's as smart as Phoebe (who could not believe someone else knew the answers to Mr. Simmons' challenging brain busters), as fashionable as Rhonda (though I find it unbelievable how they went to school in the exact same outfit), and even knows how to butter up the lunch lady to get an extra snack at lunch (much to Helga's hatred).

Now, none of the girls like Lila, and it's rather disgusting how quickly they go from being skeptical of her ability to fit in to threatening the one-dimensional personalities of the other girls (minus Helga, who is far from one-dimensional). Helga, Phoebe, Sheena, Rhonda, and Nadine all conspire to dethrone the well-liked, shy, little country girl they nickname, "Ms. Perfect." Oh, this cannot be good.

The first prank they decide to pull involves filling Lila's locker with neon green Jell-O. Right before Lila opens it to a gloopy surprise, Mr. Simmons comes by to tell Lila that the school reassigned her locker closer to the classroom. So instead, one of the sixth grade bullies, Big Patty, gets an avalanche of Jell-O dumped on her. Oops!

Four new characters in two episodes!

Big Patty beats the absolute living shit out of Helga, even when she jumps out to apologize and says it was just a joke. Dear God, this girl is worse than Helga! A beat down in the janitor's closet? Very few things warrant that. This isn't one of those times.

Later on, the girls try a new prank: "fixing" Lila's lunch via rubber meat, warm pickle juice, and a wax apple. Ew. Of course, just for the sake of the plot, Lila decides to switch lunches with Big Patty. Helga tries to stop her from eating the rubber meat, but that doesn't stop Big Patty from feeding her her sixth grade fists for lunch. Oh, come on! Helga even tried to stop her! I get that this is supposed to be karma being delivered, but Big Patty is totally out of the loop as to what's going on. That girl has some serious mental issues--maybe we should have an episode or two explaining her backstory.

No more messing around for Helga and the gang. They pull off the ultimate prank. Helga leads Lila over to an empty table with the side rigged to fall. When Helga walks away, Rhonda (at the opposite table) pulls a rope causing Lila's lunch to fall into her lap, and then another rope is pulled, sending a pile of putrid garbage to fall on top of her.

Everyone laughs, Lila is humiliated (and smelly), and the girls get their unwarranted revenge. See? Shit like this is what causes some kids to contemplate suicide.

I have to wonder, though--where was Arnold where all of this was happening? He always shows up whenever someone is doing something awful or mean-spirited. I wonder why the writers decided to keep him out of this. Did Lila beat Arnold as the school's "nicest kid"? Probably. No, but seriously, this would have turned out so differently if Arnold was allowed to have a cue in this episode.

Later that night, we see Lila at home with her father in a disgusting, rundown apartment. She had just finished washing her hair, and she apparently didn't tell her father about the garbage incident that happened to her earlier.

The next day, Helga and the gang volunteer to bring Lila her homework since she refused to go to school, fearful that she would be pelted with garbage or something worse. Through the window, the girls overhear Lila crying about how she can't believe the kids would be so mean to her, as she was just trying to be nice. They feel awful after seeing Lila's rundown apartment and overhearing Lila crying.

Now, this scene would have been fine, if only it hadn't turned extremely sentimental when Lila's father, Mr. Sawyer, gets a call from a prospective employer who says that he didn't get the job he was applying for. As upsetting as this is, the way it's presented--with the sad violin music and the "dramatic" reveal that Mr. Sawyer ate their last can of beans for lunch--it ruins the moment, and it brings about the wrong emotions to sympathize with Lila.

We didn't need to know about her poverty to feel sorry for her--the fact that she just got garbage dumped on her head when she did nothing wrong is sympathetic enough. Stop beating the dead horse. But what if Lila was rich? Would Helga and the gang still have knots in their stomachs over what they did to her? Rich or poor, you don't treat someone like shit just because you don't like them.

Helga becomes hysterical for some reason (probably because she sees Lila in herself--a nice girl at heart who's being treated like shit, but at home), and has to have Phoebe slap the sense back into her.

The girls go inside and apologize to Lila. She forgives them, because any friends are better than none, even when those friends are insecure little brats who feel threatened any time their one defining characteristics is seen on another student. Kids are so cruel. Whatever. They all give a great big group hug, and then Mr. Sawyer gets another call from the job he applied to. The hiring manager "changed his mind," and now Mr. Sawyer got the job. I'm pretty sure the guy that was just hired changed his mind and took a better job he was offered. Either way, Lila's life got a whole lot better now. Yaaaay.

As for Helga, Rhonda, Phoebe, Sheena, and Nadine? Well, truth be told, they like her.

Lessons Learned From These Episodes: stop annoying your older siblings; play with your little siblings once in a while so they won't waste your day; stop being jealous of the new kid; don't be mean to the new kid