S07.E04: Disappearing Act

[Primetimer]

Kelly shows why you don't try to get college credit at the only hospice care facility that offers no training to a person with no common sense.

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[Primetimer]

But they didn't get too drunk on Scotch to collect all the most notable screenshots from S07.E04!

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[benteen]

Ah yes, I do remember how much of an unbearable prick David was about his grandfather's money. 

Kelly thinks she has AIDS, another crisis.

Whomever did the hairstyling for the women on the show should have been blackballed from the industry forever.

[Earmuffs Mom]

The disease that kills lovers line is one of the all-time worst things Kelly has ever said - ever!  

Hard to believe we are already four episodes in and it feels like nothing new has happened:

Kelly continues to be cast as a saint; Brandon keeps failing up and being a smug ass; David is still a dick to Donna and Mel; Claire and Steve are in a holding pattern until their next fight; Val continues to waste her rack on losers.  What has changed in the past two seasons?  

Edited June 15, 2017 by Earmuffs Mom

[benteen]

Quote

David is still a dick to Donna and Mel;

You have to be a real asshole to make Mel sympathetic so I guess it's a credit to Brain Austin Green that he managed to do that.

[lefawn]

I once wore my hair like Kathleen Robertson in that pic in the visual aids.  With the two little buns on top and the swoopy bangs.  Although I didn't keep the rest of my hair down.  The rest of my hair was french braided.  I wore it like that to a school dance probably right around this time period.  A friend of mine who wanted to be a hair dresser styled our entire gang for that dance and we all had really elaborate up-dos.  I wonder if she got her inspiration from the show?  

[MerBearStare]

I think this was brought up on the TWOP forums every time this episode aired: what about the woman with AIDS who spoke at West Bev? Kelly learned when she was 16 that there's a "disease that kills lovers." And to quote Liz Lemon, "Lovers. That word bums me out.  Unless it's between meat and pizza."

The Simpsons hallelujah airhorn will never not make me laugh. 

I get Kelly freaking out about the blood getting on her because I think most people probably would, even if you don't have any open wounds. But my God, have some chill in front of the guy who is actually dying of AIDS. Show some decorum and go privately freak out in the bathroom like I do at least once a week at work.

[txhorns79]

Oh gosh, I forgot about Tracey.  She's just a really, really bland version of Susan.   

[Silly Angel]

2 hours ago, Earmuffs Mom said:

Hard to believe we are already four episodes in and it feels like nothing new has happened:

Well, get comfortable, because nothing happens this entire season. I was rewatching along with AWT and halfway through seven just stopped due to a combination of Who Are These People, I Don't Know What's Going On, and Nothing Just Happened, Twice. I would literally cue up an episode unable to remember a nanosecond of what came before.

[Stowaway]

I'm not defending Kelly (never that!), but her AIDS "scare" was entirely believable. People had some idiotic notions about the disease even as late as 1996. Around that time, one of my college friends went through a "scare" when her high school boyfriend came out to her. They were both virgins when they dated, and the two of them never went all the way, but the mere thought that she had once kissed a gay guy gave her a freakout. This was a Berkeley student who was in med school two years later.

[Cekrypton1]

Tracy Gaylian is so bland, such a black hole of charisma, that she can't even be used in the dictionary to illustrate "bland" or "black hole of charisma."

[JennB]

Getting drunk is the first, last, and only interesting thing Tracy does in her entire run.

[TeeVee329]

Once again, wouldn't there have been people who spent the last year or two working their way up at the television station who would have been in line for the anchor job?  And wouldn't a decision have been made about that at the end of the previous year?

Wow is David a bitch in this one.  I know that this gets explained...ish...by what we find out later about his being on the same spectrum as his mom, but yeesh.  It was good to hear/see Mel, though.

Four episodes in and we've checked in on Kelly's HS slut rep twice, what is with that?

Valerie, do better, you know you can!

Edited June 15, 2017 by TeeVee329

[TeeVee329]

3 hours ago, JennB said:

Getting drunk is the first, last, and only interesting thing Tracy does in her entire run.

She does have the good sense to legitimately befriend Valerie, if memory serves.

[Kristen]

I've been in a crummy mood all afternoon, but when Sarah said, "Oh, look who'll kiss anyone with AIDS now!" I laughed so hard that I scared the cat. So, thanks for that.

[CicelyAlaska]

Tracy is the most basic of basic. When I look at her it's like the tv is not even in focus.

[Jax7917]

I agree , Tracy was a bore . I still say Susan was Brandon's best match throughout the show . He needs a girl who will put him in his place ( except for Kelly who would cheat on even herself if she could ) .. in Tracy's defense though , she had no chance of winning Brandon's heart from the second the writers made Kelly single again . So I think they tried to make the audience fall asleep by her presence . But oh yet again , Brandon looks at a picture of her found randomly in his drawer by Kelly , and wa la... Brandon of course runs into Tracy in Hawaii and has sentimental feelings for her .. ( much like how Brandon found a pic of Emily valentine who he thought was a psycho stalker one season and the next was in love with her because he found an old pic of them ) ...

how many ex gfs picture does he have stored in his drawer ? If memory serves , he had a diff girlfriend every episode of season 1 

[MuuMuuChainsmoker]

"Does it have to do with chicken wings?" tiredly says a woman who knows her husband all too well.  

[Jmallory]

Kelly eventually works at a free clinic next season and it gets so much worse. Tracy was ok...I always liked Susan more, but Tracy was really a seat warmer for Kelly. Tracy was too good for Brandon anyway and he treated her like crap. Sad part was she knew it.

[itainttippithebird]

Quote

I think this was brought up on the TWOP forums every time this episode aired: what about the woman with AIDS who spoke at West Bev? Kelly learned when she was 16 that there's a "disease that kills lovers."

Yes! That's what I kept thinking of, too. This show has done several preachy storylines about AIDS and STIs, especially that one. Kelly should not be so misinformed at the age of 21 or whatever - and moreover, her absolute SHOCK that she should be tested because of all the UNPROTECTED SEX SHE HAS HAD IN HER WHOLE LIFE, along with her certainty that she has AIDS because she got a little blood on her precious, unbroken skin, just really hammered home that this is NOT about being especially safety conscious, it's just about being ignorant and grossed out by HIV+ people. If she really was so worried, she should have been tested once in her g-d life! Just in the course of this show so far, we know she's had sex with at least...what, 8 dudes? (I say that not to say it's bad, just to point out that she should be getting regularly tested. Fuck away, KT! Just have SOME semblance of responsibility about it!)

When I was in high school in 1996, I was an HIV peer counselor in my school and in literally EVERY classroom I went into, there was no one that ignorant of how HIV is transmitted....

[profreader]

I think 96/97 was right about the time when they hit on the "triple cocktail" approach, which was the first real step towards making it a chronic condition vs an automatic death sentence. This doesn't excuse Kelly & the writers' combination show-amnesia and jaw-dropping insensitivity. But -- I can see the blood-on-the-hands freakout from your average person -- BUT SOMEONE WHO IS WORKING IN AN AIDS HOSPICE WHAAAT. Like Sarah pointed out -- she would have had training in cleanup procedures. Oh but no of course she wouldn't, she's Saint Kelly.

If that guy is (or thinks he is) only a "matter of days" from death then... he is not going to have the energy to perform a fuuuuuucking magic show in public (that said, I think the actor was doing a good job with horrible material.)

I wonder if thinking puce = green comes from puce/chartreuse...? That's what used to mess me up in remembering them correctly.

The rest of them are a bunch of insufferable sourpusses -- Brandon, David, everybody. Blech!

[profreader]

Kelly in an unused take.

 

[Sarah D. Bunting]

It's probably a puce/puke transposition, but it is in fact a maroon. (Like everyone on this show, RIMSHOT!)

[atlanticslide]

"I can't believe there's an incurable disease that kills lovers" is hands-down one of the all time best bad lines in the history of TV or cinema. Especially in the mid-90s. It would still be a terrible line in 1986, but I could maaaaaaaaaaaaaybe believe someone saying something like that when public knowledge of the virus was still pretty new. In 1996 though? YES, KELLY, THERE IS AN INCURABLE DISEASE THAT KILLS ~LOVERS~ THIS IS NOT BRAND NEW INFORMATION.

[Lalochezia]

On 6/15/2017 at 0:00 PM, MerBearStare said:

I think this was brought up on the TWOP forums every time this episode aired: what about the woman with AIDS who spoke at West Bev?

I thought of that immediately when Steve made HIS stupid comment - I thought he became all educated after hearing about that woman and her boyfriend. Who died. OF AIDS.

Edited June 16, 2017 by Lalochezia

[Nanna]

If we forget the hair (but how could we) I sort of like Donna in these episodes. She's a good friend. She sees that David and his video whatever and bad moods are wrong for her, and she gets out of it withour being overly dramatic. Unlike other people (KELLY) who makes a big drama out of everything. (Honestly, I'm sure having her around on a hospice makes the patients want to die faster just to get away from her baby voice and fake concern.) This Donna is the good Donna, but soon we'll have weather girl Donna, and that is just unbearable.

[benteen]

22 hours ago, Lalochezia said:

I thought of that immediately when Steve made HIS stupid comment - I thought he became all educated after hearing about that woman and her boyfriend. Who died. OF AIDS.

You expect these writers to remember continuity?

[BBHN]

I think even the Continuity Fairy gave up on this show by this point.

[txhorns79]

Quote

People had some idiotic notions about the disease even as late as 1996. Around that time, one of my college friends went through a "scare" when her high school boyfriend came out to her. They were both virgins when they dated, and the two of them never went all the way, but the mere thought that she had once kissed a gay guy gave her a freakout. This was a Berkeley student who was in med school two years later.

I'll admit I'm a little confused.  Did he even have HIV?  Was she just scared because he was gay and she once kissed him?  If that was the case, I can only hope she's extremely embarrassed by that now. 

Quote

Tracy Gaylian is so bland, such a black hole of charisma, that she can't even be used in the dictionary to illustrate "bland" or "black hole of charisma."

I think like 75% of her plotlines are her being jealous of Kelly, or thinking that Brandon is in love with Kelly. 

[Flamingo]

When I went away to college in 1986, HIV/AIDS was a death sentence. We got tons of education on it. Even then we knew blood on unbroken skin wasn't a risk factor. There is just no excuse for that reaction from a college student in 1996. This point aside, I find myself wondering why an AIDS hospice wouldn't have had some kind of protocol around wearing gloves while preparing food anyway. Just because the people are dying doesn't mean you want to hurry it along being unsanitary. This place, as mentioned before, was more like a half way house than a hospice. If I knew I was going to die any day from AIDS, I probably wouldn't keep taking the triple cocktail given all the side effects and expense. Additionally, if I were that close to dying, I probably wouldn't be cooking and eating regular meals, much less getting dressed and hanging out with stupid, self centered volunteers. Had any of the writers been to a a hospice? I've been to way too many and none of them were full of sick people still getting anything other than palliative care much less doing magic shows. I don't know why this bugs me so much. This show gets so many things wrong, why dwell on this?

[atlanticslide]

Seriously. Jimmy looked mildly fatigued by the end of this episode, not days away from death.

[Klaw]

Yes to all of you. It's 1996, not 1982. This is not the Normal Heart years, SHOW. But what really bugs the shit out of me is in a later episode Kelly suddenly transforms into a homophobic bitch when she goes after Jessica Alba's baby (when she challenges two gay men as to whether they can be good parents)! I mean, WTF, show?! That's not even a continuity breakdown, but an out-of-left field asshat move.

On 6/18/2017 at 3:51 AM, txhorns79 said:

Quote

Tracy Gaylian is so bland, such a black hole of charisma, that she can't even be used in the dictionary to illustrate "bland" or "black hole of charisma."

I think like 75% of her plotlines are her being jealous of Kelly, or thinking that Brandon is in love with Kelly. 

EYE ROLL. Ok, to be fair, while the Tracy/Brandon/Kelly triangle was boring as hell, I did think it was a relatively realistic portrayal of young people who are not very experienced basically fucking up a relationship. Tracy constantly pushing Brandon for more and Brandon not really being into her but liking her enough to date her rings true. But, as usual, in the hands of these writers it becomes a way to elevate Saint Kelly and make Val look like a bitch, so...

 

On 6/19/2017 at 5:14 AM, atlanticslide said:

Jimmy looked mildly fatigued by the end of this episode, not days away from death.

Yea, no kidding. I look worse after I've had a cold for a week. He should have looked, well, like death.  Poor guy. His only friend at the end was St. Kelly.

[benteen]

6 hours ago, Klaw said:

Yes to all of you. It's 1996, not 1982. This is not the Normal Heart years, SHOW. But what really bugs the shit out of me is in a later episode Kelly suddenly transforms into a homophobic bitch when she goes after Jessica Alba's baby (when she challenges two gay men as to whether they can be good parents)! I mean, WTF, show?! That's not even a continuity breakdown, but an out-of-left field asshat move.

EYE ROLL. Ok, to be fair, while the Tracy/Brandon/Kelly triangle was boring as hell, I did think it was a relatively realistic portrayal of young people who are not very experienced basically fucking up a relationship. Tracy constantly pushing Brandon for more and Brandon not really being into her but liking her enough to date her rings true. But, as usual, in the hands of these writers it becomes a way to elevate Saint Kelly and make Val look like a bitch, so...

 

Yea, no kidding. I look worse after I've had a cold for a week. He should have looked, well, like death.  Poor guy. His only friend at the end was St. Kelly.

Jessica Alba was on this show?  I never knew that.

Yeah, that's whole storyline is an awful look on Kelly and she's the last one who should ever pull the morality card.

[Klaw]

On 6/20/2017 at 3:42 PM, benteen said:

Jessica Alba was on this show?  I never knew that.

Yep. Look for her in 1998 as "Leanne" (gah, will we ever get there???) - she plays a snot-nosed teen mother who doesn't want her kid to be adopted by two gay men. 

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004695/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

[lefawn]

Every time I see the title of this thread I sing to myself "It's infected! Boogie woogie woogie."  It's making Kelly's over-the-top behavior feel even more ludicrous to me.  Try it yourself and see!