WILD CARDS – Episode 309 – Fast Crimes at Ridgemont High (limited spoilers) ⁓

Vivienne (Tamara Taylor) is pacing nervously and it’s bothering Max (Vanessa Morgan), who asks her to please sit down. “If I sit, I’ll think,” says Viv. “And if I think I’ll picture all the ways in which we end up in matching orange jumpsuits.” Max tries to be reassuring. “This is just your usual pre-show jitters,” she tells her mom. “You always get like this right before a big job. The plan is tight and tested.” Viv asks why Max hasn’t left for work yet, and Max explains that she has the day off.

VIVIENNE: “Oh, so maybe brunch. You, me, Ellis, a little Eggs Benny.”
MAX: “Ellis has plans, all right? It’s his high school reunion.”
VIVIENNE: “Flying solo?”
MAX: “Nope. He’s bringing Jessica.”
VIVIENNE: “Oh. Oh, I see. I mean, that’s not just a date, darling. That’s a declaration.”
MAX: “Ugh! Get out!”
VIVIENNE: “Well, you don’t bare your angst-ridden teen soul to just any girlfriend.”

Viv goes on to redefine “reunion” as intimacy . Last episode, Vivienne redefined freedom as “captivity with better drapes”, and stability as “fear wearing pearls”. This is a method of manipulation that suits con artists well. In his 1949 novel 1984, George Orwell wrote: “the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought”

At Brookswood High, the reunion has begun, and Jessica (Kaylah Zander) quickly identifies a trio of mean girls: Lexi (the alpha, played by Lauren Maynard), Amber, Lexi’s sidekick (Megan Peta Hill), and Hannah (Clare Filipow), whom Jessica describes as “human wallpaper”. The three are a lot like Regina, Gretchen, and Karen from the 2004 film. The high school scenes might have been filmed at Brookswood Secondary School in Langley, British Columbia.

Lexi announces that she has sold her lip-balm-making company to a major brand for 500 million dollars. Then she takes a sip of celebratory champagne and quietly drops dead. Coroner Olive (Manuela Sosa) determines that the poison used was sodium nitrite and that it was administered, not through the champagne, but through the lip balm. Ziggy (Nathan Kay), who Cole calls the “Spicoli of our high school”, is found asleep on the floor of the Principal’s Office and provides a clue that leads to the murderer.

Jeff Spicoli was a main character in Amy Heckerling’s 1982 satirical comedy “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” from which the episode’s title derives.

Interludes

Concurrent with, but unconnected to Cole’s reunion, Detective Yates (Amy Goodmurphy) and Detective Simmons (Michael Xavier) are on what turns out to be a fake stakeout in Yates’ car. (She drives a 2014 Dodge Charger.) Yates has discovered that Simmons is leaving town and is unhappy about that. We find out that the first day the two of them were partners, Yates “evaluated” Simmons by putting on a ski mask and attacking him. Yates has food delivered to the “stakeout” a couple of times, then surprises Simmons with bobble-head dolls of the two of them, prompting Simmons to say: “Yates — and I mean this in the most platonic way possible — I love you.”

In another possibly unconnected series of events, George (Jason Priestley) meets with his parole officer (Tom Scholte) for the last time, and the two agree to continue to be friends. Then George has his last day counseling inmates at the prison. George’s session with the inmates is interrupted when Cell Block D is flooded. All the inmates there are to be transferred to another facility the next morning. Before being transferred, Artie (Sean Owen Roberts) tells George the story of how his brother drew him into crimminal activity, and how he went to prison to take the rap for his brother.

The Dangling Conversation

Once Lexi’s murderer is found, Max looks for Cole (Giacomo Gianniotti) and finds him dancing with Jessica by the light of a disco ball in the school cafeteria. (Jessica has decided to give Cole the prom night he never had.) The dismay on Max’s face is apparent, and she walks away quietly.

At home, Max finds her mother packing. “We can be out of the country by dawn,” says Viv. “Vargas won’t even know we’re gone until it’s too late.” Max is adamantly opposed to this and asks: “And then what? We just keep running? That’s exactly what we’re trying to stop. No, we stick to the plan.” Vivienne continues to argue, leading to this exchange:

VIV: “I can’t run the risk of losing you again. I won’t.”
MAX: “You didn’t lose me! You left! Do you remember the last thing we said to each other before you disappeared?”
VIV: “No. Why does that matter?”
MAX: “We had an argument. A stupid argument about how I didn’t take the chicken out of the freezer before you came home. You lectured me about responsibility and how I need to put my family first. You just wouldn’t let it go.”
VIV: “What does this have to do with anything? Can you just help me get…
MAX: “I hate you! That is the last thing I said to you. I hate you. And then I stormed off. And I never saw you again. For 15 years I carried that guilt like a stone in my heart. And you let me live with that.”

Vivienne asks if Max can ever forgive her, and Max storms out once again.

Vivienne also forgot that she and Max were going to see their favourite boy band on the night that she faked her death (see “Quite Playing Games With My Life” episode 302).

On the street outside, Max considers calling Cole. Then someone wearing black uses chloroform or something like it to sedate her, then drags her away. Her phone is left behind on the pavement.

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All episodes of WILD CARDS can be streamed on CBC Gem in Canada and on The CW website in the US.