The First Amendment doesn't protect a douchebag teacher from pissing off the wrong student (recap episode 3-5 "Front Page")

Folks, this is among my favorite episodes of Facts. It’s one that I remembered but didn’t catch on TV in syndication for a long time. Either I kept missing it or the stations that were showing it at the time didn’t show it because it mentions cocaine. They kept “Dope” off the air for a long time, after all.

But I remembered this episode because, like Jo, I had some teachers who graded me more harshly than my peers because I had shown I was better. I get it, but it also kind of sucks. In my case, I didn’t deserve the C my senior year English teacher gave me on a paper, and when I challenged him about it, he said that he just wanted to keep me on my toes since I got in early to all the colleges I’d applied to. That was bullshit and I went to the head of the department and got the paper upgraded to the A that it deserved. I told the teacher to let me know when my work started sucking, and not to penalize me until then.

In Jo’s case here, I can see now, from an educator’s perspective, how Mr. Gideon thought he was just challenging a good student. But you know what? He was a total dick about it. If he’d been a better educator, he wouldn’t be in this mess.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, let me introduce you to our key players in this episode. We have:

Jo Polniaczek, Junior at Eastland School for girls. Angry, competitive, has to finish the story she’s writing before journalism class even though all that’s due today is the topic. Wants to impress journalism teacher, who she believes is out to get her.

Ahead of its time: addressing asexualization of women with disabilities (Recap episode 3-10: "Cousin Geri Returns aka Geri's Romance")

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you already know that I pretty much worship this show for its quiet progressiveness. It is certainly sometimes a product of its time, and I give it lots of shit for the part of it that is typical 80s sitcom easy jokes and bullshit. It is indeed important to point out the places where even this gem missed, and I do plenty of that around here.

But sometimes it's great to just talk about how the show hits the ball out of the goddamned park, and that's what I want to do today.

There's a reason this blog is called Cousin Geri, and if you don't know off the top of your head who she is, she's Blair's cousin, introduced in Season 2. If you don't know who Blair is, then you should start here. In short: Cousin Geri is a groundbreaking character whose presence on the show just made Facts that much more awesome.

Now, in the middle of Season Three, Geri makes her second appearance on the show, and it's such a heralded event that the her name is in not one title for the episode, but two.  One is more spoilery than the other.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

For years I've been wanting to put this out there. In the season three episode "Kids Can Be Cruel," Natalie, Tootie, and Jo watch as Blair is surprised by the unpopular boy bidding on her dinner box. The director (Asaad Kelada, natch) brilliantly has their natural moves resulting in this.

No one can say Facts doesn't have its moments of genius.

Recap Episode 3-7 "Sweet Sorrow" or: Eddie Brennan returns

In the middle of season two, we met the man that could melt Jo's steel heart. By the end of that two-part episode, Jo had decided that it was a bad idea to get married at 16 without having finished high school, and last we saw, a heartbroken Eddie Brennan was catching the midnight bus back to his base in Chicago.

Though their relationship status was ambiguous at the end of that episode, it's clear at the beginning of this episode that they're very much still together. Eddie paces the Eastland cafeteria, waiting for Jo's return from class.

Recap Episode 3-18: "Runaway" or Tootie gets recruited by a pimp

After my last post, I polled people on Facebook as to which episode I should recap next, but since I only have seasons three and four with me right now up in my mountain paradise, the options were limited. From the choices I gave, my respondent chose the one where Tootie goes to New York alone and a pimp attempts to recruit her.

But I also thought I'd try something different for this recap. I'm going to recap it from memory first, then go back and, as I watch it, make additions or corrections in this color. So let's see just how much I can do from memory, shall we?

We open with Jo, Blair, and Natalie getting ready to head out the door so Mrs. Garrett can drive them to the train, which they are taking to New York City to see a Broadway show.

Recap episode 3-2: "Fear Strikes Back" or Dear victim-blamers: suck it.

There was a phenomenon in the '80s: The Very Special Episode (VSE). Every show, and particularly sitcoms, would occasionally have a dramatic episode dealing with a serious issue. Examples include the Diff'rent Strokes episode where Kimberly and Arnold are held captive by a sexual predator, and a different Diff'rent Strokes episode where Arnold and his friend Dudley are lured into a sexual predator's home. Saved by the Bell's "I'm so excited! I'm so excited! I'm so...scared" episode falls into the category as well (you know, I've known about that episode for a long time but the first time I ever saw the actual footage was just a few minutes ago).

Due to the conversation I had with a friend the other day, I now bring you one of many Facts of Life VSEs. With a nod to my friend, who remembered this one as a great example of the show being progressive in what it shows, not tells, I bring you the one where Natalie is the victim of an attempted sexual assault.