Jo's Crime Spree Continues (Recap episode 2-6: "Shoplifting")

Joanna Marie Polniaczek is the tough girl with the brain of a genius and the heart of  a lion. She was an important role model to me, and, I've heard, to other LGBTQ or otherwise gender-nonconforming people.

But it is an unavoidable truth that sister is a criminal.

Her crime spree started in her very first episode where she faked IDs and stole the school van to get to a bar. Although she softens and learns lessons that ultimately lead her to Valedictorian status and a generally erudite life, Jo never really stops her reign of fraud.

Here we are in Jo's first season, and we're already on her third crime. Tsk Tsk.

We open with a heternormative throw-away comment and typical Jo/Blair sniping. Jo earns my wrath for the following exchange:

Recap episode 6-5: "Cruisin'" or out of the shop and no laugh track - don't tell me this show doesn't rock

A few weeks ago, one of my readers suggested three episodes to recap. Two of them were Halloween episodes, which I haven't definitively decided to save for the season, but I am still keeping that option open. The other was "Cruisin'." Yes, C-r-u-i-s-i-n-apostrophe. I like and appreciate my readers, so when there are requests, I do my best to honor them.

Said reader described the episode as "an anomalous episode that sticks in my mind, the uncannily laugh-track-free cruising episode." It's interesting how much the lack of laugh track makes this episode stand out. I, too, noticed that it lacked a laugh track when I watched season six for the first time in a while last month. I even went back to other episodes to verify the existence of a laugh track, because I wasn't sure if I just hadn't noticed until then that there wasn't one (there is indeed a laugh track in the other episodes). I nearly mentioned that fact in my bird's eye analysis of season six, but there was so much else to cover, so I didn't get to that nugget.

Regardless, here we are. Blair and Jo are sophomores in college, Natalie is a senior at Eastland, and Tootie is a junior, and the girls decide to spend a night out cruising downtown Peekskill.

Recap Episode 2-2: "The New Girl - Part 2" or The completion of the introduction of JO FREAKING POLNIACZEK

Back in September, I treated you all to a recap of the episode where we are finally introduced to our tough-talking, motorcycle-riding, fist-clenching, gender-nonconforming heroine, Jo. Then the sky fell and I dropped out of blog world for a while, so apparently I never told you what happened! Better late than never, they say, so I present to you the conclusion of THE EPISODE WHERE WE FINALLY GET JO.

When we last saw our friends from Eastland, they were getting arrested at the Chugalug bar after stealing the school van and getting it wrecked so they could drink underage and pick up dudes. The arrest wasn't a foregone conclusion though, until 7th or 8th grade Tootie decided to pour a pitcher of beer on a cop.

 

And now, the conclusion of "The New Girl."

Recap Episode 2-1: "The New Girl - Part 1" or HELLS YEAH WE FINALLY GET JO!

I haven't put up a new post in a couple of weeks due to vacation followed by the opposite of vacation. But now that I have given my presentation to complete my summer class and I'm a week into fall classes and the National Lawyers Guild conference is over, I am excited to be back in the Facts of Life blogging biz. And what better way to come back to the table than by bringing you what I know you've all been waiting for.

JO FREAKING POLNIACZEK

After season 1, apparently the powers that be felt that there were too many girls on the show and they were going to streamline it. Blair was the standout star, so she stayed. Presumably they kept Token Tootie for racial diversity, and Natalie and Tootie kind of went hand in hand. According to Molly Ringwald, her "Molly" character was supposed to be the fourth girl, but they decided to go with a new character, Nancy McKeon's "Jo," instead. And so it was that we gender non-conforming, wannabe tough talkers got a childhood idol.