….. by SisterDebMac

Joan is on the couch in Dr. Dan’s office. “I saw Him again this morning,” she tells her therapist. “God?” he asks. “He’s gonna screw up my life again.” Dr. Dan tells her she’ only seeing projections. She protests. “He’s real. He’s back.” Suddenly, the couch is in a park and CuteBoy-God is there. He reveals a mile-long list of things he wants her to do. She’s freaking out, but we can relax because it’s obviously a dream.

Yeah, a dream in which Joan is pursued by God and runs to Adam for comfort. “I just wanna be with you,” she tells him. Oh really? Prove it, girlie. Adam, for his part, simply morphs into CuteBoy-God. How rude! As if it wasn’t enough for Joan to break up with God in the last episode, here she tries to kill God by running over Mrs. Landing-God in her mother’s car. Mmmmmkay. Good thing this is only a dream! And that she wakes up before impact.

In the hallway at school, Joan runs up to Adam at his locker and does the old hands over the eyes thing. Why? She doesn’t even bother with the “guess who” part. He turns around and they finally both look happy to see each other. At the same time. She plants a pretty good one on him, pushing him back into his open locker, totally, but happily surprising him. In fact, he gets three nice, long smacks on the lips, rendering him incapable of doing much more than smiling and enjoying it.

An uncharacteristically chipper Joan suggests that they skip the rest of their classes and go to Mercer Creek for a picnic. While he’s loving her exuberance and proximity, gently caressing her back, he can’t cave in to her tempting offer to ditch and have some alone time. He says he’s got way too much important stuff to do at school. Wait, Adam, I thought you were the one who was not all that into school last week. Will somebody make up my mind? Now Joan’s the one saying she doesn’t care? He calls her on her attitude. Pot, meet kettle.

It doesn’t take long for him to grow concerned about her, putting a supportive arm around her as they walk. She’s still on about how she wants her life to be different than it was before. Adam wonders, “Are you talking about us? Cuz a minute ago you seemed happy to see me.” She says it’s not them. He takes her hands and attempts to cheer her up by saying that he’ll so something “incredibly irresponsible” with her over the upcoming weekend, suggesting that they’ll even end up on Cops. Well, almost, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

And I have to say that Adam’s amazingly adorable in this whole sequence. And that voice. There it is, folks. In all it’s deep, bassy glory. Wow. OK, back to the story.

A girl in a hat calls out to Joan from across the hall. Judith. We soon learn that she and Joan bonded into one weird entity called Joanith at Crazy Camp. Adam seems kind of overwhelmed by outgoing Judith. But he smiles and behaves politely to her. Note how instantly weirded out Adam gets when Friedman, trying to get to Judith, moves way too close to him, entering his personal bubble. Adam reacts like Friedman’s got bad B.O. or something. Cracks me up.

In short order, Judith decides to kick off her debut at AHS by throwing a party.

During all this, it should be said that Joan is still trying to ignore God, in every form in which He or She appears.

Grace and Luke, meanwhile, seek common ground through music and find none. Until they discover a mutual loathing for Kool & The Gang’s Celebration. Funny!

Joan and Judith discuss the party. When they run into Adam, Joan asks if he’s coming. He says he’s not sure if he’s gonna make it. Joan asks if he has to work. He doesn’t. Judith says he has a condition which inhibits him from being able to gain pleasure from normally pleasurable experiences. It’s of note here that Judith is walking between Adam and Joan. This is no accident.

Adam protest by saying he just doesn’t think he should go to the party in case it gets busted. If his father finds out, it’ll just upset him and he’s been through enough lately. Awwwwww! Also, Adam’s obviously already got Judith’s number. Otherwise, why automatically assume the party will get busted? Joan ignores this and prods him by asking when was the last time he let loose and had some fun. “You’ve been gone all summer,” he says, as if it should be perfectly clear that there is no fun without her. Adam, honey, let me tell you something… Oh, sorry. But again, awwwwww! Typical of Joan, she blusters at him when she doesn’t get her way. He asks to drop the subject. She won’t.

Judith puts an arm around Adam, a hand on his shoulder. She says that maybe his relationship with Joan is “based in crisis. If you don’t have a problem to deal with, you have no real connection.” Excuse me? Presumptuous much?

At this point, I’m not liking Judith at all and neither is Adam. As always, he takes a look at the uninvited hand on him. He really is bugged when anyone does this. He scrunches up his face in that peculiar way of his and says, “I really feel weird talking about this with someone I’ve only known for a day, OK?” And he leaves the Bobbsey Twins to their own devices.

Joan’s feeling pretty off-kilter as God continues to appear to her with the repeated instruction to keep her eyes open. She reaches out to Dr. Dan, but gets no real help. Goth-God eyes her in the hallway. She confronts him, saying she wants to be normal, go to the party. He tells her to go and walks away, just as Adam approaches her—and notices Goth-God. “Hey, who were you talking to?” he asks her. “God,” she answers, “He’s big into Marilyn Manson.” Adam looks like he believes her until she plays it off as a joke. He laughs to ease the tension between them. (See the Adam & God Watch thread on the JoA board for a discussion of the times Adam notices God.)

“I didn’t come to argue. I just… I love you, Jane. Let’s go have some fun, OK?” Ah, that’s better. They walk away smiling, arm in arm.

At the party, we first see Joan, Judith and Adam walking downstairs. Um, what was going on up there? Judith has a large, half-empty bottle of Tequila in her hand. Joan takes a swig. Adam only has a Coke. Joan takes it from him and tells him to “shake that booty”. (I could say what booty? But that’s another conversation for another time.) Judith grabs him around the neck and again, he flinches at her touch. She babbles about them having a special connection. Honey, look at him. He ain’t feelin’ it.

“Joan, Joan, Joan,” Adam says, trying to draw her attention as she and Judith stagger through the party. She doesn’t even notice. No one can curtail Judith’s little binge at this point. She plants a drunken kiss on Friedman, with a little help from Joan, who pushes the poor dope into the smooch. She thinks it’s hilarious. Adam looks stunned. Friedman’s in love. Joan finally takes the now three-quarters-empty bottle from Judith. But Judith just grabs another bottle—a full one.

And again, she grabs Adam’s arm in her own, “You have got to tell me everything about you and JoJo.” Oh hell no, he doesn’t!

Adam accompanies Joanith out back to the trampoline, but he looks unthrilled. Soon, he spots Grace and wanders off to talk to her. “If she had an off-switch, I’d use it,” Grace says simply. Adam looks back at the cackling girls. Then he gets up and walks past Grace, touching her shoulder as he goes by. Yet another awwwww! Now that’s simpatico! No more words needed.

Later, Adam sits alone in a chair, looking like he’s dozing. Joan comes up behind him again and tries to do the hands over the face thing. And, really people, let’s all stop doing that stupid gag. But after being repeatedly pawed at by Judith, he may not have actually known that it was Joan this time. He’s kind of startled. He pushes her hands away even as she kisses him. She asks what’s wrong and he cracks lame about the situation not being private. Maybe he’s just tired of being pawed at unexpectedly. Joan laughs at him, sits in his lap and starts kissing him. He’s not amused. He pushes her away and here comes drunken Judith, sneaking up behind him. The poor guy’s now just a toy to them. They have no regard for his discomfort.

He is really bothered by their behavior. He doesn’t want any part of Joanith. He misses Jane. I’m not sure if Joan is mad at him, or Judith, or herself or all of the above, but she lashes out at him for calling her Jane. She says she wants to be herself and not what everyone else wants her to be. Yeah. Whatever, Joan. Adam has had enough. He leaves.

Joan passes a pointedly sad-looking CuteBoy-God and finds Judith alone with her now almost empty second Tequila bottle. She’s hanging onto the mantle, just barely still standing. And yet she’s somehow lucid enough to notice that Adam has bailed on the party. She sends Joan to find him and kills the bottle.

Joan can’t find Adam, but Glynis has found herself a make-out buddy—a college boy, no less. Go Glynis! Grace finds Judith passed out on the floor with the empty bottle conveniently lying on her torso, so we know exactly what happened. Anvilicious, Rob, or Stephen, or whoever. Anvilicious.

Joan sees the ambulance that Grace told Friedman to call and immediately worries about… Adam? Why? Poor, poor oblivious Joan. Has she not noticed that Judith is dancing on the edge? CuteBoy-God accuses her of not doing as He asked, not keeping her eyes open. She’s appalled that he’s blaming her.

Judith lives. It was just a little alcohol poisoning. No big deal, right? Aaaaannnkkk! Wrong. Joan goes to visit her in the hospital. Judith is still all alone. Her parents are out of town. Joan blames herself for not taking the bottle away. At least Judith says it was her own fault. Joan is really struggling here.

Adam meets her in the hallway. He came by on his way to work to see if Joan might be checking in on Judith. He tells her he’s glad she didn’t like the taste of the booze. They sit down together in a waiting area and Joan say that she thought when he left the party that he was leaving her.

“Nothing’s ever been that easy with us, Joan,” he says. “Jane,” she corrects. OK. She tells him she didn’t really want him to shake his booty. “That would’ve been ugly,” he laughs. Impossible. She goes on to say that she’s trying to figure out who she’s supposed to be, what kind of person. She asks Adam if he knows who he is. “I don’t try to figure it out,” he answers. She decides that it’s more important to concentrate on what we do for each other, rather than trying to be something.

Adam just stares at her, obviously moved by what she has said. Finally, without even moving his lips, he whispers, “Jane.” She smiles and they lean in for a very sweet kiss. It’s brief but it may be the first real kiss we’ve seen in this new season. They look at each other for a very long beat before Adam adjusts himself in his seat so he can face her more directly. “Maybe I can, um… maybe I can call in sick. We can take off to Mercer Creek.” She pulls his hand out of his hoodie pocket and threads their fingers together. You can tell she really wants to take him up on the offer. But she feels like she should stay with Judith since she’s all by herself.

They agree that they’ll have lots of time together and Adam looks so hopeful and sweet here he could melt a glacier. I just love the way they’re both caressing each other’s hands with their thumbs. They seem to really feel connected again, finally—wishing they were alone, but feeling obligated to be elsewhere. She sends him off to work with a quick, sweet peck on the lips and goes to speak to Mrs. Landing-God, who’s in a candy-striper’s uniform. (Click here to watch this scene.)

Finally, Joan addresses God without denying that She’s real. “You should’ve been more specific.” She’s terrified of messing up again. Mrs. Landing-God just gives her a hug, lets her cry it out. The music cue signifies reunion. ‘Bout time.

Trivia
I don’t know any. Do you?

Thank You Mary Steenburgen Moment (by Deb):
Helen gives Sammy #2 a book-related boner by requesting Immanuel Kant’s The Metaphysics Of Ethics. Hilarious! Her new color seems to be green this year. And it’s wonderful, in all its various shades.