Episode Guide & Movie Summaries What's Been Happening So Far

-Episodes & Movies- Songs Played Sealed With A Kick #101 #102 #103 #104 #105 #106 #107 #108 #109 #110 #111 #112 #113 #201 #202 #203 #204 #205 #206 #207 #208 #209 #210 #211 #212 #213 #301 #302 #302 #304 #305 #306 #307 #308 #309 #310 #311 #312 #313 #401 #402 #403 #404 #405 #406 #407 #408 #409 #410 #411 #412 #413 Is It Fall Yet? #501 #502 #503 #504 #505 #506 #507 #508 #509 #510 #511 #512 #513 Is It College Yet?

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Pilot: Sealed With A Kick

When Daria borrows Kevin's pencil, he becomes convinced that she likes him. When he tells her this and starts leaving messages on her answering machine, Daria decides to get even by pretending to be in love with him. She gets all touchy-feely with him at the pizza place in front of Brittany and leaves him little love notes. He then shows up in Daria's shop class and announces that he and Brittany are seeing other people, and that she's next in line. He asks her out, but true to her plan, she turns him down cold. Undeterred, Kevin shows up at Daria's house, flowers in hand. Quinn peeks around the corner, and Kevin is surprised that Quinn is sisters with such a brain. Kevin forgets about Daria and takes Quinn out, and Daria and Jane end up reflecting on the ordeal at the pizza place, with Daria telling Jane that having the stuck-up, self-absorbed Quinn go out with Kevin is the best revenge she could ever get on him.

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#101 Esteemsters

It's the first day of school for Daria and Quinn, who have just moved with their parents to Lawndale from Highland (the land of Beavis and Butt-head), and it's pretty typical for Daria: she's ignored by the other students, shunned by her sister (who's instantly adopted by the popular crowd and would later claim to be an only child), singled out for humiliation by her psychotic history teacher, and subjected to a ridiculous psychological exam, which she blows off with sarcastic, smart-alec remarks. These remarks come back to haunt her, however, when Helen receives a call from the school: they're concerned that Daria is exhibiting low self-esteem (which she denies), and want her to take a self-esteem class. At this news, Helen and Jake enter "concerned parent" mode, Quinn becomes worried that this would affect her reputation, and Daria just wishes it would all go away. Unfortunately, she has no choice but to take the class, which is run by her wishy-washy, touchy-feely English teacher. When Daria tries to make sense of Mr. O'Neill's psychobabble, she's advised by a fellow student to just "sit back and enjoy the nice man's soothing voice." Walking home after class, Daria discovers that the student, Jane, is something of a kindred spirit: creative, sarcastic, and just as weary of idiots and poseurs as she is. As the days go by and the class drags on, Daria and Jane (who's in several of Daria's other classes) begin forming a friendship, but when Daria reaches the breaking point over her parent's concern for her progress, they hatch a scheme to pass the exit test and get out of the class once and for all. (This is no problem for Jane, who has deliberately taken the class six times and knows the answers by heart.) Unfortunately, it works too well: Mr. O'Neill is so impressed by their "rapid progress" that he wants to publically congratulate them at the next school assembly. Daria and Jane agree to his request, but when the time comes for them to make a speech, they do things their way: Jane causes a scene by faking a "self-esteem relapse" and running off the stage, sobbing, while Daria launches into a clich�-ridden acceptance speech that pointedly thanks "her sister, Quinn." Quinn is humiliated, but that's just the tip of the iceberg, as Daria fulfills her wish of making her family suffer by guilt-tripping them into attending a U.F.O. convention.

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#102 The Invitation

When Daria helps Brittany with an assignment in art class, Brittany thanks her by inviting her -- "just this once" -- to her upcoming party. (Of course, it's a back-handed compliment, as Daria was only invited because Brittany promised "not to invite any more really attractive girls.") Daria doesn't want to go, but is eventually persuaded by two people: Jane, who sees it as an opportunity to get some really great sketches; and Quinn, who's deathly afraid that Daria will do something to embarrass her (which, naturally, proves to be the biggest incentive of all). After turning down Helen and Jake's offer to drive them to the party, Quinn gets a ride with Joey, Jeffy, and Jamie -- three members of the football team who have become Quinn's biggest admirers (read: slaves to her every whim) -- while Daria and Jane get a ride with Jane's musician brother, Trent, on whom the normally stoic Daria appears to have more than a passing interest. Unfortunately, Jane only has a brief opportunity to kid her about it before arriving at the gate house for Crewe Neck, the gated community where Brittany lives. Daria's on the sdguest list, but Jane is not; however, they're able to slip past the guard when Jane distracts him with some of her "life drawing" sketches. The party itself is your typical teenage bash: music, munchies, and making out in the laundry room. While Daria and Jane are given a tour of the house by Upchuck (who only got invited because he dissected Brittany's frog in science class), Quinn is waited on hand and foot by Joey, Jeffy, and Jamie, but immediately goes into hiding once she sees Daria and Jane arrive. Daria, however, is not about to let her off the hook that easily; besides, she figures, torturing Quinn is the only fun she's likely to have at the party. Quinn finally bribes Daria to leave her alone when she starts telling embarrassing stories to Joey, Jeffy, and Jamie. Satisfied, Daria tracks down Jane (who had slipped off to the make-out room with a boy she had met) and both leave the party, just one step ahead of both party crashers and the cops (who were called by a neighbor upset about the noise). As the party ends, Upchuck drives up and gives Daria, Jane, and Quinn (who was left rideless when Joey, Jeffy, and Jamie beat each other up) a ride home.

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#103 College Bored

During a visit with some friends, Helen and Jake become concerned about Daria and Quinn's chances of getting into good colleges, so they insist that the girls take a college prep class. One of the requirements of this (rather lame) class is to visit a college, and Jake and Helen naturally pick their alma mater, Middleton College. When they arrive, they're greeted by a tour guide named Heather, and they just barely have time to start the tour when Jake is distracted by a water balloon thrown from his old dorm window. Swept up in a wave of nostalgia, Jake takes Helen to visit his old hangout, leaving Daria and Quinn with the tour guide. The tour doesn't last much longer, as Quinn decides to investigate the fraternity/sorority scene on her own. Daria and Heather then retreat to Heather's dorm room, where Daria gets a much more realistic view of college life: sitting around and watching television, working a stupid job, begging the parents for money, and helping the college students with their term papers (for cash, of course). Meanwhile, Jake gets a little too into the college scene as he tries (with no success) to act cool and "hang" with the college guys, while Helen reminisces about college life... and tears off after the girls (Quinn, specifically) when she remembers how college guys acted around women. They find Quinn at a frat house, where she had been made "keg queen" and was busy wrapping the guys around her little finger; eventually, the whole family is tossed off the campus when security finds out that the two underage girls were wandering around the campus unsupervised (even though Daria had stayed with Heather the tour guide the whole time). Back at home, Quinn receives a letter of acceptance to Manatee College in Florida, which makes Helen and Jake ecstatic... until they read the fine print, and discover that Manatee has no classes and costs $10,000 per semester. Furthermore, Daria decides to quit doing the college students' term papers, as it was getting to be too much work (not to mention the tiny little detail about Helen not letting her keep the money). Daria decides that the whole college experience kinda sucked, but is heartened when Quinn dumps the instructor of the college prep class when she finds out what a "making-out scholarship" is really all about.

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#104 Cafe Disaffecto

When Lawndale's cybercaf�, alt.lawndale.com, is vandalized, Mr. O'Neill tries to use the incident as a catalyst for discussion about the Internet and its role in society. When Daria points out the fact that people in a cybercaf� spend all their time staring at a computer screen -- a result that decreases human interaction, not enhances it -- Mr. O'Neill decides to start Caf� Lawndale, a coffeehouse for Lawndale youth to interact and perform. Naturally, he credits Daria for the idea, which is ironic since she doesn't want to have anything to do with it (and makes this known to Mr. O'Neill in no uncertain terms). However, Helen and Jake have been pressuring her to take part in extracurricular activities; as a result, Daria is "convinced" to take part in the project when Helen threatens to send her to music camp for the summer. Faced with the choice of fundraising or reading one of her stories at the caf�, Daria chooses the least painful option, and even manages to get Jane to join her. To say that things don't go well is an understatement, because while Quinn encounters guys that she can charm into buying things, Daria and Jane encounter people like Mrs. Johansen, an overweight hypoglycemic who passes out in front of the two shocked girls. When Daria's ethics prevent her from selling chocolate bars to the woman, Ms. Li informs her that she won't get any credit for fundraising (though she can't condemn her for her ethics). In order to get the credit, Daria reluctantly decides to do a reading at the caf�'s opening night. For the occasion, she picks a story with maximum shock value: a yarn about secret agent "Melody Powers," who fights Communism with equal amounts of brains and bullets. This gets the crowd wound up, particularly after the botched Shakespeare acting by Kevin and Brittany and the morbidly depressing poetry by Andrea, and the kids start an anti-Communism rally. Their destructive behavior forces the caf� to close indefinitely, but that doesn't bother Daria, who already received the extra credit she needed.

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#105 Malled

Quinn has discovered what amounts to the Holy Grail of shopping: the Mall of the Millennium, a super-mall that has every store you can think of (and some that you can't). Unfortunately for Quinn, it's over 100 miles away, which is reason enough for Helen and Jake to balk at driving her there (not to mention the fact that she's done more than enough shopping for the quarter). Daria's amusement at Quinn not being able to travel to her own personal Mecca is cancelled out by cosmic irony, however, as her Economics class makes a field trip to the mall to study supply and demand in action. The trip itself is no picnic -- Kevin and Brittany's antics, Upchuck's come-ons, and Brittany's cheap perfume all conspire to make Daria violently carsick -- but when they get to the mall and meet with its executives, Jane's curiosity reveals that the executives are secretly using them as a focus group. In exchange for their silence, the sleazy suits give each student a gift certificate; Daria is ready to refuse to accept it, but gives in when she sees that all of the other students (even Jodie) have "taken the money and run." After the meeting, Mrs. Bennett gives the kids their assignments. Among them are Kevin and Brittany's goal to study shrinkage, aka shoplifting -- which Kevin demonstrates handily by five-fingering a trinket for Brittany -- and Daria and Jane's observations of traffic patterns at the food court. When they arrive, they find Quinn and the Fashion Club, who skipped school to go to the mall (two offenses by Quinn, who still doesn't have permission from Helen and Jake). Daria strikes a deal with Quinn: in exchange for her silence, Quinn and her friends give them a ride home, and Quinn does the chores around the house for a month. Afterwards, Daria and Jane decide to see what their gift certificates will get them. They use Jane's certificate for the Scizzor Wizzard in a unique way: they drive the employees crazy until they give Jane the cash for the certificate in order to get rid of her. Daria doesn't fare as well at the Doo-Dad Shop, as she's unlucky enough to be their 10,000th customer, entitling her to a ton of free doo-dads (aka crap). That evening, after dinner, Quinn uncharacteristically clears the table and offers to bring their parents some coffee. That's when they spring their surprise: they offer to take Quinn and Daria to the Mall of the Millennium. Unsurprisingly, both girls are not enthused.

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#106 This Year's Model

Ms. Li is positively beside herself when she announces that Claude and Romonica, two talent scouts from the Amazon Modeling Agency, are to visit Lawndale High to look for potential models. Daria objects, naturally, pointing out the drawbacks of dropping out of school to pursue a career that's essentially over at age 25, but is paid no heed by Ms. Li (who's receiving a "small fee" for the school's cooperation). She can't even convince Jodie, who thinks it's perfectly fine since it's voluntary, and there's no way she'll convince Brittany, who believes that her dream is about to be fulfilled. When Claude and Romonica arrive, they take an interest in Brittany (and her, ah, "assets"), but immediately lock onto Jane and Daria. Jane immediately alienates them with a nasty caricature, and Daria blows them off with her usual sarcasm. Helen and Jake share Daria's concerns, a position that's put sorely to the test when Quinn announces that she's been accepted into the class. Against her better judgment, and with a little coaxing by phone from Romonica, Helen allows Quinn to attend the open class, but that's it... then she's astonished when Daria easily agrees to keep an eye on her (which, of course, is for her own purposes: she senses "the total humiliation of Quinn" to be imminent). At the class, Claude and Romonica instruct the girls and the guys in rudimentary modelling moves, while Daria and Jane console a devastated Brittany (who wasn't accepted into the class). Things swiftly spiral out of control, however, when the girls are instructed to start rubbing the guys' chests, an action that Quinn refuses to take part in. When Ms. Li wanders into the auditorium to check up on things, she immediately shuts down the class as soon as she sees what is happening. The next day, Ms. Li gathers the students into the auditorium to announce the winner of the modelling contract. As she's about to announce the winner, a group of mercenaries marches into the auditorium, and the group's leader, "General" Bud Conroy, starts his recruitment speech. When Ms. Li objects, Conroy explains that she was the one who invited him... and the news media. Ms. Li is humiliated -- thanks to Daria, who was actually the one that called Conroy and the media -- and Quinn is devastated when she discovers that Kevin, of all people, has won the modelling contract.

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#107 The Lab Brat

Behavioral conditioning via positive or negative reinforcement is the lesson in Daria's science class, with Ms. Barch lapsing into man-hating diatribes whenever she thinks of her ex-husband (who left her for a younger woman). After Daria provides a particularly colorful example of the topic, Ms. Barch pairs up the students for experiments involving the conditioning of a mouse. Kevin and Brittany naturally expect to wind up as partners, but it is not to be: Daria gets partnered with Kevin, while Brittany winds up with the lecherous Upchuck. Upon hearing this news -- and Helen's admonishment to Daria that this opportunity could propel her up a few rungs on the school's social ladder -- Quinn schemes to nab Kevin for herself. When Kevin arrives, Quinn turns her flirt circuits to full power, but Daria puts her plan into motion by distracting him with the Pigskin Channel. Getting Kevin out of her hair, and safely male-bonding with Jake, leaves Daria free to work on the project without interference from the scatter-brained Q.B. Meanwhile, Brittany arrives at Upchuck's house in full disguise, wanting nothing more than to get the project over with as quickly as possible. Upchuck, however, has other plans, which he swiftly puts into motion. He reveals that he has photographic proof of Brittany's dalliance with Sam Stack, quarterback of the Oakwood football team, which quickly turns the horrified cheerleader into Upchuck's personal servant. Humiliated, angry, and insanely jealous, Brittany schemes to sabotage what she thinks is Daria and Quinn's attempts to steal Kevin away from her. She does this by stealing Daria's mouse and giving it to her sadistic little brother, Brian, who proceeds to torture the poor creature. When Daria finds out, she backs Brittany into a corner by telling her that without the mouse, Daria and Kevin will have to work on a make-up project... which would mean Kevin spending even more time away from Brittany. The two girls make a deal: Brittany hands over the mouse, and Daria hands over Kevin (who she never wanted in the first place). Unfortunately, Daria discovers that Brian has ruined the mouse's conditioning; all it does now is hide in a corner of the maze and quivver with fear. Unable to train a new mouse in time, Daria makes the best of the situation by angling her presentation at Ms. Barch's hatred of men. This earns Daria an "A", and the lazy Kevin a "D" (which he naturally celebrates). Brittany and Upchuck, however, each earn an "F" for their lame project (consisting of a maze, and a tube running straight from the starting point to the cheese). After class, Kevin informs Daria that he's having a party, and decides to ask her... to ask Quinn if she would attend.

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#108 Pinch Sitter

Mr. DeMartino's history class is studying the effects of cults on human behavior, with term papers on the subject due by the end of the week. Daria has bigger problems than that, though, as Quinn is pestering her to take over her Saturday night babysitting job (she booked a date for the night without realizing it). Daria is prepared to refuse, until Helen reminds them of the couples workshop being held at their house that night; the decision is easy after that. Quinn, meanwhile, lets it slip that she blew off her babysitting job to go on a date, causing Helen to book an appointment for her with Helen's time management consultant. Quinn is reluctant at first, but dives into the concept head first when she sees the fashionable teen life planners that are available. When Saturday night rolls around, Daria and Quinn head off for their perspective appointments: Quinn with her date to Chez Pierre, and Daria to the Guptys to babysit. Arriving at the Guptys, Daria discovers that they're a family that's so sweet it's sickening, with the children even moreso. They don't watch television (it rots your brain), they don't eat junk food (it rots your teeth), and they don't question authority (it rots your obedience). After several hours of this, Daria can stand it no longer and calls Jane to bail her out. When Jane finally arrives, she and Daria get to work on "deprogramming" the kids. Thanks to some straight talk, classic fairy tales (told as only Daria and Jane can), and a disabled parental lockout on the cable box, both kids start on the road to independent thought. Meanwhile, Quinn's date with Skyler seems to be going well -- he's scoring high on her "date rating system" -- but falls apart at the end of the night when Skyler finds out that she was only dating him because his parents own a boat (she planned on dumping him come wintertime for his best friend, whose parents own a ski house). And at school, Daria gets an "A" on her history paper: "A Real-Life Experiment in Mind Control Deprogramming: My Night at the Guptys."

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#109 Too Cute

While Ms. Barch uses Kevin in an "experiment" to determine how a person's looks affects the behavior of others, Quinn is faced with this challenge in a different way, as Fashion Club hopeful Brooke shows up at school with a brand-new nose job. Everyone else "oohs" and "ahhs" about it, but Quinn's reaction, while positive, is not quite as enthusiastic. Sandi, ever ready to jump on a moment of weakness, accuses Quinn of being shallow, and manages to psych Quinn out and convince her that she's "less than perfect." Helen and Jake flat-out refuse to let Quinn get plastic surgery to correct her perceived flaws, forcing her to take matters into her own hands. She fakes being sick in order to cut school for a clandestine visit to Dr. Shar, the ethically questionable plastic surgeon that treated Brooke, but she's too nervous to go by herself. Enter Daria, who will be "taking Quinn home" -- or so Quinn tells Ms. Li, anyway. In reality, Quinn wants Daria along because she's honest and she probably knows Quinn better than anyone else. When they arrive at Dr. Shar's office, Quinn's insecurities are played like a violin by the doctor, who tells her that a mere $6,000 will allow her to achieve the perfection she craves. She also tries to win Daria over, but Daria remains stubbornly skeptical of Dr. Shar's "Frankenstein approach" to beauty. Quinn, however, becomes even more convinced when she sees Brooke, who now sports supermodel lips and hips, and starts taking up a collection to raise the money (an idea she got from the ever-sarcastic Jane). Predictably, the fundraising doesn't work, but Quinn is still determined to find a way, even after Daria swallows her pride and tells Quinn that she's perfect just the way she is. What finally convinces her to drop the whole idea is, ironically, Brooke, who suffers a "nasal relapse" and is now even less cute than she was before all this started. And Kevin finishes his experiment by employing a time-honored method of getting people to talk to him while he's wearing his "ugly face": he gives them money.

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#110 The Big House

When Daria and Quinn come home late, Helen comes up with a set of ground rules, which includes a strict curfew. Incensed by what she sees as a cruel restriction of her social life, Quinn schemes to break the "no dating on a school night" rule by convincing Helen and Jake that she'll be attending a study group. Her story falls apart the next morning, however, but rather than just mete out a punishment, Helen takes a cue from her profession and holds Family Court to decide the girls' punishments. Despite her claims of wanting to hold a fair hearing, Helen and Jake essentially railroad the girls into month-long groundings. As payback for what she considers an unjust punishment, Daria takes her revenge by beating Helen and Jake at board games and driving them crazy with loud and obnoxious harmonica playing. Quinn, however, is really in hell, as she's prevented from talking on the phone or essentially doing anything. Finally, Daria is unable to stand it, and plans to "bust out" so she and Jane can go to the high school's "DJs Versus Faculty" roller hocky game (most of the students have bets on how soon Mr. DeMartino -- who plans to get his revenge on one of the DJs for humiliating him in a previous game -- will collapse from a heart attack). Her elaborate plan to sneak out is rendered moot by the fact that both Helen and Jake have to work late, so she simply walks out the front door. The game itself is pretty much a bust until "Rock & Roll" Randy takes out Mr. DeMartino with a cheap shot to the knee, which earns him a butt-kicking by the man-hating Ms. Barch. When Daria comes home, she's confronted by a monumentally angry Helen, but before she can be punished further, she works out a plea bargain with Helen by reminding her of board games and harmonica playing. Upon learning that Daria got off on "parole," Quinn convinces Helen and Jake to do the same with her, essentially making the whole Family Court experiment a failure.

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#111 Road Worrier

At the Lane house, Daria is watching television while Jane creates a sculpture out of a mannequin and various bits and pieces of scrap. When a loud guitar chord resonates through the house and causes the sculpture to shatter, Jane drags Daria downstairs to investigate. There, they find Trent and Jesse in mid-rehearsal, and as Jane complains about the noise, Daria finds herself uncharacteristically flustered around Trent. In an attempt to fix her brother up with her best friend, Jane volunteers gas money if Trent and Jesse will take them to the upcoming Alternapalooza concert. Daria reluctantly agrees to come along (after silently vowing revenge on Jane), and is amused to find that she's not the only Morgendorffer that will be in attendance: Quinn and the rest of the Fashion Club are going, too. Daria assures Quinn that they'll easily be able to avoid each other in a crowd of 10,000 people before she and Jane are picked up by Trent and Jesse in their drummer's van, "the Tank," and Quinn is picked up by her friends. During the trip, Daria is increasingly humiliated when she bumps her head, gets stung by a bee, sits on an ancient peanut butter sandwich, breaks her glasses, and becomes an unwanted focus of attention when she has to take a woodside bathroom break during a traffic jam... and all in front of Trent. On the flip side, however, she starts to loosen up a little when Trent and Jesse actually laugh at her sarcastic comments. The van ends up breaking down about halfway to the concert, and while Jane and Jesse go look for help (a barely hidden ploy to get Trent and Daria alone), Daria sits with the object of her crush and gets to know him a little better, and even helps him overcome a "crisis of faith" of sorts by encouraging him to follow his musical dream. Jane and Jesse return empty-handed from their little sojourn, leading Jane to resort to fixing the van with her glue gun... just as the Alternapalooza concert comes to an end. They aren't the only ones who never made it to the concert, however, as Quinn and her friends got sidetracked by an outlet shopping mall. Returning home, Daria and Quinn find Helen and Jake in a very relaxed mood, having taken full advantage of the girls' absence.

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#112 The Teachings of Don Jake

Daria and Jane are about to be reminded of how much a pain in the ass families can be, much to their chagrin. When Jake bursts a blood vessel in his eye after stressing out over the family finances, Helen announces that the Morgendorffers will be taking a weekend camping trip. Daria is pretty sullen about it, until she hears about the "fun" Jane and Trent will be having at the annual Lane Family Reunion; suffice it to say that camping turns out to be the more appealing option (especially since having a root canal sans novocaine wasn't one of the choices). Not unexpectedly, the camping trip doesn't exactly start out with a bang, as Jake's enthusiasm and planned itinerary goes over like a lead balloon with his two unenthusiastic daughters. Jane and Trent don't fare much better, after they inadvertantly insult their Aunt Bernice on the plane, get left behind by that same aunt, and are treated rudely by the by the rest of the family when they finally arrive at the reunion (the aunt who owns the house is snotty and condescending, Uncle Max acts like a drunken fool, and Grandma screams insults in Jane's ear). Morning provides no relief, as Jane and Trent are awoken 7:00am for the family croquet tournament, and the Morgendorffers set out for a nature hike after a Jake-prepared breakfast. Unfortunately, Jake's nature skills prove to be somewhat lacking when he, Helen, and Quinn start hallucinating, thanks to their breakfast of psychotropic berries. Fortunately, Daria had not eaten any of the berries (due to her distrust of Jake's nature skills), and used Helen's cellphone (which she brought despite her earlier claim of wanting to get "totally back to nature") to call for a rescue helicopter. Back at home, Daria relays the tale to Jane, who (along with Trent) had flown the coop and returned early because they couldn't stand it at the reunion for one second longer. And to put a cap on the whole experience, Jake gets a $15,000 bill for the helicopter rescue... and promptly bursts blood vessels in both eyes.

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#113 The Misery Chick

Lawndale High is being honored by a visit from alumnus Tommy Sherman, who's being honored for his football prowess by the dedication of a new goalpost in his name. Kevin, naturally, is deep in the throes of hero worship, but Daria and Jane are less than impressed, particularly when Jane explains why they're naming a goalpost after him (seems that he insisted on running the touchdowns himself, but he got so wrapped up in waving to the crowd that he'd hit the goalpost). When Tommy arrives, he actually manages to lower Daria's opinion of him by proving himself to be a sexist, racist, egotistical jerk. After hitting on Brittany and insulting Kevin and Mack, Daria can stand it no longer and tells the guy off, and in turn, Tommy accuses Daria of being one of those "misery chicks" that's always depressed about everything. Daria blows his comments off, but is still angry that the jerk is going to be treated like a hero for the rest of his life. Jane jokes that maybe he won't actually live that long... words that become prophetic when the new goalpost falls on him and kills him. Not unexpectedly, this event sends the whole school into mourning, but what Daria doesn't expect is the attention she's suddenly receiving, as first Kevin, then Brittany, then Mr. O'Neill, and finally Quinn comes to her for advice on dealing with this tragedy, because after all, she's the "misery chick." What's even stranger, though, is that Jane is doing everything she can to avoid talking to Daria, thereby depriving her of an outlet for her frustrations about the reputation she's been given. Daria finally goes over to Jane's house to ask her what's going on, and after a somewhat reassuring talk with Trent, she corners Jane in her bedroom and demands an explanation. Jane admits that she was disturbed about how her little joke came true, which is making her feel somehow responsible for his death. Daria then vents about how people assume that she's miserable all the time, when the truth is that she's just not like them. She "makes people think," Jane tells her, which is why Jane didn't want to talk to her: she didn't want to think about it. After talking things out, they're able to agree on three things: Jane wasn't responsible, Daria isn't a "misery chick," and Tommy Sherman was a major-league jerk. Unfortunately, Daria can't shake her reputation that easily, as she finds out when Sandi asks her for advice on dealing with her depression over her cat's getting sick after eating her makeup. Daria decides that if she can't shake her reputation, she should profit from it, and charges Sandi $10 for some useless advice. Afterwards, Daria feels bad about making $10 off of Sandi's suffering... because she should have charged her $20.

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#201 Arts 'N Crass

At school, Ms. Li and Mr. O'Neill interrupt Ms. Defoe's art class to announce a state-wide art contest, called "Student Life at the Dawn of the New Millennium," to allow students to show what life is like as a high school student in today's fast-changing world. Both Daria and Jane think the whole thing is pretty lame, but Ms. Defoe convinces Jane to participate by appealing to her artists' ego. Unwilling to go it alone, she asks Daria to help her, and though initally reluctant to help, she gives in when Jane points out that no one said that the message had to be a positive one. After a brainstorming session involving lots of pizza, they come up with the idea of a poster depicting a beautiful girl gazing into a mirror... with a short poem stating that she got that way by being anorexic. Ms. Defoe is initially put off by the work, but changes her mind when Daria states that the work is a cautionary message about looks being deceiving, and that the poem was deliberately harsh in order to contrast with the beauty of the picture. (It didn't hurt that Jane's work was also far and away the best of the bunch.) Unfortunately, Ms. Defoe's approval isn't mirrored by Ms. Li and Mr. O'Neill, who love the painting but are put off by the crude poem, and who both attempt to convince them to change the poem. The girls would rather withdraw from the contest than submit to censorship, but Ms. Li convinces them to remain in the contest by suggesting a cooling-off period... which she uses to have Mr. O'Neill contact their parents and have them convince the girls to change the poem. Mr. O'Neill can't reach the Lanes but does manage to reach a frustrated and overworked Helen, who assures him that she'll talk to Daria before hanging up on him. At dinner, Jake (who's taken to cooking in his free time, which he now has a lot more of after losing a big client) not only annoys the family with his "penn� a la pesto" but manages to undermine Helen's efforts to talk to Daria, getting a bowl of pasta over his head for his trouble. Helen does manage to exact a promise from Daria to at least hear what Mr. O'Neill has to say, but what he says doesn't fill them with confidence: he'll take a stab at making the poem more palatable, but if they don't like it, they can leave the poster as it is. Predictably, what he comes up with totally changes the meaning of the poster, but when they try to cash in on their part of the bargain, Ms. Li overrules everyone by entering the poster -- with the altered poem -- against their will. Angry and upset, and with no options left through proper channels, the girls (with Trent's help) take the matter into their own hands by attending the showing and defacing the poster. A furious Ms. Li tries to discipline the girls for their actions, but she quickly backs down when Helen threatens to file a lawsuit charging the school with violating the girls' civil liberties. As Daria and Jane celebrate their somewhat Pyrrhic victory -- the only way they could win was to destroy their work -- Brittany announces to everyone that her crude poster was the winner of the art contest.

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#202 The Daria Hunter

Mr. DeMartino informs his class that they, along with Mr. O'Neill's and Ms. Barch's classes (and Ms. Li), will be taking a field trip to Jim's Paintballing Jungle, ostensibly to study how warfare affects all aspects of human culture. When a request is made for parent volunteers, the Morgendorffer sisters are in rare agreement: no telling Helen or Jake about the trip. Helen finds out anyway, though, when she innocently asks Quinn about her new anti-helmet-hair hairdo and she cracks under the "pressure"; fortunately for the girls, Helen shows only a token interest in going, but seems to back down. The bus trip to the paintball range is eventful, with Kevin getting smacked by Brittany for a insensitive comment, the Fashion Club vowing not to shoot each other, and Daria and Jane spotting signs for a roadside attraction called "The Great White Shark" that Jane seems to think holds more promise than paintballing. Daria is reluctant, but quickly relents when the buses arrive at the range and are greeted by Helen and Jake (who were convinced to attend by Mr. O'Neill). After a pep talk by Jim himself, the group splits into two teams, one lead by Mr. DeMartino and the other by Mr. O'Neill and Ms. Barch. As the games begin (with Brittany showing a surprising flair for tactical warfare), Daria and Jane each get themselves taken out early, and together they head out to see the Great White Shark. At the range, each group garners its own share of casualties -- Brittany takes out Kevin and Mr. DeMartino, while the Fashion Club mistakenly opens fire on each other -- before the whole outing is rained out. To pass the time, the kids start partying in a shelter nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton," while the adults attempt to bond in various tents. As such, Jake and Mr. DeMartino wind up getting drunk and swapping childhood horror stories, Helen and Ms. Li wind up in a clash of personalities, and Mr. O'Neill tries to comfort a bitter Ms. Barch, who eventually warms up to him and they... well, bond. Meanwhile, Daria and Jane arrive at the Great White Shark, only to find that the "shark" is actually just a tooth, with the woman running the attraction spinning them a story lifted right out of the plot of the movie Jaws (she even lets slip a reference to Richard Dreyfuss as the girls leave). The girls rejoin the group just as the rain lets up, and as the buses pull out, three people are left behind: Sandi, whose attempts to get the better of Quinn get her nothing but an impromptu mud bath; and Helen and Jake, victims of a stolen distributor cap (courtesy of Ms. Li).

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#203 Quinn the Brain

When Quinn is informed by Mr. O'Neill that she's failing English and needs an "A" on her next assignment in order to pass, she gets a pep talk from Helen and Jake on the virtues of a solid education. It doesn't work, but Daria's words of wisdom -- she'll be the oldest freshman in Lawndale High if she's left back -- kick her into gear. Quinn tries to get Daria to write her essay for her, succeeding only in making her mad with insensitive comments, so she ends up writing it herself. "Academic Imprisonment," an essay expressing her frustrations with school life, is singled out for individual achievement by Mr. O'Neill, who eventually gets it published in the school paper's "Smart Thoughts" column. Daria, who was initially stunned by the good grade, is now delighted at the attention Quinn is receiving, as it means her sister will finally know what it's like to be considered a "brain." Unfortunately, the effect is quite the opposite, as "Brains" Morgendorffer manages to turn being smart into a fad and becomes more popular than ever. Buoyed by the sudden surge in popularity, Quinn starts dressing in black and writing poetry in an attempt to act intelligent, but while this helps her popularity with her fellow students, the Fashion Club puts her on probation when other girls start dressing like Quinn instead of following Fashion Club trends. During all of this, Daria becomes more and more concerned for her own identity, because if Quinn is now known as "the brainy Morgendorffer girl," then where does she fit in? Jane tries to reassure her friend that she's still the same old outcast she always was, but Daria can only find one way out of her dilemma, one that she'd been saving as an absolute last resort. Her opportunity comes when Joey, Jeffy, and Jamie beg Daria to bring the "old Quinn" back, so she comes up with a wicked plan: the three boys will come over to her house and ask her out, then she will become Quinn -- makeup, jeans, pink midriff T-shirt, the works. The goal is to convince Quinn that if she's going to take Daria's identity, then Daria is going to take hers... as well as all the cute guys she loves to date. This finally does the trick and causes Quinn to renounce being a "brain" and go back her old self.

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#204 I Don't

When the Morgendorffers are invited to the wedding of Daria's cousin Erin, which is being held at the posh Windsor Hills Resort in Leeville, Helen makes sure that Daria and Quinn are bridesmaids. Quinn, naturally, is delighted, while Daria basically wants nothing to do with the whole affair. She knows that Helen and her sister, Rita, have a sibling rivalry going that makes her own battles with Quinn look like a cake walk, and she can sense disaster looming. Nonetheless, she's trapped, so she and Jane go to the bridal store to get the dress fitted. At the store, they run into Jodie and Brittany, who are getting fitted for gowns to wear at a bridal show fundraiser at school. On the day of the wedding, the Morgendorffers are greeted at Windsor Hills by Rita and her new beau, Paul Meyerson, and the tension in the air is thick enough to cut with a knife. Things get interesting with the arrival of Helen's other sister, Amy, who looks a lot like an adult version of Daria... and acts like it, too. Quinn and Daria are soon introduced to their escorts: Quinn's is the handsome Garret, while Daria is stuck with the moody and sarcastic Luhrman. Meanwhile, at the school bridal show, Kevin and Mack attend (in spite of Brittany and Jodie's insistence that they don't) and are mistaken for a gay couple by a vendor hawking wedding bands. Kevin then acts like a fool during the show and embarrasses Brittany, who quickly gets over it when he buys her an entire booth's worth of flowers. Back at the wedding, the reception is in full swing, with Quinn being constantly hit on by the minister and Daria telling outrageous tall tales to the other bridesmaids (with help from a surprising ally: Luhrman). Daria encounters her aunt Amy in the restroom, and finds that she's something of a kindred spirit. Outside, things start to slide rapidly downhill when a drunken Helen, who's still upset at her mother for constantly favoring Rita over her, starts an argument with her sister, which sets off a chain reaction with everyone else. Daria and Amy decide to make a fast getaway and drive to a local bowling alley, where they proceed to chat over an order of cheese fries as Erin's new husband, Brian, slowly gets drunk at the bar and vows "never to go back there." The fight is eventually broken up, and while Helen and Rita reconcile and Paul bribes the police to look the other way, Jake drags a caddy and a flashlight out to the resort's world-renowned golf course and squeezes in a few well-deserved rounds.

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#205 That Was Then, This Is Dumb

Willow and Coyote Yeager, two of Helen and Jake's friends from their hippie days, arrive with their son Ethan for a weekend visit. Daria can't stand the thought of being part of a Woodstock revival, so she decides to spend the weekend at Jane's house, but not before she pays Quinn $20 to dig up some dirt on their parents. At Jane's, Trent and Jesse are going through a bunch of vinyl LPs, which they plan to sell at the weekend flea market. Jane, naturally, decides to invite herself and Daria along, despite the fact that they have to be up at 6:00 A.M. The Yeagers' visit doesn't go as smoothly as hoped, because while Quinn is frustrated at her lack of success in hitting on an uninterested Ethan (who seems to be something of a male Daria), Helen and Jake are constantly reminded of how they've "sold out" when compared to Willow and Coyote (who've seemingly never abandoned their hippie-era ideals). Both she and Jake decide to regain some of those ideals, with Helen making bread and starting a compost heap and Jake growing a beard. At the flea market, Daria and Jane aren't having much luck selling the LPs, and the snoozing Trent and Jesse (who stayed up all night rather than get up early) aren't any help at all. Upchuck, who's attending the market with the hope of finding some rare collectable items, gives them some impromptu salesmanship lessons, but his main usefulness comes when the foursome decide to get some burgers and sodas. This proves to be a mistake, because while Jane and Jesse hunt down some burgers (and Jane sees first-hand just how vapid Jesse is) and Daria and Trent get sodas, Upchuck abandons the booth in search of girlie magazines. When the foursome finds him and drags him back to the booth, they discover that the booth has been ransacked and almost all of the LPs stolen (save for three copies of Boston's debut album). Meanwhile, Helen and Jake make a startling discovery: while they've been trying to be more like the Yeagers, the Yeagers have grown tired of their hippie ways and want to be more like them. Helen and Jake are more than happy to help, with Helen giving Willow an electric bread maker and Jake giving Coyote impromptu lessons in golf and ruthless business management. When Daria returns, Helen tries to punish her for skipping out on dinner with the family, but she backs down when Daria starts to interrogate her about an embarrassing incident from her college days (which Quinn learned from Ethan when she finally convinced him to take her out for lunch). As the Yeagers leave, Jake declares that he's going to stop living in the past as of right now... and decides to give all his old vinyl LPs to Daria.

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#206 Monster

Jake forces Daria and Quinn to relive their past when he plays for them a videotape made when they were kids (specifically, Quinn stealing Daria's thunder at her birthday party), and announces that he's having all his old home movies transferred to videotape. (Unfortunately, Jake winds up reliving a lot of bitter childhood memories, specifically one incident involving his falling off a bike. So much for the past...) That's not the end of Daria's cinematic experience, however, as she and Jane run into Mr. O'Neill at a local movie theater. While getting a ride home (reluctantly, thanks to a sudden rainstorm), Daria inadvertantly gives Mr. O'Neill a suggestion for a class project: students will team up to create their own movies, as an exercise in "living literature." Daria and Jane naturally team up, while Jodie, Mack, Kevin, and Brittany give it a go. Brittany wants to film a love story -- with herself as the star, of course -- while Jodie would rather make a documentary about a local supermarket strike. Jodie's suggestion wins out, but Kevin winds up getting beaten up by the strikers when he tries to cross the picket line to buy Brittany a snack. Meanwhile, Daria and Jane try several ideas -- including "tree cam," an art film, and an existential puppet show -- all without success. Daria finally hits upon the perfect idea when Quinn asks to borrow one of her outfits for a "fashion don'ts" party: they'll make a documentary about a day in the life of a shallow, self-absorbed, yet popular teenaged girl. Quinn readily agrees, but has no idea that Daria's ultimate plan is to humiliate her sister. Unfortunately, she doesn't get the chance -- Quinn acts all nice and perfect and nauseatingly sweet -- until Quinn finally loses her cool at the mall, when she suspects that Daria is zooming in on her "perfect pores." She and Jane start editing the video, and are salivating at the prospect of Quinn's total humiliation when Helen steps in and tries to kick-start Daria's conscience. It doesn't work... until Quinn tells them that she's looking forward to seeing her video, and hopes that it doesn't make her look stupid (because she knows that acting shallow and being obsessed about fashion and popularity is silly, but it's what she does best). "The Depths of Shallowness," which does not include her "pores" rant, winds up showing Quinn in the best possible light, and makes her more popular than ever.

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#207 The New Kid

After being pestered by Jodie -- and after a promise of web page software by her parents -- Daria joins the yearbook photography team in order to gain an extracurricular credit. There she meets Ted DeWitt-Clinton, a new kid at Lawndale High who had, until recently, been home-schooled by his parents. Ted takes an instant liking to Daria, having been impressed by her photographs, and Daria -- while remaining skeptical of Ted's actions -- finds herself oddly attracted to his strange combination of sweetness, naivet�, and obscure knowledge. Everyone else, from Jane to her parents, either thinks he's in some sort of weird cult or hates him for convincing Mr. DeMartino to reduce the number of yearbook pages devoted to sports and clubs (a suggestion that was inadvertently prompted by an offhand comment from Daria). Quinn is convinced that Daria has a thing for Ted, and tries to convince Daria to get the sports and club pages restored, to no avail. Daria vehemently (and repeatedly) denies that she and Ted are an item, and she starts to wonder if even hanging out with him is a good idea when she goes to his house for a visit and is immersed in the simple lifestyle he's lead to date. (He's never even chewed gum!) Ted's rabidly overprotective parents definitely think it's a bad idea, as Daria's gift to Ted of a Beatles tape seems to prove that she's "corrupting" their son. Unable to handle it any longer, Daria tells Ted that they can't hang out any longer, and immediately feels guilty for blowing him off for no other reason than he was being nice to her. Taking advantage of the situation, Quinn tries again to convince Daria to speak to Mr. DeMartino by setting her up on a date with a dumb-as-rocks football player, a date that goes about as well as you might expect. When Ted successfully fends off angry football players and club members, an impressed Daria asks him out for an evening of pizza and video arcade games. The latter proves to be a huge mistake, however, as Ted gets wrapped up in the arcade's virtual reality simulator and makes friends with some of the popular crowd. This pretty much ends his relationship with Daria, who finds herself on the outside once again. She figures she can console herself with the fact that they're "fighting the good fight" with the yearbook, but even that is denied her when a battered and bruised Mr. DeMartino informs her that the sports and club pages are being restored (thanks to a butt-kicking by Ms. Barch, head of the science club). The final indignity comes when Daria finds out that her parents had given her web page software to Quinn, who used it to create her own web page (well, actually, one of the computer geeks at school did it for her). To console herself, Daria shows Quinn that web pages aren't the only things that can be hit.

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#208 Gifted

Jodie and Daria are chosen to visit Grove Hills, a school for academically gifted students. Daria isn't impressed, but is bribed into it by Helen, who informs Quinn that she'll be staying behind for the weekend. Visions of staying home alone (and partying) are shattered when Helen works out a deal with Sandi's mother, Linda, to allow Quinn to stay with them while they're gone. While Daria and her parents give Jodie a ride to Grove Hills (her parents will meet them there and drive her home), Quinn slowly and methodically wears out her welcome with all three Fashion Club members: Sandi, when her younger brothers fawn all over Quinn; Tiffany, when Quinn blows up at her for constantly asking if she's "too fat"; and Stacy, where Quinn actually runs off after getting creeped out by Stacy's way-too-needy overtures of friendship. She ends up at the Lane house and pleads with Jane to let her stay the night. Jane lets her stay when she realizes that Quinn is terrified to be home alone, but almost immediately regrets it when her shallow and self-centered attitude starts driving her crazy. At Grove Hills, Helen and Jake meet Jodie's parents, Andrew and Michele, but their association is strained and awkward as the Morgendorffers' liberal attitudes clash with the conservative views of the Landons. After initially hitting it off with some of the Grove Hills students, Daria and Jodie come to find out that they're even more stuck-up and obnoxious than the students at Lawndale High. Jodie valiantly tries to make nice, but she eventually reaches her limit, tells off the other students, and storms out, with Daria right on her heels (after getting off a parting shot of her own). She finds Jodie sitting outside on a bench and stewing over the whole experience, and both girls have a heart-to-heart talk, with each admitting that they sometimes wish they could be more like each other... and both agreeing that they're better off at Lawndale High. When they finally get home, an emotionally frazzled Jane escorts Quinn home, making Daria extremely curious about what happened over the weekend.

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#209 Ill

When Daria and Jane attend a Mystik Spiral gig at the Zen, Daria gets two unexpected surprises: she meets an incognito Brittany in the bathroom, and she discovers that she's developed a mysterious rash on her neck and face. Not wanting Jane and the band (especially Trent) to see her like this, she ditches them and gets a ride home in a cab. In the morning, Daria discovers (to her relief) that the rash has disappeared, then has to fend off an overly concerned Jake, who's become convinced that Daria may be taking drugs. At school, Daria's rash returns while she's in Mr. O'Neill's class, and when an uncharacteristically helpful Quinn is unable to do anything for her, Daria is forced to see the school nurse. The nurse sends her to her family doctor, who's equally stumped as to the cause of the rash, so he admits her to the hospital for tests and observation. Helen is freaking out over Daria's condition, Jake is freaking out over his suspicions of drug use, Quinn is freaking out over the very cute doctor that's treating Daria, and Daria just wishes the whole ordeal was over. To that end, she asks Jane not to tell anyone where she is, but Jane accidentally lets it slip to Brittany, who then tells Kevin, Jodie, and Mack. After a bad night's sleep (complete with requisite nightmare), she gets a visit from Jane, and when she figures that no one else at school even knows she's gone, she's shocked to see Brittany, Kevin, Jodie, and Mack arrive, all of whom are concerned about her and wanting to see how she's doing. Daria is finally sent home after the doctors determine that her rash was caused by anxiety, and when Helen and Jake tell her how proud they are of how well Daria handled the situation, she comes to realize that, despite their less-than-stellar parenting, they really do care about her. Jane then arrives to pick up Daria for another evening out, and when she informs her that Trent (who's standing next to her) will be giving them a ride, Daria's rash returns at lightning speed.

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#210 Fair Enough

Daria is in the school library when the roof starts to leak. As she leaves, Kevin and Brittany come in from the rain to make out... just in time to have the roof collapse on them. In order to raise funds to get the roof repaired, Ms. Li organizes a "mandatory voluntary" medieval fair, which will feature rides, period entertainment, and a play, The Canterbury Tales. The play attracts hopefuls like Kevin, Brittany, Quinn, and Sandi to the auditions, where Quinn gets the lead part opposite Kevin. This makes Sandi extremely jealous, and motivates an angry Brittany to do everything she can to keep Kevin away on the day of the fair. At the fair, Helen and Linda Griffin get into another one-upmanship contest, while Daria and Jane try their best to avoid getting involved in any of the activities. The weirdness finally catches up with them, however, in the form of Stacy, who's upset over being dumped by a boy she had dated. She ends up sharing a ferris wheel ride with Daria and Jane, who manage to convince her to not flush her entire life down the toilet just because one jerk didn't ask her out again. Backstage at the play, Quinn is going over her lines when Sandi, who's still smarting over being passed over for the part, plants a tiny seed of doubt in Quinn's mind with regards to how a certain line should be spoken. Mr. O'Neill, meanwhile, is frantic over the fact that Kevin is still missing, and in desperation, he drafts Jeffy as a last-minute replacement. An angry Joey and Jamie point Jeffy to the wrong play, with the result being that Jeffy reads the wrong lines while Quinn places the wrong emphasis on her words. The audience erupts with laughter, which upsets Quinn, which angers Jake enough to get angry and start shouting at the audience members, which in turn starts a riot... with Linda and Sandi exchanging self-satisfied smirks at the carnage they've caused. As a devastated Mr. O'Neill goes to Ms. Barch for comfort and Jodie tries to find Ms. Li in order to quell the riot, Daria and Jane amuse themselves by telling a group of kids what life was really like during the Middle Ages.

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#211 See Jane Run

When Ms. Morris attempts to sneak a cheerleader practice into P.E. class, Daria and Jane sit out in protest. She angrily accuses Jane and her entire family of being slackers, then holds both girls after school to make up the class. Later, the girls overhear Kevin tell Mack that he got a "buy" on his ethics test, which angers Mack (who actually had to take the test). The next day, Daria tells Jane that Helen supported her on the gym class thing, which further hardens Jane's resolve to prove Ms. Morris wrong. To that end -- and to get closer to Evan, a boy she "admires" -- Jane joins the track team, to Daria's total surprise. Daria is not particularly thrilled when Jane makes the team, and is even less so when she finds herself alone more and more as practice begins to monopolize Jane's time. Concerned over Daria's mental well-being, Helen convinces (aka bribes) Quinn to spends some time with her sister, which doesn't exactly go the way she planned when Quinn abandons Daria at the library after meeting a cute guy. Daria's irrational behavior over Jane's absence finally comes to a head when she humiliates Jane in public (and in front of Evan). After getting a well-deserved chewing out, Daria finally apologizes to Jane, and finds that being friends with a track star comes with some perks: both girls get out of gym class when Ms. Morris tells Jane to rest her legs for the next track meet (and since Jane doesn't want to be alone...). Daria is still troubled, though, as she feels guilty for condemning Jane for "surrendering to the system" while simultaneously taking advantage of its perks... guilt that worsens when she finds out that Jane got a "buy" on her math test. Jane's attempts to justify it as being "just another perk" angers Daria, but when Evan reveals his true colors by insulting Daria's ethics, Jane realizes just how corrupt she's become and quits the team. Ms. Morris, though, isn't willing to let her off that easily, and threatens to have Jane flunked if she doesn't come back to the team; Jane, in turn, threatens to tip off the local news media about Lawndale High's little grade-changing scheme, which forces Ms. Morris to back down. Ms. Morris winds up getting the last laugh, however, when she forces Daria and Jane to participate in cheerleading practice, giving both girls time to reflect on the fact that they really did receive a lesson in how the real world works.

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#212 Pierce Me

It's Jane's birthday, and while she doesn't want any fuss made over her, she's not above receiving presents from her friends and family. Being an artist, Jane's pretty easy to shop for -- just get her some art supplies -- but Trent wants to do something different. Unfortunately, he's lacking in ideas, so he calls Daria to ask her to help him out. What follows is a phone conversation of classic proportions, as Trent trips all over himself in his attempt to keep Jane from finding out what he's up to, while Daria's crush on Trent makes her completely misunderstand his intentions. When Trent finally explains why he called, Daria is somewhat disappointed, but nonetheless accompanies him to Dega Street in search of the Perfect Gift. Their search ultimately leads them to Axl's Piercing Parlor, where Trent manages to charm Daria into getting her navel pierced (a development that Jane uses as fodder for endless teasing). Meanwhile, Quinn and Helen are getting made over in preparation for a mother-daughter fashion show at school, a show in which Quinn desperately wants to excel since Sandi and her mother are also participating. This proves useful to Daria when Quinn finds out about her navel ring, as Daria reminds Quinn that she shouldn't be getting Helen upset on the day before the big show. This buys Quinn's silence but it doesn't buy any relief for Daria, whose newly pierced navel is itching like mad. Unable to stand it any longer, Daria removes the ring before going to bed, which proves to be a huge mistake when, the next morning, she finds that the hole has closed up. Now, not only does she feel foolish for doing something stupid for a guy, she feels like a geek for being the fastest healer on the planet! However, Jane and Trent reassure her that it doesn't make her a geek, which makes her feel better... until Trent suggests a tattoo! Later that evening, Trent gives Jane her birthday gift: a song he wrote in her honor. (Daria, of course, gave Jane art supplies.) At the fashion show, Quinn and Helen are the epitome of cool confidence as they take the runway... then they become the poster children for humiliation when Quinn loses her balance and sends them both tumbling to the stage. To ease her humiliation, Quinn breaks her promise to Daria and tells Helen and Jake about the navel ring. Her scheme backfires, though, when they demand to see Daria's navel, which now shows absolutely no sign that it was ever pierced.

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#213 Write Where It Hurts

Mr. O'Neill's class assignment on moral fiction is giving Daria a bit of a problem... namely, she's already read all the books on his reading list. This inspires Mr. O'Neill to give Daria a special assignment: rather than read a story with moral dimensions, he wants her to write a story with moral dimensions. She's not exactly enthused, and her first few stories -- riffs on The Graduate, with Jane disrupting Kevin and Brittany's wedding and running away with him, and Jane Austin's Sense and Sensibility, with Daria and Quinn as sisters being courted by various English suitors (who are driven away by talk of marriage) -- definitely show it. Helen tries to help Daria get over her writer's block (between phone calls and rescuing Jake from his latest culinary adventures), but manages to completely alienate her daughter by trying to compare her to Quinn. Upset and angry, her next story is probably her worst effort to date: Helen and Jake as laid-back parents, with Daria as the "good daughter" and Quinn as the "other one." After confiding her worries to Jane, blowing off a remorseful Helen, and writing yet another sub-standard story, she tries to get advice from Mr. O'Neill... bad advice, as it turns out, since it doesn't help her one bit. Just when she's totally convinced that she's a no-talent hack, Helen manages to cut through her defenses and give her what turns out to be good, solid advice: write something honest, something that she'd like to see, rather than trying so hard to write something "meaningful." Inspired, and not a little impressed by Helen's insight, Daria proceeds to write an honest, meaningful story about how she'd like to see her family in the future: Helen retired from the law firm, Jake happily retired and stress-free (after a triple bypass), and Quinn a mature, responsible parent of four. Though Daria still doesn't think she's accomplished her goal, Helen's proud, tearful hugging of her oldest daughter proves otherwise.

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#301 Through A Lens Darkly

After Daria nearly hits a dog during a driving lesson, Helen tries to convince her to get contact lenses. At first, Daria is resistant, saying that people should judge her by who she is and not how she looks, but eventually begins to consider the idea. She swallows her pride and asks Quinn for advice, and when that fails, she discusses the issue with Aunt Amy, who tells Daria that getting contacts is merely an issue of having options, not vanity. She gets the lenses, but her experiences with them are not quite what she expected: they irritate her eyes, and people do not make a big deal over them (after the initial reaction, of course). Daria is still bothered by her conscience, however; she still thinks she's compromised her principles, a point that's hammered home when she foregoes both her contacts and her glasses. After a day of bumping into people, she admits to Jane what she's done, and runs off and hides in the girls' bathroom rather than face her again. Jane and Jodie try to convince Daria that a little vanity is no big deal, but she's not convinced... until Brittany, of all people, says just the right thing to convince her. Daria decides to return to her glasses, but has no idea how to break the news to Helen... that is, until Helen shows up and decides to give a still-lensless Daria an impromptu driving lesson.

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#302 The Old and the Beautiful

In order to win an award for the school, Ms. Li asks (read: orders) everyone to volunteer during Awareness of Others Week. Jane chooses to teach arts and crafts -- in her own unique way -- to patients in a chidren's ward, the Fashion Club decides -- in their own unique way -- to collect clothes for the homeless, and Daria volunteers (reluctantly) to read to senior citizens. However, the seniors are completely turned off by Daria's monotone, unenthusiastic voice, while lavishing praise on the efforts of Brittany and Kevin. Brittany invites Daria to her house (where she's introduced to Brittany's parents, Steve and Ashley-Amber) and attempts to make Daria's voice "perkier," but soon pronounces Daria a hopeless case. At the nursing home, Daria is shunned by the seniors; dejected and humiliated, Daria is ready to give up when Mrs. Blaine, who apparently is totally deaf, asks her to stay and tells her that she has a pretty voice. At the end of the week, Jane is banned from the children's ward when she teaches the kids to turn the wall paintings into an Old West battle scene, Brittany and Kevin receive awards for their efforts, the Fashion Club ends up being no help at all... and Daria voluntarily returns to the nursing home to keep Mrs. Blaine company.

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#303 Depth Takes A Holiday

Walking home from Jane's house, Daria encounters two kids identifying themselves as Cupid and the St. Patrick's Day leprechaun, who claim that Christmas, Halloween, and Guy Fawkes Day have left Holiday Island and came to Lawndale to start a band. Daria refuses to believe it, but is eventually convinced... starting with Cupid putting Helen and Jake under a love spell. At Jane's house, Daria meets the three errant holidays, who've come there to jam with Trent, and takes all of them out for pizza at Pizza King, where they encounter Cupid and St. Patrick's Day. Meanwhile, Quinn is convinced that her parents' newfound amorous feelings signal an intent to have another child, and starts following them around to keep them from having sex. Having failed to convince Daria to help them, Cupid and St. Patrick's Day attempt to recruit Kevin and Brittany, but redouble their resolve to get Daria's help after actually talking to Kevin and Brittany. A trip to the mall doesn't do it, the annoying antics of the three AWOL holidays don't do it, but an amorous Helen and Jake are the last straw. When Daria and Jane arrive at Holiday Island, they find that it's just like a high school, and that the "beautiful people" -- in this case, the President's Day presidents -- have taken over. Daria cooks up a scheme to put Christmas, Halloween, and Guy Fawkes back in their rightful position at the top of the pack by convincing them to play at the Holiday Island High School Prom. The holidays decide to stay after they see who's running the place, and Quinn is finally off the hook when Cupid's love spell wears off and Helen and Jake go back to their old, arguing selves.

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#304 Daria Dance Party

When Mr. O'Neill asks for volunteers to help with the upcoming school dance, Quinn volunteers to head the dance committee -- after a volunteer-phobic Sandi eggs her on -- with the Fashion Club as her advisors. However, Quinn gets stuck with doing the job by herself when she and Sandi disagree on the decorations and the Fashion Club bails out. Quinn desperately tries to get out of it by telling Mr. O'Neill that her great-aunt died, but when that falls through, she manages to dump the project in Jane's lap (who doesn't really mind, as she sees this as a golden opportunity to make a grand artistic statement). The night of the dance, Sandi gives a party at her house, with several guys -- including Joey, Jeffy, Jamie, and Kevin (who had just had a fight with Brittany) -- in attendance. However, the party turns out to be a complete bust, and the guys bail out while the Fashion Club is changing into swimsuits for some hot-tubbing. At the school, the dance is in full swing, with Upchuck as the D.J., and Jane's decorations -- a vast mural in tribute to Jackson Pollack encompassing the whole gym -- are a huge hit. Quinn is mortified by the decor, but then takes full credit for it when her two dates start complimenting her on it and she realizes that the night is a success. Daria and Jane sit on the sidelines to watch the proceedings, and soon begin chatting it up with two guys whose attitudes and outlook on life seem to be very similar to theirs. However, they back off when they find out that the guys are Upchuck's cousins, and thus are "carriers of the dreaded Ruttheimer gene." Out in the parking lot, Brittany's date Robert gets into a fight with a jealous Kevin, and Joey, Jeffy and Jamie start fighting with Quinn's dates. In the end, Kevin and Brittany make up (while Kevin is being hauled away in an ambulance) and Daria and Jane figure that the whole evening was a wash... until it starts to snow, and they notice that the swimsuit-clad Fashion Club has been locked out of the house by Sandi's brothers.

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#305 The Lost Girls

Val, the editor of the teen magazine Val, arrives in Lawndale to spend a day with Daria, whose essay was submitted to the magazine's "Spend a Day With Val" contest by Mr. O'Neill. Daria is, shall we say, less than enthused, as she believes Val is essentially a narcissistic opportunist making money off the confusion of teenagers and foisting her own shallow beliefs on them; Jane, however, convinces her to go along with it, saying that the experience could be an opportunity to snag a trip to New York City. As such, Daria endures Val's incessant chatter and over-the-top efforts to fit in with the youth culture she supposedly represents. Finally, Daria can take no more, and essentially tells the grownup Fashion Club wannabe that she should "stop embracing the teen within and start embracing the 30-something without," grow up, and start doing more to help today's youth with their problems instead of adding to them. Enraged, Val leaves and, upon returning to New York, writes an article for Val about "today's underground bummer culture"... with Daria as the "anonymous" subject of the article.

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#306 It Happened One Nut

When the students receive the results of their career aptitude tests, Jane learns that she's suited to be an accountant (the same answer she's received every year, thanks to her selecting the same letter for each question), Kevin is suited to be a gas station attendant, Quinn is perfect as a neck model, and Daria -- thanks to her apathy and her lack of desire to interact with other people -- is destined to be a mortician. Helen insists that Daria get a job to improve her interpersonal skills and focus her career goals, and makes Quinn get one as well (so she can pay for her $500 modelling portfolio on her own). Daria opts instead to take social skills counselling at school, but when that ends in failure (due to Tiffany's glacially slow approach), she's forced to take a job that Jake sets up with a client. Daria's not thrilled to work at the mall's nut stand, and is even less so when she finds she's working next to the brain-dead Kevin, but that's topped by her humiliation when Trent finds out about her job, despite Jane's best efforts to steer him and Jesse away. When Jane is unable to coax Daria out of the store's back room, she puts in a call to Helen and convinces her that Daria is being hidden away from the public while the less qualified Kevin is put in the spotlight; enraged, Helen storms into the mall and "rescues" Daria. They both encounter Quinn, who's caused a ruckus at her pet store job when she enlists the help of Joey, Jeffy and Jamie to find a boa constrictor she accidentally let out of its tank. In the end, everyone ends up losing their jobs, including Kevin (thanks to the ever-jealous Brittany).

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#307 Daria!

The residents of Lawndale awaken to the news that a hurricane is approaching, a warning that -- at first -- no one seems to take very seriously. At school, Daria and Jane head to the roof to escape a pep rally being held in the gymnasium, a rally that Ms. Li cancels (along with the big football game) due to the approaching storm. Kevin and Brittany, convinced that the cancellation is some kind of secret plot spun straight from The X-Files, head to the roof to make out, but get trapped there along with Daria and Jane (thanks to Kevin's clumsiness) and all four have to ride out the storm in a utility shed. Meanwhile, Trent goes to the Morgendorffer house to wait for Jane and Daria to return, but Jake -- frantic over the fact that Daria is "out there in that maelstrom" -- decides to do the "manly" thing, and drags Trent out into the storm to find the girls... and promptly crashes his car into a tree. The storm finally subsides, and Daria and Jane return home to their relieved families.

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#308 Lane Miserables

As Helen bemoans the fact that there's very little communication in the Morgendorffer family, the Lanes suddenly become cursed with too much of it as the various wandering Lanes return to the nest: Wind, when his third marriage hits the rocks; Penny (along with her parrot Chiquito), when her Costa Rican craft shop is wiped out by a volcano; and their father, Vincent, who's home to develop his photos of Celtic rock formations. Little by little, Jane feels herself literally squeezed out of her house, and ends up taking refuge with the Morgendorffers. There, she's questioned about Daria by Helen and Jake, who both feel they know too little about their girls. Soon, Trent finds himself in the same predicament as Jane and decides to stay in the Tank for a while, but is able to weasel his way into staying with the Morgendorffers when he drops by to inform Jane of his plans. Having Trent in such close proximity forces Daria to come face to face with her crush on him, but when she finds out that Monique is his girlfriend (after she drops by to pick him up), she imagines -- with a little prodding from Quinn -- how her life would turn out if she actually hooked up with him... and it's not a pretty picture. Amanda finally can't stand having her wayward children (including Summer, who's come back to pick up her runaway kids) around the house anymore, and in desperation, she pleads with Helen to help her get her home back. Helen's plan? A family dinner, where their bickering succeeds in driving the Lane siblings off once again to parts unknown. As Jane and Trent prepare to leave, Trent (who has broken up with Monique for the umpteenth time) comments to Daria that it's too bad she's not a few years older, otherwise he could take her out. With that, Daria's crush -- which she believed she'd finally gotten over -- returns with a vengeance.

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#309 Jake of Hearts

Daria's day goes from bad to worse when the arrival of a pair of morning radio DJs at the school (orchestrated by Ms. Li, of course) is topped by Jake having a mild heart attack and flopping face-first into a bowl of guacamole. Convinced that the Grim Reaper is just around the corner, he demands to have his mother take care of him. Ruth Morgendorffer, like mothers-in-law throughout time, is overly critical of everything Helen does as she tends to her Jakey, which drives Helen into doing everything she can to prove her wrong. Quinn, meanwhile, is scared out of her mind over her father's brush with death, so she resolves to study medicine and become a heart specialist, but her efforts fall somewhat short of the mark when her primary training consists of a game of Operation and reading medical textbooks that are way out of her league. Ruth is no help, as she continually insists that Quinn concentrate on her looks and to get married so she doesn't have to work. At school, the DJs drive Daria to distraction with their antics, which range from love match-ups (with Upchuck as the potential mate) to "101 different words for 'sex'." Finally, Daria can't take it anymore, and manages to get rid of the DJs as only she can: by shaming them into leaving. Meanwhile, Ruth gets an earful from a recuperating Jake regarding his father, "Mad Dog" Morgendorffer, shattering her rose-colored image of the man and making her realize that his influence was not very beneficial for Jake. Daria reminds her of this to get her to lay off Helen and Quinn, and has a heart-to-heart with Jake that makes him feel much better as he realizes that he's doing much better than his father (who was already dead at Jake's age).

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#310 Speedtrapped

After overcoming tremendous obstacles -- and taking the driver's test several times -- Daria finally obtains her driver's license, complete with requisite bad photo. Jane throws her a small celebration, where she tells Daria that she'll be driving Mystik Spiral to a gig in Fremont, which is over 100 miles away. Helen and Jake leave for a weekend marriage retreat, leaving Daria to keep an eye on Quinn and the Fashion Club. However, just as Daria is about to relax, Jane calls and asks Daria to bail her and the band out of jail. Seems they were ticketed for a traffic violation, but couldn't pay the fine. After obtaining some cash from the Lane household, Daria is off to the rescue in Jake's Lexus, with Quinn on board "in case something cool happens." Daria is a typical first-time driver: timid and slow, and easily freaked out by such things as 18-wheelers. Quinn chides Daria for her timidness and convinces her to let her drive, but abandons that plan to flirt with Travis, a singing cowboy hitchhiker they pick up. As Jane and the band endure run-ins with various jailhouse denizens, Travis manages to sweet-talk the bail money out of Quinn, forcing her and Daria to work together on a scheme to make the money back. They do, only to find that Jane and the Spiral are working off their "debt to society" by entertaining kids at a birthday party for the sheriff's daughter. Soon, the Morgendorffer girls and the Spiral entourage head home, and Daria shows that she's anything but timid when they encounter Travis once again... and Daria tries to run him over.

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#311 The Lawndale File

The arrival at school of a pair of government agents, who advise students to be on the lookout for "anyone different," is just the start of what turns out to be a very weird couple of days in Lawndale. Daria and Jane attempt to take it in stride, but a segment about aliens on Sick, Sad World -- combined with unusually cheerful music from Trent -- begins to raise their paranoia meters. Daria's is raised even higher by the strange behavior of her family, when her parents start making odd references to aliens and Quinn starts wearing a black turtleneck sweater instead of her pink midriff T-shirt. Things really start spiralling out of control at school, however, as Mr. O'Neill's offhand comments to Daria and Jane about aliens, communists, and how they meant the same thing in 1950's sci-fi movies is overheard and misinterpreted by Kevin, Brittany, Upchuck, Mack, and Jodie... and Mr. DeMartino's arrest by the government agents apparently provides confirmation of everyone's suspicions. Daria and Jane endure more weirdness -- including a visit from U.F.O. nut Artie, who's now working as a pizza delivery boy -- before the misunderstandings are finally straightened out. Mr. DeMartino's arrest? Ms. Barch had turned him in to the Immigration and Naturalization Service as an alleged illegal alien. Quinn's new outfit? She was trying to hide a neck zit. Trent's unusually happy song? It's a jingle he wrote for a local used car dealer, to get some quick cash. And as it did in the beginning of the whole affair, Sick, Sad World provided the perfect capper with an interview of Artie, who claims that alien love goddesses deprived him of his skin and his job... aliens that look suspiciously like Daria and Jane.

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#312 Just Add Water

Lawndale High is holding a fund-raiser casino cruise aboard the Princess Fairy, a run-down toilet of a ship... and, of course, participation is mandatory by students and faculty. Daria and Jane's attention, however, is on a far more important matter: a Sick, Sad World mega-marathon. Quinn gets a mega-makeover for the event, and dumps her date to attend with Marco, a talcum powder model she meets at the beauty salon. Jake and Helen also decide to attend in order for Jake to butter up the ship's owner for a consulting contract. During the cruise, Jake tries to suck up to the owner, who's too concerned about the ship's drunken captain to listen, but gets hit on non-stop by the owner's overly amorous wife, DeeDee; Helen gets into a poker game with Ms. Li and the gambling-addicted Mr. DeMartino, whose luck has definitely seen better days; Sandi makes Quinn's life hell when she finds out that Quinn was stood up by spreading the news all over the ship; Kevin and Brittany adjourn to the lifeboat to make out, which falls into the water and drifts away from the ship; and Daria and Jane just want to catch up on their sleep. Eventually, Jake escapes DeeDee's clutches; DeeDee goes on to pursue Mr. O'Neill, and gets tossed overboard by Ms. Barch; Helen loses big to Ms. Li; and Daria and Jane don't get any sleep at all. The now-pilotless ship eventually crashes into a garbage scow and bottoms out in shallow water, and as everyone jumps overboard, the tables get turned on Sandi when her date publicly dumps her.

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#313 Jane's Addition

When Mr. O'Neill assigns his students to create multimedia projects, Daria and Jane decide to ask Trent to contribute some music. They plan to ask him during a gig at the Zen, but Jane becomes intrigued by a young man named Tom. During the Spiral's break, she and Tom go off to get some food, leaving a rather put-out Daria behind to speak with Trent, who agrees to help with their project. Unfortunately, neither development works out well for Daria, as Jane starts spending more and more time with Tom, while Trent doesn't appear to be putting any effort into his part of the project. This leads to tension all around, with Daria resenting Tom for what she perceives to be his horning in on her friendship with Jane, Jane -- who can't understand why Daria is so upset -- angry with Daria for the way she's acting towards Tom, and both girls upset with Trent for his lack of effort. Eventually, Daria and Tom come to an understanding regarding Jane, with Tom convincing her that he's not out to steal Jane's friendship (in fact, according to him, Daria is practically all that Jane talks about); they don't exactly become friends, but the tension is mostly lifted. At school, Daria and Jane turn in their project, a so-so effort that's upstaged by Upchuck's entry... all thanks to Trent, who (not surprisingly) failed to fulfill his commitment. In the end, Daria and Trent reconcile over Trent's blunder and they remain friends, even though Daria is now keenly aware of Trent's slacker tendencies and his inability to stick to commitments; and she, Jane, and Tom share a pizza and each others' company... a sign of interesting times to come.

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#401 Partner's Complaint

The students in Mrs. Bennett's class are given a "real world" economics assignment: apply for a loan, buy a car, etc. and report on the experience. Naturally, Daria and Jane will pair up for this, right? Wrong; the partners in crime are having a spat, due to Daria's continued difficulty in accepting Tom in Jane's life. A friendship isn't the only thing on the rocks, either: Kevin and Brittany are fighting again, this time over who is more intelligent than the other. Jodie eventually teams up with Daria, as she's reluctant to work with the lack-of-financial-savvy Mack (and she definitely doesn't want to work with Brittany), while Brittany joins forces with Jane and Kevin works with Mack. Both the Kevin/Mack and Brittany/Jane teams decide to buy a car, but each has a different experience. While Kevin and Mack are confronted by a fast-talking salesman, Brittany and Jane deal with a sleazeball who's only interested in Brittany's "assets." Jodie and Daria's experiences with getting a small business loan turn out to be both fruitful and frustrating; the first banker all but dismisses Jodie until he finds out that Jodie's father, Andrew Landon, is "the folding coffee cup guy," at which point he completely changes his tune. She accuses him of being racist, and they both leave. At the second bank, however, she slips into hypocritical territory by starting off her pitch by mentioning her father. When they return to Daria's house and she calls Jodie on it, Jodie blows up at her and leaves. This, and a heart-to-heart chat with Helen, makes Daria realize that she's been too rigid and inflexible, and while that is the way she prefers to live her life, she doesn't have to be so inflexible that it alienates her friends. At school, she apologizes to Jodie, but before she can do so to Jane, Jane tells her that she understands where she's coming from and why, and forgives her. And the big intelligence argument? Brittany wins that one by default when Kevin stupidly puts down a cash down-payment on a car, failing to understand that Mrs. Bennett didn't expect the students to actually go through with the purchase.

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#402 Antisocial Climbers

Inspired by their current assignment, Mr. O'Neill passes around a sign-up sheet for an overnight field trip to the woods. Naturally, Daria and Jane decline to participate in what they're sure will be yet another school-sponsored fiasco, but Daria changes her mind when she's convinced (aka "bribed") into going by Helen, who wants the weekend alone with Jake to "put some spice back into their marriage." The outing is a disaster from the get-go, from Quinn's plethora of fashion camping equipment to Mr. O'Neill's allergies to Ms. Li's obsession with recording the outing to get a lucrative endorsement. Even Kevin and Brittany can't avoid mishaps, as Brittany is repeatedly stung by bees that were hiding in the bouquet of flowers Kevin picked for her. And if all that weren't enough, a blizzard (surprise!) hampers their progress. When they finally reach the mountain cabin (minus Mr. O'Neill, who went back down to search for his extra inhaler), it is discovered that they have no supplies thanks to Joey, Jeffy and Jamie, who left them behind in order to carry Quinn's belongings... a situation that gets Quinn kicked out of the Fashion Club (temporarily). Daria and Jane tag along with Mr. DeMartino to search for food, and are abruptly left on their own when he falls off a cliff. It looks as though it might be the end, as the girls struggle through the blizzard to find their way back, when they stumble across the cabin where Helen and Jake were attempting to juice up their marriage. (Things weren't going quite as they had hoped; Mr. DeMartino's unexpected arrival was like a gift from Heaven.) In the end, the Morgendorffers return home together, Mr. O'Neill (who got lost) is found, and everyone returns home... except for Kevin, who accidentally got left behind at the cabin.

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#403 A Tree Grows In Lawndale

Kevin enters a "rebel" phase when he first gets a leather motorcycle jacket, then an actual motorcycle (well, a moped, anyway) when Daria and Jane point out what the jacket is for. Some of the guys at school goad him into attempting to pop a wheelie, and true to Daria and Jane's prediction, disaster strikes when he plows into the Tommy Sherman Memorial Tree and sprains his knee. Convinced that his football career is over, Kevin gives up his pads, his sports drinks, and his girlfriend, throwing both himself and Brittany into a pit of depression. Kevin's absence from the team begins to make its presence felt, as the Lions enter a major losing streak (through no fault of Mack, who tries his best but just isn't quarterback material) and the rest of the town reacts in strange ways, such as the Fashion Club being shunned at Cashman's and property values dropping like a rock. This leads to desperate measures all around, from Ms. Li bringing in a roughneck ringer quarterback to Quinn, Helen, and Jake contemplating moving to another town entirely. When Daria and Jane try to think of a way to rectify the situation, Tom suggests that Kevin could regain his self-esteem by becoming a safety speaker at elementary schools, lecturing kids on the dangers of riding motorcycles and how to avoid the mistake he made. The plan works a little too well, as Kevin becomes absorbed with being a safety lecturer and forgets all about the team, until Brittany convinces him to see the light and he returns to both her and the team.

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#404 Murder, She Snored

While handing back his students' tests, Mr. DeMartino informs the class that the impossibly high scores obtained by the members of the football team (sans Mack) could only have been achieved by cheating, and he names Kevin as his prime suspect. Kevin adamantly denies having stolen the test, and Mr. DeMartino tells the class that if the culprit does not come forward, he will give every student an "F" on the test. Naturally, this upsets Daria and Jane, as a "F" would wreck Daria's GPA and would void Jane's highest-scoring test to date. For once, however, the partners in crime have no plan to change the situation. At home, Daria stretches out on her bed and channel-surfs, passing several cheesy detective shows and TV movies (and, of course, Sick, Sad World), and then slowly, quietly, drifts off to sleep...

At school, Daria opens her curiously enlarged locker, and out falls Kevin's lifeless body. Mr. DeMartino points out that the perpetrator usually returns to the scene of the crime to admire his/her handiwork, and Ms. Li immediately (and without any shred of evidence) points the finger at Daria. Mr. O'Neill and Mr. DeMartino attempt to play "good cop/bad cop" in order to make Daria confess to the crime, but she doesn't crack. Faced with the prospect of prison time for a crime she didn't commit, Daria decides to find out exactly who killed Kevin, but since no one else around her is any help, she has to turn to the one source of last resort: Upchuck's Angels (aka the Fashion Club), a group of highly styled but barely brainy detectives. Predicably, they aren't any help. At Kevin's funeral, Daria confronts Mack, who gets very emotional when she brings up the subject of his hated nickname, "Mack Daddy." When Daria finds a gun in her locker, Ms. Li attempts to have her arrested for Kevin's death, until Daria points out that Kevin was attacked with everything except a gun (which, as it turns out, belongs to Quinn). Daria fleshes out the guilty parties by claiming that her locker was coated with a time-activated paint, and the hoax nabs four people: Jane, Brittany, Mack, and Mr. DeMartino. Of course, that ultimately doesn't matter to Ms. Li, who's already had an electric chair custom-fitted for Daria, so she has police officers Jake and Helen lead Daria away...

... and she awakens to the sound of her alarm clock blaring in her ear; it's 7:30 in the morning. All of the proceeding events had been nothing but a TV-influenced dream. At school, Mr. DeMartino has a change of heart -- sort of. He's going to give the students a make-up test, the scores for which should reveal who cheated and who didn't. Suddenly, Kevin barges through the door wearing a fake arrow on his head and pretending to be dying. This cracks up the football players, but doesn't exactly cheer up DeMartino, who's barely able to hold back his homicidal impulses.

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#405 The F Word

At a statewide teachers' conference, Mr. O'Neill becomes inspired by a speaker's assertion that "failure is often a sign of impending success." He then instucts his students to find something they know they would fail at, and see whether or not they do. The assignment has a wide range of outcomes: Brittany thinks she'd fail at being unpopular, but ends up getting kicked off the cheerleading squad when she starts quoting world events; Kevin thinks he'd fail at sports, but gets kicked off the team when he intentionally starts making mistakes; Mack succeeds at failing to teach Kevin the three branches of government; Jodie suceeds at failing to get the summer off from all her community service jobs; Daria fails to get Quinn grounded from attending the mall fashion show, but winds up being stuck as her chaperone; and Jane succeeds too well in becoming part of the popular crowd. Her new "conventional" look shocks Daria, Tom, and Trent, but what rocks them even more is her proclamation that she doesn't want to go back; however, Jane quickly returns to her previous self when, while trying out for the cheerleading squad, it finally dawns upon her exactly what she's doing. In the end, Mack and Jodie help get Kevin and Brittany back on their respective teams, and Jane and Daria console a devestated Mr. O'Neill (shattered by the realization that his "wonderful" assignment backfired horribly)... with the added bonus of Daria convincing him to babysit Quinn during the mall fashion show.

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#406 I Loathe A Parade

When Jake sends Daria to the drugstore to pick up some toilet paper, Daria discovers that she's walked right into the middle of the Lawndale High homecoming parade. After a run-in with Jane (who's meeting Tom), Daria attempts to return home, only to be thwarted by Ms. Li, then by a lost Tad Gupty. Cursing her concience, she decides to help Tad find his parents. Along the way, they run into Tom, who's looking for Jane, and the three of them hook up to search for the Guptys. At first, Daria is her usual aloof self towards Tom, but she eventually starts to warm up to him through their adventures (including hopping the Fashion Club's float -- with Daria narrowly escaping a makeover -- and several encounters with Mr. O'Neill dressed as the Lawndale Lions' mascot). They eventually find the Guptys, and eventually Jane finds them. As they head out to get some pizza, Daria is suddenly soaked with blue and yellow paint by two kids having a paint fight. Tom and Jane try to convince Daria to come along anyway, but she begs off. They eventually leave, but as they go, Tom steals a glance over his shoulder at a lonely and miserable Daria... and the viewer is left wondering if there might be more going on than meets the eye.

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#407 Of Human Bonding

Jake is excited over the opportunity to attend a franchising conference, where he'll have the opportunity to meet franchising genius Terry Perry Barlow. The rest of the family is not quite as excited, particularly Quinn, who's been forbidden to date while Helen and Jake are out of town. She is permitted to have one friend sleep over; however, when she tries to invite Stacy, she ends up inviting the rest of the Fashion Club when Sandi guilt-trips her. Daria's plan to stay at Jane's is similarly derailed when Jane informs her that she and Tom have something planned for Saturday night. And Jake's plans are almost ruined as well when Helen has to stay behind to handle a case, until Daria decides to accompany him in order to avoid Quinn and her friends (and for the opportunity to visit the Museum of Medical Oddities). On the flight, Jake reveals his fear of heights and begins to question his ability as a father, while Daria considers breaking down and expressing her confidence in her father. Back at home, Helen's case is settled at the last minute, leaving her free to stay at home and keep an eye on Quinn and her friends. Much to Quinn's embarrassment, however, Helen ends up joining their little party, getting a makeover from Sandi and asking for relationship advice. At the symposium, Jake and Daria run into Jodie's parents, and as Andrew introduces Jake to Terry Perry Barlow, Michele and Daria head to the snack table to talk. Barlow is impressed with Daria's frankness when he later asks her opinion about theme restaurants, and invites her and Jake to go ballooning with him early the next morning. Daria initially resists, but relents when she starts feeling guilty about how she and Jake have never really gotten to know each other. In the morning, Daria, Jake, and Barlow prepare for their balloon trip, but Arnold, the assistant, balks due to the weather, Jake's inexperience, and Barlow's attitude. When he bails, Barlow decides to chuck the trip and go sailing, but Jake is inadvertantly launched in the balloon, where he's successful in finally overcoming his fear of heights... right before crashing into a tree. Emboldened by his newfound confidence, he takes Daria to the Museum of Medical Oddities, where he learns the true nature of fear.

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#408 Psycho Therapy

Helen's boss, Eric, is considering her for a big promotion, but before that happens, she and the family must attend a weekend retreat so that the company can evaluate them. Daria thinks that the whole thing is ridiculous, while Quinn is under the impression that she can get facials and other beauty treatments at the "spa." At the retreat, each member of the family undergoes one-on-one therapy sessions, where Helen prattles on nervously and self-consciously, Jake pours out his inner torment, Daria barely tolerates the questioning while making some rather acid observations about her family, and Quinn goes on and on about her Fashion Club friends and how she desperately wants a facial. In an attempt to distract herself from her surroundings, Daria uses one of the spa's computers to view the goings-on at the Lane household via "JaneCam," a live Internet webcam set up in Jane's bedroom. What she sees -- Jane flossing her teeth, Trent talking to Jane while scratching his butt, and Tom goofing on a TV dance show -- is hardly earth-shattering, but it's better than her surroundings. Things finally come to a head at a group counselling session, where each family member is asked to act out what they think is another's traits. Helen and Jake end up imitating each other, with each escalating things until Jake finally hits too close to home by accusing Helen of being a vicious control-freak who cares more about her job than her family. Shaken and upset, Helen rushes out of the room, with Jake and Daria not far behind (leaving Quinn to complain about the lack of facials). Daria finds Helen in the parking lot and reassures her that despite the lack of attention and the long hours she puts in at the office, they know that she's doing it for the good of the family, and that truth be told, they're all a bit guilty in contributing to their overall dysfunction. The family returns home, each perhaps a little wiser for the experience (all except for Quinn), and when Daria visits Jane, she discovers that Tom's anger at his privacy being invaded was the cause of death for "JaneCam."

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#409 Mart of Darkness

Several completely disparate events finds many familiar faces winding up at the same mega-discount warehouse store: Jane needs a new supply of Gummi Bears for her sculpture because Tom inadvertantly chowed down on her supply; Daria needs a new bootlace because Quinn stole hers to replace the purse string she broke; Kevin and Brittany need to get barbeque sauce for the Lawndale High cookout being held at the Thompsons'; the Fashion Club needs sunscreen; and Trent and Jesse just happen to be going there, with Tom tagging along hoping for the opportunity to make amends with Jane. At the barbeque, Mr. O'Neill tries talking to Mr. Thompson about Kevin's grades, but all Mr. Thompson is interested in doing is pressuring Mr. O'Neill to pass Kevin along. Eventually, things deteriorate into a brawl when Ms. Barch comes to Mr. O'Neill's defense after Mr. Thompson tries to rough him up. At the warehouse store, Daria and Jane find the items they need and unexpectedly run into Andrea, whose parents made her take a job there as a stock clerk. (She expects them to cut her down, but Jane and Daria reassure Andrea that "they never saw her," thereby elevating them a notch or two in her eyes.) Tom doesn't find Jane, but he does get driven to distraction by Trent's and Jesse's much-too-laid-back attitudes. The whole sordid affair is topped off by a power blackout caused by Mr. DeMartino (who is forbidden by court order from eating at all future Lawndale High functions) and Mrs. Johansen fighting over the last free cheese log.

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#410 Legends of the Mall

When Jake can't get his car started, Daria and Jane volunteer Trent's services to take them to the mall to pick up Quinn and the Fashion Club. As the girls are walking home, Stacy tells the story of a girl from 1968 (played by Sandi) who was the most beautiful and popular girl in her class. However, she was obsessed over being perfect, until eventually she lost so much weight that her bones rattled. Humiliated, she vowed revenge against all the other girls in the school, scaring them while they slept until they all became plain and ugly due to lack of sleep. Meanwhile, as they drove, Trent tells Jake, Daria, and Jane the story of "Metalmouth," a metal shop teacher from the 1980s (played by Mr. DeMartino) who ground his teeth in frustration over his idiotic students, until one day he ground them down to nothing. Unable to afford dentures on a teacher's salary and driven to madness over his inability to speak clearly, he forged a set of solid steel dentures. Unfortunately, they had one drawback: they picked up radio stations, usually when they were playing a Cyndi Lauper tune. Further humiliated, he began stalking kids in the woods, biting holes in their tires and chewing on the door handles. Jake is scared by the story, but the ever-cynical Daria and Jane are not. When the car breaks down, Jane tells her own story about a family from the 1950s (played by the Morgendorffers) whose daughter, a smart and cynical girl, was trying to get into college. Since it was the height of the Cold War era, the father in this family built a state-of-the-art bomb shelter, to which the daughter eventually retreated in order to complete her college applications in peace and quiet. Unfortunately, she fell asleep as her father laid cement over the shelter in order to build a barbeque pit. Trapped in the shelter with no way to get out, she vowed her revenge: if she couldn't get into college (and, henceforth, out of Lawndale), then no one else would, either. Her spirit would continue to haunt anyone who lived in the house, changing their homework answers and forcing them to fail and get minimum-wage jobs in town. As Jane wraps up her story, Quinn and the Fashion Club arrive on the scene, who inform them that they're only two blocks away from home. Back at the house, Jake and the girls are sitting at the kitchen table when Helen arrives. She explains that she thinks she's having car trouble: she was stopped by the light near the woods when she heard the radio, but it wasn't on... followed by a strange scraping sound on the door.

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#411 Groped By An Angel

After watching a television show proclaiming the existence of guardian angels, Quinn becomes a believer. Daria is, of course, skeptical, but that's not the least of her problems: Jane is pressuring her to go to a party that's being held in Brittany's honor to celebrate her "C-" average (a party at which Mystik Spiral is performing). Jane finally convinces her to go by reminding her that Quinn would be mortified if they went. Quinn's new-found spirituality is reinforced when she narrowly avoids being hit by a falling light fixture that Jake is attempting to install, claiming that her guardian angel saved her. Stacy and Tiffany are also convinced, as are the Three J's, but Sandi doesn't buy it. However, there's no stopping Quinn, especially after the rest of the Fashion Club becomes ill after eating salad with bad dressing from the school cafeteria. Daria becomes increasingly irritated by what she sees as her sister's faux spirituality and obvious gullibility, an attitude that starts to irritate an exasperated Helen, who sees nothing wrong with what she sees as an essentially harmless belief. At Brittany's party, Sandi takes every opportunity to gloat when Quinn is twice humiliated: once when Brittany's out-of-control brother Brian soaks her with a drink, and again when she leans on Mystik Spiral's mixing board, causing electronic feedback that shatters the gift that Brittany's father bought for her. At home, Quinn is mortified at what she believes is the loss of her guardian angel; Daria is sarcastic at first, but relents and tells Quinn that she should believe in whatever makes her feel best, and doesn't disabuse Quinn of her theory that perhaps her guardian angel is reserving himself for more important matters.

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#412 Fire!

When Jake accidentally sets the kitchen on fire while attempting to make some warm milk, the family has to stay in a hotel for two weeks while repairs are made. Jake and Helen immediately take advantage of the opportunity to rekindle the romance in their marriage, and Quinn revels in the attention being lavished on her by bellboy Bobby, but both she and Daria balk at having to share a room. Conceding the room to Quinn, Daria goes to stay at Jane's house, where she finds herself smack in the middle of Jane and Tom's relationship problems. Jane puts Daria up in Penny's old room, where Daria starts finding herself getting more attention from Tom, to Jane's annoyance. Daria senses the tension and volunteers to return to the hotel, but changes her mind when Quinn invites the Fashion Club to the room; Jane, despite being wary, doesn't have the heart to refuse. As Quinn and the Fashion Club enjoy Bobby's constant attention, Sandi plants a seed of doubt in Quinn's head by suggesting that perhaps Bobby is actually stalking Quinn. Quinn, of course, denies it, and attempts to talk to her parents about it, but Helen and Jake are too wrapped up in enjoying themselves to pay much attention. After Tom and Daria get wrapped up in another intellectual conversation, Jane confronts Daria about her suspicions. Daria denies that there's anything going on between her and Tom, and tells her that she has no interest in him. A seed of doubt is planted in her head, however, after Trent also discusses the situation with her. Helen and Jake's good time is interrupted by the hotel detectives, who are holding Quinn after finding that Bobby has been stalking Quinn by charging the Morgendorffers for merchandise and then deleting the transactions from the computer. Quinn is mortified... she almost dated a "computer geek." As the Morgendorffers drive away from the hotel, Daria stares out the window, lost in thought... wondering, perhaps, if Jane and Trent were right all along.

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#413 Dye! Dye! My Darling!

Jane comes up with what she thinks is a terrific artistic expression, a variation on "the lady or the tiger": she will dye blond stripes into her hair, becoming "the lady and the tiger". She talks Daria into helping her, a task complicated by Jane's increasing paranoia and jealousy over what she believes is Daria's attempted theft of Tom. The dye job turns out to be anything but a success, as what were supposed to be smooth blonde stripes end up as jagged orange streaks. Daria reminds Jane that she told her she was no good at this, but Jane -- furious beyond belief -- accuses Daria of deliberately ruining her hair and throws her out of the house. After getting the cold shoulder treatment and striking out on several attempts to talk to her, Daria gives Tom a call to see if he's heard from her. He tells her he has, mainly in the form of incoherent screaming and accusations, and confides in Daria that he's getting tired of it. Jane, meanwhile, tells Trent about the situation, and he helps her to see that her jealousy was getting the better of her; she realizes that she deliberately set Daria up, knowing that she'd botch the job, to give her an excuse to vent. Daria finally patches things up with Jane, but when she returns to her house, she sees Tom parked in front. Tom attempts to talk to Daria, but it quickly turns into an argument when Daria adamantly denies that anything is "happening" between them... right before Tom impulsively kisses her and, after a moment of self-hatred, she goes back for seconds! She flees, but her guilt and confusion builds to the point where she tries first to talk to Quinn, then Helen, but to no avail. Eventually, her guilt becomes so great that, at school the next day, she blurts out what she's done. An enraged Jane confronts Tom and, after a heart-to-heart talk where he tells her that it was his fault, they face the fact that their relationship wasn't going anywhere, and they split up. After talking with Trent once again, Jane works up the nerve to confront Daria, who tries to assure her that she never set out to steal Tom away, that it was something that just happened. Jane seems to accept this, but tells Daria that it would be best if they spent some time apart, leaving Daria alone and miserable. Until the phone rings, that is. "Daria? It's Tom..."

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Movie: Is It Fall Yet?

It's the onset of summer vacation at Lawndale High, but few students or teachers seem to be approaching it with any enthusiasm. (The exceptions are Mr. O'Neill, who's geeked to be running the OK to Cry Corral, a summer camp for sensitive children; and Kevin and Brittany, who have jobs as lifeguards.) Mack has a summer job driving an ice cream truck so that he can earn money to pay back his father, while Jodie's slate is full of anything and everything her parents think will look good on a college application. Quinn, meanwhile, is upset about her low grades and PSTAT test scores, which is preventing her from getting into her favorite "party college." And Daria seems to be the one who is the worst off, as she tries to handle her new relationship with Tom while dealing with Jane's departure to the Ashfield Artists' Colony -- run by a friend of her mother's -- and lingering resentment over "the Tom thing" (despite Jane's protests to the contrary).

Quinn's attempts to elicit sympathy and understanding from the Fashion Club fall on deaf ears, but she eventually agrees to tutoring after a kitchen-time discussion with Helen (who, at the same time, also deals with Jake's utter inability to see when someone's joking as well as Daria's apparent plan to hibernate for the whole summer). The Fashion Club, Sandi especially, is less than supportive, but they quickly change their tune when Joey, Jeffy and Jamie throw their support behind Quinn. David Sorensen, the tutor Helen hires on a recommendation from her boss (David tutored Eric's niece, Jasmine), strikes out with the nasty and self-absorbed Sandi, scatter-brained Tiffany, and neurotic Stacy, but manages to reach Quinn (after some initial resistance). To her eventual astonishment, Quinn discovers her long-dormant brain cells... and what's more, she finds she actually likes learning! But she soon finds herself with a dilemma: she's falling for David.

Daria's relationship with Tom is not exactly off to a smooth start. After his less than spectacular introduction to Helen and Jake, he and Daria encounter one person after another who keeps asking why he's not dating Jane. Daria has enough trouble dealing with that, but gets the added pressure of meeting Tom's family at their country club. They seem to be warm and accepting, but Daria just grows more uncomfortable, particularly when Kay Sloane later calls Helen and invites them to the benefit she is holding at the Lawndale Art Museum. Eventually, Daria and Tom get into a huge argument, where Daria accuses him and his family of being snobs and Tom volleys back that she's nearly impossible to reach despite all his attempts... and they break up (or, rather, Daria breaks them up).

As if all that weren't bad enough, Helen signs Daria up (against her will) for Mr. O'Neill's camp for sensitive children, because Helen refuses to let Daria shut herself away from the rest of the world. Daria isn't alone in her torture: Mr. DeMartino is also a counselor, as he is trying to re-discover his passion for teaching (a passion squelched by the likes of Kevin and Brittany). At the camp, Mr. O'Neill's touchy-feely methods are not a big hit with the campers (who want to go outside and play), but Mr. DeMartino's gruff demeanor -- which initially convinces him that he's a failure at dealing with kids -- wins over the children, particularly after he chews out the camp bully and, eventually, leads a "revolt" that has him leading the kids in a hike in the woods. Daria, meanwhile, deals with a particularly surly and depressed kid named Link. She's strangely drawn into helping him, perhaps because she sees a lot of herself in him. She nearly succeeds in reaching out to him, only to have the effort squelched by the well-meaning but clueless Mr. O'Neill. When camp is finally over for the summer, Mr. DeMartino has rediscovered his passion for teaching, but Daria fears that she's failed in helping Link, who leaves the camp even more bitter and disillusioned than when he arrived.

At Ashfield, Jane initially looks forward to a whole summer of communing with fellow artists, but soon becomes disillusioned when her fellow attendees turn out to be a bunch of poseurs and opportunists, many of whom look down on her because she's "just a high-schooler." She does, however, hit it off with one girl, Alison, and they eventually strike up a friendship, with Jane believing that she's finally found an artistic soulmate. But that, too, is soon shattered when Alison reveals that she's looking for more than a soulmate: she wants a bedmate... Jane, to be specific. Jane tries to convince her that she's not bisexual, but Alison doesn't buy it; frustrated and confused, Jane flees back to her cabin. When Jane later learns that Alison is having a fling with Daniel Dotson, the obnoxious and talentless guest artist, her whole view of the art world gets thrown into turmoil, as she's starting to wonder if all artists aren't just pretentious, opportunistic poseurs... and, maybe, if she's making a mistake in trying to be an artist.

By comparison, the summer activities of Kevin, Brittany, Mack and Jodie are relatively sedate. Kevin and Brittany prove to be worse than useless as lifeguards: their flirting causes them to miss seeing a drowning boy, their horsing around on the pool deck sets a bad example for the other kids, and their CPR lesson becomes a makeout session... all of which gets them fired. Jodie's overwhelming workload lands her with no free time, but she and Mack eventually get together when he brings her flowers while she works at a soup kitchen. Mack is able to endure screaming kids long enough to make back the money he owes his father (plus a little extra to take Jodie to Chez Pierre). And what happens to his ice cream truck job when he quits? He hands the job to someone else: Kevin and Brittany.

Daria eventually nears her wit's end and, desperate to talk to "intelligent life," calls Jane, who initially resists a visit but eventually relents. She hitches a ride with Trent, with whom she talks about her relationship (or lack thereof) with Tom. Trent reassures her that Jane knows they didn't mean to hurt her, and that she'll come around eventually (reassurance that's rendered less significant when Trent starts singing "betrayal... yeah, stab in the back..."). When she and Jane finally hook up at Ashfield, both girls attend the nearby Mystik Spiral gig (the reason that Trent drove out there), and there they hash out the issues that were plaguing them since the summer began. Daria gets reassured that Jane is finally over "the Tom thing," Jane gets a shot in the self-esteem when she needs it most, and most importantly, their friendship is back on track. There's even a bonus: Jane reveals just how at peace she is with the situation when she tells Daria that she should give Tom another chance.

Quinn's tutoring sessions finally come to an end, with David praising her for coming so far in so short a time. Bolstered by her newfound confidence and intelligence, Quinn tries to ask David out on a date, but is shot down... gently, but firmly. (They're from two different worlds, he says, and it would never work out.) Devastated, she seeks advice from Daria, who manages to convince Quinn that she's not as superficial as she thinks (because if she was willing to date David -- who isn't exactly a "totally buff hottie" -- then she must've seen something beyond his looks). She also reminds Quinn that she learned a whole bunch of stuff and that she doesn't need to act like a dummy if she doesn't want to, and tells Quinn that despite the risk of rejection, she needs to give people a chance -- like David did with her -- otherwise, there's no point to the whole "being human" thing. Helen, who overhears their conversation, manages to turn this last point around on Daria, but leaves to let Daria ponder her own words... but not before handing her a letter from Link. Turns out that Daria did reach him after all: he invites her to e-mail him if she wants to.

On the first day of school, Quinn manages to show how much she's learned over the summer by correctly answering (with a Quinn-esque twist) Mr. DeMartino's question about Manifest Destiny, which further validates his love of teaching but irritates Sandi no end... irritation that turns to utter confusion when Quinn blows her out of the water with a difficult vocabulary word. After school, as Daria and Jane are walking home, Tom pulls up and -- after a very cordial exchange with Jane -- offers Daria a ride home. Daria is about to resist, but Jane excuses herself, and Daria has no choice but to face him (which was what Jane intended). When they reach her house, they discuss their situation, and after getting Daria to admit that the whole dating thing was new to her and that she was afraid to commit herself, he offers to try again, but to go more slowly this time. She accepts, and as Helen looks on from the living room window, Tom and Daria engage in a little smooching. Helen waxes philosophical about the whole summer, to which Jake replies, "Is it summer already?" Helen is about to chastise him, but then sees the look on his face: he made a joke! They then engage in a little horseplay of their own as the sun slowly sets, ending a very wild and crazy summer in Lawndale on a most appropriate theme: "Freakin' friends, freakin' friends, 'till we come to bad ends we're freakin' friends..."

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#501 Fizz Ed

Lawndale High is facing a severe budget crisis, due to voters having turned down a property tax increase for a third consecutive year, and its effects are being felt everywhere: Mr. O'Neill has to hand out faded photocopies of reading assignments, the maps in Mr. DeMartino's room are outdated, Ms. Defoe's class runs out of red paint, and the field trip to the planetarium by Ms. Barch's class has to be cancelled. Ms. Li, however, doesn't act until she finds out that the football team can't buy new equipment. She turns for help to Leonard Lamm, a marketer for the soft drink companies, who lays on a heavy sales pitch: allow soft drink companies to bid on an exclusivity agreement for the school, and in exchange for some product placement and a few "unobtrusive" ads, the school will get $50,000. Ms. Li goes for it in a big way, and schedules a school review meeting for Super Bowl Sunday (and gives a low-key verbal announcement over the P.A. to ensure that no students inform their parents). Daria tries to convince Helen and Jake to go, but they're going to Eric's Super Bowl party, so she goes herself. She tries to reason with Lamm and Ms. Li as to the questionable ethics of what's being planned, but her statements fall on deaf ears. As a result, Ultra Cola machines and advertisements soon show up everywhere in the school. Determined to see this situation end, Daria tries to convince Jodie to speak up, but although she doesn't think very highly of it herself, she's nevertheless under the spell of funding for her extracurriculars, and when Daria tries to press the issue, Jodie calls Daria on her lack of conviction to back up her words with actions. When Tom finally convinces Daria to take action, she and Jane go to see the superintendent of schools. Although Daria makes another impassioned argument, Superintendent Cartwright isn't convinced, and when Daria challenges him to just "come to Lawndale High and see for himself," he says he'll think about it. Soon, Lamm tells Ms. Li that Lawndale High isn't meeting the quotas set forth in the contract, and if she wants the money, she'll have to increase consumption by the students. This leads to an all-out Ultra Cola barrage, with the school and everything associated with it (teaching materials, football and cheerleader uniforms) decked out in Ultra Cola colors and logos; in addition, she bribes the football team with higher grades if they consume more Ultra Cola. Unfortunately, the team consumes so much that they get sick, and they have to forfeit a big game against the Oakwood High Taproots. Ms. Li eventually goes over the edge, going on a caffeine- and stress-induced rampage through the halls and smashing open Ultra Cola machines to get the students to drink... all in front of the visiting Superintendent Cartwright. Ms. Li is hauled away in an ambulance, but Daria's victory is only a partial one: most of the Ultra Cola stuff is removed, but what remains serves as a more subtle influence on the students.

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#502 Sappy Anniversary

When Quinn receives a bunch of flowers and gifts, she informs Daria that it's a sign of how much a guy cares, and after pestering her about her upcoming six-month anniversary with Tom, Daria starts to wonder whether Tom is taking her for granted. This assumption is reinforced when Daria and Tom get together and he'd rather just hang out than go out and do something, saying that "normal dates" are for people with no imagination. When Jane reveals during a heart-to-heart talk that Tom did some romantic things with her (like pony rides and fancy Italian dinners), Daria becomes even more convinced. When Tom stops by and asks Daria if she'd like to go for a walk -- after Quinn tries unsuccessfully to jog Tom's memory -- they end up sitting in the park, where Tom finds that Daria's mad at him but, naturally, stubbornly refuses to tell him why. He walks away rather than engage in a no-win argument, leaving Daria angry and upset (more at herself than at Tom). Meanwhile, Jake gets involved in Buzzdome.com, an Internet dot-com startup that's looking for fresh blood. He knows squat about the Internet, but figures he'd get in on the ground floor and make a killing on the initial stock offering. Turns out he missed the stock offering, but Noah Barkman, Buzzdome's 24-year-old president, convinces him to stay on. Jake finds himself increasingly over his head, but in true Jake fashion, he plows ahead enthusiastically, determined to make a go of it. Unfortunately, his success is short-lived when his laptop computer crashes and takes his presentation with it. His subsequent presentation shows just how little he knows about the Internet game, but the experience isn't a total loss: Noah hires Jake as a consultant, to act as a one-man focus group for the market segment that's utterly confused about the Internet experience. At school, Daria mopes around with Jane, kicking herself about her argument with Tom, but when she sees others doing equally stupid things in the name of romance, she resolves (with a little nudge from Jane) to patch things up. At Tom's house, Daria reveals to him how she was upset that he didn't remember their anniversary, and how -- in totally non-Daria fashion -- she found herself actually caring about that fact. Tom reassures her that he does care for her, and explains that he only did those things with Jane after his relationship with her started fizzling out; he did romantic things to hide the fact that he no longer felt romantic. In the end, both he and Daria end up non-celebrating their anniversary over a box of Quinn's chocolates.

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#503 Fat Like Me

At Sandi's house, the Fashion Club is reviewing guidelines for new membership, and among the changes is a reduction in the maximum allowable weight (a change that was ramrodded through by Sandi). Sandi suddenly falls victim to the antics of her brothers Sam and Chris, whose argument over a toy truck's remote control causes her to fall down the stairs and break her leg. Quinn is upset about Sandi's predicament, but she tries to keep the club going; Stacy and Tiffany, however, don't seem to mind Sandi's absence. At school, the girls are discussing the latest in fashion when Quinn sees Sandi hobbling down the hallway on crutches. But that's not the worst of it: Sandi's gained weight. Quinn, Stacy and Tiffany try to cover up their shock, but when Quinn tries to show the Three J's that Sandi's returned, it's too much; Sandi rushes out of the school, panting and wheezing because she's now out of shape. A tearful Sandi tells Quinn that she's going to honor the Fashion Club's weight requirements and resign the presidency, but to prevent Quinn from taking over, she guilt-trips Quinn into resigning as well. Upon hearing the news, Daria and Jane -- who've been making friendly wagers over everything from candy to the antics of Kevin and Mr. DeMartino -- make a bet to see whether the Fashion Club will survive without their two leaders. Stacy and Tiffany try to go it alone, but it soon becomes obvious that they need Quinn and/or Sandi to survive. Unfortunately, they're stuck, as Quinn refuses to betray her word to Sandi (after Jane secretly guilt-trips her) and Sandi obviously isn't going to come back as long as she's overweight. They try everything they can -- even attempting to trick the Three J's into joining -- but Stacy soon gets fed up with Tiffany's self-absorption and lack of leadership, and quits after blowing up at Tiffany. It looks like Jane has won the bet, but it's not to be: Sandi returns, thin as she was before she left, thanks to Quinn (who -- with some prodding from Daria -- put Sandi on a rigid exercise regimen). The next Fashion Club meeting is an indicator of how much things have changed for the girls, as Sandi is now more sympathetic to overweight people and Stacy and Tiffany are now standing up for their opinions, rather than being cowed into submission by Sandi.

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#504 Camp Fear

Both Daria and Quinn receive invitations to attend a reunion at Camp Grizzly, the summer camp that both girls had attended years ago. Daria, naturally, doesn't want to go -- she has plenty of bad memories about the place -- but Helen convinces her by planning a weekend garage-cleaning, saying that if she doesn't want to go, she can help clean. Daria is offered a ride to the camp by Jane and Trent, the latter experiencing creative burnout and is thinking of breaking up the band; a day trip to the country just might give him the inspiration he needs. Unfortunately, they have to bring Quinn as well, who naturally complains non-stop during the drive there. At the camp, Quinn (who had them drop her off out of sight of the others) meets up with three of her old friends from camp, while Daria experiences a bittersweet reunion with Amelia, a fellow camper, and Skip Stevens, the self-proclaimed "camper's camper" (i.e. dictator over his fellow campers). After being mistaken by Skip for people from a rival camp, Jane and Trent take off for a country adventure, and boy, do they ever get one: they meet a country bumpkin couple who makes their own snacks. Jane doesn't want to have anything to do with it, but Trent inexplicably accepts their invitation to their house, thinking that he can get some inspiration from these people. Meanwhile, at the camp, the campers endure Skip's over-the-top enthusiasm during a nature hike and a cookout, while Daria ignores the festivities and does her own thing. Amelia decides to hang out with Daria, but soon regrets it when Daria's sarcastic and cynical nature causes her to toss out some caustic commentary on Skip, the whole camp experience in general, and Amelia, whom she accuses of being a blind follower. Upset and hurt, Amelia accuses Daria of being a bitter person who doesn't like anyone, a charge that hits very close to home. (Speaking of which, Jake and Helen are busy all this time, cleaning out the garage and arguing about how Helen's constant need to work keeps interfering with their plans. They make up, however, when Jake finds a sexy nightgown that Helen had hidden for one of their trips.) Back at the camp, Quinn manages to alienate her old friends by accidentally revealing that she had snuck off with one of her friend's dates back when they were at camp, and Daria finds herself the object of unwanted admiration when Amelia makes a heartfelt speech about standing up to Skip's dictatorial ways and doing your own thing. Skip, angry and embarrassed, appeals to the camp director, who tells Skip that it's just a summer camp and he shouldn't make it his whole life. Daria and Amelia patch things up just as Jane and Trent arrive. Having bombed out with the old couple, Trent finds some consolation in joining Jane to tease Daria about her "secret popularity," and during the drive home, Trent, after reflecting on the events of the day, finally gets his inspiration back. Jane mentions that they seem to be forgetting something, and Daria informs them that Quinn found another ride home... with the obnoxious and annoying Skip.

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#505 The Story of D

When Jane contacts Daria to find out why she's missing a movie they wanted to see, she finds that Daria was engrossed in writing a short story. Nothing new there; what is new, however, is that she's thinking of submitting it somewhere for publication. Jane eventually convinces Daria to let her read the story, and while she admits she's not the best judge of literature, she tells Daria to let Tom take a crack at it. His enthusiasm and encouragement propels Daria to -- reluctantly -- submit the story to Musings Magazine. Meanwhile, the Fashion Club is inspired by the FashionVision Humanitarian Awards to perform a charitable act... for their own advantage, of course (which, in this case, means donating a new mirror for the girls' bathroom at school). After brainstorming, they decide to create and sell a newsletter, with tips on beauty and fashion trends, in order to pay for the new mirror. A few days after mailing her submission, Daria receives the ultimate writer's nightmare: a rejection letter. Her ego badly bruised and her anger at a slow burn, she goes over to Tom's house and rakes him over the coals (again) for insisting she subject herself to such humiliation. Tom defends himself (again) by telling her that he was only being supportive, and that she is acting childish. She leaves in a huff (again), and Tom lets her stew in her juices (again). The Fashion Club has also experienced their own form of rejection: the "What's Hot and What's Rot" issue of Waif magazine has contradicted everything they put into their newsletter. In desperation, they buy back all the newsletters and pitch them, and in the end they mount a made-up plaque on the wall of the girl's bathroom. Daria eventually comes to realize (with a little inadvertent help from Jake) that one rejection isn't the end of the world, and asks Tom over so that she can apologize. They end up sharing a smooch -- which freaks out Helen, who's on a "Daria and Tom and sex" thing after a phone call from her sister Rita (whose daughter Erin is having marriage troubles; turns out she only married Brian because he gave her herpes) -- and Daria embarks on another short story.

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#506 Lucky Strike

Lawndale High's teachers go on strike after Ms. Li refuses to meet their demands for higher wages. Determined to keep the school running, she hires substitutes to replace the striking teachers. One of them, Mrs. Stoller, is an old woman who doesn't seem to be connecting very well: she treats the students like they were first graders (because that's what she thinks they are), and calls Kevin "Cubie" (for "Q.B.") and continually chides him for his bad posture. The replacement for Mr. O'Neill, a budding author, turns out to be something of a pedophile, and when Helen hears about it, she puts the legal gears into motion and gets him fired. Incensed, Ms. Li demands that Daria take his place, and, after a brief internal debate, she accepts, much to Quinn's mortification. On the picket line, the teachers don't seem to be getting their message across very well, until Ms. Defoe asks Jane to help with some strike posters and Mr. O'Neill convinces Trent to help him write a stirring strike song. Mr. DeMartino, however, is livid over Ms. Li's latest offer, and decides to brave the lion's den and not come back until she accepts the teachers' offer. In English class, Daria discovers that the students were studying Romeo and Juliet, and after a few classes, prepares to give them a test on the material. Sandi urges Quinn to convince Daria to go easy on them, but Daria is not swayed; she's determined to do the best she can in a thankless position. Quinn is smarter than they are, she reminds her, and if all her friends are interested in is figuring out how to finesse the test, then they deserve to fail. Dejected, Quinn hunkers down to study, but when Jake tries (and fails) to help her, she finds that she already knows the material. The next day, in History class, Mrs. Stoller gives the students an ultra-simple test, which almost everyone aces (Brittany gets a "C," and Kevin gets an "F" for not knowing the colors on the U.S. flag... which is right in front of him!). In English class, Daria's test consists of one question: to say what you thought Romeo and Juliet was about and back it up. Most of the students do well, since Daria was more interested in having them expand their thinking instead of simply reciting facts, but Sandi, Stacy, and Tiffany -- who copied off each other -- all get a "D-" for talking about the Leonardo DiCaprio movie. Quinn, however, gets a "B+," and when Sandi accuses Quinn of sucking up to Daria "like she's a relative or something," Quinn turns around and puts Sandi in her place by defending Daria... and finally revealing, in public, that they're sisters. Sandi tries to use this revelation for one last shot at humiliating Quinn, but it's not to be: Stacy and Tiffany (and almost everyone else in the whole school) already knew, but they didn't say anything because they were being polite. At home, Daria reassures Quinn that she earned her grade solely on her own merit; after all, she says, would she ever do anything nice for Quinn? And the strike? It finally ends with the teachers prevailing, thanks to Mr. DeMartino's perseverance. His elation at his victory is short-lived, however, as he once again faces the one obstacle that's impossible to overcome: teaching Kevin.

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#507 Art Burn

A music video Jane is shooting for the Mystik Spiral song "Mr. Normal" is disrupted when the gazebo in the Lanes' back yard collapses. (The band escapes uninjured, though they're all "traumatized" for the next few weeks.) Jane and Trent are willing to write off the gazebo until Wind shows up and becomes upset at its destruction, saying that it was their parents' "naming gazebo." Jane works out an arrangement with the perpetually broke Trent: she'll pay for a new gazebo if he makes all the arrangements to get it built. She decides to sell some of her paintings at Lawndale's "Art in the Park" event, but they don't exactly fly off the wall. In fact, the only one that generates any interest at all is her upside-down Van Gough reproduction. One such interested customer is Gary, the owner of a local art gallery that specializes in reproductions of famous works of art, who's so impressed by her talent that he offers her a job: make reproductions for his gallery in return for a share of the profits from each sale. Meanwhile, the Fashion Club comes across a caricature artist and has a group portrait drawn. Apparently, though, none of them had ever learned the concept of "caricature" because they become horrified at what the artist has drawn, and they vow to exact their revenge. Unfortunately, their attempts to enlist Helen's help in this matter are not successful (Tiffany even asks her to have the guy's fingers broken!). On the art front, Jane becomes more and more wrapped up in painting reproductions, so much so that she starts to lose all desire to paint her own original work even long after she makes enough to pay for the new gazebo (construction on which is going at a snail's pace, thanks to lazy workers and Trent's inability to get tough with them). Worried that she's becoming a hack, and inventing paranoid fantasies that Gary's really an international art forger passing off reproductions so good they're indistinguishable from the originals, she enlists Daria's help to infiltrate Gary's Gallery and find out who was the last person to buy one of her reproductions. That person turns out to be Steve Taylor, who deflates her paranoid fantasies when he points out that you can easily tell it's a fake. That and Trent's accusation of "selling out" are enough to convince her to get out of the reproduction business and back to her own original artwork. Fired with new-found determination, she cracks the whip on the gazebo builders and tells them to finish in four hours or they don't get paid... and drafts Trent into service to help them finish on time. All their hard work turns out to be for naught, however, as Amanda and Vincent Lane return home and tell them that they're going to tear down "that ugly old thing" (which, it turns out, was never a "naming gazebo" to begin with; they only told Wind that to keep him from changing his name). Finally, when Quinn and Sandi resolve to destroy the evil caricature after failing to get their revenge, they can't find it. As it turns out, Stacy had it all along and has pinned it up on the inside of her closet door, as her image was the only one that was portrayed in a positive light (as a cute girl surrounded by little hearts, smiling and holding a flower).

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#508 One J At A Time

Family dinner at the Morgendorffers gets off to a rocky start, thanks to yet another one of Jake's inedible concoctions and Jake's discovery of squirrel-upturned trash cans. When Daria receives a gift of a rare first-edition book from Tom, Quinn shrugs it off -- after all, dating lots of boys means lots of gifts -- until Helen points out that having a steady boyfriend shows maturity and perspective. Quinn interprets this as saying that she doesn't have those qualities, so she resolves to choose a boy from school and date him exclusively. The Fashion Club is unable to understand Quinn's reasoning, since they believe in the "date many, date often" concept as well, but Sandi makes a show of supporting Quinn in her quest. (Of course, her real motivations are quite different: she reasons that once Quinn is off the market, there will be more boys for them to date.) Unfortunately, the selection process doesn't go well, seeing as how Quinn's standards are very, very rigid. Pressured by Sandi, Quinn finally does an eeny-meeny-miny-mo with the Three J's and selects Jamie as her steady. It doesn't go well -- Quinn's idea of "communication" is to prattle on constantly over the phone, and when she accuses Jamie of not listening to her (because he slipped away to go to the bathroom), she dumps him. Her next victim is Joey, whom she promptly dumps when he refuses to take her to a sold-out concert (which she heard about from her Fashion Club comrades). She finally settles on Jeffy, whom she invites over to dinner when Helen convinces Daria to ask Tom over for a get-to-know-him meal... something that Daria's been avoiding because she's afraid of how Jake will act (and how Tom will react in turn). The dinner starts out pleasantly enough, but Jake inevitably brings up his war against the squirrels. To Daria's amazement, however, Tom sides with Jake and tells him of his own family's battles with the little animals. When Jeffy also chimes in, all three guys run out into the yard with a trap to try to catch the critter, leaving Helen, Daria, and Quinn behind. Distraught, Quinn runs crying up to her room, and Helen attempts to comfort her by telling her that she is mature enough to have a steady boyfriend, but that she should do whatever makes her happy, even if that means dating lots of different boys. As Daria and Quinn contemplate the unfathomable behavior of men, the guys enjoy an evening of bonding over a car trip (to release the captured squirrel back into the wild) and a few laps around a go-cart track.

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#509 Life In The Past Lane

On a jaunt down Main Street with Daria and Tom, Jane spies a good-looking guy enter the office supply store and follows him. There, she strikes up a conversation and he introduces himself as Nathan. He explains that he loves the style and elegance of old-fashioned things, and when Jane concurs, he asks for her phone number. As it turns out, Nathan is really into the whole "swing era" thing, complete with period outfits and visits to speakeasy clubs. Jane starts getting into it as well, even going so far as to dress in period fashions (which she found in the attic of her house), but Daria is openly contemptuous and mistrustful of Nathan, which upsets Jane (possibly because it's a replay of when she met Tom). Meanwhile, Upchuck is busy demonstrating his prowess at magic and sleight of hand, with occasional help from Mr. DeMartino (who played the shill to help scam the ever-gullible Mr. O'Neill). When he demonstrates the old "tear the money to pieces and magically restore it" trick to the Fashion Club, only Stacy is intrigued -- no, make that obsessed, and yearning to know how it's done. Upchuck promises to bring her into the fold, in return for her assistance on the ultimate magic trick, and she agrees (though secretly, as she would be risking her standing in the Fashion Club otherwise). Back on the Nathan front, Jane manages to convince Daria to give the guy a chance, and she agrees to a double-date with them. On the way to their destination, she and Tom strike up a conversation with Nathan, who slowly starts to demonstrate that he may be a little too into the whole swing thing, though Jane still doesn't seem to realize it. Even though the date (to an abandoned drive-in theater for a get-together with other swing couples) is a bust for Daria and Tom, she decides to keep her opinions to herself for Jane's sake, and even agrees to giving the guy another chance when Jane buys four tickets to Upchuck's big magic event. Unfortunately, when Nathan comes to pick Jane up, they get into a fight over Nathan's overly obsessive behavior -- Jane saying it's just a fad and all she wants to do is have some fun, while Nathan insists that it's not just a fad but a way of life -- and they break up. At the magic show, the Fashion Club is horrified to discover that Stacy is Upchuck's assistant, who helps him with the "escape from the air-tight trunk" trick. Unfortunately, the trick goes awry when Stacy forgets what to do after locking Upchuck in the trunk, and while Ms. Barch and Mr. DeMartino attempt to free him, Stacy breaks into a crying fit. Sandi then smugly lords it over her... until Stacy reveals that she was only acting and, moments later, Upchuck appears at the top of the auditorium stairs! The crowd applauds, Quinn and Tiffany are impressed, and Sandi is left to stew in her own juices once again. Outside, Daria and Tom meet up with Jane, who admits that they were right about Nathan all along.

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#510 Aunt Nauseam

Just as Helen arrives home and announces that she's got some time off -- she and Eric had just finished a big court case, and Eric is taking a month off -- her sister Rita calls and asks her to handle her daughter Erin's divorce. Helen tries to beg off, saying that divorce cases aren't her strong suit, but she finally accepts after being pressured into it by her mother. Jake is dreading the situation, as Helen and Rita tend to fight like two wet cats in a burlap sack whenever they're together (as we saw at Erin and Brian's wedding), but he appears to be off the hook when Rita calls and tells them that she'll be in New York with her actor boyfriend while Helen handles the case with Erin... a plan that goes right out the window when Rita shows up at the Morgendorffer's instead of Erin (who's in Switzerland, courtesy of Grandma Barksdale). This causes Jake to basically go AWOL to avoid the inevitable arguing between Helen and Rita, a course of action that Daria and Quinn can hardly blame him for when the two women do start feuding. Daria and Quinn react to the situation differently: Daria starts avoiding Tom as a defense mechanism, while Quinn tries to smooth over a dispute in the Fashion Club (concerning Stacy and Tiffany wearing the same dress) every time things threaten to boil over. Strangely, Quinn also starts being extra nice to Daria, who can only figure that her sister wants something from her. As relationships all around continue to crumble, Daria finally calls for reinforcements: Aunt Amy. When Amy arrives, Daria catches her up on the situation, and Amy in turn helps Daria realize that Tom wasn't trying to interfere; rather, Tom was trying to be supportive. Amy then wades into the middle of Helen and Rita's battle... and gets caught up in it herself. Fed up with the whole situation, Daria and Quinn start imitating their mom and aunts arguing with each other, which finally shows them just how silly they were acting, and they make up with a group hug (for which Amy blames Daria, of course). The same-dress situation between Stacy and Tiffany is also resolved, in a weird way: Stacy accidentally ruins Tiffany's dress by spilling grape juice on it, and offers to give Tiffany hers to show how sorry she is; Tiffany, overcome with emotion, hugs her friend, which in turn gets grape juice on Stacy's dress (thus depriving both girls). Other situations are resolved as well: Daria and Quinn promise to never become like their mom and aunts after watching Gone With the Wind together, Daria apologizes to Tom for brushing him off all week, and Brian and Erin reconcile in Switzerland. Only poor Jake gets the short end of the stick, as he continues to camp out in the garage because he's afraid that Rita is still there.

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#511 Prize Fighters

After an evening meal of hot dogs (thanks to Jake screwing up an order for bulk-rate meat from an Internet company), the inevitable finally arrives: Helen and Jake start putting gentle (but firm) pressure on Daria to look into college scholarships. Daria is skeptical -- given her glaring lack of extracurriculars, which most colleges like to see -- but finally agrees to give it a go. Surfing the web, the closest thing she can find is a $10,000 prize from the Wizard Foundation, given to the student who best embodies "the Wizard pursuit of excellence" (whatever that means). Further bad news: along with the application, the student has to submit an essay about how he or she could change the world if they could. Speaking with Jodie at school, Daria is openly skeptical of the whole thing, but ultimately decides to go through with it, with a Daria-esque twist: her essay is a scathing commentary about money, and how its elimination could force politicians to stop pandering to special interests, CEOs to treat the environment and their workers better, and allow students to study instead of "wasting their time with pointless scholarship essays." Despite the essay, however, Daria becomes a finalist... and finds out that Jodie and Upchuck made the list, as well. To say that Daria is slightly irked would be an understatement, as she didn't expect the competition from "America's Studious Sweetheart" and the school's biggest suck-up. To top it all off, Jane has developed a real attitude over the whole situation (which only gets worse as time goes on), and Daria finds out from Tom that the Wizard Foundation's hiring and promotional practices are not exactly progressive (very few women or minorities are hired or elevated into top positions). Daria informs Jodie about what she's learned, and while Jodie and her father agree that Wizard's practices are pretty disturbing, Andrew manages to convince them to pursue the award anyway by telling them that Wizard seems to be trying to fix the situation, and besides, their policies will never change unless women and minorities continue to make the attempt. To that end, Daria finally makes an appointment with Dr. Danada, who basically tells her to say what they want to hear and suck up as hard as she can... in other words, exactly what Daria refuses to do. At the interview, Mr. Brower (a Bill Gates lookalike) asks Daria, Jodie, and Upchuck routine questions about their goals, their skills and faults, etc.; Jodie replies with pat answers, Upchuck sucks up like a vacuum cleaner, and Daria is her brutally honest self. In the end, none of them get the prize, and to add insult to injury, Daria discovers that the people at Wizard thought that her incisive essay was actually a light-hearted spoof! At lunch, Daria and Jane reconcile, with Jane explaining that the reason she was so upset was that she was feeling left out: her grades aren't exactly stellar, while Daria and Jodie were fighting for a scholarship based on their academic excellence. They both muse on how they must be growing older, as they never used to think about such things. But Daria still isn't willing to admit she's more competitive than she admits, because if she was, she'd be in the parking lot competing in the hot dog eating contest... which is being sponsored by Jake Morgendorffer Consulting.

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#512 My Night At Daria's

While Jake and Helen have dinner with a prospective client (Toby from Tokyo Toby's sushi restaurant), Daria and Tom use the quiet time to study. To avoid Quinn and her non-stop prattling, they retire to Daria's bedroom, where they both manage to doze off on the bed. When they wake up, they're shocked to see it's 4:00 in the morning. Tom tries to sneak out, but is caught by a midnight-snack-seeking Jake. Fortunately for Tom, Jake had too much sake at dinner, and is too drunk to realize what's going on; unfortunately for Daria, he's too drunk to be able to keep his mouth shut around Helen. After an all-night lecture, Daria is able to convince Helen that nothing happened between her and Tom, but Quinn overhears part of their conversation, misunderstands, and immediately phones Stacy with the news. That evening, Daria and Tom start getting strange looks at the pizza place, and first Upchuck, then Kevin and Brittany offer their congratulations. At home, Jake is both paranoid about the possibility of having gotten a parasite from the raw fish, and too confused and upset to look Daria in the eye. Daria then gives Jane a call to try to figure out what's going on, and after engaging in some good-natured ribbing, Jane realizes that Daria really doesn't know what's happening. Apparently, a rumor is going around school that Daria and Tom slept together, and, as rumors tend to do, it keeps getting wilder (such as Daria wearing black high heels and Jake walking in on them "doing the deed"). She knows exactly who to confront: Quinn, who avoids talking to Daria because she doesn't want to know any of the sordid details. Daria tries to convince people that the rumor is false, to no avail, so Daria starts a little rumor of her own regarding Quinn and "Malaysian toenail fungus." At Tom's, Daria tells him about the rumor, and after discussing it, Daria decides -- reluctantly -- that she's ready to "take their relationship to the next level." After a bit of waffling, they decide to "um, you know" the following Saturday while Tom's parents are out of town. At home, Jake crows to Helen about being right -- he did get a parasite from that sushi -- but Helen is trying to resume her mother/daughter talk from before (which Daria deftly avoids). Saturday arrives, and while Tom prepares his room with flowers and candles (so that the experience would be special for Daria), Daria does the predictable thing: she chickens out and stands him up. The following morning, Tom finds a note atop the newspaper on the front step; it's from Daria, apologizing for what she did and saying she understands about the inevitable breakup it caused. However, Tom doesn't break up with her; he goes to her house, and they both walk to the park and talk. Daria tells him that she was ready, but afraid that going through with it would hurt their relationship. Tom reassures her that, like he did before, he understands, and will be content to wait until she feels it's the right time. After that, they both come to the realization that their relationship has progressed to the next level... and they didn't need to have sex to do it. Back at home, Daria reassures Helen once again, Jake drops Toby and his parasite-ridden restaurant as a client, and Quinn is baffled by the sudden stream of foot-related medical product brochures.

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#513 Boxing Daria

The Morgendorffers get a new refrigerator delivered after the old one conks out on them, an operation overseen by Helen (as Jake is out of town, having gotten tickets to a marketing conference at the last minute). As Daria and Quinn haul the empty box out to the front yard, the combination of Jake's absence and the empty box starts to trigger a childhood memory in Daria. Unfortunately, she can only remember a few snippets, something about an argument between Helen and Jake, who stormed out of the house... and, somehow, Daria appeared to be the cause. (Nevertheless, it's enough to compell Daria to repeatedly save the box from the trash collectors.) Daria's frustrated by this and other factors, including Tom's family's visit to their cabin in the Cove for a week, and Mr. O'Neill's badgering Daria to volunteer to show future Lawndale High students around the school. Daria turns him down repeatedly, stating that she ethically can't do it because she refuses to talk up something that she hates, and becomes indignant when she thinks that he thinks she's a social misfit who's incapable of dealing with people. As more flashbacks ensue, revealing more details of this past incident, Daria becomes more paranoid, accusing Helen of lying to her about this incident and the whereabouts of Jake. She ultimately takes refuge inside the box just as Jake arrives home, and both he and Helen convince Daria to come out and have an honest, heart-to-heart talk with them. They reveal that, yes, they did have an argument, it was about her, and Jake did storm out of the house, but it wasn't a big blow-up, Jake only stayed away one night (at a fleabag motel), and in the morning, life resumed as normal. Distraught at the thought that she was the cause of so much grief in their family, Daria grabs the keys to the SUV and runs out of the house, with the intention of joining Tom at the Cove. Unfortunately, she doesn't make it very far, as she's involved in a multi-car accident on the rain-soaked highway (but both her and the car come out of it undamaged). Daria calls Jane and asks her to join her at a roadside diner, and after giving Jane an uncharacteristic hug, both girls sit and talk. Daria lays it all out to Jane, explaining how she's always been causing problems for her parents ever since she could think and talk, while Jane counters that, from her perspective, both Daria and her parents have given as good as they got, and urges Daria to talk to them, not her. She does so, and both Jake and Helen explain to Daria that all the teacher conferences and such were simply the flip side of having such an intelligent child, and that they both understand and accept the choices that she makes in her life. Daria accepts this, and -- again, uncharacteristically -- tells them that she's lucky to have them as parents. After smoothing things over with Tom (whose feathers she unintentionally ruffled once again with her behavior), she and Jane proceeded to give some prospective Lawndale High freshmen a tour of the school after all... a tour with their own unique spin.

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Movie: Is It College Yet?

Graduation time is fast approaching for the Lawndale High senior class, which can mean only one thing: students worrying about being accepted at the colleges of their choice. For Daria, it's a choice between the uppercrust Bromwell University, where Tom has also applied, or her second choice, Raft College in Boston. Jane, meanwhile, is torn between Boston Fine Arts College, prestigious yet difficult to get into; one of the local universities; or, finally, just eschewing college altogether and going it alone with her art. Mack wants to attend Vance University, but can't unless he can get a scholarship, and overstressed Jodie is torn between the college she wants to attend -- the predominantly African-American Turner University -- and Crestmore University, a prestigious college that her parents (her father in particular) are angling for her to attend, as it would be an impressive notch on her resume.

Daria's experiences with Bromwell don't exactly fill her with confidence, mainly because she experiences first-hand just how well-connected the Sloanes are to the university when she accompanies Tom and Kay on a weekend college tour. Tom's interview goes smoothly as he relates anecdotes about Bromwell that he got from his relatives, but Daria's self-consciousness almost sabotages her interview. They then encounter a professor who's a friend of the family and agree to meet him for breakfast the next morning, despite the fact that they'll have little time to spare to get to Boston. A late start, a traffic snarl-up, and a rainstorm all conspire to get them to Raft College too late for Daria's interview, which doesn't please her at all. At home, Daria relates her frustrations to Helen (who tries to help but can't) and Jake (who's pushing her to apply to Middleton College but mistakenly thinks she's going to military school); shortly thereafter, she receives an acceptance package from Raft, and a letter from Bromwell stating that she's been put on a waiting list. Daria relays this news to Tom, who tells her that he got into Bromwell. Fuming over what she believes to be upper-class privilege winning out over academic ability, she gets into an argument with Tom, who says precisely the wrong thing, causing Daria to get pissed and hang up on him. After a suitable amount of grovelling and apologizing, Tom offers to have his parents write Bromwell a letter of recommendation for Daria, which she refuses... at first.

Jane, meanwhile, is struggling with decisions of her own. She wants to go to Boston Fine Arts College, but BFAC's requirements are tough, so she applies to Lawndale State and State University. When both schools turn her down, she starts to wonder whether attending college is the thing for her after all, a position that's endorsed and encouraged by Trent. Daria makes several attempts to convince Jane to get off her butt and put together a portfolio for BFAC, but Jane is adamant in her decision to skip college. However, Daria is equally adamant in her desire to get Jane to change her mind, so she strikes up a deal: if Jane agrees to send her portfolio to BFAC, she'll have Tom's parents write that letter of recommendation for her. They agree, and proceed to wait for the results.

Jodie also finds herself on the horns of a dilemma regarding college. She wants to take a break from being the "perfect little Jodie doll" and attend Turner University, a mostly African-American college where she can feel free to relax and be herself. Her parents, however, wants her to put a particularly impressive notch on her resume by going to the prestigious Crestmore University. Unfortunately, she can't bring herself to stand up to her parents, which makes her miserable. Mack, unable to stand seeing her like this, goes to Andrew Landon's office for a sit-down and explains the situation to him, hoping to get him to change his mind. When he and Michele confront Jodie, she confirms that it's true. Though they still would like her to attend Crestmore, they realize that her desires and well-being have to take precedence, and they allow her to go to Turner. (Well, Michele gave in first; Andrew required some convincing, with the help of a nasty glare and an elbow to the ribs.) Mack then relays his good news: he got the scholarship to Vance University. Though they'll be further apart than they would if Jodie was going to Crestmore, they appear to be closer than ever, especially when Jodie tells Mack how lucky she is to have a guy like him.

Brittany, amazingly enough, is also going to college (at Great Prairie State University), along with the rest of the cheerleading squad. Her good mood is dampened somewhat by Kevin's odd behavior: he won't say where he's going to college, and he keeps asking Brittany for reassurance that they'll still be a couple no matter what. Kevin's obviously hiding something, but Brittany doesn't know what.

The oft-stormy romance between Ms. Barch and Mr. O'Neill takes a very weird turn when, while consoling her on the fifth anniversary of her divorce, she mistakes his words of comfort for a marriage proposal... and accepts! He's flustered, but being who he is, he has a hard time dissuading her. Help comes from an unexpected source: Mr. DeMartino, who doesn't want to see O'Neill chained to "the she-devil who walks among us." He pokes and prods O'Neill into standing up to Barch and telling her that the proposal was a mistake, but all he gets for his trouble is a black eye.

The consequences of out-of-control shopping have finally caught up with Quinn, who is forced by Helen and Jake to get a part-time job in order to pay off a ridiculously high credit card bill. After a Fashion Club meeting at the Governor's Park restaurant, she decides to take a job there as a hostess. There, she meets Lindy, a college student who's also working as a hostess, and they immediately hit it off. Lindy invites Quinn to a party she's holding, where Quinn finds that college-level parties are rather different than the ones she's used to attending. She also discovers that Lindy likes alcoholic beverages... a lot. She gets her first hint of this at the party, then a bigger hint when they go to the movies and Lindy keeps taking drinks out of a hip flask. She's nicely marinated by the time the movie is over, but when Quinn suggests that she take a cab instead of driving home, she ignores her advice and goes clubbing instead. The biggest hint of all that Lindy has a drinking problem is when she's caught drinking a little "hair of the dog that bit her" at work. This causes her to screw up on the job, which gets her fired (after half-heartedly trying to get Quinn to take the fall). Quinn is disappointed, but there's nothing she can do to save Lindy's job... and, worse yet, she doesn't know how to handle her friend's problem.

Daria's and Quinn's worlds end up colliding in a most unusual way. Daria finally hears from Bromwell: the freshman class is full. Strangely, she's not very disappointed by the news. When she and Tom get together for pizza to talk about the news, she proceeds to drop a bombshell on him: she wants to break up with him. Tom is confused, naturally, but Daria has some pretty solid arguments behind her: they'll be going to school far from each other, they're both heading in opposite directions socially, and they were both starting to get bored with each other. Tom initially objects, but ultimately finds that he can't really argue with her reasoning. Depressed and miserable, Daria is joined by a kindred spirit in that department: Quinn, who still doesn't know how to handle the situation with Lindy. When she expresses her surprise at Daria's breakup with Tom, Daria reminds her that she's always believed that honesty was the best way to go. This inspires Quinn to use the same approach with Lindy, but it's not exactly a success: Lindy continues to deny she has a problem, then throws Quinn out of her house.

To ease Daria's pain over the breakup, Jane drags Daria to Jodie's graduation party. There, Daria has to explain to the curious that she and Tom have broken up, and Jane drops her own little bit of news: she got accepted into Boston Fine Arts College (though she'll have to start midterm, since she applied too late to start in the fall). This instantly lifts Daria's mood, because with her attending Raft and Jane at BFAC, they'll be able to get together more often, not to mention keep their friendship strong. Jane is also happy for another reason, in that her disagreement with Trent is now over. He had accused her of being a sellout when she finally decided to apply to BFAC, but finally admitted to her that he was afraid of losing her and being alone. She reassured him that she's not going to let him off the hook as her brother, then asked him to represent the Lane clan at her graduation, which he accepts.

Oddly enough, friendship is also at the core of a Fashion Club situation. Earlier, at the Fashion Club meeting at Governor's Park that also doubled as Stacy's birthday party, Sandi was acting like her usual bitchy self. When it came time to blow out her candle, Stacy made a secret wish that Sandi would just shut up. Soon afterwards, Sandi came down with laryngitis, and poor Stacy thought that she had done it to her! Feeling guilty as sin, Stacy attempted to "lift the curse" through some noxious potion (containing cayenne pepper, cooking oil, and "some big, long name") she obtained through the Internet, but got the glasses mixed up and ended up serving it to Tiffany (who went into a fit of choking and coughing). Now, at the party, Stacy is relieved to find that Sandi has finally gotten her voice back. When Sandi gives her a list of things to do to make it up to her, however, Stacy works up the nerve to tell Sandi that it's unfair to make her do all this for something she probably wasn't responsible for in the first place. Sandi then threatens her standing in the Fashion Club, and is shocked when Stacy, rather than submit to her whim, decides to take a cue from Quinn and go on sabbatical. When follow-the-crowd Tiffany also decides to take a break from the club, Sandi sees the writing on the wall and, rather than lose face, announces that she is going to take one as well... the cumulative effect of which is the dissolution of the Fashion Club. Rather than split them apart, however, they find that they're closer friends than ever, now that they don't have the pressures, in-fighting, and competition associated with the Fashion Club hanging over their heads, and they decide to get together to discuss what to do with all their newfound free time.

Daria's and Quinn's situations also get resolved shortly thereafter. Tom meets Daria outside her house on the last day of school, and she reassures him that their breakup has nothing to do with him personally; in fact, she tells him that he's a great guy, and that she's glad to have gone out with him. They resolve to stay friends and keep in contact while at school. Quinn also gets a surprise visit from Lindy, who apologizes for the way she treated her. She knows that Quinn was only being concerned, and though she still won't admit to having a problem, she still wants to remain friends, and they agree to get together again soon.

Graduation itself is a whirlwind of adventure. For starters, Brittany discovers just why Kevin has been acting so strangely: he flunked, and has to repeat his senior year at Lawndale High. She agrees once again to remain his girlfriend, but the crossed fingers behind her back suggest that this is a promise she's not likely to keep. Mr. O'Neill, with more prodding from Mr. DeMartino, confronts Ms. Barch, who -- rather than being angry -- is intrigued by O'Neill's "newfound backbone," and makes up with him (to DeMartino's regret). Jodie gives a stock, non-threatening valedictorian speech, then Ms. Li announces that Daria has received an award for "academic excellence in the face of near-total misanthropy." She accepts the award by first telling everyone how much she thinks high school sucks, but ends the speech with a bunch of (mostly) meaningless yet nice-sounding phrases that draw applause from the crowd.

Afterwards, Daria and Jane meet at the pizza place for probably the last time, and they muse on what they'll find once they arrive at college and begin a new era in their lives.

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*Episode Guide & Movie Summaries was taken from
http://www.outpost-daria.com

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