* Photo credit to The Closet *
I just imagine some little street urchin screaming this title on some city corner somewhere in ye olde England. Liz looks like she’s in her late thirties and holding a Bounty paper towel. Jess looks like a character in Laura Bow 2: The Dagger of Amon Ra, which immediately sets me a twitter.
Jess is bored, poor, and wants to paint her crap-brown bedroom unicorn purple or something, so she develops a money-making scheme: a letter-writing business! The twins will charge five bucks a pop to anonymously compose letters for people too lazy to write them themselves. There’s an idea that today’s modern teens will not be able to identify with in the slightest. Love Emails for Sale! Love Tweets for Sale!
Liz, naturally, keeps secrets from her precious Toddy Wilkins because she wants to buy him a warm-up jacket with her earnings, but Todd is freaking out because he never gets to see her anymore. This boy is so frickin’ co-dependent. I’ve seen infants less needy.
But Liz still finds the time to fret about star basketball player Shelley Novak and her boyfriend photographer Jim Roberts. Those two are always having issues. Liz demands to know what’s wrong, but Shelley won’t tell her, so Liz is like, “Todd! Find out what’s wrong! Corner her after basketball practice!” Srsly. Even though it won’t get him anywhere near second base, Todd obeys her like a good little slave and talks to Shelley, and Shelley admits that she and Jim are having problems because he’s just too damn busy, and she winds up pining for Todd. She pines so much, in fact, that she writes Letters R Us (OMG they’re killing me with their crappy titles), asking for a letter to send to Todd, confessing her sudden, random undying love. Jessica intercepts this letter and is faced with a real moral dilemma, but just decides to change the names in the letter and have Liz compose it, and it’s sort of funny witnessing Jess beg her sister to ease up on the letter’s passion. “What am I supposed to tell her?” Jess wonders. “That if she doesn’t tone it down, she’ll be helping Shelley Novak take her own boyfriend away?”
Then Letters R Us gets a letter from Todd requesting two letters: one to ask out Shelley and the other to dump his girlfriend. Jess also comes across this letter first and nearly wets her pants. Jess only has time to change the names on the request before Liz writes them up, and somehow they get mailed back to Todd, even though I don’t understand how that could’ve happened. UGH. Does Liz not know Todd’s address after NINE years of dating (combined into one)? So Liz winds up getting her own letter back, and Todd hadn’t even bothered to rewrite it — he just wrote her name in the blank and mailed it. LOL—that’s so freaking harsh. And Liz storms over to Todd’s house and actually slaps him! Obviously a Liz and Todd Fight ensues.
Todd and Shelley go on an awkward date and realize after five seconds that they’re living a lie. Then they admit that they didn’t even READ the letters they’d sent out after getting them back from Letters R Us. Why would you not do that? Why would you blindly trust this new letter-writing business that you never used before with your love life? You paid cash money for that shit! Todd sets out to learn who’s behind Letters R Us, and when he sees Jess checking the business’s PO Box, he makes her tell the whole story, and he’s all, “No wonder I loved Shelley’s letter so much! Liz wrote it!” Jesus Christ, dude, please.
So Letters R Us gets another letter, one from Todd apologizing and asking LRU to write an “I’m sorry” letter to Liz. Dear God, this recap feels so confusing. Liz sends her own letter of apology to Todd along with his beloved warm-up jacket, and he’s like, “I wouldn’t think of wearing this unless you let me order a matching one for you. After all, I want everyone to know we’re meant for each other, now and for all time.” I just lost my lunch.
Oh, and Jim and Shelley get snuggly again, but who cares about those guys.
Other Notes:
- Let me try to understand this: You have to write a letter to a letter-writing business to explain what should be in a letter that you pay them to write? Not only is that an extremely clumsy modus operandi, but really: How can you write a letter for a woman whose request says only, “I’m leaving my husband for another man. I’m getting the next train out to Sweet Valley and I won’t be back. Please write him and tell him not to come looking for me.” I mean… Isn’t that the letter right there? I also feel like the twins should tell that lady that she’s leaving the remains of her marriage and the start of her sweet freedom in the hands of two sixteen-year-old hard-up for an allowance..
- Jeffrey French’s name is mentioned! How does Liz’s butt not cringe every time she sees or hears of him? (Not that that’s so often, but still.) There’s no awkwardness, even though Liz totally dumped him for another guy!
- I must say that it makes me giddy knowing that Liz penned her own break-up letter to herself.
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