Ren’s Life Science class goes on a field trip to observe some birds. Yay? Drama ensues on the trip when we find out that Mandy “Always-Gets-Her-Man” Sanchez has a crush on Bobby Deaver. Yikes!!! Elsewhere, Tom gets a personal pizza oven in his room, which is the only reason Louis and Twitty are bothering to hang out at his house. Basically, Louis is a horrible friend to Tom until the last 5 minutes. WHYYY?!
This episode opens with Ren and Bobby doing homework at The Stevens house. They’re always so incredibly awkward. Like I’ve said before… Bobby Deaver is kind of weird. I don’t get the appeal. He seems very aloof and spineless to me. They’re about to kiss when Steve comes waltzing in on the phone.. which is highly uncomfortable. He becomes a nervous wreck and ends the phone call by saying “Okay I’ll kiss you tomo— SEE YOU tomorrow!” Oh, man.
We find out that he was on the phone with their teacher, Ms. Lovelson. They’re in the same bird watching group and Steve is going to be guest-lecturing their Life Science class. I’m suuure that will be an embarrassment free experience for Ren! (Sarcasm.) Steve basically does everything in his power to keep Ren and Bobby from kissing now. He interrupts them constantly, makes them snacks, and sits riiiiight in the middle of them while telling boring stories. He starts to give Bobby the third degree asking him all sorts of personal questions. There’s a bit where it cuts to a black and white interrogation sequence parody. I always thought this was pretty funny.
“FOR THE LAST TIME, DEAVER! GIVE ME THE INFORMATION!”
“Alright… I have a sister… *cries*”
Now, on to the subplot! Tom got a new (giant) personal pizza oven in his room per Doris’ recommendation. Yes, Doris! This is the first time Tom ever speaks of his mom. Louis is confused and asks, “…Doris?” and Tom explains “Mother. She’s worried I don’t socialize enough with kids my own age. Which is nonsense” while simultaneously playing online chess. It’s pretty great.
“AH-HA! Trying to take my bishop! I know you too well, Mr. Smarty Trousers...” - Tom is a GIFT and the whole reason this episode isn’t ranked lower.
In hindsight, I really feel like this show gave kids very unrealistic life expectations at times. Apparently I can bring a butler to school with me, and I can make my principal quit their job and turn school into one big party. There’s no way my mom would allow me to have a freaking PIZZA OVEN in my room. First of all… why would you want to eat pizza in your bedroom anyway? Crumbs. Ew. This is the episode that made me assume that Tom is rich. We get to see his room though, which is cool! Much like Twitty’s, I feel like they got the characterization correct here as well. I seriously love that they actually put work into stuff like that. All of the rooms we’ve seen so far highlight the character’s personality without hitting you over the head with their interests. For example, this made me realize that Lizzie McGuire barely tried sometimes. Gordo was very into film, directing, and old records. So guess what they plastered on his wall?! It feels very contrived:
In contrast.. here’s Tom’s! Very neat. Nerdy paraphernalia on his shelves. Something that looks like a pin-up model poster right above his head. Why does that seem extremely accurate to me?
Everything’s chill and then… *dun, dun, dun* The pizza oven breaks. There’s a tiny detail that I love here. Louis dramatically touches inside of the pizza oven and quickly bounces back all shocked when he feels that it’s cold. It’s just really funny to me. But, yeah. The pizza oven is dead. And ya know what that means!!! ...Louis and Twitty suddenly don’t care about spending time with Tom. Ugh. They immediately peace out and Tom is left all depressed and alone. Wow.
The next day at school, Louis is trying to tell a joke to some kids at lunch when Tom comes over all excited with good news (presumably about the pizza oven.) He keeps interrupting Louis by adding funny remarks that ultimately just annoy everyone around him. I feel so bad. The bell rings before Louis is able to say the punchline. So what does Louis do?! He starts yelling at Tom. “What’s so important?! This better be good news about the pizza oven, because right now I’m in no mood.” SERIOUSLY LOUIS?! Well, Tom catches on and can clearly tell they’re just using him. So, he goes and does what I’d do: He lies and says the oven will be broken indefinitely.
Ren and Nelson are waiting for Steve to show up for their Life Science class. (Btw: Every time I hear “Life Science” all I can think of is LIFE SCIENCE EXTREME from Ned’s Declassified, where they took baby dolls and strapped them to rockets.) Ren insists that it won’t be too embarrassing, because Steve “happens to be one of the area's foremost authorities on the Dickcissel" — with extra emphasis on “dick.” The innuendos are too much this season. Nelson laughs.
Just then, Ruby comes rushing over to run her latest gossip column by Ren. It’s here that we find out the oh so devastating Junior High news that Mandy Sanchez has a crush on Bobby Deaver. It’s kind of ridiculous because she says “I’m really sorry, Ren! Should I kill the story?!” as if it’s a serious piece of journalism. Like, do schools even allow gossip columns like that?! I’d be absolutely mortified if “Brittany Butler has a crush on ____” was written up for the entire school to read without my permission. Mandy is super preppy, fake and snobby. She’s played by Bianca Lopez who funnily enough plays another preppy, fake and snobby character in The Princess Diaries named Fontana! A member of Mandy Moore’s popular crew of cheerleaders.
Here she is making heart eyes at Bobby...
...and there she is on the left making fun of Mia. She literally plays the EXACT same character here with the same condescending, high pitched voice and everything.
Anyway, Steve ends up being thoroughly embarrassing. Who would’ve guessed?! We get a montage displaying just how embarrassing. It starts off with him making the class pronounce “Bird” slowly, as if it’s an entry level English as a second language class. Lord help me. The montage ends with him emotionally saying “And there he was… A Yellow-Bellied Sap Sucker… actually sucking sap.” Yep. The Yellow-Bellied Sap Sucker. Disney's favorite bird. I’ll never forget the time they mentioned it on Lizzie McGuire, as well.
Steve invites everyone to go on a field trip to Devil Mountain to observe the migration of… some bird, idk. It’s not important. When he asks who wants to join him, Bobby is the first one to raise his hand with genuine excitement. (I told you he’s weird.) So naturally Mandy, Ren, Ruby and Nelson decide to go, too. This should be interesting.
While walking home, Louis and Twitty pass by Tom’s house and notice him sitting outside chowin’ down on some cheesy pizza. And we get this incredible exchange:
Twitty: “Hey, Gribalski! Thought you said your oven was gonna be busted for a year!”
Tom: “Oops!! Guess I made a boo-boo!”
Louis: “Is that any way to treat your friends, man?!”
Tom: “This hot, delicious pizza is for people that care about me — and not for two faced pizza pigs like you! NOW GET OFF MY PROPERTY!”
I love Tom so much. He proceeds to sassily whip some crust at them before running into his house with a mouth full of pizza. I honestly think Tom is my second favorite character after Louis.
After coming home from food shopping, Eileen notices that Louis sneakily rang up $150 worth of frozen pizza. Wow, what a great kid he is in this episode! Needless to say, Eileen ain’t happy. He says “Look, I’m on a 4-slice-a-day habit okay? So, let’s preheat the oven to 450 and discuss this in a calm and reasonable manner” which is actually a pretty good line, lol.
The next day on the hiking trip, Steve has the kids break off into pairs to explore. He ends up pairing Bobby and Mandy together, and pairs himself with Ren. Of course. Ren and Mandy end up being extremely passive aggressive to each other and are low-key fighting over Bobby right in front of him. (See cover image of the post) Bobby clearly notices and just… walks away. This is what I mean about him being spineless. He just blows with the wind.
While paired off with Steve, Ren spends her time spying on Mandy and Bobby with her binoculars. This clearly isn’t a healthy relationship, lol. Then again, what Junior High “relationships” are?! Deep down, Ren obviously must not trust Bobby. I mean, I’d be pretty angry at Mandy’s flirty behavior too. But it takes two to tango!! Bobby’s just going along with it. Again, spineless.
Ren and Steve have a falling out when she yells that she’d rather be with her “BOYFRIEND instead of up here watching stupid birds with you!!!” The Stevens kids are not their best this week, lol. When storming off, Ren unknowingly heads down the “Devil’s Backside: DANGER!” trail. (Also, “Devil’s Backside”??? Wow.) While wandering around lost, Ren almost falls to her death in the most hilarious way:
She’s clearly just standing on one leg and flailing her arms around in front of a green screen. Amazing.
She lands holding onto a brittle branch. Even though she could very well die at any moment.. she still whips out those binoculars again to spy on Bobby and Mandy. Priorities.
The branch breaks and she falls even further. Thankfully, Steve finds her. They have a heart-to-heart and make up. So, that’s nice. This plot ends with Steve separating Bobby and Mandy on the ride home so Ren and Bobby can be together. Bobby claims he missed Ren all day and felt like Mandy was crowding him. Okay. Sure. I don’t trust this guy either. But, yeah. That’s it for that.
Louis calls Twitty and Tawny in for an emergency meeting to brainstorm how to get revenge on Tom. Tawny isn’t impressed and heads straight for the door. Same. She asks them if they even know anything about Tom or care about him. Like the fact that he’s currently representing LJH in their regional chess meet. Obviously, they didn’t know because they’re awful friends. They seem remorseful, but then Louis gives us this gem of a line:
It’s incredibly funny out of context, but in context it’s just extremely immature and flippant. Tawny says “Louis, no one can disappoint me quite like you can” and leaves, which marks the turning point for Louis here. That’s one thing I really like about this episode. It took Tawny’s disapproval for him to realize how terrible he was being. It just goes to show how much he cares about her and values her opinion.
Cut to Tom’s chess meet. Louis and Twitty show up and turn it into some lively, obnoxious sports event. Complete with painted chests and D-Fence signs. I’m sure this would never fly irl, but it’s a really nice gesture in the Even Stevens-verse. They cheer Tom on the entire time, until he eventually wins! Yay! He gets a great final line, too. When asked the classic “You’ve just won… What are you gonna do now?!” question, where an athlete would typically reply “I’M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!!!” Tom says, “I’m gonna go get my windbreaker.” I love this. I have said this before and people literally looked at me like ???
One other great thing about this scene is in the final moments of the meet. Louis is sitting with Tawny anxiously awaiting the outcome… and she just glances at him — proud of his decision to be a good friend in the end. They’re so cute.
The end!!
In conclusion, Tom is most definitely the greatest thing about this episode. Since he’s a supporting character, I thought I’d rank this one a little higher than I might’ve otherwise because he deserves the love!
I adore the ending with Louis showing up and being supportive of Tom, and that little look from Tawny. It almost makes up for Louis being generally awful the entire time. The Ren/Bobby/Mandy love triangle isn’t totally bad, though! I live for petty teen drama, tbh.
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