Freaks and Geeks Episode 13
"Chokin' & Tokin'"
Original airdate: March 20, 2000
Writer: Judd Apatow
Director: Miguel Arteta
Cast: Linda Cardellini, John Francis Daley, James Franco, Samm Levine, Seth Rogen, Jason Segal, Martin Starr, Busy Philipps, Becky Ann Baker, Joe Flaherty
In one of "Chokin' and Tokin's" main storylines, a main character almost dies. In the other, a main character has a bad reaction to smoking weed for the first time. These stakes may seem of completely different severity levels. But they tell us just as much about the characters, and the effects their implications have over the entire series are just as major. And anyway, a bad pot experience can certainly make you feel like you're dying.
First off, is Nick addicted to weed? Physical marijuana addiction isn't really a thing, of course, but if you find yourself needing a substance to the point where life is basically an intolerable slog without it, that does show an unhealthy dependency, does it not? But it's not hard to see why Nick needs weed to cope, with his authoritarian father breathing down his neck, the prospect of joining the army always at the forefront of his mind, and his damn hopeless romanticism that keeps biting him in the ass. So, when the town becomes dry and his dealer Mark is unable to get him any weed, Nick becomes miserable, sluggish, and a drag, though he also looks better (his eyes have cleared up).
Lindsay wants to lift his spirits, so despite him clearly not being over their breakup, she asks him to hang out with her. They play basketball for a bit (with Boston's "Smokin'" playing over the scene, to remind you what the episode's about) before Mark shows up with some weed finally on hand. Nick convinces Lindsay to smoke a little with him, and soon she's in the middle of yet another uncomfortable experience in the Andopolis' basement.
She gets a little high (barely; like me the first handful of times I smoked). She asks why anyone enjoys this, and tells Nick that he's addicted, that he's a great guy when he's not stoned, and that he's wasting his potential. This infuriates Nick, and just to prove he's not an addict, he gives her the rest of his weed. Lindsay proceeds to bring it home and smoke it. She smokes it right this time — inhaling and all — and only once she's high out of her mind does she remember that she's scheduled to babysit.
Nick's attempts to prove to Lindsay that he's not addicted mirror Bill's reckoning with his status as a geek. Neal and Sam are trying to fit in with the popular crowd (out of hope that they'll potentially date Maureen and Vicki), and are annoyed that Bill is making them look bad — what with his sci-fi conventions and his allergies. When their social studies teacher Ms. Foote (played by Leslie Mann) sneezes due to her allergies, Bill begins talking to her about his many allergies (to the air, cats, some dogs, and crucially, a potentially fatal peanut allergy). This leads to ridicule from the whole class, especially Alan, who (for some reason) believes Bill is making things up. To test this out, he secretly puts peanuts on Bill's sandwich at lunch. "Hey Haverchunk, what happens now?" Alan calls out. "Should we call the ambulance?"
"Yeah," Bill says.
Cut to Bill being carried out on a stretcher. He's fallen into a coma.
Lindsay, stoned out of her mind, goes to Millie for help babysitting. Millie immediately knows that she's high, delivering maybe the funniest line in the entire series: "I know what high people look like. I went to a Seals and Crofts concert last summer." She agrees to help Lindsay babysit, for the safety of the child. And once they're at the Johnsons' house, ever the bookworm, Lindsay grabs an encyclopedia and begins researching marijuana. She's becoming more paranoid by the minute, and Millie tries her best to trip-sit (an accurate term, considering Lindsay's reaction to weed is honestly closer to psychedelics).
They start having a philosophical conversation, in which Lindsay states that everyone is unhappy, and Millie counters this claim with her unhappiness being softened by her faith. Lindsay becomes attached to the idea that the entire world may exist in the dream of the Johnsons' sleeping dog, and that when the dog awakens, the world will vanish. Millie insists this is wrong; "We live in God's world." She wakes up the dog, as a panicked Lindsay tries to stop her. But when the dog is awake and the world is still there, Lindsay regains her faith, for a brief moment. Believing in God, not believing in God; either way, you need something to ground you, to take the edge off the burden of existence. And at her most desperate moment, Lindsay is given that gift by Millie.
Also at his most desperate moment, a comatose Bill is visited by Alan. Alan apologizes to him, though he knows that he likely can't hear him. He reveals that the geeks were cruel to him in elementary school, that he loves sci-fi and rockets and comic books too, but that they rejected him. This is why he bullies them. This has always seemed like too clean of an explanation for Alan's tormenting them — closer to what kids want to believe about their bullies than something resembling reality — but it wouldn't be Freaks and Geeks if an unsympathetic character wasn't given some humanity—dignity, even.
"Please don't die," Alan says, promising to never pick on the geeks again if Bill wakes up. And Bill does wake up, revealing that he heard everything Alan said to him. He invites him to the sci-fi convention. Alan considers it, but ultimately decides that he can't — like Lindsay, the roads that life has led him down have made him who he is, seemingly without him having a say in it. And that person is incompatible with the geeks. If nothing else, he and Bill know where they stand, on more stable ground than before. And all it took was him almost killing Bill. Life is strange sometimes, isn't it?
Grade: A+
