Freaks and Geeks Episode 5
"Tests and Breasts"
Original Airdate: Nov. 6, 1999
Writer: Bob Nickman
Director: Ken Kwapis
Cast: Linda Cardellini, John Francis Daley, James Franco, Samm Levine, Seth Rogen, Jason Segal, Martin Starr, Busy Philipps, Becky Ann Baker, Joe Flaherty
I hate high school too, Lindsay — a horrible place where virgins judge other virgins on whether they know enough about the sex none of them have had. In which understanding a dick joke is the benchmark for maturity. And a place where learning disabilities are overlooked, struggling students judged as stupid, lazy, and even malicious towards the faculty that is failing to help them. The theme of "Tests and Breasts" is expectations, and how failing to meet them can make high school even more like Hell than it normally is.
Of course, to only feel bad for Daniel Desario is to miss the complexity at play. James Franco's performance as Daniel, in this episode in particular, is his career peak, and what he sells is the way that someone can be both a victim and a victimizer. Daniel is worth sympathizing with, but he also does some terrible things, and this is the apex of that.
I don't know if it's important to mention that I ended up talking about "Tests and Breasts" in therapy this week. But it's notable that, over a decade after I first watched Freaks and Geeks, I can still be stunned by the show's ability to affect me, to flash me back to the fears and anxieties and alienation of high school with an accuracy and tangibility akin to a PTSD flashback. The scene that really did it this time comes when Lindsay is about to tutor Daniel. He realizes he forgot his algebra textbook and says, "I screwed up already."
If it's not too personal or forward for a recap of a 25-year-old comedy series, I have a PTSD (specifically, CPTSD) diagnosis. When you have PTSD, you respond to your every mistake brutally. "How could I do this?" you ask yourself. "How could I be so stupid? Can't I do anything right?" You tear yourself down before anyone else has a chance to. So when Daniel's response to him forgetting his book is to note out loud how quickly he fucked up, I can't view his actions in this episode as purely cruel. His environment — a combination of his home life and the school system — failed him long before he ever failed an algebra test.
For this reason, his iconic track 3 speech — delivered twice in this episode, highlighting how rehearsed it is — doesn't strike me as something made up. Rather, I imagine that he really was told when he was 11 years old that he was a track 3 kid, dumb and hopeless, unworthy of time and attention that could be spent on students who aren't lost causes. It's impossible not to internalize something like that. But Daniel's image of himself requires composure, so he channels that anxiety — the nagging voice in the back of his head repeating the things he's been consistently told about himself — into a tool of manipulation.
See, the part of me that sympathizes with Daniel is in a tug-of-war with the part of me that sees the way he uses Lindsay and abuses her trust and faith in him. Lindsay has the most virtuous of flaws: a need to help a friend in crisis. She's not able to merely listen to someone vent. Ms. Weir hears a problem and wants to solve it, like the good mathlete she is. So when Daniel expresses, dejectedly, that he's definitely gonna flunk his upcoming test and have to repeat algebra yet again, she jumps into hero mode, offering to tutor him, determined to prove his defeatism wrong. Lindsay, even with the upheaval she's gone through following her experience at her grandmother's deathbed, still has a wholly middle-class perspective that tells her the world is fair, that someone who's struggling can ace an algebra test. She isn't prepared for Daniel, who, I'm just gonna say it, has a disability; merely thinking about math makes him want to take a nap, a relatable detail for me, as a girl who's always struggled with higher-level math.
Lindsay also isn't prepared for how definitively the people who should be there to assist Daniel have given up on him. Mr. Kowchevski laughs at her bringing up the possibility of Daniel getting an extension, and then goes even further: Daniel brings people down, wastes their time, and needs to disappear. He accuses Lindsay of letting her hormones get in the way, insinuating that her crush on Daniel is the sole reason she's trying to help him. And suddenly, the former mathlete is helping her friend cheat on an algebra test, out of spite as much as a desire to help him. But Lindsay is too smart, not good at breaking rules in math or in conduct. So Daniel aces the test, rather than just scraping by with a D-, which would be believable. And since she personally asked for his extension, she's the prime suspect.
On the geeks' side of things, Sam, for the second episode in a row, is blamed for the actions of those around him. In health class, Sam's attempts at telling Bill and Neal to be quiet so he can learn about female anatomy are interpreted as him being disruptive. So Coach Fredricks forces Sam to teach the class for a moment, highlighting his naivety around sex and giving him the nickname Dr. Love. The same way that Daniel is being crushed by academic expectations, Sam is being belittled for failing to meet absurd expectations of sexual maturity. If Sam knew where the cervix was located, what would he do with that information at this point in his life, when he's just barely pubescent?
Harris bluntly sums up the way Sam and Daniel's storylines mirror each other. First, he flexes his maturity on Sam, Bill, and Neal, while showing off his girlfriend Judith (who gets the line-reading of the episode: "Oh Harris, you're so bad!"). Then he says: "Love is like homework. You've gotta study if you wanna get an A."
So Sam starts studying, which only confuses him more. And when Daniel sees him looking at his health book and says he won't find anything he can actually use in there, it's clear that the issue isn't in knowing, but in ability. This child is being judged by both peers and authority figures for not knowing how to fuck. Dr. Love is a sex joke directed from a teacher to a child — and Sam is being made to feel like the weird one through all this.
Daniel gives Sam a porno, and the geeks watch it from beginning to end, on the projector in Neal's garage. It's too much for them. They don't understand what they're seeing, and suddenly, their very first taste of sexuality has spoiled the entire idea of it for them.
It's only when Sam's concerning questions in health class lead Coach Fredricks to explain the truth about the birds and the bees to him — a scene that is graciously silent, with inspirational music scoring Sam's incredible reactions to what he's being told. Sam finds relief in knowing that the most sensationalist aspects of sex he's been exposed to early aren't the entire truth, and also that he doesn't need to know everything at this point in his life. He can crush on Cindy Sanders innocently, even if he can't identify a vagina. No one knows what they're doing the first time anyway, so who cares?
But then there's Daniel and Lindsay, who don't get this kind of grace. Mr. Kowchevski lies about receiving an anonymous tip to catch the two in a lie, and during a meeting with Mr. Rosso and Lindsay's parents in attendance, he succeeds. Daniel, in an attempt at both alleviating his punishment and getting them to take it easy on Lindsay, who just wanted to help him, repeats the same monologue that he delivered to her earlier, word-for-word. And she laughs.
Daniel may have disappointed her. She may have disappointed her parents. But the true destabilizing has come in her understanding of the world and her place in it. Lindsay tried to help someone she cared about, faced nothing but pushback, took it too far, and now she's in deep trouble, all because she gives a shit about the people around her. Her conception of everything is rocked. And all she can do is cackle madly.
Grade: A+
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