Rainy Days (Recess episode)
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| “Rainy Days” | |
|---|---|
| Recess episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 10 a |
| Written by | |
| Production no. | 110 a |
| Original airdate | November 22, 1997 |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| "Randall's Reform" | "The Great Can Drive" |
| List of Recess episodes | |
Rainy Days is the 10th episode of the ABC and Disney Television Show Recess.
[edit] Synopsis
In Third Street School, any alteration to normal practice is a novelty for the bored kids. So when recess is moved indoors due to unusually heavy rainstorms, the children treat it as a kind of holiday, finding novel ways to engage in all their favourite pastimes and several new ones. No-one is willing to listen to Butch, the school's resident scaremonger, who is on hand as usual with his latest urban legend. However, this one is different. Rather than concerning a single missing or hapless child, this story involves an entire year group: the so-called "Doomed Class of 1989". Apparently, during a rainstorm, this whole class underwent a curious transformation: they became docile, unthinking model children, working as though hypnotised. Indeed, the students of 1989 are the only Third Street class that Miss Finster remembers with fondness!
Naturally, everyone assumes Butch is being his usual imaginative self. However, this particular legend turns out to be more than meets the eye.
As days pass without the rain ever stopping, the kids are not allowed to go outside at all. They are ferried from home to school by a specially commissioned bus, are kept inside for morning break and lunch, and are taken home again by the bus after the afternoon's school. After a while, they begin to forget what it was like to spend recess in the fresh air. With the memory of their "playground civilisation" fast disappearing, the games they are playing become increasingly arbitrary and fixed patterns, without the meaning that they once held: the Ashley Girls sit in a circle murmuring "whatever... whatever... whatever..." without really remembering what they are doing. In an attempt to get himself injured and taken away from the oppressive school atmosphere, Gus jumps from a tall chair, but succeeds only in bruising his leg (to Mikey's distress).
Friday approaches, and Butch's prophecy has almost fulfilled itself. Only a tiny spark of even T.J.'s former life and enthusiasm remains as the children enter school for another weary day. Desperate not to become another generation's urban legend, he attempts to break out into the rain-filled playground. But a literal "ray of hope" comes to Third Street: the clouds begin to clear, letting sunlight shine on the school grounds. T.J. and the kids, woken from their captive sleep and allowed to play in the fresh air, rejoice in their return to freedom. The usual status quo has been restored, with one minor addition which confirms the teachers' wisdom in keeping the children indoors: after his brief moment in the rain, T.J. has caught a cold.
[edit] Notes
The episode's surprisingly dark plotline in many ways mirrors typical real-world reactions to captivity. While the comic and light-hearted element of the story is retained by having the children's loss of freedom last for a handful of days as opposed to months or years, the Ashley Girls' "whatever" chant, for instance, is an accurate if exaggerated example of ritualised behaviour, with the girls becoming nothing more than a sterotype of their former selves. Gus's failed attempt to escape the pressure and despair of captivity by injuring himself in a fall from a chair may be seen as an imitation suicide attempt, especially given Mikey's exclamation of "The humanity!" The convention of placing the children in semi-adult situations (a biased courtroom with King Bob as judge in The Trial, a warlike photography session in One Stayed Clean) is a common one in Recess, always using less serious consequences to replace the concept of actual death.[citation needed]
