Let's Do the Time Warp, Again!

Episode 419: Power of the Ex

See the hot FAB kisses

By Bitchavia

Welcome back to Warpo World. The Felicity voiceover to Sally tells us she's still in the past, but that something has happened that makes her wish she wasn't. Once again, Felicity, it's the freakin' year 2002. Phone. E-mail. AIM. Embrace them. Use them. Sheesh. ["Aw, but then we wouldn't have the pretty narrative voice-over from Felicity! It's just another re-use of Season One that I actually don't mind." -Dyslexia] ["I've never been as high on Sally as other people, but I guess I don't hate her. Completely." --Carmexa] Poor Sally, the only person in the world who has to hold onto her tape deck just because there's no other way she can find out what's happening with Felicity. Anyway.... Felicity backs up a bit and tells Sally that she and Noel started dating. We get a slow-mo scene of Felicity and Noel doing something ultra-romantic -- sorting socks. This segues into Noel falling on top of Felicity and kissing her. Meghan walks in on this, and like the goddesses, gives a big eye roll. ["Unlike the goddesses (this one, at least), she does not throw up." -Litigia] ["Or stab Noel with a paring knife." --Carmexa] Felicity explains to Sally that this new Noel liaison is making things awkward with their old gang, so she and Noel are trying to hang out places where the gang isn't. At one of these places, a street fair, Noel has convinced Felicity to eat fried dough, saying, "That's how I maintain the fatness of my lips." Just as Felicity is snarfing down dough, they run into Hanna, Noel's old girlfriend, the would-be-composer-musician-turned-ass-kicking-double-agent-spy-girl-thingy. Hanna's what came between Felicity and Noel during their five-minute courtship in the first season. ["And yet that five minutes has been sustaining tens of Noel/Felicity shippers all this time!" -Litigia] Hanna's all chirpy, and she and Noel exchange pleasantries about how they're both looking for work. Felicity is wiping fried dough off her chin. Since Hanna's been running around town drumming up piano lesson business, she suggests that Noel help her do a Web site to advertise her teaching and music, and tells him to call her. She hugs him while Felicity stands there. In the Felicity voiceover, she tells Sally that Hanna hugged her too, but then admits, she went and grabbed Hanna for a hug just so she wouldn't be left out. After Hanna's gone, Noel says how weird that was, and Felicity lamely says it wasn't weird. ["Like Felicity has any concept of what's weird and what's not. She doesn't think that time travel is particularly odd, and she broke up with Ben. Obviously, the girl can't be trusted with matters of judgment." --Carmexa]

Can you become...

Felicity comes into Noel's room and says she should stop coming to the loft because she just had the most awkward conversation with Sean. ["Or maybe Noel should just get his own goddamn apartment! At least the last time this happened, he pretended he was going to do that." -Litigia] ["That's my Sean! Protect Ben! I really love Sean, that's why I fear that the whiny Janis Joplin chick, Julie, is going to break bigboy's heart, again." -Dyslexia] ["I don't think that Julie's going to be around long enough, thank God, to do too much damage." --Carmexa] While she's babbling, Noel's on the phone making plans with Hanna to meet her about her Web site, chatting in a very friendly, familiar way. Felicity looks worried, and when Noel hangs up he starts to protest too much by saying Hanna called him, and that doing her site will be good practice. When Felicity complains it's not supposed to happen like this, Noel offers not to work with Hanna, but Felicity goes all fakey-fakey and insists that he do it.

No sooner than she says that, we flip to Felicity in her own apartment whining to Meghan about how she doesn't want Noel to work on Hanna's site. ["Lots of whining going on when Felicity is around Noel too much, wouldn't ya say?" -Dyslexia] ["They bring out the inner whiner in the other. Not especially attractive on either of them, but occasionally amusing." --Carmexa] She goes on again about what's supposed to happen based on her seer-like insight into the future. Meghan reminds her about the time/space continuum and how her decision to come back in time and date Noel is having a ripple effect on everything. ["I love that Meghan talked about the ripple effect. As much as I hate to admit it, I really do love this time travel storyline. It will all be a colossal lesson for Felicity: don't mess with fate or it will screw up the lives of everyone around you, including yours." -Dyslexia] ["You know how much I hate to say this, but….I told you so. Hee. I love that." --Carmexa] As Meghan heads to class, she asks Felicity if she's ever planning on attending a class. Felicity absently says she already graduated, but Meghan doubts that her future diploma is going to cut it with her profs. ["Hee! -Litigia] Felicity agrees she should go to class, and then asks Meghan if all this talk about time/space means that she believes she's a time traveler. Meghan snorts and says, "I'm weird, not a freak show."

Over at Dean and Deluca, Ben's sitting at a table, staring out into space. ["He looks so sad and broken-hearted. I just want to give him a big hug. Also, he looks hot." -Litigia] ["Big hug. Lots of mindblowing sex. Whatever." --Carmexa] Javier interrupts and asks Ben to listen to his Man of La Mancha audition piece. Not only does Ben not know what Man of La Mancha is, but he's also not very enthused about giving feedback to Javier, but he agrees to do it because he's Javier's little Benjameen and they have such a cute relationship. If Ben can't be with Felicity (which he WILL be, so just calm yourselves down, FANs, and enjoy the semblance of a Noel-Felicity relationship while you can), I'd want him to be with Javier. Javier says he didn't want to ask Ben, but Felicity couldn't do it. Right away, Javier apologizes for saying the F-word, but Ben assures him that it's okay. Javier starts into an over-the-top interpretation of Man of La Mancha, and Ben tries to listen while looking kind of embarrassed. ["Scott does his best semi-confused, semi-annoyed, semi-amused facial expressions here. I love them. Duh." -Litigia] When a customer comes up to the counter, Ben jumps up to help, and Javier gets snitty that Ben's ditching him. ["An employee of the week plaque should be made for Ben, not only because he is a courteous employee, but because he's got that super-duper sexy thing going on, if you haven't noticed yet." -Dyslexia]

At the loft, Noel's telling Sean that he's been getting a lot of calls from someone with the building's management. Sean ignores it, and starts saying he's been in touch with Julie through e-mail. Remember her? Short girl, looks like a ferret, has Lilithy aspirations and a nasty attitude problem? Nah, we don't either. Anyway, Sean's inspired by Noel's renewed relationship with Felicity, and is thinking of calling his old crush and former roomie again, and seeing if something will happen. ["Just say no!" --Carmexa]

Javier arrives at the girls' apartment as Elena's packing away her Tracey-related memorabilia. Javier asks her to give him audition feedback, and she says yes, but she tells him he should prepare a monologue, song and dance so he can be a triple threat for the Don Quixote role. Javier's thrilled with her enthusiasm and tells her she's like his Sancho Panza. Elena yells that she's nobody's sidekick. Sorry, Elena, you're even less than that. You're a barely-visible, tertiary character on a show that's been cancelled. ["That's exactly what I said when I first heard that line. It'd be sad, I guess, if I cared about Elena or liked Tangi Miller. --Carmexa]

Felicity's on the phone with her dad, all happy and telling him she's back to pre-med. She mentions her tuition dilemma and gets dad to agree to foot the whole bill again now that's she's given up art. The world breathes a sigh of relief that there'll be no re-hash of that horrible beauty pageant episode in which Felicity teases her hair and dresses up like Cowgirl Barbie to try to win tuition money. ["Thank God!" -Litigia] ["Not to mention that pregnancy storyline. I still believe the writers regret throwing that storyline in there way back." -Dyslexia]

Making good on her promise to go to class, Felicity heads into O-Chem, and guess who's in her class? -- Ben! She takes a seat behind him and he turns around and asks what she's doing there. Felicity says she didn't know this was his class, and before they can hiss at each other anymore, Professor Hardass is handing out a quiz and shushing people. Felicity promises to transfer out, and then in her voiceover she says she knows she did the right thing (yeah, right, if you say it enough times, it'll be true.) but that like in chemistry, certain things attract no matter what the conditions. ["Which cannot, repeat CANNOT, be said for her and Noel. At all." --Carmexa]

Chez Hanna, Noel and Hanna are making small talk. Hanna's in a tank top showing off her Alias-buffed bod, and I'm crossing my fingers there'll be an opportunity for her to kick Noel in the head at some point. That'd be cool. Noel picks up a CD, and Hanna's on the cover, and we learn her last name is Bibb and that "The Fugue" is on it. For the uninitiated, that's the name of the piece of music she was composing (and that the Contemptuous Sardonic Felicity Watchers Society used to call Nintendo music) in the first season episode (also entitled "The Fugue") where Noel ditched Felicity for Hanna, and Felicity got it on with the art guy. ["Simon Rex. The porn star!" --Carmexa] Noel explains he and Felicity only got together recently, and Hanna says she was engaged but it didn't work out. Insert your own Alias joke here. ["Yeah, if you call having your fiancé murdered in your bathtub 'not working out.' At this point, I'm hoping Hanna will tell Noel that she is a spy because we all know what happens to people who know Hanna/Sydney is a spy." -Litigia] They exchange longing looks, and Hanna says being with him feels like home. Noel beats a hasty retreat.

In Felicity's room, Noel tells her Hanna's giving off the vibe that she wants to get back together. Felicity's getting all agitated and saying it's all like a bad flashback. In her madwoman-future-girl mode, she says she's come too far for him to be with Hanna again. ["I love it when Felicity gets all crazy-like! She's f-ing hilarious." --Carmexa]

Sean walks into an empty loft. All the furniture's been repossessed and Meghan's standing in the empty living room asking what the hell happened. After a lame excuse that the furniture was moved to refinish the floors, Sean admits he's $50,000 in debt. Meghan freaks out and asks why he didn't tell her and if he thought she'd just go blind and not notice the empty rooms. They fight some more, Meghan leaves, and Sean yells after her that it's actually $55,412 that he owes. ["Which technically rounds UP to $60,000. No wonder Sean's in so much debt: complete lack of basic math skills." --Carmexa]

Back in lab class, Prof. Hardass says the quiz results overall were shitty. The students swarm up to get their papers. Felicity gets an A. ["Which is remarkable, considering that the quiz was given on the first day she even attended the class. Except, since she time-traveled, she's probably already taken the class, so never mind." -Litigia] Ben gets an F. In the hall, Felicity tells Ben she tried to change classes but couldn't. Ben says it doesn't matter because he's dropping pre-med. ["See how you've fucked things up, Felicity! YOU SEE?!??!" --Carmexa]

Noel comes home to find an envelope with Hanna's CD in it propped up at the door. In his room, Noel's playing the CD, and Sean comes in to explain the money/furniture problems, but says it's all under control. Sean compliments the music (he loves Nintendo, I guess) and says Hanna is cute. Also, he called Julie and she's coming down to visit next weekend. Noel says he's thinking about Hanna, but isn't considering getting back together. But he admits Felicity's acting weird and that their whole relationship is unbelievable. Sean says these opportunities to get together with their old crushes must mean they're more attractive and appealing than they thought. They agree probably not. Great, we all agree on something.

A silhouette against a curtain bursts forward -- it's Javier in red nylon dance pants, legwarmers, and a black and red Fila football-jersey type shirt. He's dancing like a member of the Torrance Community Dance Group, straight out of the Fatboy Slim "Praise You" video. ["And it's funny as hell. Even if it is part of a subplot that I couldn't give a rat's ass about." -Litigia] Elena's horrified and tells him he's got dance dyslexia, and further more, he's so awful she can't watch him and that he doesn't have a hope in hell of getting the part. Javier tells her she's mean. ["She is, but the scene is hilarious. Javier's role in this time-warp plot is purely comic relief, and I love it." -Dyslexia]

Ben opens the door at the loft to find Felicity there. He dismissively says Noel's in his room and starts to walk away. Felicity encourages him to stay in O-Chem because she's absolutely, super-duper, know-it-like-I-lived-it-because-I-did positive that Ben will pass and do really well in pre-med. ["She tells him he can get an 'A.' Ben gives her a sweet, little smile. One of those, 'You're the only person who thinks I can do anything and since you royally dumped my ass, I'm not going to believe you any more' looks. It's adorable, of course." -Litigia] She offers to help him study, but he turns her down. ["For all of those moronic people who say that Ben only took her up on the studying offer because he wanted a piece of ass, I offer you this evidence. He said no to her. Then, when he finally did say yes, he refused to stay at her place. Uh, I think he was trying pretty hard to maintain some control. But, like Felicity said, some things-some people-are just naturally attracted to each other. Like Felicity and Ben. Like anyone and Ben." --Carmexa]

Felicity goes into Noel's room and finds him still listening to Hanna's CD and working on her Web site. Felicity is antsy. Noel is confused. Felicity starts wigging out, and asking if he's going back to Hanna. ["She sort of screams/screeches it." --Carmexa] Noel says he doesn't know, but what he does know is that she's been acting nuttier than a pecan pie. He says that everything is WEIRD. The way they got together is WEIRD. They way she's been behaving is WEIRD. He over-enunciates "weird" every time to make his point. He says she's been running around like her head's going to explode and that it's freaking him out. Felicity freakily says she'll stop freaking him out. Noel says the way she said that freaked him out. She calms down a bit and promises to stop. ["And then, they just stand there, staring at each other, totally freaked out. Great scene." -Litigia] ["Loved it. I don't think I've ever said that of a Felicity/Noel scene. Ever." --Carmexa]

Back at her place, Felicity is freaking out. She's complaining to Meghan that she can't believe what's happening with Noel and Hanna. Meghan tells her to go over to Hanna's and kick her ass. In another Alias shout-out, Felicity says Hanna is in amazing shape, though. Felicity says if she had a CD, there's no way she'd put her own face on the cover. Hey, did you all get the new Felicity Senior Year Soundtrack? ["Not yet. But it definitely has Felicity's face on the cover." -Litigia] Meghan tells her to go kick her ass anyway.

At Hanna's, Felicity is taking a piano lesson from Hanna. When they take a break, Felicity admits she's not there to learn scales. ["Which is good, because she's really bad." --Carmexa] She asks Hanna to back off because she's been through a lot to be with Noel and doesn't want him to be confused because she doesn't know how much time she has. ["Nothing says destiny like, 'Stay away from my man, so that he doesn't realize we're not good together and runs off to you! Pretty please, help me!'" --Carmexa] Hanna's taken aback and wants to know if Felicity has a terminal disease. Felicity insists she doesn't but just wants her to back off. Hanna agrees to step aside.

Elena comes into D&D to apologize to Javier as he's dealing with a customer paying in pennies. I always get in line behind people like that. Elena says she was in a bad mood because Tracey left for a mission in Zambia and she took out her frustration on Javier. Javier says she was right, and that he can't sing or dance and that some people even say he has an accent. ["Hee!" -Litigia] Elena boosts his spirits and encourages him to follow his dream, so he puts Elena at work behind the counter and he runs to his audition.

Sean walks into the loft, which is all newly furnished. Meghan says, "ta-da!" and says she got the money from her dad, but that Sean can pay her back eventually. Sean's all upset and won't accept it. Meghan won't take no for an answer and says he's taking her to dinner to celebrate the return of furniture to the loft.

While Meghan's getting ready for dinner back at the girls' apartment, she complains about Sean's lack of gratitude. Felicity congratulates herself for getting Hanna to go away. Noel comes in and wants to know if she's dying because Hanna seems to think so. Felicity says she's not, but then Noel wants to know what valid reason she had for asking Hanna to keep her distance. Felicity whines that they've only had a week together and need a chance. Noel whines back that they've only had a week because the week before that she was in love with Ben, and three years before that too. Exactly, and as it should be. He says he's waited so many times for her to decide. Felicity weakly says she didn't know what else to do, and Noel angrily says she should have waited like he did. ["And while Felicity 'waits' like you supposedly did, is she allowed to get married to someone else and fuck every beautiful guy she meets like you did, Noel? Just wondering." -Litigia] ["Go Noel! No more of this lapdog bullshit. Too bad it took you four years to grow half a testicle." --Carmexa] When Felicity asks him if he wants to be with Hanna, he says he's not sure, and leaves. ["Hee! Lookee here, Felicity, Noel is not perfect. Another reprise of Season One! I don't blame Noel for saying what I did, and I'm actually glad Felicity is left dumbfounded. Call me cruel." -Dyslexia]

We're now back at the point where this episode began -- Felicity's making the Sally tape and saying she wishes she wasn't in the past now because of what's happened. Knock on the door. It's Ben, and he wants homework help. Felicity quickly agrees and they head off to the lab together.

At the loft, Sean's triumphantly handing Meghan a $50,000 cheque. Meghan wants to know if he sold his organs. The money is from Noel who got it from his marriage settlement with Natalie, his wife of two minutes back at the start of the second season. Meghan wonders why he'll take Noel's money but not his own girlfriend's, so Sean finally admits it's because he wants to break up and pursue Julie because Julie understands him. Sean says he didn't want to hurt Meghan, and as Meghan, all sad and angry, gets up to leave, she says he's going to be the one who is hurt. No kidding, he's going to have to look at Julie's pointy little face and listen to her songs about puddles. ["The horror! The horror!" -Litigia] ["'Heart of Darkness' is my least favorite book of all time." --Carmexa]

Over at the lab, which is all dimly lit and romantic-looking -- for a lab--Felicity's explaining that ionic bonds are between positively and negatively charged ions. Ben cutely says it's just like opposites attract. She then explains covalent bonds, and Ben relates that to a more platonic relationship. They smile and are all warm and happy with each other. Ionic Ben says she seemed sad earlier, and asks if things are okay with Covalent Noel. ["Very clever, Bitchy." - Dyslexia] ["How sweet is Ben? Felicity ripped out his heart and stomped on it just one week ago and he's worried about her because she seemed kind of sad. I love him." -Litigia] ["So does Felicity." --Carmexa] Felicity says things are fine and that talking about it will take all night. Ben says that's okay. ["He says 'that's okay,' like he's kind of begging to be there all night, doing whatever she wants. Hmm. Thoughts on what that could be?" --Carmexa] They exchange I-wanna-kiss-you-deeply-and-have-sex-on-this-lab-counter looks. Since things are getting a little warm in there, Ben goes out to the hall to get drinks.

Noel and Hanna are at her place looking at her Web site. Noel tells her that he and Felicity had a big fight and that he needs time to figure things out.

Ben brings two Cokes back to the lab even though Felicity said she didn't want one, because he's thoughtful like that. ["And perfect in every way." -Litigia] They try to remember what they were supposed to be studying, and they murmur about bonds and opposites attracting. Felicity says they can move on if he's ready. Ben says, "I'm not" which are the sexiest, not-overtly sexy words spoken on this show since Ben said, "Lie down." It's getting really warm in there now, and Ben leans in for a kiss. ["God, and this scene is just beautiful. It's one of my fave FAB scenes of the season, by far. I got warm fuzzies watching it. The heat between the two of them is just astounding, and Ben is incredibly sexy with that scruffy look. Rawr." -Dyslexia] ["After viewing the scene 137 times, I have to agree with you there, Dys." -Litigia] ["I have only one word for this scene: HOSEMEDOWN!" --Carmexa]

While Noel's surfing through Hanna's site with her, she notices he used "The Fugue" on it and is all impressed. Noel says he was inspired by her, and that he's always loved the sounds of Super Mario. They kiss. For a real-life-married couple, it's an oddly passionless kiss. They're all tight-lipped and awkward looking. Maybe they don't want to get into it for the cameras to protect their real-life? Whatever. It's not hot. But speaking of hot...

Cut to the lab. Felicity and Ben are kissing. A lot. Mouths open. Lips hungry. Kissing. Necking. Sizzling. Viewers getting all squirmy in their seats.

Meanwhile, Noel and Hanna have moved over to her bed and he's lying on top of her, and they're kissing.

Lab. Ben and Felicity still lip locked. They're seconds away from clearing all the Bunsen burners and textbooks off the table and going at it. But Felicity stops, and says she can't go on because she came "here" for Noel. Ben's confused and crushed, and leaves. ["Damn. If it would have only been a redux of Season One, Felicity and Ben would have formed a complete ionic bond, but noooo, Felicity has to be faithful and let her warped mind take over. Oh well, the scene was sweet. Guess we can't have it all with this eppie, but we will soon." -Dyslexia] ["I love how Felicity has to remind herself, out loud, that she came here for Noel. Oh yeah, he's the love of her fucking life. Whatever." -Litigia] ["Poor Ben. Poor, poor Ben. He thinks she came here-to the lab---for Noel. No, no, no!" --Carmexa]

Bed. Noel stops kissing Hanna, gets off her and apologizes, saying he needs to give things a chance with Felicity.

Back at her place, Felicity's curled up in bed, and the phone rings. It's Noel. They're both kind of sad, and tell each other that they both didn't have very nice nights, and were thinking of each other. Pants. On. Fire. ["Flaming!" -Litigia] ["KABOOM! Explosion! BAM!" --Carmexa] Felicity's lips are probably still bruised in a really good way from all that kissing, and she was having a very nice time and not really thinking about Noel much at all, and therein lies the problem. There's a knock on the door, so Felicity puts Noel on hold to go answer it. At the door is Noel on a cell phone. He tries to be all cutesy and says he's on hold. He comes in and kisses her, and the door closes.

On the next Felicity: It's Julie and she's got the guitar with her!! Aaaargggh. Everyone's reverted to 7th grade and they're playing spin the bottle. "You'll never be over Ben." Noel, truer words have never been spoken by you or anyone else. ["Weeeee! I can't wait! But if Julie sings, someone is going to have to die." -Litigia] ["Bitchavia and I are going-by choice-to hear her sing in June. Can you believe it? Yeah. Neither can we." --Carmexa]