The school budget is majorly cut, resulting in some...interesting classroom scenes. So, Ms. Li arranges to have a soda company redecorate the school in exchange for $50,000.
Daria immediately objects, first gathering that something is amiss when Ms. Li rather discreetly calls a meeting to discuss the idea to be held on Super Bowl Sunday. OH attempts to convince her mother, and then Jodie, to take action, both refusing. Jane and Tom then convince her that, in order to get anything done, she'd have to do it herself.
Following a particularly unsuccessful meeting with the super intendant (that blew a scene from my upcoming ::snort:: fanfic all to Tartarus), Daria returns to Lawndale High to find that, because UltraCola, the company which had plastered tacky posters and soda machines throughout the school, had decided that sales were not quite up to their standards, the hallways are painted yellow and green and the entire football field is covered in cola-promoting gaud. The team has to forfeit the game that is to be played that night, as Ms. Li offered half a grade point per can of soda drunken (drinken? drank? drunk? boozehound?) to everyone on the team save Mack and they have a tummy ache! So, the cheerleaders are left to topple over in their cardboard soda can outfits and poor Mack is stranded on the sidelines.
The next day, the principal totally loses it and has Mrs. Bennett invite the elementary kids over to partake in the consumption of over-carbonated sugar water, then begins attacking the machines with a fire ax. When the super intendant pays a surprise visit, everything goes back to normal.
Except the giant UltraCola logos on the roofs of the school buildings.
I really liked the message they were going for in this one, though I found it rather interesting that the whole thing was about selling out and the alter egos were replaced by a Jennifer Lopez music video. I appreciate the amount of Jodie and Mack, and quite liked seeing multiple classroom scenes back to back. But I thought Mr. DeMartino was supposed to be almost normal... Surprisingly enough, I wasn't near as disturbed by the Tom/Daria thing. Which is really disturbing. It didn't even faze me at first, and I was only queasy for a second after it hit me. I even remembered why I liked him so much before long.
~Robin