When Mr. O'Neill submits Daria's essay, "My So-Called Angst", to Val (a typical magazine for teenage girls, full of anorexic models, disgusting recipes, and celebrity gossip), without her knowledge or permission, she wins the "spend a day with Val" contest. Val, the editor of Val, turns out to be a thirty-fiveish woman who dresses and acts (but doesn't look) like she's sixteen. She's totally self-absorbed and shallow, and all she cares about is all the celebrities she knows, her hip vocabulary (ex: "That's like totally whack!" and "I'm jiggy with that!"), and futily trying to look young again.
Val arrives in Lawndale right before supper at the Morgendorffers' house (you finally get to see their dining room in this one), for which Jake has prepared Chile con Cheese Puffs with a Fresh Sprig of Mint (and I thought some of my mom's concoctions were nasty), a recipe from Val. An interesting discussion ensues, in which Jake nearly has a conniption fit trying to figure out what "edgy" means.
The next day, everyone, of course, knows about Val's visit (Val has gotten widespread publicity about it, despite that her visit was supposed to be discreet), and Ms. Li makes it school colours day. Val gets really worried when she discovers that she isn't in school colours, and gets a wardrobe change until Sandi informs her that mixing primarys during daylight hours is "not done".
Jane figures out that Val is published in New York, and has Val convinced to let Daria go there with her, until Daria finally gets sick of Val and tells her just how greedy, shallow, and self-absorbed she is. To make it worse, Val has just been dumped by her boyfriend, so she writes an article about "D" (aka: Daria), the "anti-teen," for her magazine. Daria, however, doesn't seem to care.
There were several phrases that got really overused, and Jane's insistent references to New York City got pretty annoying - she didn't really have anything else to say in that episode, which was sad - but this was still a pretty good one. I really liked it when Val had her breakdown near the end, and she kept having to say to herself, "I am Val, as in Val," to get through the trauma.
Oh, in case anyone didn't get the title (I spent awhile pondering it and finally figured it out in the middle of my shower - call me stupid, but it took a long time for me to get it), it's a play on the Lost Boys, Peter Pan's gang of boys who never aged. Val was apparently "The Lost Girl," as she stayed, at least in her own mind, a teen forever.