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peterstanslizzie · 5 years ago

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Re-watching Lizzie Mcguire: Episode 1.14 (Random Acts of Miranda)

A Miranda-Centric Episode

- The episode starts off with Gordo spewing out random facts about Trinidad and Tobago to Lizzie but she’s laser focused on finishing an article she’s writing for their school’s web-zine and doesn’t want to be interrupted.

- She hands over a soft-copy of her article about the film, ‘The Mummy’ to her teacher Mr. Lang and mentions to him she’s planning to write about the upcoming school play written by their drama teacher, Mr. Escobar. Unfortunately for Lizzie, her teacher is too busy doing his crossword puzzle and didn’t listen to anything she said.

- Side note: It’s sad watching this episode and knowing how the actor who played Mr. Escobar, Daniel Escobar had already passed on due to complications from diabetes.

Miranda Gets The Starring Role

- At the school cafeteria, Gordo is talking to Lizzie about possibly working with her as a photographer one day when she becomes a famous reporter. Aww, he’s already planning out his future with her but Lizzie doesn’t see it happening lol.

- Miranda runs into the cafeteria all excited and without realizing, she pushes Larry Tudgeman out of her way when he’s picking up something off the floor. Poor Larry! Miranda should have helped him up and get a new plate of Brussel Sprouts for him.

Not cool Miranda!

- Anyways, Miranda reveals to her friends that she got the lead role for the school play. But she only got it because there wasn’t much competition and the drama kids wanted to act in something cooler. Lizzie is especially excited for Miranda because none of them has ever been in a school play before. Well, except for Gordo:

3rd Grade Gordo looks really adorable here

Eddie Thomas?! What are you doing here?

Another recognizable guest star on the show. Neat!

- Mr. Escobar is conducting a rehearsal session in the school theatre and Miranda is running her lines with a boy who is played by Orlando Brown of ‘That’s So Raven’. I’ve completely forgotten he guest starred on Lizzie Mcguire before. I think his appearance here predates That’s So Raven because that show only premiered 2 years later, after Lizzie Mcguire in 2003.

- Miranda is actually doing a terrible job rehearsing because she seems to be over-acting everything and she also doesn’t understand the concept of ‘stage directions’ either.

This is a funny frame to stop on

- She then rehearses a scene with Larry’s character and does a poor job again. I am surprised to see Larry also being cast for the play. Mr. Escobar must be quite desperate to fill in the roles.

The Big Night is Here

- We skip to opening night, specifically the moment the play is about to start and Lizzie gives Miranda a stuffed cow toy for good luck. It was first given to Lizzie by Miranda to act as a good luck charm for her soccer playoffs and it actually worked.

- Lizzie’s family and Lanny are also present in the audience but both Matt and Lanny are clearly disinterested to be there. Matt is busy playing a video game and Lanny is just sleeping on Matt’s arm.

How cute is that?

- The play starts and I gotta to tell you, Larry is a pretty good actor. The same cannot be said about Miranda, however, because the moment she steps (I mean, runs) onto the stage, the stumbles and hits her toe. She proceeds to limp towards the front of the stage and even manages to mess up her lines again.

- As the show continues, she seems to get even worse because people are now getting up and leaving the theatre. Yikes! She’s also written some of the lines she couldn’t remember on her arm and to top it all off, she manages to destroy some of the props along the way. Even Lizzie cannot defend Miranda’s bad performance.

A Bad Review and Miranda Acts Up

- The next day or maybe a few days later, Lizzie is writing her review of the recent play in her living room and she is joined by Gordo. She’s struggling to write anything down because she just can’t bear to give her best friend a bad review. Gordo thinks she should be honest and write what she thinks. Lizzie decides to meet him in the middle and write an honest review that is hopefully worded positively.

- Lizzie’s fears come true and Miranda is offended by her review because she wrote that her “best effort comes up short”. Oh, here we go again; Another ‘fight’ between Lizzie and Miranda. No shade to the writers but it seems like most of the arguments on this show are always girl vs girl, mainly involving Miranda.

Miranda really needs to stop throwing the word, ‘jealous’ around so much. It’s so aggravating to watch

- Lizzie tries to make amends with her at the cafeteria but Miranda is giving her the silent treatment. Lizzie tells her that she was trying to do her job as an honest reporter but this triggers Miranda to accuse Lizzie of being jealous (AGAIN?!) that she’s the star of the play. Girl, bye. This is the second time in the season she accuses Lizzie of being jealous; The first episode being episode 1.10, ‘I Do, I Don’t’.

Again, poor Larry has to suffer again from Miranda’s rage

- Gordo catches up to Miranda and hands over Lizzie’s full review and a tape of her performance to her; He basically wants her to watch back her performance in the school play and to understand that her acting was terrible that night. Gordo is the real MVP here; He knows how to handle situations like this, especially ones that involve bickering between best friends.

- Miranda watches back her performance in her room and based on her expression, she finally realizes she stinks lol.

Parallels

- Jo is in the kitchen packing lunch for her husband’s softball game tomorrow and she tells Lizzie that she’s going to go with him to support his team. Lizzie is surprised and confused about this because her dad isn’t very good at the sport and her mom doesn’t even like softball.

- Jo explains to Lizzie that it doesn’t matter if she hates softball or the fact that her husband is bad at it, all that matters is that she comes out to support him no matter what. This strikes a chord with Lizzie and she now thinks she should be a better friend to Miranda. Really? I think Lizzie was absolutely in the right when she’s being honest but reasonable when reviewing her friend’s performance. In fact, Miranda should be the one apologizing to her.

- In the next scene, Lizzie is walking up to Mr. Escobar and the other students plus Miranda and her drama teacher is reading Lizzie’s review of his play out loud. Knowing now that Lizzie wrote this in her review, “The entire play is dragged down by Miranda Sanchez’s performance”, I found her review to be a little harsh actually. So, I kinda understand Miranda’s anger towards Lizzie.

- Lizzie hands over an alternate version of her review to Miranda, one that is very positive and apologizes to her. Miranda surprises Lizzie and admits how terrible she was in the play after seeing the tape Gordo gave her. She doesn’t want Lizzie to throw away her journalistic integrity just because Miranda is her best friend. And Lizzie tells her that she wouldn’t have written a review of Miranda’s performance knowing how much it had affected her emotionally.

- Miranda apologizes to Lizzie (thank goodness) for being so mad at her. She randomly comes up with the idea that if she’s a bad actress, she has to be a good singer. I never came across this correlation before but sure, Miranda..whatever floats your boat.

- I believe this is the second night of Mr. Escobar’s play and Miranda is so pre-occupied by her conversation with Lizzie, she forgets that she has a scene that she needs to act in asap.

Miranda Sings ‘Reflection’ for Glee Club

- We fast forward to Miranda’s glee club recital and she starts to perform ‘Reflection’ by Lea Salonga from the movie, Mulan. Luckily for her and the audience members, she gives the audience an incredible performance.

It’s only fitting Lalaine (the actress who plays Miranda) sings this song not only because she’s an actual singer but she’s Filipino like Lea herself.

B-Plot: Matt and Lanny Want Walkie Talkies

They are definitely plotting something here

- Matt and Lanny enter the kitchen in the Mcguire home and Matt asks his mom, Jo if she can give him $90 to buy Walkie-Talkies by using the “Start High, Go Low” method. She doesn’t give in to his request and suggests they should earn the money themselves.

- They begin to start fishing for spare change all over the living room and the payphones outside but it isn’t enough. Lanny comes up with an idea to hold a mini garage sale and sell most of Matt’s things like his toys, books and clothes in his room and communicates this mentally into Matt’s brain.

- In the second half of the episode, we see Matt playing with his newly purchased Walkie-Talkie. Jo and Sam notices him playing with it and questions him how he got the Walkie-Talkie to which he responds he earned it. Well, they are about to find out how he earned it soon.

They are just...shocked lol

- They enter his room and immediately notice how empty it is. Well, I don’t mean to question you both but how on Earth did you not notice Matt moving most of his things out of his room and out of the house? Anyways, they are just dumb-founded at the whole thing and Matt just nonchalantly walks out of his room like nothing weird happened. I really hope Matt didn’t sell all of his stuff just to only get back $90 in total because that would be such a rip off.

Overall Thoughts

- This episode was a bit strange to me; It might be the pacing or the actual story-lines. First of all, this is a very Miranda-centric episode, which I don’t mind. I think for Lalaine, who is a very good actress to act as someone who is in turn, a bad actress is very hard to do and she manages it so well.

- I didn’t like how Miranda accused Lizzie again of being jealous in this episode; It makes me think that Miranda has some underlying issues with Lizzie that she needs to address in my opinion. But I’m glad she apologized to her friend. However, I have a problem with Lizzie trying to always be the pacifist in the sense that at the end, she was ready to retract her initial review just to make Miranda happy. If my friend is bad at something, I’m not going to lie and say he/she is good at it. I will be honest but kind about it.

- The B-plot with Matt and Lanny is just another waste of space to me. It’s weird how no resolution was shown by the end of the episode. I at least wanted to see how Matt was punished or at least being taught a lesson by his parents on screen.

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