Case #2.17: "Champagne High"

At a mall, a radio DJ stands in the middle of the lower concourse, a shiny red Porsche parked nearby. The DJ is about to give the car away. Elsewhere in the mall, Judy and her new boyfriend(?) Lane are looking at sunglasses. He ends up stealing a pair from the kiosk. They go to the food court pizzeria for lunch, where Ricky the counter boy makes eyes at Judy. Lane gives Ricky a hard time for looking at Judy and demands his drink.

The Porsche contest begins. A blond girl named Melissa has her name drawn. She goes to grab a key out of a fishbowl, put it in the Porsche, and see if it will start. My dad actually won a car that way when I was kid. The Porsche doesn't start. The DJ announces that they'll draw another name in an hour.

A boy named Drew joins Lane and Judy to watch the car giveaway. As the crowd disperses, Drew says he's going home to study. Lane makes fun of Drew for studying every night of the week. After closing, somebody somehow finds the correct key to the Porsche. The flashy car is driven across the interior of the mall before breaking through the glass front doors. Theme song.

At the Chapel, Doug is eager to work the Porsche theft, mostly because he filled out 2,500 entry forms. Judy doesn't think Lane is behind the theft. Cap'n Rufus brings up a matter that relates more closely to the Jump Street program: South Central High School is overcrowded. Its extra students are being bussed across town to attend ritzy Westside High. In the words of Doug, this move is "turning the once-blissful community into a crime-infested hellhole."

The former South Central students are being blamed for a recent rash of burglaries on the west side. Since the Porsche incident, the police chief has had "a radio station, a car dealership, a shopping mall, and 3 insurance companies setting up camp in his office." 

Tom and Doug will be going undercover at Westside High as South Central transfers while Judy continues to work the Lane angle. South Central is a notoriously tough school, so Tom and Doug have just the cover story: the McQuaid brothers.

At the school bus stop the next day, Tom and Doug playfully shove each other on the sidewalk. Tom is sporting ripped jeans and a do-rag. Doug's look is less tough guy and more borderline homeless: His clothes are filthy. The long-sleeved tee he's wearing under his sleeveless flannel shirt is missing a sleeve altogether.

As Tom and Doug get on the bus, they shout, "HELLO!" in unison. The other students stare. The bus driver asks for their bus passes. Doug replies, "My dog ate it." Tom has the same dog. The bus driver can't give them a ride without a pass. Tom responds by bodily throwing the driver from the bus. Doug drives the school bus as Tom plays flight attendant using the CB radio and blasts a boombox.

As Drew is leaving for school, his father lectures him about the importance of not just good grades but perfect ones. He offers to give Drew a ride but Drew would rather walk.
Lane drives down the road in a flashy red convertible and denies stealing the Porsche again. Judy is with him, along with a nameless blond girl.

In what looks like a storage shed, Drew takes a sweater out of his backpack. Using a device on a counter, he removes the anti-theft tag.

In an algebra class taught by the same teacher from the Season 1 finale, Doug and Tom are practically asleep in the back row. There's some chatter about turning everyday situations into algebraic equations; Doug makes one up involving ripping off car stereos. The bell rings. The teacher reminds the class to pick up their graded midterms on their way out.

Drew studies his paper, then goes up to the teacher. He wants to get partial credit for some problems he missed for using the wrong formula. He blames the mistake on the wording of the questions, but the teacher says nobody else in class had trouble with those problems. Drew requests an impromptu oral quiz for extra credit, but the math teacher won't change the grade. He gently says, "An 87 isn't the end of the world."

Ricky tells Judy that the only evidence found in the mall was a set of Porsche tire tracks. Lane interrupts, pulls Judy away, and tells Ricky to save himself the embarrassment of hitting on her. 

In the cafeteria, some jocks chase around a screaming nerd named Wally, who bears a striking resemblance to George McFly. Doug, gnawing on a chicken bone, trips one of the jocks. Wally is still eventually cornered and gets a nasty wedgie that results in his tighty-whities being ripped completely off. To add insult to injury, the jocks steal Wally's money. A table clears as the "McQuaids" approach. Tom barks, "What is wrong with you people?! We're friendly" as Doug discreetly sniffs his own armpits. 

Harry lets Cap'n Rufus know that a boy wearing a $10,000 Rolex was caught shoplifting at the mall. In an interrogation room at police headquarters, Rufus asks Lane about the Rolex; Lane says it's his dad's watch. There's no way to prove this because his parents are conveniently away "in the Orient." Lane smirks triumphantly. Cap'n Rufus wishes that Lane was his kid because he "wouldn't be able to smile for a week." The Rolex that Lane was wearing isn't listed anywhere as stolen property and none of the items from the west side burglary cases are turning up on the street. 

In the school courtyard, the jocks hold Wally upside down while they steal his money again. Ricky approaches Drew, who has French with Judy. He asks Drew to give Judy a note for him. Drew rudely asks, "Why would she want you?"

At lunch, Wally has a business proposition for Doug: hiring Doug as his personal bodyguard, Drillbit Taylor style. $75 a week, which works out to almost 150 in 2013 dollars. Doug refuses, even when Wally offers to toss in free stereo equipment from his dad's store.

Later in the locker room, the jocks pick on Wally again. Doug and Tom throw one of the towel-clad jocks out into the main hallway. As the guy frantically tries to get back in the locker room, his towel falls off. Too far, boys, too far. In the meantime, Drew sneaks into the algebra classroom and starts changing his test scores in the teacher's gradebook.

Outside after school, Doug and Tom introduce the main jock (Sawyer) to their fence, Harry. Harry offers them a 10% finders' fee for the Porsche. 

Drew's dad, Mr. Wilder, barges into his son's bedroom. He found the algebra midterm and demands to know when Drew was planning on telling him about the score. Drew is upset that his dad went through his things; Mr. Wilder declares anything that Drew owns is common property until he moves out. He shouts that colleges don't give scholarships to "B" students. That's not true now and I'm relatively sure it wasn't true then.

Drew leaves his room with Dad on his heels. Dad demands that Drew go back and study. Drew wants to go out with his friends and promises to be home in an hour. "I didn't move us into this school district so you could learn to talk back to your father!" shouts Dad. We hear Drew being hit as he pleads with his dad to stop.

Lane, Judy, and Blondie come out of a restaurant to find a jewelry box in Lane's convertible where Judy was sitting. Inside is a gold bracelet with a diamond heart charm in the middle. The card reads "Love, Ricky."

In the Jump Street locker room, Judy ponders over whether the bracelet is supposed to make her develop a crush on Ricky. Doug says yes and shares a tale of personal experience. In 11th grade, Doug had a crush on a girl he describes as a "redheaded, flat-chested wench with a mouth like yesterday's garbage." Said redhead didn't know Doug existed until he spent $300 on a gold ID bracelet. Judy inquires, "How long did this relationship grounded in trust and friendship last?" Doug answers, "3 weeks."

Cap'n Rufus informs the group that the bracelet is real and worth about $450 ($886 in 2013). It wasn't reported stolen, so Judy will have to get into Ricky's house somehow to look for other stolen goods. He thinks it's time to put together a sting operation to see who's behind the recent burglaries.

In the boys' room, Sawyer roughs up Wally again. He rips Wally's shirt and discovers a whistle around his neck; blowing it summons "the McQuaids." This whole subplot is starting to feel like a prison porn, especially when Doug and Tom tell Sawyer they want to "keep" Wally. Wally starts to pay them their weekly fee. "We don't want your money," Doug says, "We want..." The pause makes Wally and the audience nervous. Because this is 1980's network TV, Doug finishes the sentence with "...lunch."

At Wally's house, Doug and Tom root through the desk in Wally's dad's study. They learn he's expecting a big shipment of CD players.

Drew's gets a call from Lane's car phone inviting him to lunch. Blondie comes on the line to inform Drew that he missed his history midterm. Drew felt like blowing it off and promises to meet them at the restaurant. Drew gets out of bed, revealing a series of belt marks across his bare back and shoulders.

Judy goes to Ricky's. She gives him the bracelet and lets him down gently about not wanting to be his girlfriend. 

At the electronics store loading dock, someone in a ski mask is putting boxes into a van. The Jump Street team moves in for the bust, revealing the man behind the mask to be Ricky. At police HQ, Ricky initially pleads stupidity and ignorance. He finally admits to stealing the Porsche to impress a girl.

Judy is upset because she feels Ricky is a victim of entrapment. He's a 16-year-old with a crush who wouldn't have stolen if they hadn't forced his hand. She believes Ricky took the bait about the CD players. Harry comes in to inform Cap'n Rufus that Drew called him to set up a meet.

Ricky has a garage full of stolen items, including the Porsche. He says he ripped the stuff off as a contingency plan in case he doesn't get a college scholarship. Hasn't he heard of working at the mall or McDonald's? 

At the Chapel, Drew sits in the holding cell being berated by his father. Dad wants to know what he's supposed to tell his coworkers. Drew explains that he just wanted friends. Dad didn't make sacrifices for Drew to be liked. Drew says nobody forced his dad to make any sacrifices.

Drew's dad isn't happy with his attitude. "What are you gonna do? Beat me again?" asks Drew. That statement gets the attention of everyone in the squadroom. Drew shouts that he's never good enough; if he gets a 98, his dad wants to know why he didn't score 100.

Unfortunately for Drew, he can go home because his bail has been posted. Cap'n Rufus witnesses Drew's dad shoving him around. They leave. Doug looks sick. "I got a very bad feeling about this," he says. Tom agrees that Mr. Wilder most likely won't be satisfied with a simple grounding.

Tom and Doug go to check on Drew. They find him sitting on the front steps, a bandanna wrapped around a gashed forearm. Drew, eerily calm, says, "I told him not to hit me." Doug goes into the house. We don't see what Doug does, but it's enough to make him shout for Tom to call an ambulance.

At school the next day, "The McQuaids" tell Wally the bad news: their dad got a new job so they're moving again. Now Wally has to take care of his own problems. Wally looks freaked out about this. End of episode.

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