Jerri is a virgin now.

Season 2 of Strangers With Candy gave a marked shift in the show’s trajectory. The opening to the show is now a cartoon because people were tuning in and thinking it was genuinely supposed to be an after school special. A sentiment that is both hilarious and somewhat frightening. The subjects of each episode also become far more ridiculous, probably to make it as clear as possible that this is indeed a parody.

The Virgin Jerri continues where the season finale left off. Jerri is out of jail, again, and ready to start school as a freshman, again, owing to that whole failing her final and nearly killing Orlando with a sword. Orlando isn’t in this episode, likely to keep the plot focused on Tammy Littlenut as Jerri’s primary friend. Maria Thayer looks almost exactly the same as she did twenty years ago. Chuck Noblet also has no appearance in this episode and Jellineck shows up for a good five seconds. Even Principal Blackman has about one line.

No, this episode is pretty much 90% women-focused. Taking the head role as mentor is Sarah Thyre’s Coach Cherri Wolf who teaches the girls that they should be proud of being virgins, even if they aren’t actually virgins anymore. There’s no time like the present to act like the thing you’re pretending to be. Flatpoint High is in a constant state of cultural flux, so naturally in this episode the cool crowd are the kids who are still virgins, and the students having sex are the ones who get made fun of and ostracized.

And Jerri constantly wants to be one of the popular students, so that means tucking away her enormous libido (after giving a quickie on the way to school for $20 and some pizza) and becoming chaste. But being a virgin is a tough job when you’ve spent over 30 years of your life as a whore, so the question is can Jerri do it? No. The question is will she get away with it, and the answer is probably and if not who cares anyway.

Today’s single episode character is Drake Rogers played by Jeremy Davidson. Drake’s catch phrase is “I wish I was smarter.” Alongside Drake is Jimmy Tickles (Jack Ferver) who will appear for one more episode in season 2 and one episode in season 3. Drake and Jimmy play off each other really well, with Drake being the jackass horny jock who is also a moron and Jimmy being the shy virgin who is bound to get taken advantage of by someone like Jerri Blank. Both Davidson and Ferver have been in a lot of things since this episode, none of which I’ve seen.

Funny enough I would probably trust Drake Rogers over Jimmy Tickles if they were my classmates. Drake is a horndog but he’s also intensely proud of that and doesn’t hide his intentions. Jimmy Tickles meanwhile give an aura of the nice guy whose persona tells me he’ll take advantage of any drunk woman he sees. I think you have much more to fear from Jimmy Tickles than Drake Rogers.

You can tell the series has a new director, as Juan José Campanella took over directing for some of Season 2 and a lot of Season 3.

Quotes:

  • Drake: “A virgin whore.”
  • Jerri: “Pizza, pizza, pizza!”
  • Carlos: “I want to kiss up your bottom.”
  • Jerri: “Why did you spread those vicious lies?”
    Drake: “Because you didn’t spread those vicious thighs.”