by Aimee Curran
Blood! Gore! Zombies! After six long weeks of missing out favorite cheer team, the Hellcats dusted off their pom-poms and sis-boom-bah'd their way back into our hearts by helping Dan with his Lancer film school submission. Nothing says, "I'm serious about film making," more than having Marti eaten by a crew of zombies and the rest of the Hellcats fighting them off with a fancy dance routine and guns. Right? But we'll get to that in a sec.
First things first. Last time we checked in with Marti she was desperate to find out who her dad really was. Post-zombie bloodbath, Marti hops on her trusty bike headed for the guitar shop with picks she found in her dad's suitcase. She hopes she'll find any tiny bit of information about him. At the shop she meets Dierdra (played by AJ Michalka—yes Aly's real life sister), a space cadet of a store clerk.
After searching the store database for her dad's name and coming up with nothing, Dierdra tells Marti that the little podunk guitar shop they are standing in could be another CBGB. I mean it has one whole wall covered in old rock memorabilia, fliers, photos and stickers from all the musicians that have played there. One whole wall…wow. It takes Marti under a minute to find an old setlist from 1998 with her dad's name, Rex Perkins, on it. Marti immediately has issue with the date. Turns out, Wanda-the-wonder-mom lied to Marti years ago when she said Rex died in 1993. Marti confronts Wanda, she 'fesses up and takes Marti to their town's equivalent of L.A.'s Skid Row.
While Marti dreamed of her dad being a rock star, or a guy she would have taken long car rides with and had daddy-daughter heart-to-hearts, Wanda dashes her dreams by telling Marti he was a huge crack head drug addict. Ouch. Wanda rubs even more salt in the wound by pointing out a building Rex took Marti to when she was three. While he got high, Marti was wandering around among transients, needles and urine-soaked floors. Gross. From that day forward, Wanda had nothing to do with Rex and told Marti he was dead so she would stop asking where he was. Cue the tears and apology.
Meanwhile, Alice begins working with magazine editor Kelsey. Remember Kelsey dumped a boring football story spotlighting all-star players in favor of a cheerleading exposé last fall causing a huge rift in the athletics department. Anywho, Alice and Kelsey set up a girl name Betsy who had been running a term paper cheating ring with Lancer athletes. After catching Betsy in the act on camera, Alice is pumped on the idea of a career in journalism and tells Lewis about the story. Turns out every athlete who has ever paid Betsy for a paper will appear in the magazine. Bad news bears for Lewis! He's a former client! He begs Alice to kill the story, she asks Kelsey, Kelsey laughs in her face and now Lewis is screwed. Uh-oh!
With his zombie film ready to be submitted, Dan gets cold feet after meeting two of the other film school applicants. They are major movie snobs only interested in artsy-fartsy films based on deep thematic meanings. Blah, blah…boring! Dan freaks out and the next morning refuses when Savannah asks to see his movie. He tells her what's up, peaces out for coffee and conveniently leaves his computer on the table. Obvi Savannah has her memory stick on her, lifts the movie off of Dan's computer and submits it to the film department. Oh Savannah, you're so sneaky!
Dan shows up at Wanda's with coffee for Marti and the two settle on the couch for another episode of "Bro down with Marti and Dan." Marti tells Dan everything she learned about her dad, cries, hugs, cries harder, hugs, has a serious meltdown and all the while, her coffee just gets cold. Lame. After Marti calms down she goes back to the dorms and is surprised by Wanda carrying Rex's guitar case. She gives it to Marti and inside the case, under the guitar, is another original song Rex wrote. This one is darn special though because Rex wrote it the day Marti was born! Awwww…well kinda. Marti realizes her dad could still be alive, and Wanda tries to damper any ideas of looking for him. I smell a new story line! I'm calling it right now, Marti finds him singing on a street corner and working in a soup kitchen. Just sayin...
It's the night of the film department submission screening, and Savannah tells Dan what she did. He's mad for a nanosecond, but Savannah works her pep-talk magic and Dan realizes he's awesome, his film is awesome and the effect it had on the film snobs was awesome. Can I just say awesome one more time? It was awesome!
Post-screening, everyone heads to the Rat for the after party and Marti performs the song her dad wrote, which was actually pretty sweet, but totally depressing knowing her dad chose drugs over her. Le sigh…but we all know this isn't the end.
What did you think of last night's "Hellcats"? Let us know in the comments!
** Hollywood Crush Twitter