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Lizzie McGuire Season 2 Episode 33

One of the Guys

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Episode Summary

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AIRED: 11/21/03

After setting a new school record in gym and then beating Ethan Craft in arm-wrestling, Lizzie is invited to play touch football with the "cute guys." But after winning the game, Ethan and the guys call her a "great dude" and "a monster" while Kate insults her as a "guy-girl." This worries Lizzie so much that she makes an early-morning call to Miranda for advice. Miranda suggests she emphasize her feminine side more, which Lizzie spends the rest of the morning doing. A talk with Coach Kelly helps Lizzie see things in a different light. Afterward she tells off Kate and goes back onto the field to play with the boys again. Meanwhile, Matt isn't doing his math homework. He falls asleep and wakes up to find it all done, but he has no idea that Fredo the chimp snuck into his room and did it for him! Before the truth comes out, Jo and Sam are happy to see their son doing so well in the subject and Melina wants Matt to do her homework for her.moreless

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Fan Episode Reviews (3)

POW! POW! POW! Mcguire is on fire! Lizzie is now a guy-girl and does not like how things are going on. Lizzie beat Ethan, Miranda and Gordo in hanging chin ups. Lizzie beats Ethan Craft in an arm wrestle!!! Watch how Lizzie turns into a guy Girl.moreless

9.8

By TVrocks4uandme, Nov 17, 2006

POW! POW! POW! Mcguire is on fire. Lizzie went to gym class and she had to do hanging chin ups. Amazingly Mcguire beat Miranda, Ethan and Gordo and set a new school record! Then Ethan challenged an arm wrestle to Lizzie and she beat him! Thomas then asked Lizzie if she wanted to play flying football with them. Since she is muscle mcguire she accepted. When she got to the grounds Lizzie helped win the flying football when she tackled a boy like a guy. Ethan called her a total dude and Thomas called her a monster. At home Lizzie had a nightmare about Ethan calling her a total dude, Thomas calling her a total monster and Kate saying that she looks, smells, feels like a dude. She is a guy-girl. Lizzie called Miranda at 5:30 in the morning. Miranda picked up the phone in her sleep and pressed talk! It was very strange. Lizzie tells her about her nightmares and how she is in need of desperate advise. Miranda tells her what to do and adds, next time can you schedule a crisis so its in the afternoon. When Lizzie gets to school she goes to Coach Kelly and spills all her problems to her. Coach Kelly told her not to worry about Ethan and Thomas calling her guy names. Kate might just be jealous because she is hanging with the cute guys. Lizzie feels comforted by that and plays flying football again.

Meanwhile, at home Matt is very unwilling to do his math homework. So when Matt falls asleep in his chair. Fredo the chimp saves the day. He comes over and does Matt\'s homework. When Matt wakes up his homework is all done for him. The next day Mrs Chapman, Matt\'s math teacher, says she is disappointed with everyones work except for Matt\'s homework. Melina is very suspicious and asks Matt to do her homework for her. Matt agrees. When Matt got home he starts sleeping and as you predicted it he does the work. When he wakes up it is all done. On the next day of school Mrs Chapman is very impressed.

When Matt gets home Jo and Sam have a talk and they are ever so proud of the brainy Matt. Matt then starts sleeping again. Fredo can\'t do long division OH NO! He wakes Matt up and tells him. Then Fredos\' owners, Jo and Sam came in and then they find out the horrible truth.moreless
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After beating ethan craft in arm wrestling, the boys think Lizzie is a guy/girl. She starts playing flag footballbut she doesn't know what to think. After one night she decides to be a girl instead. After talking to Coach Kelly who knows what canmoreless

10

By froggytuffy, Nov 17, 2006

After setting a new school record in hanging up chin bars and beating Ethan Craft in arm wrestling everybody refers to Lizzie as a guy/girl. She also starts playing flag football and hanging out with all the popular boys in school. But after the game of flag football Ethan calls Lizzie a total dude and Thomas called her a monster.

When Lizzie went to bed that night she had nightmares about being a guy/girl and decided to call Miranda at 5:30am. Miranda actually answered the phone in her sleep.

After the phone call Lizzie tried to be a really girly girl and put on a lot of make-up but it didn’t really make a difference.

When Lizzie went to school she told Ethan and Thomas that she wasn’t going to play flag football anymore.

After that she went to talk to Coach Kelly, after a long talk Lizzie decided that she didn’t care what everybody else thought and decided to play the next game of flag football.

When she did she won both of them.

Meanwhile Matt is struggling to do his homework but when he fell asleep he thinks that he has found a loophole.moreless
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Lizzie McGuire: Superstar!

4.8

By The_Match_Maker, Jan 19, 2006

Once again it is that time of the year in P.E.—the yearly ‘Presidential Physical Fitness Challenge’. And like is always the case, most people are, shall we say, ‘a bit slack’ in the ‘ol physical fitness department. Ah heck, we’re Americans—which means we’re out of shape slobs. ;-)

Anyway, unbeknownst to anyone (lest Lizzie herself), Lizzie is a physical fitness monster. All that rhythmic gymnastic training and soccer league play must really have developed her body strength. She sets a new school record for hanging onto the chin up bar.

Not only does she have more upper body strength than Gordo and Miranda, but it turns out that she’s even stronger than Ethan Craft himself. Mr. flag football playing, basketball wielding, water polo participating Ethan Craft.

As if that weren’t enough, Ethan (possibly feeling his manhood threatened) then challenges Lizzie to an *arm wrestling* contest. And it is here that we, the audience, have to suspend our disbelief. For are we to honestly believe that a 14 year old self-professed ‘girlie girl’ is actually *stronger* than an athletic, physically imposing, 14 year old *boy*?

If this were Veruca taking on Ethan, then I could perhaps see it. But Lizzie is *slight* physically. She’s been shown to be adept at gymnastics, soccer, and basketball—but to be able to physically out perform an ‘alpha male’ such as Ethan? In *arm wrestling*?!? Arm-wrestling for goodness sake!

After her implausible victory over the most popular boy in the school, Lizzie is accepted as ‘one of the guys’ (hence the episode’s title). And to Lizzie’s (and our) surprise, she not only enjoys her physical ‘boy’ activities (such as flag football), but she’s exceptionally good at them. Though one has to wonder at the embarrassment level associated with being tackled by a *girl*!

Kate however, being jealous of Lizzie’s newfound status (and closeness with Ethan), derides Lizzie as having become a ‘total dude’. A rather lame attack, but then Kate’s offensives have been progressively less pointed ever since “Lizzie and Kate’s Excellent Adventure”.

Lizzie then undergoes a mini identity crisis as she fears never being able to get a boyfriend if they all just think of her as a fellow ‘dude’. But strangely enough, her ‘girlie girl’ look to combat this doesn’t make her appear any different than her normal look.

It’s then that we are treated to the single longest interlude with Coach Kelly in the series’ history. Usually she’s confined to barking out orders in gym. In fact, this is the first time we’ve seen her since way back in Season 1.

Turns out, underneath her physically intimidating form, there beats a caring heart. She helps council Lizzie that being good at sports doesn’t make a female any less of a woman. We’ve seen Lizzie get advice from everybody from Jo, to Sam, to Gordo, to Miranda, to Mr. Dig, to even Kate. But this is the first time we’ve ever seen Coach Kelly in this light. And as a consequence she goes beyond the one note character she’d been portrayed as before. This turn as councilor adds depth to her character.

Having her head on straight, Lizzie decides to go back to doing what she apparently likes—which is strenuous physical activity with the guys. This time in the form of flag football.

After lowering the boom on Kate (“No one likes you Kate!”), Lizzie goes on to play like Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens! She totally dominates the game with her wicked defensive efforts. She sacks the quarterback. She gets interceptions. She scores a touchdown. She is, as one character says, a ‘monster’.

As for the subplot, Matt isn’t doing very well at math (surprise, surprise). After passing out, everyone’s favorite guest star, Fredo the Chimp, shows up and does Matt’s homework for him. The *chimp* is doing Matt’s homework. And what’s more, he gets a 97% on it! Can we say “Planet of the Apes”? ;-)

After one brief scene with Melina, in which she demands Matt do her homework as well, we are once again treated to Matt’s passing out and Fredo’s coming in to do the work for him.

Eventually the whole thing is found out. While Jo’s disappointed and angry with Matt, Sam wants to know if Fredo could do their taxes for them!

Overall, the episode seemed strained somehow. For instance, in the subplot, it’s never made clear when Matt catches on that it is Fredo doing his homework for him. In one scene we see Matt assuming that he’s doing it in his sleep. Yet in another when he wakes up to see Fredo over his homework he’s not surprised at all, and even seems to acknowledge that he knew he’d been doing it. One gets the feeling that the script underwent some changes from the original draft to what we saw on screen. The result being that certain ‘revelations’ have been cut.

And one also gets the feeling that this script was originally written before “The Greatest Crush of All”. For in that episode Matt and Fredo make up for their ‘misunderstanding’ in “Mom’s Best Friend”. Yet in this episode Matt greets Fredo with derision—as though “The Greatest Crush of All” never happened.

On the acting front, all the performances are ‘keyed up’ for some reason. It seems like the actors were unusually peppy during the shoot. Jake wildly overacts as in this episode (though he has shown a tendency to do that in Season 2, not so much to this extent), and Hilary and Lalaine seem uncommonly ‘chipper’ in their delivery of lines and facial expressions. As though they were having just ‘too good’ a time. It’s a strange vibe that Hilary gives off more and more of during the latter episodes of Season 2. It’s almost a form of overacting.

One gets the feeling that the cast knew the show was winding down, and all that anxiety and nervousness imbued their performances with a manic sort of energy.

At the end of the day, while the episode is solid enough, one has problems seeing Lizzie as the ‘boy beater’ in sports she’s made out to be. Hilary Duff is about as girlish of a girl as one can get. She’s very slight of frame. To see her stand side by side with boys and to believe that she’s actually *stronger* than them just doesn’t jibe.

When Hilary’s shown running, it’s as girlish of a run as can be seen. In short, Hilary (Lizzie) doesn’t possess so much as one single trait that makes it look as though she could be stronger than a 15-year-old male jock.

She’s the least likely of tomboys to come down the pike since, well, *ever*. As was said before, if it were Veruca playing the role, that would be believable. She’s physically as large as most boys, and could conceivably hang with them in feats of strength. But Lizzie? That’s like one of the Dallas Cheerleaders out bench-pressing starting quarterback Quincy Carter!

The viewer can believe that Lizzie’s good at sports—but *contact* sports? Against *males*? That just suspends one’s disbelief too far.

This is ultimately a good episode, but one that feels ragged around the edges. The manic performances. The lack of screen time for the supporting cast. The seeming continuity gaffes. It all adds up for an off kilter feel.moreless
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Cast & Crew: STARS

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Robert Carradine	Sam McGuire
Hallie Todd	Jo McGuire
Hilary Duff	Lizzie McGuire
Jake Thomas	Matt McGuire
Lalaine	Miranda Sanchez
Adam Lamberg	David "Gordo" Gordon

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Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

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Julian Jackson	Jose	Guest Star
Tonya Rowland	Jasmine Chapman	Guest Star
Andrew McFarlane	Thomas	Guest Star
Jeremy J. Bargiel		Recurring Role
Clayton Snyder	Ethan Craft	Recurring Role
Carly Schroeder	Melina Bianco	Recurring Role

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (7)
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- During the song "Supergirl!" the captions read "I am so a girl" instead of the real lyrics, "I'm a supergirl"
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- The layout of Matt's room seems to change from episode to episode. In this one he has two sets of windows on different walls which would lead one to believe his room is on the corner of the house. But his room is situated between Lizzie's and his parents so he can't be on the corner.
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- Nitpick: In all of the shots of the clock in the gym it reads 11:10. Editor: As one viewer pointed out, the clock may have stopped because the battery died.
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- Right before Gordo falls off the bar you can see Lizzie's grip loosen on the bar with both hands, but she doesn't fall any lower.
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- When Ethan and Thomas come up to Lizzie in the courtyard, Lizzie yells at Miranda, by saying "Miranda" but the close caption says "Amanda."
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- The first time Lizzie is playing football, Gordo and Miranda are sitting on the bleachers, but in two later shots they appear to move to opposite ends of the bleachers.
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- When Fredo first does Matt's homework, long marks can be seen on the paper which look more like scribbling.
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QUOTES (13)
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- Miranda: You are taking me with you. I don't care if I have to be a cheerleader. I'm going. [to Lizzie's football game] If I'd known this was going to happen I would have so hung onto the bar longer.
  Gordo: Yeah, well. I guess I'll go too, but I'm not going be a cheerleader.
  Lizzie: That's okay Gordo. I don't think you have the legs for it anyway.
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- Miranda: Lizzie?! Did I just call you in my sleep? I woke up and the phone was in my hand!
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- Lizzie: Ethan Craft said I was a total dude and Thomas called me a monster.
  Coach Kelly: Craft calls everyone a dude! He doesn't know many other words.
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- Ethan: I got an idea!
  Toon Lizzie: That's something you don't hear very often.
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- Coach Kelly: I can talk to students. I just prefer to yell most of the time.
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- Coach Kelly: There are people that think that being strong is a boy thing, but that's because they're severely lacking in brains.
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- Toon Lizzie: Kate's gonna be invited to the prom. And I'm gonna be invited to monster truck rallies and chiliburger-belching contests!
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- Lizzie: It took me twice as long to do my hair and make-up this morning, and I changed my outfit six times! That's three more than I usually do.
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- Miranda: Lizzie, I love you and all, but next time could you please schedule a crisis for the daylight hours?
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- Ethan: I'm up for a rematch, if the lady is.
  Gordo: Ooh, that's a shocker! 'Oooh, I lost to a girl and now to reassert my male dominance I need to beat her in front of all my friends!'
  Ethan: It's not like that Gor-don. 'Cause I don't know what that means.
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- Lizzie: Nobody likes you, Kate!
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- Kate: Ethan!
  Ethan: Dude, I told ya, I'm watching the game!
  Kate (shocked): I am not a DUDE!
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- Kate: (To Lizzie) You are a total DUDE!
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NOTES (12)
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- This episode can be found in the paperback novelization book, Lizzie McGuire High Five.
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- First aired in Hong Kong on April 5th, 2005.
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- When Matt is sleeping in his bed, all of a sudden he wakes up and yells, "No more gravy!!!!!" He also yells the same words in "Bad Girl McGuire."
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- While in gym the kids are taking part in the Presidential Fitness Challenge which has five parts:
  1. Curl-Ups (or Partial Curl-Ups)
  2. Shuttle Run
  3. Endurance Run/Walk: One Mile run/walk
  4. Pull-Ups or (Push Ups or Flexed Arm Hang)
  5. V-Sit Reach (or Sit and Reach)
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- While speaking to Matt in their classroom, Melina can be seen wearing a retainer.
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- Fredo the chimp makes his fourth appearance, the other episodes were "Moms Best Friend," "Over the Hill" and "The Greatest Crush of All."
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- The clapboard seen on the blooper reel at the end of the show gives the date of production as April 3, 2002. Which means over nineteen months passed between the filming and broadcasting of this episode. The clapboard also shows the director listed as "Not So Civilized" Steve De Jarnett, a parody of Savage Steve Holland who directed many episodes of Lizzie McGuire. This episode also aired before the Disney movie Full-Court Miracle.
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- This episode is on Vol. 1 of the Lizzie McGuire DVD Collection entitled "Fashionably Lizzie" released on Dec. 9, 2003.
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- Music includes: "Rock & Roll, Pt. 2" by Gary Glitter from his 1972 album Glitter. This song has become almost universally recognizable over the years due its being played at many sporting events. It's heard the first time Lizzie is playing football.
  "Supergirl!" by Krystal (aka Krystal Harris) from her 2001 album Me and My Piano. It was also used in the Disney movie The Princess Diaries (2001) and the video for the song was often played on the Disney Channel. It's heard when Lizzie is "girling up" in the morning for school.
  "Girls Can Do Anything" by the Kirkwood Gang, was written especially for this episode, it is heard when Lizzie is playing football at the end of the episode.
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- The title of this episode may have been drawn from the movie Just One of the Guys (1985). Joyce Hyser portrays a girl who switches schools and genders, in order to enter a journalism contest, so that she will be taken more seriously.
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- First aired in Australia on May 5, 2003 and in Canada on September 12, 2003.
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- For several months before its premiere, a brief clip from this episode showing Lizze and Ethan arm-wrestling has been broadcast as part of a promo on ABC for their "ABC Kids" Saturday morning lineup.
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ALLUSIONS (3)
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- In the bloopers, when Toon Lizzie gains large muscles in fear that she's becoming one of the guys, she suddenly turns green. This is an obvious allusion the comic book The Incredible Hulk, about a tortured physicist who, when angry, would occasionally transform into a raging, muscular, green monster called the Hulk. The comic was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and published by Marvel Comics in 1961. The Hulk character grew to become a popular icon to Marvel Comics. For Toon Lizzie, the gag was obviously aimed at the random way she grew large muscles in that one scene. This may have been a tribute to the Hulk film which came out in 2003, a few months before this episode premiered.
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- Coach Kelly: Do you think Brandi Chastain worries about what people think, or Picabo Street, or Kelly Clark?
  
  Brandi Chastain was a member of the gold medal winning US Women's National Team in the 1996 Olympic Games.
  
  Picabo Street is known today as one of the finest alpine speed skiers of all time, having been on the US Ski Team since 1989 at the age of 17. Her love of speed helped her to win the silver medal in the 1994 Olympic Games, nine world cup downhill victories in 1995 and 1996, and a world downhill championship in 1996. Unfortunately in December of that year Picabo tore the ACL in her left knee, keeping her out of competition for just over a year. At the 1998 Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan Picabo won gold in the Super Giant Slalom and finished in sixth place in the downhill event. But a short time after the games she suffered another torn ACL and badly broken left leg at the World Cup races, this which kept her out of competition for 33 months. Picabo made a successful return to the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah but failed to medal in the downhill event and retired from competition.
  
  Kelly Clark is a familiar name to those interested in Xtreme sports. Born in 1983, she's been skiing since age two and snowboarding since the third grade. Between 2001 and 2003 she has placed either first or second in almost a dozen competitions. Kelly also won the first gold medal for the US at the 2002 Olympic Games in the snowboarding competition.
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- Toon Lizzie: OK I need one part Clueless and two parts Legally Blonde.
  Clueless was a hit film from 1995 starring Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz and Stacey Dash as her friend Dionne Davenport. Cher is a rich self-absorbed girl at first, but through the film she ends up maturing as she helps out those around her.
  
  Legally Blonde (2001) starred Reece Witherspoon as Elle Woods a perky-in-pink blonde who had everything popularity, looks, and the perfect guy, Warner Huntington III (Matthew Davis) until he dumps her and leaves for law school. Elle decides to follow Warner to Harvard and win him back by shaming him with her brilliance. In the end she shows the snooty Ivy League that there's more to blondes than meets the eye.
  The common aspect of these films is that both have very feminine characters who are interested in fashion and their appearance, and that is what Lizzie is trying to get back to.
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