Summary: Daria and Jane tag along with Trent and Jesse to the Alternapalooza rock concert, a trip where Daria is forced to deal with her crush on Trent.

Full Synopsis: At the Lane house, Daria is watching television while Jane creates a sculpture out of a mannequin and various bits and pieces of scrap. When a loud guitar chord resonates through the house and causes the sculpture to shatter, Jane drags Daria downstairs to investigate. There, they find Trent and Jesse in mid-rehearsal, and as Jane complains about the noise, Daria finds herself uncharacteristically flustered around Trent. In an attempt to fix her brother up with her best friend, Jane volunteers gas money if Trent and Jesse will take them to the upcoming Alternapalooza concert. Daria reluctantly agrees to come along (after silently vowing revenge on Jane), and is amused to find that she's not the only Morgendorffer that will be in attendance: Quinn and the rest of the Fashion Club are going, too. Daria assures Quinn that they'll easily be able to avoid each other in a crowd of 10,000 people before she and Jane are picked up by Trent and Jesse in their drummer's van, "the Tank," and Quinn is picked up by her friends. During the trip, Daria is increasingly humiliated when she bumps her head, gets stung by a bee, sits on an ancient peanut butter sandwich, breaks her glasses, and becomes an unwanted focus of attention when she has to take a woodside bathroom break during a traffic jam... and all in front of Trent. On the flip side, however, she starts to loosen up a little when Trent and Jesse actually laugh at her sarcastic comments. The van ends up breaking down about halfway to the concert, and while Jane and Jesse go look for help (a barely hidden ploy to get Trent and Daria alone), Daria sits with the object of her crush and gets to know him a little better, and even helps him overcome a "crisis of faith" of sorts by encouraging him to follow his musical dream. Jane and Jesse return empty-handed from their little sojourn, leading Jane to resort to fixing the van with her glue gun... just as the Alternapalooza concert comes to an end. They aren't the only ones who never made it to the concert, however, as Quinn and her friends got sidetracked by an outlet shopping mall. Returning home, Daria and Quinn find Helen and Jake in a very relaxed mood, having taken full advantage of the girls' absence.

Speechless: Daria has a lot of witty comebacks to things that Trent and Jesse were doing but she was afraid to say any of them out loud. How often is she afraid to say anything? Not often. Jane trying to "pick up the slack" was admirable but should have come sooner. When Daria finally does let out a zinger, she is met with an unexpected response: laughter.

Needy Lovebirds: Jake and Helen were very eager to spend some quality private time together. They seem to be getting some of that "spice" back already. They did get sappy (with the pancakes) but that is their nature. And Daria thinks nothing ever happens at home.

Glue Gun: I get the impression that, if she could, Jane would use her glue gun to glue Trent and Daria together. Daria almost was aware of this when she said "don't point that thing at me." She wants to hook up with Trent but doesn't want Jane in the middle of it. The actual glue gun did turn out to be useful in fixing "The Tank."

Van Ride from Hell (or is that Heaven?): A four hour trip with Trent wasn't very appealing to Daria. It didn't start out too well for Daria at first, either; with bumping her head, sitting on the antique sandwich, getting stung by a bee and breaking her glasses. She started to open up a little when told that peeing in the woods is almost heroic to the members of Mystik Spiral. Then she got to spend some "quality time" with Trent and had a nice conversation with him and became more comfortable with him.

Listen to Your Sister: Daria actually took some fashion advice from Quinn. It happened when Quinn asked her something like "you're not going to leave that tucked in, are you?" about her black shirt. The next time we saw Daria, her shirt was not tucked in. I'm surprised that Daria took the advice, but I guess she knows what her sister is good for.

This episode was another good one. I loved the way that Daria was thrust into yet another situation she wanted nothing to do with (but went along with anyway). She coped with everything that happened in her typical manner. Did you really think that she wanted to go to Alternapalooza, anyway?

Grade: A-

Copyright © 1998 Mike Quinn [All Rights Reserved]. Used with permission. The views presented here are those of the author, and may or may not necessarily be those of Outpost Daria Reborn.