Double Exposure

Synopsis

Jesse and Danny are in competition for the lead in a school production of Jekyll and Hyde however in order to get the part Jesse cheats on a biology exam.

Meanwhile the school year book fund goes missing and is presumed stolen. Dwight takes on the investigation to flush out the culprit and no one, even the teachers are above suspicion.

My Review

The first time I saw this episode I thought here we go again another story ripping off some other play, book or film. I also assumed this was just going to be some silly story based on Jekyll and Hyde. However, after actually watching I have to say I really like this story and feel it goes much deeper than a lot of the other season 5 episodes. Yes it is inspired by Jekyll and Hyde but here we see that perhaps everyone has two sides to their personality. This is demonstrated with Jesse trying to cheat on a test, lie to Nicole and give him an unfair advantage over Danny in the auditions. We see a darker side to Jesse and when the school year book money goes missing and a photograph appears to show Jesse as the culprit then I feel the audience is left feeling uncertain about Jesse character. Is he capable of steeling too?

Interestingly, Danny too is given a darker side to play, when he discovers Jesse cheated to get the part, his anger overflows and he wants Jesse to suffer. Eventually he realises how he's been acting and doesn't like it. This could so easily have ended up being really cheesy and both Danny & Jesse's actions seeming out of character but feel some great acting means that both Jesse and Carlo pull this off pretty well. There is also some great stuff between Nicole and Jesse, and I like how Nicole seems to be uncertain about Jesse just the same as the audience is. Although I think Nicole forgives Jess too quickly for lying and cheating and more should have been made of this.

There's a lot of back ground music which along with some great songs, totally enhances the atmosphere of the episode. I like that both Nia and Jesse perform different versions of the same song. Although I'm less keen on the extended scene as part of the play where Nicole's character is killed by Dr Jekyll. There's so much stuff going on in this episode that I feel this murder scene is wasting time.

The episode itself is similar to season 3's "Consequences" where Chris cheats on the English test to keep up his grade average so he can be in the show but I like episodes that deal with everyday school topics and don't get diverted by guest stars, so I don't mind that too much. Leroy, Kate and Chris are all missing from the episode and although Dusty appears she is very underused, with nothing for her character to actually do so there doesn't seem much point in her being there.

There's some great comedy moments with the subplot and Dwight investigating the missing yearbook money. All the teachers and Mrs Berg are really funny. I particularly like Mrs Berg's "Of course there is, I've been misplacing things for years", when she's asked by Shorofsky if there's a chance she's misplaced the money.

One small nit pick. I was a little confused by the position of Dyrenforth's office at the end of the episode, where Jesse walks into the lobby and knocks on a door next to the dance class. This always seemed to be a store room or ther nurses office in previous episodes and Morloch/Dyrenforth's office seemed to be somewhere attached to the administration office.

Episode Pictures