Mean Streak

Connie Kendall is checking her FaceSpace account while her friend Penny hangs a painting in her house when a surprising message pops up. It comes from Tiffani "with two I's," the mean girl from Connie's high school days, the one who filled her car with shaving cream, mocked her forehead by nicknaming her "five head," and never forgave Connie for beating her out as valedictorian. Now Tiffani is coming to Odyssey on a work trip and wants to meet for coffee. Connie's younger sister Jules arrives home fuming about her own tormentor, Valerie Swanson, who has just pranked her with glue and cereal and gotten the whole school calling her "the walking cornflake." Penny chimes in with a story about a cruel yearbook editor who altered a girl's photo to make her look like a giraffe. Jules declares, "Once a mean girl, always a mean girl," and the three scroll through Tiffani's dazzling profile: a Harvard degree, a vice presidency at a software company, a convertible, and a handsome brain-surgeon boyfriend named Dr. Chip Marvel. Connie decides Tiffani is only coming to show off, but she agrees to meet anyway and be the bigger person.

Jules and Penny, however, cook up a scheme of their own. When Tiffani arrives at Whit's End, Penny poses as Connie's assistant and Jules as the assistant to the assistant. They describe "Miss Kendall" as a renowned author, playwright, radio host, and CEO of a wedding planning business, while deliveries of flowers and chocolate-covered strawberries - secretly sent by the girls themselves - pile up from admirers. Connie pulls Penny aside, and Penny explains that everything they said is technically true, just wildly exaggerated. Connie intends to set the record straight, but when Tiffani mentions how her friends used to joke that Connie would work at Whit's End forever, Connie's resolve wavers, and she plays along, even scheduling a lunch for the next day.

Meanwhile, at school, Valerie has won the solo at the Fall Festival, and a Channel 5 camera crew is coming to film her rehearsing. After Valerie gloats and dubs her "Jealous Jules," Jules vows that someone will put Valerie in her place. She finds the perfect weapon on a prank website: exploding gook that bursts from its container and stains its victim green for twenty-four hours. She plans to plant it in Valerie's locker on filming day.

At lunch, Tiffani turns unexpectedly warm. She admits Chip has broken up with her, that her job isn't the dream it appears to be, and that she always admired Connie for knowing who she was. Touched, Connie confesses the whole assistant charade, explaining that she truly is happy with the life God has given her, and that she didn't need to dress it up. Tiffani laughs it off graciously, and the two reminisce about Jeff Lewis, Connie's old boyfriend, who is still in town. Connie cheerfully invites Tiffani to hang out with them the next evening.

The next day, Jules comes to Whit's End with her face stained green. She planted the gook in Valerie's locker, but at the last second her conscience caught up with her; she shoved Valerie aside and took the blast of slime herself, earning a scolding from Miss Adelaide and a call to her guardian, Connie. Connie tells Jules she is proud of her for doing the right thing, even if it came late, and Jules hands Penny the leftover container of gook, wanting nothing more to do with it. While Jules heads upstairs to change clothes, she and Penny pass Whit's office and overhear Tiffani on the phone, sneering that Connie is as idiotic as ever, calling the assistant act "absolutely pathetic," and revealing her real plan: she came back to steal Jeff, "the one who got away," ditch Connie, and make Chip jealous in the bargain.

When the girls break the news, Connie refuses to retaliate. If Tiffani is still playing the high school bully, Connie reasons, her life must be pretty empty, and being nasty back would only make it worse. She resolves to keep her distance and surround herself with people who truly care about her. Jules repeats her motto about mean girls never changing, but Penny quietly disagrees, and confesses that the cruel yearbook editor from her story was Penny herself. People don't always change, she says, but they can, and she is living proof.

Tiffani breezes downstairs to wait for Jeff, spots the leftover container, and mistakes it for a box of gourmet cupcakes. Despite everyone's shouted warnings, she pops it open and is instantly drenched in green gook that won't wash off for twenty-four hours, right before her big presentation to a hundred people. She flees past a bewildered Jeff, shrieking, "Don't look at me!" Jeff blinks at the chaos, asks, "Was she green?" and then offers everyone cupcakes, which the friends happily share together.