Season 1, Episode 5: Stop Grossing Up America, You Turkeys

Well, it looks like we're five episodes in and already they're changing up the intro on us. Here's an outdoor scene of a campus we've never looked at! Mr. Bradley gets beats up by some girls! Blair man-handles Mrs. Garrett! Tootie's out of control on her roller-skates! Wow! Action!

Some new shots of the girls:

Hunger Games fight to the death!

Who's missing? Ms. Mahoney, for those of you keeping score at home. What will you miss the most about her? I'll miss her illuminated puffball Peter Frampton hair and intense hatred of Mr. Bradley most of all.

Season 1, Episode 4: I Have My Own Avocado Spread

Mrs. Garrett enters in the common room, only to find the girls very hard at work studying for their midterms. Look at Nancy, she's all legs. It's taken me several episodes to realize that she's kind of a babe.

It's here that we learn a little something about Sue Ellen: She's one of the smartest kids in school and people like Nancy really depend on her for academic support. We also find out that Nancy has a boyfriend. Characters like Nancy, Sue Ann, Cindy, and Molly Ringworm aren't really fleshed out at all (probably why they get scrapped by the second season), and all these discoveries about their personalities and characteristics really feel like a sloppy afterthought.

Edna's decked out in a sort of raver, Rastafarian jacket and she looks dope. She tells Blair and the recently arrived Mr. Bradley, an aging factory-reject Ken doll, that's she taking flying lessons so that she can overcome her fear of flying.

Ms. Mahoney, whose days on this show are numbered, brings Mr. Bradley his mail. He's received the girls' IQ tests from their old school and he's excited to discover that they have the highest scores in the state.

Edna thinks that IQ tests are unnecessary and overrated. Ms. Mahoney stresses that the scores are only a guideline and are harmless especially since the girls are never intended to see their scores.

Tootie rolls in and busts ass immediately:

Tootie states that one of the teachers needs a bathroom break. Ms. Mahoney can't help because all the slutty biology rabbits are pregnant. Mr. Bradley and Mrs. Garrett exit, leaving Tootie alone with the IQ scores that the idiot adults left out on the table like a bunch of chumps:

Tootie reads all the scores, and is shocked to find out that the people with the highest and lowest scores aren't who she thought they would be. Tootie is so messy. She's loving every minute of this.

Season 1, Episode 3: For a Dead Hamster, You Sure are a Snappy Dresser

Mr. Bradley, just a waste of space in covered in corduroy elbow patches, is ranting and raving about the hard work ahead this semester. He's not giving his speech in a classroom or in an office as he's in the common room of the Eastland School for Witchcraft and Professional Gambling because he's a total fucking creep with absolutely no concept of personal space. Mr. Bradley is limiting TV and phone time to get the girls academically focused. Ms. Mahoney, teased to perfection as per usual, is counting the days until her retirement. Too bad, girl, you are 32 and in your prime and are stuck with this guy forever, or at least until you mysteriously disappear from the show in a couple of episodes.

Upon the exit of the adults, Cindy immediately encourages the girls to practice witchcraft. Good for you, Cindy! Tootie hits the lights and Sue Ann and Blair get out the Ouija Board. Molly Ringworm wants to ask about their academic futures, but Blair is thirsty as always and asks the board about marriage.

The board says she'll get married at thirty and Natalie cracks that Blair won't even have her own teeth by then. Natalie, you are so shady. Do us all a favor and keep beating that bitch Blair down.

Molly Ringworm has more important things on her mind, like the spiritual well-being of her dead hamster. She asks for a sign and, because this is a sitcom, there's a knock on the door. Molly is ready to be finally reunited with the dearly deceased Harvey the Hamster:

But tragically it's this guy instead, who the studio audience and Sue Ellen go apeshit for. I had to look him up. It's Robert Alda, star of film and stage and also Alan Alda's dad!

He says he's looking for Mrs. Garrett and that he knows her intimately. She's not around, but the girls give him a seat. Don't they know anything about stranger danger? What kind of a school is Mr. Bradley running here? He introduces himself as Mr. Garrett, aka Mrs. Garrett's ex-husband. All the girls are kind of hitting on him, Blair especially, and Tootie decides to do a card trick for him. She's not so great at it, but Tootie is so damn cute she can do whatever she wants:

While Tootie's card maneuver is a flop, Mr. Garrett has an even better trick up his sleeve.

Mrs. Garrett arrives, begging the question of who the hell is watching these girls all day, and naturally she's shocked to see her greasy ex-husband just chilling with some underage girls. She calls him Robert, and immediately he lays the moves on her right in front of the girls:

The girls love it though, on account of how bored and messy they are. Edna should just kick him out at this point, but she lets him chase her all over the common room:

Season 1, Episode 2: There's No Excuse for a Loose Mousse

We're only on the second episode, and they've already changed up and revamped the opening credits. The adults look the same, but we're seeing something a bit different with the kid actors.

We've got Blair and Brown Hair, proving that the uniform code at this school is all willy nilly. Clearly we're not all following the rules here, Nance:

They've smartly separated Sue Ann from Cindy in the intro, because who the hell can tell those two apart? Tootie, who is the cutest, is really just too much in this burgundy sailor to-do:

If you don't put Cindy in a baseball hat, how am I supposed to recognize her? I'm really feeling Molly Ringworm's dainty little bowties, but I just want someone to do right by Mindy Cohn's hair:

Season 1, Episode 1: I Thought All of Us Were Burgeons

Facts of Life fans unfamiliar with the first season (which doesn't include Nancy McKeon as Jo, but does include a whole host of thin-lipped late 70s babes with super lustrous Breck shampoo hair) are going to be real baffled by the theme song, which has slightly different lyrics from the Jo seasons and includes Charlotte Rae (Mrs. Garrett) delightfully warbling through some real Me decade-style lyrics.

In this opening, we have our Queen, our Goddess, our Matronly Savior, Mrs. Garrett, a vision in turquoise polyester and sky-high hair sensibilities:

RIP

John Lawlor is here as the scholarly patriarch, really leaning into those tweedy mustard tones. Just a real jackass literally no one asked for:

This is Jenny O'Hara, not Peter Frampton, in a little afternoon pussy-bow magic:

Lisa Whelchel is just a fox in this disco Miss Piggy get-up:

Name one characteristic of the Nancy character. Go ahead. You can't:

If it weren't for the baseball cap, you couldn't tell the Tale of Twin Julies apart with their little upturned ski-slope noses, white-blonde hair, and skinny lips:

Yes, that's Molly Ringwald, Season One's baby butch, as "Molly":

SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING ABOUT MINDY COHEN'S HAIR PLEASE:

Is anyone cuter than Tootie? No one. Well, alright, Kim Fields, looking good:

The Facts of Life is a cross-over from Diff'rent Strokes, don't forget, so we have the gateway drugs of those cast members here:

The first line, iconically, is Mrs. Garrett saying, "Oh, girls!" in what appears to be the common room of the Eastland school where the students are getting ready for the Harvest Fair, which is such a draw that the Drummond family/Diff'rent Strokes cast had to make a special trip just to see it, in addition to asking Mrs. Garrett to come back to NYC.