The Facts of Life - Season 5, Episode 22

"So I decided 'why not just promote myself to chairwoman' and hoped you wouldn't notice."

"All By Herself"
Original airdate: 3/14/1984

Episode summary: Geri gets pissy at Blair for overstepping her responsibilities during the planning of a charity auction.

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Recap: Blair and Geri arrive at Edna's Edibles just as the store is closing...and Blair gushes to Mrs. Garrett and the rest of the Facts gals about the awesome performance Geri gave to the Women's Assistance Society. Following what I'll assume was a cerebral palsy-centric comedy schtick, Geri convinced the Society to donate their proceeds from an upcoming charity auction to the New York school she once attended: the now decrepit St. Martin's School for Handicapped Children. Apparently, the Society was so impressed by Geri's passion that they appointed her to serve as chairwoman of the auction...and Geri, in turn, appointed Blair to serve as her assistant. Mrs. Garrett says she'd like in on that action and offers up the services of Edna's Edibles to cater the auction dinner, and Blair announces she'll get the ball rolling by delegating Natalie to draft the donor letter, and Tootie to issue a press release to the local papers. Geri nods approvingly and says she's headed back to New York...and Blair promises to have a full progress report for her next time she drops by.

The next day, Blair is on the phone with someone at the local paper while Natalie and Tootie stuff envelopes. Mrs. Garrett enters the room and reminds Natalie and Tootie that they have a shift scheduled, then hustles them into the store part of the building as they bitch and moan about being pooped from all the envelop licking Blair's been forcing them to do. 

Geri arrives in Peekskill (hours earlier than originally planned), and Blair proudly shows her the donor letters she signed. When an indignant Geri asks her why she signed them, Blair says she figured that the Warner name has far more cache and recognition value than Geri's low-rent last name [which I had to Google: Tyler]. She says she also went ahead and booked the Shrine Auditorium for the auction's venue (instead of the Community Center that Geri favored), and decided on The Gay Nineties as the general theme. Geri reacts to the onslaught of updates by scrunching her face in irritation and chiding Blair for not discussing any of this with her first. 

"I signed the donation letters, booked the venue, and came up with a general theme that I'm sure Jo and I will find subtly amusing."

"As chairwoman, I will immediately undo all of that."

Mrs. Garrett pokes her head into the room and informs the two that Mrs. Morris of the Women's Assistance Society is here for the scheduled meeting...and Geri glares at Blair and is all, "Why the hell did you schedule a meeting with Mrs. Morris at a time that I wasn't expected to be in Peekskill?" then complains that she isn't adequately prepared. Blair assures her she has everything under control - just as Mrs. Morris enters the room and brusquely says, "Let's get right to it!" Blair tells her she booked the Shrine Auditorium, arranged for a fleet of vans (courtesy of her father's company) to transport the auction items to the venue, and decided that a Gay Nineties theme might be fun. As Geri opens her mouth to comment, Blair quickly suggests they reinforce the Gay Nineties theme by handing out straw hats and suspenders to the auction participants...and when Mrs. Morris squeals about how much she looooooves that idea and urges Blair to get on the horn asap to place an order for the stuff, Blair smugly chirps, "I already did!" Mrs. Morris nods happily, tells Blair she's done a fabulous job in a very short amount of time, then gushingly calls her a marvel. Once she leaves and is out of earshot, Geri poutishly admonishes Blair for taking over all of the auction planning...and Blair explains that she was only trying to make things easier for her. Geri snappishly retorts, "What am I? An overgrown poster child?" and accuses Blair of taking over for her 'cause she's disabled. She firmly declares, "I'm taking it from here" and abruptly fires Blair as her assistant...and when Blair protests her sudden termination, Geri screeches, "Butt out!"

Not long after Blair's firing, the auction planning rapidly turns to shit. Mrs. Garrett complains to the Facts gals that Geri hasn't informed her how many guests are expected to attend the banquet dinner, which means Jo has no idea how many game hens to stuff. On top of that, Tootie is getting inundated with confusing phone calls related to auction planning that Geri, for some cheeky reason, has re-directed from her home phone to Edna's Edibles. 

Further mayhem ensues when a man wheels a naked David statue into the store and explains that it's an auction item he's dumping here, instead of at the Community Center Geri stupidly forgot to tell people was the drop-off location. As the Facts gals do their best to grapple with that delivery mishap, a florist drops off a roomful of flower bouquets that Geri apparently ordered for the banquet dinner. As a wigged out Mrs. Garrett shrieks at no one in particular to track Geri down so she can get her ass over to the store asap and deal with her mess, Blair smiles smugly in the background.

When Geri finally makes an appearance, Mrs. Garrett shoots her a look of utter incredulity and is all, "The fuck..?" and tells her she wants all of this crap out of her store, pronto. Geri assures her she'll take care of it - but then gets sidetracked by all the phone messages Tootie shoves at her. Mrs. Garrett implores Geri to give her a ballpark estimate of how many people she expects to attend the banquet dinner - at the same time Tootie strongly suggests she let two able bodied people (aka herself and Natalie) lend more of a helping hand. Geri gets offended at the able bodied people crack...just as Natalie rushes into the room to inform Geri that she's late for a planning meeting with Mrs. Morris, who's waiting for her at the Community Center. Geri's like, "Oh no!" and rushes out as everyone glares after her in exasperation. 

"You're the worst event planner in the history of event planners!"

"How about a self-deprecating cerebral palsy joke to break up the tension?"

To no one's surprise, the banquet dinner goes disastrously...and when the exhausted looking Facts cast returns home, they gripe about being twenty-five meals short. Yikes. Blair smiles smugly and says she figured this would happen, and Jo snaps at her to shut it - but then concedes that Geri's guest count clusterfuck didn't exactly make Edna's Edibles look like an endorse-able catering company. Blair tells Jo that Geri should have listened to her, but Jo snarks at her for taking over all of the planning details, which inevitably pissed Geri off.  

Geri arrives and glumly says she just spent the last hour apologizing to everyone for her shitty event planning abilities [as well she should], and self-piteously says she can only assume that everyone's thinking 'the crippled girl couldn't cut it'. Mrs. Garrett says the problem was more the chip on her shoulder, along with the dickish way she insisted on doing everything herself. Geri moans, "It's not fairrrrrr.." and says she wanted to prove she could plan the entire auction by herself, e.g. the way Blair could - but Blair points out that she didn't do it all herself, and delegated much of the grunt work to Natalie and Tootie. Geri laments not being able to ever do anything as fast or as adeptly as Blair, and Blair admits she overstepped in her role as assistant chairwoman - but that she should have just told her to back off. When Geri snaps, "I did!", Mrs. Garrett reminds her she didn't tell Blair to back off - but instead told her and everyone else to go away. She adds that the auction dinner was a job she clearly needed help with - and before Geri can snark, "Why? Because I'm disabled?!", Mrs. Garrett shrieks, "Because you're human!"

"You'll always be faster, more adept, and more socially connected than me."

"Care for some cheese with that whine?"

As Geri mulls over that straight talk, Mrs. Garrett suggests they call it a night and get some much needed sleep. And then thank the writers in advance for no longer integrating Geri into any future Facts of Life episodes.

​Hurray! Sayonara forever, Geri!

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