Jesse and Tara conclude an uneventful carriage ride, in which the carriage ride is a metaphor for the season and the road they're on is a metaphor for the blank desolation of the "journey" and the porkpie hat is a metaphor for dumb hats and whatever the horse casually drops while it's walking is a metaphor for Rorschachian depictions of how I envision Jesse's face when I close my eyes. Anyway, Tara and Jesse step off the carriage and onto an empty ice-skating rink in a desolate part of town. Ah, tourist season comes to Quebec! They suit up in their skates, Tara noting in advance, "You're gonna laugh at me when I fall." Because an original thought from Jesse besides "Uhhhhh..." would totally compromise any and all consistency in his whole characterization at this point, the producers let him actualize into the Teddy Ruxpin doll we already knew he was, as he parrots back, "You're gonna be laughing at me when I fall!" Well, at least he had the good sense to prove his continuing slowness by tacking on a pointless form of the verb "to be." But maybe I'm not giving him enough credit; he must just be translating as he goes along, word for word from the original French-Canadian.

Right, so they're both 'tards. A shot of Jesse and Tara on the ice shows them holding each other up and generally falling, though it's supposed to be more endearing and "aw, shucks-y" and less "Hey, everybody! Look at this! It's that boy who laughs at everyone. Let's laugh at him!" though it veers way further toward the latter, in my house anyway and I sincerely hope in yours. Tara's confessional predicts otherwise (even though it was taped after) when she tells us, "I just assumed since Jesse's from Canada he's done that way more times than I have." Because he's from Canada. Boy, does that assume a lot about Canada. Like Jesse's going to be all, "Well, I can't skate, but it's only because every time I tried to learn a Chinook would kick up from The Peg to Hogtown and I'd be as bad as if I'd spent all my loonies and toonies on a case of Labatts and went cookie on The Basketweave at a hundred KPH!"

This show is so choad.

Anyway, Tara quickly comes to learn that skating is not automatically in the blood of a Canadaman, revising, "He's not good, either." And while I'll grant them the fact that he's not a hockey player, shouldn't there be some kind of natural agility behind being a professional athlete that allows you at least to fake it from sport to sport, like when Michael Jordan decided he wanted to play baseball and everyone was all, "Now, that is adorable!" But alas, Jesse Palmer: I served with Michael Jordan. I knew Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Michael Jordan.