Original subtitles

- I'll be frank.

I was very disappointed in your essays.

None of you care about history,

and it shows.

[light music]

- Hey, that essay was a slog.

But I'm sure my hard work paid off.

- Me too.

I even did the extra credit part

where you could write an imaginary conversation

between two historical figures.

I did Malcolm X and Lil Nas X.

- A B?

That's my worst mark ever.

- What?

- An A-minus?

My Lil Malcolm Nas X conversation lowered my grade?

- An F? - You know what?

That checks out.

- I came out of retirement because I was hopeful

that your generation would have a better appreciation

of history.

- I thought it was because Mr. Matthews

had hernia surgery.

- His abdominal wall was weak,

just like your prose.

Need I remind you,

those who fail to learn from history

are destined to repeat it.

- But, Mr. Caplan, we all worked really--

- End of discussion.

[dramatic musical sting]

- All I do is study, study, study.

But it's never enough for Mr. Caplan.

- His standards are so high,

he makes Henry XIII look like a reasonable problem solver.

- I don't understand that reference, but I agree.

- The only reason he's teaching history

is because he was there for all of it.

[laughs]

Sorry, I just love a good burn.

- We deserve better grades.

Somebody needs to stand up to him.

We need to fight the man.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

- [chanting] Fight the man.

all: Fight the man. Fight the man.

Fight the man!

Fight the man!

Fight the man!

Fight the man. Fight the--

[upbeat music]

- Oh, yeah

All right

Oh, yeah

- Does helping everyone get better grades make you popular?

Think about it.

Once we challenge Mr. Caplan and everyone gets

the grades they deserve, we'll be more popular than--

- FDR's New Deal?

- Totally.

And kudos on yet another historical reference.

- Do you think Mr. Caplan's teaching methods

have anything to do with-- - No.

He's a tyrant, and we're taking him down.

Step one, we state our case to Mr. Caplan.

- Puppets. [gasps]

- Mr. Caplan, we deserve better grades.

No. End of discussion.

- Oh, freakishly accurate.

- Step two, we appeal our case to Principal Larocque.

Sorry, girls, but my hands are tied--

up with making sick beats.

[air horn blares] - That one's even better.

- And step three, we appeal our case all the way up

to the Supreme Court. [gavel bangs]

And once they rule in our favor,

Goldblatt v. Caplan will be a precedent

for middle schoolers everywhere.

- Obviously.

- We'll return to school heroes

and claim our deserved grades. [students cheering]

Lydia! Lydia!

Lydia!

Who knows, maybe I'll even have a monument erected

in my honor.

- No, I wouldn't count on it.

- Yeah, you're right.

I'll settle for a street named after me.

Let's fight the man.

[bell rings] - His whole back was glitter?

Can't believe what Baba did.

- And he didn't notice?

- [laughing]

- Uh-oh.

[ominous music]

- Uh-oh.

- What are you guys looking at?

Uh-oh.

- [gulps]

- You're all in big trouble now.

- They can't punish us.

They have no evidence we did anything.

Well, except for Mike.

- Yeah, you do stupid stuff all the time.

- What? No, I don't.

- You once put scrambled eggs in my backpack.

- I would never.

- You did 15 minutes ago.

- Ew.

- And they're still warm. - Okay.

I do a lot of stupid stuff.

But I didn't do this.

And you're just as much a suspect as me.

- What? Why?

- You have special access to the art room.

You can get paint anytime.

- Lay off Julie. She didn't do it.

- Oh, yeah. I guess you're right,

because you're the guiltiest of all of us.

Fight the man? You said those exact words yesterday.

- I'd never do it.

I'm an A-plus student.

- Oh, well, not anymore.

Now you're an A-minus student.

And that's what we in the crime biz call a modem.

- What? [mr. caplan clears throat]

- This is a confession.

Unless one of you signs it immediately,

we'll have no choice but to notify your parents

that you'll be suspended.

- He's bluffing.

- I assure you, I am not.

[dramatic beats]

Nothing?

Then we'll have to do this the hard way.

- But, Mr. Caplan-- - End of discussion.

Julie Graham-Chang,

where were you at the time of the incident?

- Um, I was with Dmitri at the ribbon-cutting ceremony

for the new vending machine.

- Can anyone verify your statement?

- I was also at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

But I was just trying to sabotage it for the lulz.

- "Lulz," is that code

for communication with your accomplices?

- It's a linguistic corruption of LOL, meaning laugh out loud.

Now let me go.

This violates my constitutional rights.

- You have no constitutional rights.

We play by my rules.

I am Napoleon.

- Nice to meet you, Napoleon.

I'm Moscow, 1812.

Hope you like the cold.

- You're the vandal.

You're the vandal.

- Please, graffiti is beneath me.

- You're the vandal. - I swear, I'm not.

- Then how do you explain this?

[tense music]

Caught red-handed, or should I say crimson-handed?

- This is not paint.

Me and Dimitri split a bag of ketchup chips.

- Story checks out.

Fine.

You may go.

- [exhales]

- Then there were two.

- This isn't the first time this year

that you've been in trouble, Julie.

No more monkey business or else.

- Larocque!

[laughs darkly] Oh, how dare you.

You had no proof she did anything wrong.

- She already proved her innocence.

- You're just punishing her to spite me.

- Oh, come on, Alex. You know that's not true.

- "Alex"? - Julie's had many

disciplinary issues this year,

but I held off on calling you

out of respect for our history.

- "History"?

- This potential vandalism was a bridge too far.

- Oh, so suddenly, you're an expert on bridges, Donovan?

- "Donovan"? - It's Condescending Alex,

always so passive-aggressive.

- You're so insufferable!

- Oh, insufferable? Did you, uh, look that up

in the thesaurus before you got here?

- Let's go. - Oh, bye, Principal Larocque.

I'll see you later. Uh, sorry again.

- We're leaving on principle!

- Mr. Caplan, you can't detain my daughter for three periods

without an attorney present, I mean a mother present.

I'm her mother, whatever.

- Mike, just admit you did this so we can all move on.

- What? But I didn't do it.

- Mr. Cavalleri, I think you need to wait for the trial.

- Mrs. Goldbladder--

- Goldblatt.

- When bad things happen, it's probably Mike.

Let's just accept it so we can all get on with our day.

- Okay.

- Wait, so it was you?

- No, but I just wanna get this over with.

Besides, I'm used to being in trouble.

[melancholic music]

- I knew I'd break you.

- Why confess if you're innocent?

- My dad's right.

I'm the "bad kid."

When people see you like that, good luck shaking that rep.

- But I don't see you like that anymore.

Okay, well, I don't just see you like that.

- It doesn't matter.

Unless we find the actual culprit,

no one's gonna believe me.

[gentle music]

- Well, then that's what we're gonna do,

together, even if it takes our whole lunch break.

But no pranks.

- No pranks.

Deal.

[buzzer zaps] - Ow!

- No pranks starting now.

- [groans]

[light mysterious music]

So these are the suspects:

Addison, because another bad grade

could seriously affect her GPA...

- If you say so.

- Sage, because,

let's face it, she's dramatic...

- Sage isn't even in our class--

- And Julie.

She would never do something like this,

even though she is the only one

with access to the crimson paint.

- [laughing]

Oh, Goldbladder, clever, yet so wrong.

You see, I have unique insight into the mind of a vandal.

But none of these are the prankster.

- Why? - I'll explain everything.

But first, describe the cake at your last birthday party.

- It was red velvet with cream cheese frosting.

Why is that relevant?

- I'll tell you something, and you tell me something.

Squid pro crow.

None of them did it because they all had reasons.

A real vandal has no reasons, no modus operandi, no modem.

- How do you know "modus operandi"

and not "motive"?

- A real vandal does what they do

because they want to send a message.

[banging desk] Here. I. Am.

- Oh. [laughs]

What are you two doing in here?

- [laughs nervously] - Oh, cool crafts.

Reminds me of my diorama days.

- Hi, Janitor Sam. We're just trying

to figure out who vandalized the history class whiteboard.

- Oh, yeah, not looking forward

to spending an hour cleaning that up.

Oh, well, nothing that a little turpentine won't fix.

- Hmm.

- That man--stubborn-- so bigheaded. [groans]

- Baba, you've been acting really weird lately.

Are you and Principal Larocque, like, friends or something?

- Kinda of had a band together.

- Are you talking about the band?

- Yeah, but it's more like a duo.

We didn't really have a lot of friends who shared our interest

in post-post-new wave sad-dance synth-suites.

- Are you just saying random words?

You never told me why the band broke up.

- Oh, and I never will.

This resentment will follow me to my grave.

- [sighs] Baba, I can't go through middle school

with my dad and my principal hating each other.

- I'm sorry, Juju-bean.

I can't.

- Then you leave me no choice.

- If the real vandal only wanted to shock people,

that means--

- They weren't from our class.

- You know, I never expected it.

But we make a great team, Mike.

We go together like peanut butter and--

- Hot sauce.

Don't knock it till you try it.

Touch� to the vandal for using oil-based paint, though.

That's gonna take forever to get off.

- Wait, who said it was oil-based?

All the paint from the art room is water-based.

- Yeah, but don't you remember what Janitor Sam said?

- Oh, well, nothing that a little turpentine won't fix.

- Wait a minute.

The only reason Janitor Sam would know

she needed to use turpentine to get the paint off is--

- Is if she already knew

that the paint wasn't from the art room.

- Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

This means Janitor Sam is the vandal!

- Is psychic!

Right, yeah, I-I knew that.

[bell rings]

- We should look in here.

- I probably left my phone at home.

Let's just-- what?

- Okay, now shush.

I'm 100% sure your phone is in there.

- But we were never in the office.

- Baba, it's probably in the lost and found.

Do you want your phone or not? Yeah. Okay, so go look.

- I'll go. I'll go. - Yeah. Go, go, go.

- Okay. Okay.

No phone. No phone. [keys jingling]

No lost and found.

I don't see it anywhere.

- Come on. - Julie!

You said you had a DJ emergency.

- [gasps] - Who needs a beat dropped?

[julie laughs awkwardly] - Yeah.

- Hey. What are you doing here?

- Sorry, but you two need to sort things out.

- Julie! - Don't!

- Julie Graham-Chang, you can't lock us in here.

- Yeah, I can. - Let us out!

- Oh, not until you two make peace.

- [scoffs] - Your child is--

[knocking]

- No. [both gasp]

I am telling Dad!

- They've given us no choice.

- What?

- Help!

[spirited electronic music]

- We have to get out of here before Janitor Sam comes back.

[metallic creaking]

- Where do we start?

- I know.

Oh. [grunting]

- What are you doing?

- One of these should trigger a trapdoor.

You know, like in all the horror movies?

Okay.

- Look.

- Oil-based crimson house paint.

- Look, diorama, it looks old.

It smells bad too.

1917, the Halifax explosion.

- Of course, her next target is Halifax.

- You know, you don't always have to talk.

[door creaking]

[suspenseful music]

[both scream]

- [gasping] - You kids okay?

- You wrote "Fight the Man" on the history class whiteboard.

- So what's it to ya?

- Because of you, Mike might be suspended.

- Oh, wait, really?

- That's what you wanted, isn't it?

This whole year of cleaning up

my messy pranks ate away at you.

So you blame me to take the fall.

Didn't you? [screams] Didn't you?

- What? No, no. I love your pranks.

When you filled the entire pool with scrambled eggs

to protest against early morning swimming period,

ingenious, inspired.

- Then why vandalize the board?

- Because I wanted to get back at Mr. Caplan for--

for flunking me.

- You were a student at Mapleview?

- Top of my history class, president

of the Hooray for Historical Reenactment Society.

I was top dog in these here halls.

It was the club back in the day.

But the year I had Mr. Caplan, I failed, even though

I had a very accurate diorama of the Halifax explosion!

Look, I never meant to get you in any trouble.

I didn't ruin your passion for pranks, did I, Mike?

Oh, no, am I doing the same thing to you

that Mr. Caplan did to me?

- You need to help us clear Mike's name.

And there's only one way how.

- Force Mr. Caplan to regrade my diorama?

- Threaten to scramble-egg his briefcase.

- [chuckles]

- Can you just confess to the crime?

- Yes.

Yep.

[loud thumping]

[keys jingling]

- Hey, less bashing and more hashing.

- What does that even mean?

- As in hashing it out. - Ugh.

- I couldn't think of a better rhyme, okay?

- We can't go on like this forever.

Her catchy phrasing is right.

We should at least try to hash things out.

- That's gonna be impossible.

I'll never forgive you for what you did.

- What did I do?

You're the one who broke up the band.

- I remember things differently.

At the beginning,

it was you and me against the world,

Donnie and Alex, AKA Rhythmic Hymnastics.

[moody new-wave music]

- I'm a sad

- Vampire

- And my heart is

- On fire

[punchy percussive music]

- Electronica?

Are you experimenting with other musical styles?

- So what if I am? - [scoffs]

- Maybe I want to try something different, something fun.

- When people come to a Rhythmic Hymnastic show--

- They don't come to our shows. - But when they eventually do,

they'll expect gloomy songs

about vampires who can't find love

'cause their fangs make it hard to kiss, not... fun.

- You can say that again.

- What was that? - Nothing.

Let's just go again.

And a-one, and a-two, and a--

- We were drifting aloft in aurora of periwinkle dreams,

which was our best lyric.

But it flamed out the day you didn't show up to our set

at the Battle of the Bands.

I'm a sad

[melancholic new-wave music]

I later learned that you'd abandoned me

for sweet gig in the mall food court

that paid way better. - Get off the stage!

[crowd jeering]

And I swore to never be in a band again.

I was upset and a little jealous

of your hugely successful DJ career.

- But I never had a hugely successful DJ career.

- You didn't? - No.

That's why I got this side gig

as a middle school principal.

I didn't get as many mall gigs as I hoped.

- I'm sorry to hear that.

- I've always been jealous of your integrity

for staying a new-wave purist.

That was a hard thing to be in 1997.

I always thought that's why you broke up the band.

- Do you think maybe we should put the past behind us?

- I'd like that.

- Finally. - [laughs]

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

[funky percussive music]

- Vampire

- [singing indistinctly]

- On fire - Yeah, yeah, yeah

both: We are Rhythmic Hymnastics

- Nope.

This is worse.

- I guess I was still angry after all these years.

But I'm hoping you'll forgive me

and give me another chance.

- I remember this diorama well.

Now that I'm older and wiser,

I feel exactly the same.

You actually set it on fire in class.

- It. Was. Accurate!

You got me kicked out

of the Hooray for Historical Reenactment Society.

You ruined history for me.

And now, you're doing the same thing to these kids.

You've done this every year!

You'll never change. all: Wait.

- You're right.

Those who fail to learn from history

are destined to repeat it.

I've--I've been a monster.

- Well, I wouldn't say "monster," but--

both: I would.

- From today, I'm reinstating

the Hooray for Historical Reenactment Society.

- Hooray. We--we did it.

- And I'm making you two co-presidents.

- Them?

both: Uh.

- Thanks.

But could you just give us a better grade?

- Absolutely not.

Anyone who wants a better grade

must join the club for extra credit.

- [groans] - But, Mr. Caplan--

- End of discussion.

[soft tense music]

- Well, we didn't get exactly what we wanted.

But at least we cleared your name.

- Right. Thanks, Goldblatt.

- Ew, don't be weird. Call me Goldbladder.

- Right. Sorry.

Thanks, Goldbladder.

- Hey. - See you, Lydia.

- Where's your dad?

- Oh, shredding on a keytar.

Uh, don't ask.

So did you get everyone better grades?

- Not exactly.

Everybody has to make 19th-century Red Coat costumes

now for extra credit.

And then they'll get better grades.

- Huh, so the experiment made you less popular.

- Yeah, but at least we cleared Mike's name.

You know, he's not that bad after all.

Mike! - [laughs]

- [growls] - Some things never change.

So what would you rate this experiment?

- I give it one backpack full of cake out of five.

- Oh, jeez.

- Hmm, red velvet and cream cheese.

He remembered.

[sweet music]

[laughs] - Oh.

- Mm. Wow. - Good.

- Cheers.

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