Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! Today we recap Breaker High, episode 38, “Rasta La Vista.”
Jimmy’s on an all-fruit diet, which seems strange for someone who loves all food as much as he does. His ulterior motive? Fitting better into a Speedo once they get to Jamaica (the rest of the friend group is horrified).
On the island, the boys are gathered around a table where everyone but Jimmy is chowing down on burgers, fries, and of course jerk chicken, and Jimmy is ravenous. At a separate table, the girls are razzing Denise about not having kissed any of the boys she’s flirted with around the world, and as soon as she attempts to defend herself (that’s not the kind of education she wanted out of Breaker High), a dreadlocked member of a reggae band asks if she’ll be front row at their concert that night, and the other girls won’t let her say no.
On the ship later, Jimmy is hungry enough to eat a Jamaican soap berry he’s somehow gotten his hands on, and doesn’t read that it’s poisonous to humans until after he’s taken a bite (so naturally freaks out after that). He had given his snack money to his friends, but when he tries to ask for it back so he can get some medicine, none of them believe he’s telling the truth. But once Jimmy decides he wants to spend his “last day” doing things he never thought he would, Max is all too happy to give him an adrenaline rush - we get a montage of skydiving, paragliding, bungee jumping, and more. But of course, upon landing, Jimmy winds up lost in a Jamaican forest.
The “island time” has gotten to Denise - she played hooky from class to hang out with the reggae band member and, later at sunset, kisses him! Finally, someone who could convince her to be in the moment instead of always thinking three steps ahead (I was her at that age, so understand where she was coming from, and could have used someone like the reggae band member on my own study abroad).
Seems Jimmy found his way back to the ship, as we find him lying on his bed complaining about the pain from the poison settling in (Sean thinks he’s just sore from the adventure day he had). But once he hears the group is going to the cantina, which is where he was served the berry, he uses all of his strength to get up and go warn them, and arrives just as the reggae band member is about to feed said berry to Denise. But apparently it’s not a Jamaican soap berry, it’s a Martinique plum, so Jimmy was never on death’s door at all.
Don’t change that channel! We’ll be right back on Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown.
