Season Two Episodes
2-01: Heart of DarknessKevin's nightmares are a telling sign of the changes in his life, including befriending the tough kid at school.
As seventh grade wore on, I began to have nightmares. I'm walking into a sort of a...a cave. A long, dark tunnel. I think Paul and Winnie are with me. But then - then - they're not. I'm all alone. I don't even want to go into the cave... I'm, I'm terrified. But I just know that I have to keep going - deeper and deeper. So deep, it's like I can't even remember what the daylight is like anymore, and suddenly - I'm in second period math class. In pajamas. With feet! I guess I was under a lot of stress. There are a lot of things about junior high life that might seem simple to an outsider... but they're not. Take the fifteen minutes before homeroom every morning. What you do with those fifteen minutes says pretty much everything there is to say about you as a human being.
2-02: Our Miss White
Kevin develops a crush on Miss White and agrees to play the role of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in a play that she wrote.
It was a strange and passionate time. Some of our dreams dissolved into thin air; they almost seem comical now. But some of our dreams were lasting and real.
2-03: Christmas
Wayne and Kevin try to convince their father to buy a color tv for Christmas, and Kevin has to find the perfect present for Winnie after receiving one from her.
I don't even remember what I got for Christmas that year. But dad gave mom a bracelet that knocked her socks off. Oh yeah... and he did get us that color TV... two years later. For me, that year Christmas stopped being about tinsel and wrapping paper, and started being about memory. At first I was disappointed. Until I learned that memory is a way of holding on to things you love, the things you are, the things you wish to never lose. And I learned from Winnie, that in a world that changes too fast, the best we can do is wish each other Merry Christmas. And good luck.
2-04: Steady as She Goes
Now that Paul is dating, Kevin begins to pine more for Winnie.
And so it finally happened. My poor twelve-year-old heart finally crumbled into a little pile of dust and blew away. It was over. I was never going to get her back. It was time for a little self-respect. It was time to let go. Time to move on. After all, who needed women? Who needed friends? I'd just walk alone from now on. Yep, that was me: Kevin Arnold, lone wolf.
2-05: Just Between Me and You and Kirk and Paul and Carla and Becky
It's a confusing mix-up as to who likes who at Kennedy Junior High.
This was something new. I mean, I always figured girls knew exactly what they wanted. They knew - they had a plan. Or maybe they didn't. Maybe they were just as confused as we were. Isn't that great? It - it's horrible. They don't know either. That means nobody knows. As I stood there that cold night, I realized for the first time in a long time that Winnie and I were feeling the same thing. We were both completely... miserable.
2-06: Pottery Will Get You Nowhere
Norma is upset when she takes a pottery class and receives encouragement from everyone except Jack.
In all the years I sent growing up at my parents' house, I don't think I ever heard them use the word "relationship." Not once. "Indigestion"... "taxes"... "damn"... these were words you heard a lot. I guess my mom just expected my dad to be a good man - honest, loyal, a good provider... hopefully possessed of good table manners. And my dad expected my mom to be a good woman - honest, loyal, a good mother. And hopefully a good cook. And that was about it. But if my parents didn't know much about relationships, they knew a lot about marriage. Like how to make a joint decision. Mom would choose what she liked... Dad would choose what he liked... then they'd settle on something no one of our species could like. They could disagree about something, without directly contradicting each other. One thing my parents would never, ever do... is yell at each other in front of the kids.
2-07: Coda
Kevin's piano lessons have him in competition with Ronald Hirschmuller.
When you are a kid, you are a bit of everything - artist, scientist, athlete, scholar. Sometimes, it seems life is like a process of giving those things up, one by one. I guess we all have one thing we regret giving up. One thing we really miss. And we gave up because we were too lazy. We couldn't stick it out. Or because we were afraid.
2-08: Hiroshima, Mon Frere
Wayne's bullying of Kevin has been getting pretty out of hand lately, but when he interferes in a big way with Kevin and Paul's science project, Wayne may have gone too far.
I could never figure it out. Even in his sleep, my brother seemed to hate my guts. I guess he'd just never forgiven me for something I did to him very early in life: I'd been born. Then, to make things worse, I stayed.
2-09: Loosiers
When Kevin sees that Paul is being humiliated at basketball during gym class, hr complains to Coach Cutlip about how he thinks teams are being picked unfairly. Cutlip then teaches Kevin a lesson about fairness by making him a team captain.
It's hard to imagine being twelve years old... and going without certain things. Like three months off in the summertime. Or a good bicycle to cruise the neighborhood. More than anything though, it's hard to imagine being twelve years old... and not having a best friend like Paul Pfeiffer. Paul was the nicest kid I ever knew. He would have done anything for me - I know it. And I would have done anything for him. At least, I always thought I would.
2-10: Walk Out
Kevin and the student council organize a walkout to protest the Vietnam War. When the assistant principal, Mr. Diperna, finds out about the planned walkout, he threatens to suspend all who participate.
And that's how I started the great Kennedy Junior High peace walk-out of nineteen-sixty-nine. As I said... some men persue greatness... and some men have greatness thrust upon them... while they're in the bathroom. I'm not sure we really changed anything that day. I suppose the war would have gone pretty much the same if we'd stayed in homeroom. But one thing would be different. We wouldn't have the memory to carry with us today, of eight-hundred children on a footballl field, singing. And... it wouldn't all be on our permanent record.
2-11: Nemesis
Kevin learns the consequences of talking behind other people's backs.
I guess that's when it hit me; Winnie wasn't going to forgive me for the things I said. It could only mean one thing: she wanted me bad.
2-12: Fate
Driven by his love for Winnie, Kevin faces the school bully.
Eddie Pinetti: the scourge of RFK Junior High. He gave new meaning to the word "mean." Not that Eddie had any particular reason for being rude, insensitive and sadistic. It was just kinda... who he was... a bully. Eddie was a force of nature. Like tornadoes... or flash electrical fires. Or fate! That was it. Fate. Maybe I knew even before it happened... that I... had an appointment with destiny.
2-13: Birthday Boy
Kevin feels left out when his birthday party is on the same day as Paul's bar mitzvah.
When Paul and I were little kids, we had our birthdays only four days apart. Come to think of it, we still have our birthdays only four days apart. But I guess birthdays aren't as big a part of life as they used to be. Man - we had some classic parties. Year after year we reached for manhood together. When we fell short... we fell short together. God - we couldn't wait to get older.
2-14: Brightwing
Kevin discovers that Karen is planning to run away to San Francisco.
I didn't sleep. I laid there... thinking about what had happened to Karen... to me... to all of us. About how big the world is, and how full of strangers. And how I might never see my sister again. In nineteen-sixty-nine, people tried so hard to find themselves. Sometimes they got lost. Sometimes they found their way home again.
2-15: Square Dance
Margaret Farquhar, the class weirdo, tries to befriend Kevin after he is partnered up with her in a square dance for gym class.
Some people pass through your life and you never think about them again. Some you think about and wonder what ever happened to them. Some you wonder if they ever wonder what happened to you. And then there are some you wish you never had to think about again. But you do.
2-16: Whose Woods Are These?
Kevin, Paul and Winnie come together to stop the destruction of Harper's Woods. Kevin and Winnie shared their first kiss in these woods, and they all used to play together there when they were younger.
Every kid needs a place to go to be a kid. For Paul and Winnie and me, that place was Harper's Woods. It was ten minutes from home if you walked it. But to us, it was a world all its own. We'd grown up there together. Playing games... catching fireflies on long summer evenings. Sure, they called it Harper's Woods, but we knew better. Those woods... belonged to us.
2-17: How I'm Spending My Summer Vacation
As seventh grade comes to an end, Winnie's parents decide to divorce, and the kids' teacher, Miss White, announces that she is getting married.
That summer, kids everywhere swam, waterskied and sailed... while Winnie Cooper struggled to keep her head above water, in a family torn apart by anger and grief. I pretty much stayed close to home. I mowed Mr. Erman's lawn. I went fishing with my dad. I watched a man walk on the moon. I considered myself pretty lucky.