Frasier – The B Story

By: Atiya Irvin-Mitchell

We open with Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) in class handing back papers to his students. He is very firm about being called Professor Crane as opposed to Dr. Crane. While this is happening David talking to a student named Roger (John Bucy) and gloating. As a student-athlete he’s worried because if he doesn’t get a certain GPA he won’t be allowed to play. David (Anders Keith); however, is very confident that he’ll get an A. Still, he offers to tutor Roger because he has never gotten less than an A in his entire life. So, you can imagine his horror when Frasier returns his paper and he was a B. Roger got a B too, but he’s really excited about it – unlike David.

After class Frasier goes to see Olivia (Toks Olagundoye) and Corny (Nicholas Lyndhurst) because he needs a favor. It’s related to the Dr. Crane vs Professor Crane business. He doesn’t want to be an adjunct anymore as he wants to be a full-time professor at Harvard now. Olivia says that’s a longshot because adjuncts typically teach for years before the powers that be at the university even consider offering them a permanent position. Although, Frasier feels that “Professor Crane” denotes status and he wants that status so he wants Olivia to plead his case, but she worries it’s too soon. Also, she points out that it’d be unfair to use his celebrity to justify skipping the line because other candidates have been at the university longer. However, she decides to take pity on him after some begging. She’ll call a board meeting but he says the key is to charm the Provost Dev Sharma (Parvesh Cheena). If he approves of Frasier the rest of the board will approve.

At the bar Freddy is having a night out with Moose (Jimmy Dunn) and Smokey (Renee Pezzotta). When Frasier walks in he learns that when Freddy drinks he becomes an intellectual. He talks about dead psychologists with authority and uses vocab that makes Frasier proud. This is also the night when Frasier is going to attempt to butter up Provost Sharma. When he arrives Frasier starts off well enough, but things quickly go sideways. According to Sharma, there have been a number of issues lately, so he’s feeling a little sensitive about Harvard faculty drinking. He added that he just doesn’t want people to get the idea that Harvard professors are out-of-control booze hounds.

Unfortunately for Frasier, he didn’t know this before asking Eve (Jess Salgueiro) to bring over wine and whiskey to make him seem dignified. And he couldn’t predict Freddy coming over and saying he’d love how drunk he is now. The cherry on top is David coming over and saying he should’ve known he’d find his uncle here drinking like always. With that Sharma has seen enough and leaves. Olivia chases after him to try and do damage control. While she’s gone David complains to Frasier about his grade and Frasier agrees to let him rewrite the paper. When Olivia returns she tells him that the provost is convinced Frasier has a drinking problem, which Frasier isn’t happy with so he leaves.

Being granted a do-over from Frasier makes David a lot more relaxed until Freddy points out that he’ll need to get a 100% score on his rewritten paper in order to get an A in the course. Freddy gets really good at Math when he drinks as well. The long and short of it is when he has been drinking Freddy no longer feels the need to repress his intellectual side to fit in. Also, he knows a lot about BF Skinner, the topic of David’s paper, which gives David the idea to recruit Freddy for help. He is really afraid his father will be disappointed if he doesn’t get an A. Freddy agrees, but not before annoying his friends with his magic tricks.

The next morning Freddy wakes up in David’s dorm room. They spend the entire night working on David’s term paper. Freddy doesn’t fully remember it but David thinks he’ll get the A he wants. A the university David gives Fraiser his new paper and Frasier plays to try to win over the provost. Olivia and Corny are there and Frasier asks Corny to chug his spiked coffee because of the impression he made at the bar. Unfortunately, David moves the cups around and the provost ends up with the spiked coffee. When he drinks the coffee spiked with rum he’s now even more convinced that Frasier has a drinking problem.

Later, when Freddy gets home, he finds his father baking Provost Sharma honeybuns. Also, there are bees in the apartment. When Freddy asks why Fraiser is channeling Martha Stewart he says it’s because he embarrassed himself in front of Provost Sharma trying to secure a professorship. Freddy suggests he should quit while he’s behind, but knows his father doesn’t know how to do that so asks what the plan is. The baked goods are supposed to go with a speech pleading his case before the university’s review board. The hijinks are interrupted by David, who got a B- on his rewritten paper and isn’t very happy about it.

Freddy is offended on David’s behalf because he helped him with the paper, but then decides to pretend not to care about academics. David asks him to let him defend his paper for a better grade. He really doesn’t want to explain a B to his father, but Frasier thinks he should accept his grade. Then, Frasier gets stung by a bee, which he is very allergic to. David has many allergies and keeps an EpiPen on him, but doesn’t immediately give it to Frasier because he wants to plead his case for an A. Frasier acquiesces and David gives a passionate speech about how wanting an A is in his DNA because he’s a Crane. David asserts that Cranes are always seeking a new form of validation.

For his trouble, David is given a B+ and Freddy gives Frasier the EpiPen. Now, he says they need to go to the hospital, but Frasier is still determined to plead his case before the board. It doesn’t go well. When he gets to the meeting he’s blotchy and red. Plus, he’s a little delirious and talking about his family taking his car keys away which doesn’t help with Provost Sharma’s theory that Frasier has a drinking problem. Before he can fully make his case he passes out and Fraiser is put on probation.

After the dust is settled Freddy goes to check on David. When he arrives at the dorm David is considering leaving Harvard and becoming a firefighter like Freddy. Freddy thinks that considering David’s lack of hand-eye coordination that would be a bad move. They talk a little and Freddy admits that a part of why he left Harvard was the intense family pressure. David says he knows what that’s like and we learn that both Freddy and David went to math camp as kids. Freddy says he felt no regrets about leaving Harvard, but David admits that B aside he really loves it here. Then Freddy advises him to stick around and sober he decides to help him with his next paper.