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Original Air Date: April 28, 2008
This episode is all about signals, starting with the one that TODD sends to SAM when she receives a postcard in the mail inviting her to his first photography gallery show. Not wanting to send the wrong signal back about whether or not she’s over him, Sam can’t decide whether she should go.
The decision is pretty much made for her when she goes to her building to talk to Todd directly. He reveals that CHLOE (Guest Star Kiele Sanchez) found out he sent her an invitation and then strongly suggested that Sam not attend since feelings might still be raw. Not only does Sam decide to go on the spot, but she also lies that she’s so over Todd she has a new man in her life named — wait for it — Rance, who has nothing to prove. Now all Sam has to do is find this phantom Rance man to be her date.
A trip to the bookstore, as suggested by DENA, yields nothing but all the wrong types. Sam is kicked out eventually anyway for jumping a woman who refuses to put back the book Sam is using to attract a certain type of male at a display table. Fortunately — or maybe not, as we learn later — Sam then bumps into a guy named CRAIG (Guest Star Jerry O’Connell) ineptly trying to break into his own car. Sam beats him to it and then asks if he likes art.
Craig follows Sam’s odd instructions to dress “casual average,” whatever that means. But, in the midst of taking her coat, which Sam makes him do when Todd is watching to maximize her ex’s jealousy, the guy’s yanking motion causes Sam to flash back to the time he mugged her three years ago when she and Andrea were out walking one night.
Sam asks Craig about the incident later, and instead of denying it, he explains she was the last person he robbed. He dislocated his shoulder trying to snatch her purse — she wouldn’t let go — and didn’t have health insurance to get it properly set. Now the manager of a jazz club, he claims he’s changed, and Sam believes him (so she says) because she wants others to believe she’s changed, too.
Her actions say something else, however, when the gallery alarm goes off following Craig’s confession. Sam immediately yells for everyone and anyone to hear that it’s her date, who’s a thief, when it’s actually her overprotective father trying to escape with Todd’s nude photo of her.
Busted, Sam suffers the humiliation of her parents leaving angrily and her date ditching her when he’s the one that’s a former criminal (and he never does apologize for mugging her either). Meanwhile, Chloe gets pissed at Todd for having a naked photo of Sam at the art show but not one of her.
As Dina finally arrives — Andrea intentionally gave her the wrong address and she wound up at a cheesy performance art event — with her new boyfriend, CHAPMAN (Guest Star Rick Hoffman), and gets revenge by telling Andrea her new office is convenient for making photocopies, Sam and Todd admit to still having feelings for one another without specifically saying it. Todd kindly arranged for the nude photo of Sam to remain in his possession, and he walks Sam out to her car when she leaves.
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