6teen/Sweet 6teen

Sweet 6teen
Season 3, Episode 1
Airdate	September 5, 2007
Written by	Terry McGurrin
Directed by	Karen Lessmann
← Special 2 Snow Job	3x02 → Baby, You Stink
6teen — Season Three

Sweet 6teen is the first episode of the third season of 6teen, and the fifty-third episode overall.

Guest Stars:

Plot Overview

Caitlin's sixteenth birthday is coming up and she is planning to throw a Sweet 16 party at the Soft Rock Café to mark the occasion, with her friends invited to join the celebration. At the Khaki Barn, Nikki helps Caitlin find a dress for the party when The Clones get word of the event. While Caitlin, Kirsten and Kristen talk about the party, Nikki recalls how she celebrated her 16th birthday—keeping it simple by going to the movies with Jonesy and Jude, where they saw Farting Ninja's Revenge and Jonesy ate her popcorn. The Clones' mindless chatter and excited squeals annoy Nikki and force her to step out into the mall corridor to escape.

Caitlin announces to the gang that she wants to use a Bollywood theme for the party and has contacted Chill TV about filming it for their show, Sweet 16. As Caitlin later scores a discount on a purchase at Albatross & Finch by promising the Greeter Gods that she'll bring Chill TV to film in the store, Tricia overhears her ex-friend talking and, deciding to take advantage of Caitlin's trusting nature yet again, suddenly decides to buddy up to her again and weasel her way into Caitlin's plans by appealing to her about holding a joint Sweet 16 party, reminding her that they had talked about doing so when they were still friends. Caitlin gets taken in by Tricia's words and they decide to go on a shopping spree, but Cait's friends, who have had to help her deal with Tricia in the past, are skeptical of the snobby rich girl's sudden change of heart when they hear about it.

Jude, Jonesy and Wyatt go skating at The Galleria's ice rink when they discover that the ice is not up to par for skating due to the temperature inside the mall, so Jude aims to fix the problem by lowering the mall's main thermostat from 21°C to 16°C. Jude's plan works as the ice returns to normal, but the suspicions of Ron the Rent-a-cop are raised when he notices the dropping temperature.

The gang's suspicions about Tricia are later confirmed when she finds out that Benj, a newly-hired Greeter God at Albatross & Finch, has his eyes on Caitlin (who feels likewise toward him). Tricia, who has her own designs on Benj, reverts to her usual bitchy self and plans to sabotage Caitlin's birthday by stealing her party, her ideas, the Chill TV taping and Benj out from under her, which upsets Caitlin, makes her cry and angers the gang when Tricia reveals her evil scheme at the Big Squeeze. Later, as Tricia is being interviewed by a Chill TV camera crew and she attempts to pass off the party ideas she stole from Caitlin as her own, she spots Benj walking by and takes him aside to talk to him. Benj tells Tricia that he plans to ask Caitlin out for the Sweet 16 party and asks her for advice on how to prepare for the date, but Tricia, seizing the opportunity, lies to Benj about Cait, telling him that "she isn't interested in him" before she makes some not-so-subtle hints to Benj about taking her to the party instead of Caitlin.

Caitlin's friends determine to avenge Tricia's double-cross and give Caitlin a birthday to remember when Jen appoints herself to supervise party planning while Nikki, who had set up a registry at the Khaki Barn to make sure no one at the Sweet 16 party wears the same outfit as someone else, comes up with her own plan for Tricia, and Jonesy volunteers to convince those invited to Tricia's party to change their minds about going. Jen and Nikki head to Burger McFlipster's to get Wyatt to put their birthday gift for Caitlin, a gold formal dress, in safekeeping until party time, but when he puts the dress away in the back, his boss, Tim, gets the wrong idea about Wyatt and the dress, convincing himself that his employee is a "meat dancer" and, without giving him a chance to explain about the dress, offers to teach the reluctant Wyatt ballroom dancing. Later, Nikki, who took a pay advance in exchange for agreeing to clean the Khaki Barn's elite washroom for three months in order to chip in for Caitlin's dress, is further annoyed by Kirsten and Kristen both saying the same things at the same time as they supervise Nikki on cleanup duty.

Jonesy's attempt to sabotage Tricia's party does not succeed, but Tricia ends up messing things up on her own with her behavior during party preparations at the Soft Rock Café as she throws prima donna tantrums and berates Benj when he tries to get her to calm down, every second of which gets caught on camera by the Chill TV crew. Meanwhile, Jen and Nikki arrive at the Big Squeeze, give Caitlin her gift and take her to get ready for a big surprise. Jude sets up the ice rink for the party by returning to the mall thermostat to raise the temperature back to normal, but Ron nearly catches him in the act until Jude talks his way out of trouble by telling the security guard that he's raising the temperature, not lowering it as Ron originally suspects.

Tricia's Sweet 16 party turns out to be a disaster as she and her friends Mandy and Gwen all show up wearing the same dress (the result of Nikki's handiwork) and she throws more fits on-camera, and when Benj laughs about Tricia's diva behavior and she chews him out for it and yells that he and Caitlin deserve each other (while also publicly admitting to stealing Benj away from Caitlin during her rant), Benj finally has enough and quits the party, telling Tricia to "smile pretty for the camera" on his way out as she then realizes her blunder. At the ice rink, Jude has set up mood lights and a humidifier to create fog from the melting ice when Jen and Nikki bring a blindfolded Caitlin in and remove the blindfold, pleasantly surprising the birthday girl as the gang wishes her a happy birthday. Wyatt offers Caitlin the first dance of the party as Jude turns on the music, and when Cait asks where Wyatt learned how to dance, he opts not to discuss it. A moment later, Benj shows up unexpectedly and offers to cut in, and Wyatt gladly steps aside and makes Caitlin's birthday as she and Benj enjoy a slow dance while the gang watches with pride.

Soon after at Stereo Shack, Jonesy and company show Caitlin the completed Sweet 16 episode where Tricia's tantrums and bad behavior are broadcast nationwide on Chill TV, and the gang enjoy seeing Tricia once again get her comeuppance while Caitlin admits to making a mistake in trusting her ex-friend again and declares that this is the last time she will do so.

Arc Advancement

Characters

• Until this episode, it was assumed that Caitlin was 16 years old along with the other main characters. As a result of the events of "Sweet 6teen", Caitlin's age was retconned to 15 years old in the first two seasons

Referbacks

• While meeting at Albatross & Finch, Tricia recalls ending her friendship with Caitlin after Cait began working at the Big Squeeze ("Take This Job and Squeeze It") and framing her for shoplifting from A&F ("A Crime of Fashion")
• The Chill TV camera crew first appeared in Season Two's "Smarten Up" as students from a local college's media department, filming a documentary at the mall when they ask Caitlin to be interviewed in a segment
• The song Caitlin and Benj dance to, "My Fantasy" by boy band DawgToy, first appeared in the Season One episode "The Girls in the Band", when Caitlin and Jen sing along to it together in the opening teaser

Trivia

Allusions and References

• The Chill TV program Sweet 16 parodies the real-life MTV reality program My Super Sweet 16
• When Tim offers to teach ballroom dancing to Wyatt as Wyatt puts away Caitlin's dress for her party, as Tim brings up having learned ballroom dancing after having once been a "meat dancer", he mentions being "officially out of the freezer" (a paraphrase of the term "out of the closet", which implies that Tim might be gay)
• In the Sweet 16 episode shown to Caitlin in the epilogue, Tricia is dubbed by the show's announcer as the "Queen of Mean", an epithet often used to describe late hotel owner Leona Helmsley for her own well-documented unpleasant personality, snobbishness and tyrannical behavior toward her employees. This also depicts and parodies an average episode of My Super Sweet 16, which depicts wealthy teenage girls celebrating their milestone birthdays as demanding, spoiled, temperamental and ungrateful when things don't go their way

Memorable Moments

• Caitlin and Benj's dance at her birthday party at the ice rink

Quotes

• Nikki: Okay, so remind me again what the big deal is?
  Caitlin: It's my sweet sixteen, Nikki.
  Nikki (no reaction): Uh-huh...and...?
  Caitlin: And it's the biggest important night of my life. It's when I finally say goodbye to my childhood and reintroduce myself as an adult woman.
  Nikki (still unimpressed): And how will you do that?
  Caitlin: By having the wickedest, most expensive party in history! (Kristen and Kirsten overhear Caitlin and enter the picture)
  Kristen: I was watching Chill TV's Sweet 16 show and this one girl's daddy bought her a car!
  Caitlin: What kind of car?
  Kristen (excitedly): RED! (Kristen and Caitlin begin squealing with delight)
  Kirsten: In one episode, all the guests got MP3 players! (Caitlin enters a fitting room to try on what would be her "sweet sixteen" dress)
  Kristen: Are you gonna give everyone gifts?
  Caitlin: Totally! (Caitlin and The Clones again squeal with delight, a little louder than before, and Nikki starts to feel unable to take their squeals)
  Nikki (sighs in disgust): On my sixteenth birthday, I was at the movies with Jude and Jonesy. We saw Farting Ninja's Revenge and Jonesy ate all my popcorn! (Caitlin then comes out wearing the dress she picked out to try on, and Kristen and Kirsten are in awe)
  Caitlin (impressed): This is it!
  Kirsten: It's perfect! (The three girls start squealing again, so loudly they could be heard from outside the store, startling one customer and causing Nikki to flee the Khaki Barn)
  Nikki (after running out of the store to escape Caitlin and The Clones' giddy squeals): Ugh! It's like hanging out with dolphins!

• Tricia: I know I abandoned you when you got that loser job at the lemon.
  Caitlin (remembering): Yeah.
  Tricia: And I framed you for shoplifting.
  Caitlin: Hey, that's right!
  Tricia: And I wrote awful things about you in the girls' bathroom at school.
  Caitlin (shocked): You WHAT?!
  Tricia: But that doesn't mean I don't want to be your friend.
  Caitlin: Really?
  Tricia: I think hanging with you made me a better person, Cait.
  Caitlin (melting): Awwwww!
  Greeter Goddess: Uh, excuse me? No showing emotion on the premises—store policy.