Day Two Hundred and Nine - Numb3rs: Season 2, Episode 2, "Awkwaaaaarrrdddd~"

I wanted to talk about this episode of Numb3rs not because of its weekly mystery, which is dull and has boring/overly-convenient math, but because it features the first official act acknowledging the series arcing shippage of Charlie and Amita.

After hinting about it almost the entirety of the half-sized first season (13 episodes instead of the standard 22-24), Charlie finally gets up the nerve to ask Amita out, to which she instantly agrees. It's not the actual question and answer that got to me, it's the subtle little gasp she emits when he praises an idea of hers.

It's such a simple little tell on her part, but it still manages to give me chills (plus, her cute little twintails didn't hurt, either). After that, the rest of the episode sort of breezed by me.

Sure, there was the meh mystery itself, centering on a botched jewel heist, which uncovers a kidnapping, which leads to bookies, and much worse... that, I can easily let wash over into nothingness. It doesn't matter.

What did matter were the progressive scenes of Charlie and Amita's progress, or lack thereof.

See, the date doesn't go well. After promising not to talk about work... which, for both of them, IS math (and is pretty much the only thing that they're passionate about)... the find that they really can't seem to talk about anything BUT math. This, of course, turns the date into a series of awkward sips of wine and picking at salads.

They're both working on Don's case, of course, so things get awkward while crunching numbers in a subsequent scene and it's not until the end of the episode that wise old Peter MacNicol swoops in to state what should be obvious to the both of them, granted he only mentions it to Charlie while the two are hovering over a pool hockey table: they communicate beautifully via math... so what if that's all they have to talk about (at least, so far)?

It's a great statement both for it's immediacy to their relationship and as an overall universal truth... math is the language of the universe! Having it so that two TV geniuses flirt with it is all the better.

Yes, Numb3rs is a pretty generic crime drama and the math hooks grow stale after a while, but it's nice to see awkward supernerds do their mating dances... mainly because I'm a supernerd of a different sort and it gives little lonely me hope.

And that's television in a nutshell, folks... keeping the flames alive for yet another day!

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~