Another episode focusing on Kevin's issues with math class.
Most of the episode centers around Kevin's imaginary relationship with his math teacher, Mr. Collins. He feels closer to the teacher, and like the teacher should appreciate him more, because Kevin pulled himself together and works hard and gets mostly Cs on his work.
I mostly got As and Bs during school. (I did worse in French though) But I identify with Kevin, since I didn't put that much effort into school, and it was always a shock when I ran into something that required effort.
Like most episodes, most of the drama is created by Kevin being strange and unreasonable, and having really strange difficulties with communicating. He winds up being taught after school by the teacher in preparation for a midterm.
Mr. Collins is one of the strangest teachers the show has used. His performance is inscrutable. He rarely gives anything like a reaction. It's kind of frustrating.
The big development comes when Mr. Collins is unable to continue teaching Kevin after school, because of an "appointment." Kevin gets angry, and he retaliates against Mr. Collins by filling in wise-ass answers on his midterm test. Mr. Collins is disappointed.
When they return to school after the weekend, Kevin tries to find Mr. Collins, and is told that he actually died that morning. He had been unwell.
Naturally, Kevin feels terrible.
It's revealed that Mr. Collins had thrown out Kevin's wise-ass test, so he has an opportunity to redo the test seriously. A last gesture of good faith from Mr. Collins.
There are two things that bother me. First, the technical one. Wouldn't the vice principal - filling in for Mr. Collins - feel like it wasn't quite fair to give Kevin the same test twice and take his second score?
The other thing is that this requires Mr. Collins to be just as immature as Kevin. He's too concerned about sharing information about himself with Kevin, when it would have been perfectly fine for him to say "Sorry I can't really teach you after school - I'm kind of sick, and I have some doctors appointments." That goes over much better than the enigmatic "I have an appointment."
It's also hard to say that Mr. Collins actually cares for his students. I know this is a trivial thing, but he should be a little more moved by Kevin's effort.
I had a math teacher in high school who was a real jerk. He was humorless, he was mean with his comments (I still have a homework assignment where he called me 'lazy'). He seemed to really hate his work.
I had heard a meathead talking about him, about how he went to him for some help with math, and that changed his entire attitude. The teacher was tired of not seeing effort in the classroom.
