The final episode of Freaks and Geeks aired on July 8, 2000. I first watched the series around 2010. Alone and far from home for the first time, I found solace in watching the series with my new friends. I’m sure we all felt the same way as many of the characters in the series. Alone but together, adrift but forging ahead. Freaks and Geeks captures the uncertainty of identities in flux perfectly, but no episode captures it as perfectly as the final episode, “Discos & Dragons.”
In it, we see Daniel (one of the Freaks) learn that the main difference between him being a freak or geek is that, unlike most geeks, he “[has] sex.” After being forced to join the AV Club by guidance counselor Jeff Rosso (played by the excellent Dave “Gruber” Allen), Daniel realizes that there’s no point in sulking through it and becomes intrigued by the Geeks’ explanation of Dungeons & Dragons. Seeing “cool guy” Daniel accept an invitation to play Dungeons & Dragons, Sam, who has been trying to shed his “geek” identity, realizes he alone can define what is cool or not. Meanwhile, Nick has gone full disco. In 1980 Michigan, not too far from Kominsky Park where the Disco Demolition Derby was held just the year before, people were burning the disco records Nick is now practicing dance routines to! Closer to home, his Freak friends show up to the local disco night at a bowling alley to scream “Disco sucks!” and discover his new identity.
Amidst all of this, Lindsay is accepted into a prestigious academic summit at the University of Michigan, and it’s clear that she doesn’t really want to go. Her parents, teachers, and even Kim expect her to go. The attitude is expected from her parents and teachers, but every time I watch this episode I’m surprised and endeared by Kim’s response to Lindsay’s ambivalence. When Lindsay tells her that she wishes she hadn’t gotten in, Kim’s response is “at least you get to get out of this town for a little while,” and she’s surprisingly realistic and level-headed when reminding Lindsay, “You get to leave. I don’t.” The pressure of the academic expectations put on Lindsay, along with Ken begging her to get back together with Nick so he’ll stop being a disco drone with his new girlfriend, feels like a lot for one teenage girl to carry.
The scene where she puts on the Grateful Dead record her guidance counselor gives her and dances to “Box of Rain” is the only time Lindsay is alone and reveling in freedom in the episode, and really a pivotal one in the entire series. It calls back to another scene where she’s alone in her bedroom -- her first time ever trying to roll and smoke a joint. It’s in this scene of her dancing that we see her look as free as when she’d taken the first puff, her face and body relaxed more than they’ve ever been throughout the series, the guard of existing as a teenage girl in public down for some brief moments.
Amidst all these teenage identity crises, this episode is perfect because no one gets the boy. In earlier episodes Kim and Lindsay are set up as possible romantic rivals, fighting over the greasy haired, poster boy of educational failure, Daniel DeSario. The writers could have easily maintained the rivalry through the series, but didn’t, opting for Lindsay and Kim to become friends. Kim is the only character whose fate we don’t get to see until the very last scene of the series. Lindsay is on a bus, her parents and the geeks have sent her off, expecting her to arrive at the academic decathlon. With a little help from American Beauty and the lunchroom Deadhead oracles, she’s decided to go follow the Grateful Dead on tour. As the song “Ripple” plays, we see Lindsay getting off the bus and Kim waiting for her. Lindsay and Kim hug and scream in soundless delight. Lindsay rips off her “normie” jacket and pulls on her dad’s old army jacket, the uniform of Lindsay as a Freak. She and Kim ride off together in the back of the Deadhead’s VW bus and this time we get to hear their screams of joy.
These screams are the sound of the unknown future, the delight of knowing it’s yours, that as you grow you change, and your teenage self doesn’t have to be who you are for the rest of your life. You can be a freak or you can be a geek, you can be both at once or neither, or you can be everything in between. Regardless of your choice, like the Grateful Dead reminds us as the series ends, “that path is for your steps alone.”
Alexandra Martinez has been a nanny, a dog walker, and most recently a pie baker. She lives in Southern California, writes poetry, and works at the library.