Stage Fighting

Stage Fighting is the 3rd episode of Season 1 of Victorious. It premiered April 18th, 2010.

Plot
The episode starts out as Tori is playing the French Horn as she likes a lot of French things (French fries, French toast). She is playing it horribly though and so thinks it's broken. However, André plays the horn amazingly afterwards to "fix" it, proving her wrong.

When entering her theater rehearsal class, Tori sees a visible bully who appears to be mercilessly attacking Beck. Tori tries to lure the bully off of Beck, but soon finds out that the apparent "bully" is a stunt actor (Russ) who is the teacher's assistant for the stage fighting class which Tori was unfamiliar with. Her fellow classmates explain the situation to her, in which Tori ends up joining the class.

The teacher (unknown name) announces that each student in the class will be paired with a partner for a stage fighting project. As an example, the teacher demonstrates on Cat, as an example of how a fake punch is, which really involves sound effects. The teacher pairs up students, with Tori and Jade as a partnership. Tori feels uncomfortable with the partnership as Jade and her do not really get along well.

Throughout the week, Tori worries that Jade will actually punch her, as a mistake or just on purpose. On the day of the scene, Tori plays an elderly woman coming home from a bingo game, and Jade plays a "brutal mugger". The mugger attempts to steal the elderly woman's watch, which causes the woman to whack (not really) the mugger with her solid, cherry-wood cane. According to Jade, Tori hit her with the cane on-purpose. Tori repeatedly denies it although Jade's eye appears to be obviously bruised, only to Jade's dismay. The stunt crew, teacher, and students go into complete shock. Tori tries to comfort Jade by getting her a chair, only for the chair to break. (It was a prop chair specifically designed to fall apart when sat on).



The guidance counselor, Lane, talks to Tori about the incident, and after a small talk, he decides Tori will be punished by cleaning up the theater after the food fight that will occur in the play staged by Hollywood Arts Middle School students the following Friday. Also, while they talked, Lane had a security guard called Derek guard his office in case Tori would have a violent outburst.

Later, Jade and the other characters are talking at lunch when a girl accidentally spills water on Jade's face. Instead of accepting help, she runs off.

In the hallway, André and Jade are talking, only for André to notice that Jade's facial bruise doesn't look real - the color is leaking. Jade then gives herself up by telling André that the bruise isn't actually real, but just makeup. Jade makes André promise not tell anyone, especially Tori, as Jade wanted to make her feel bad. André accepts, only to shout, "Tori!", which causes Jade to burst with anger.

Later, Tori is at the Blackbox Theater when Jade comes in. Jade is confused that Tori didn't tell on her, which she thinks is "not right". Finally, Jade decides to help clean up. She then plays some music and starts dancing. Eventually, the guard sent to watch Tori, Derek, joins in, and gets so caught up in the dancing that he doesn't realize Tori and Jade made their escape until he is left alone in the theater to clean up.

Subplot
Robbie develops feelings for Trina after they audition together for a World War II play. The scene included a kiss which Robbie mistakes for a real, romantic kiss, although it was clearly just a stage kiss. Robbie starts to assume that Trina is also attracted to him, stating that "they like each other", and assumes that they are dating.

Robbie kisses Trina at lunch, which leaves her in such shock that she spits skim milk in his face, which he hoped to be soy milk. Cat gets tired of Robbie trying to go out with Trina, so she explains to Robbie that you can't just assume that you are dating from a stage kiss. She also explains that you can fake passion through acting, which she demonstrates by kissing him. It doesn't work, as Robbie is now interested in Cat; he asked Cat to meet his parents directly after the kiss. This also proved that Robbie's feelings for Trina were in no way true.

Quotes
(André and Cat want to hear Tori play the French horn)

André: Play that funky music, white girl.

Tori: You know I'm half Latina.

André: Well, then hit it, muchacha. (Tori plays the French horn horribly)

Tori: (to Beck) Well, it looked like he was hurting you!

Jade: (suspiciously) Why do you care?

Tori: Because I figured he already suffers enough pain dating you.

Jade: You wanna see pain?!

Tori: Why does she (Jade) hate me?

André: Maybe she heard you play the French horn!

Cat: [after kissing Robbie] See?

Robbie: (stunned) I want you to meet my parents.

Cat: I wonder if mirrors work in Outer Space.

Cat: My dog has a black nose. Like a baby meatball.

Andre: Meatballs are brown.

Cat: You're so mean to me! (walks away angrily)

Beck: Hey, how you feelin'?

Jade: My eye hurts.

Beck: Oh yeah, which one?

Jade: (In a sarcastic voice) Cute. I want some coffee.

Beck: What's the magic word?

Jade: Get me some coffee?! ... Please?

Beck: Actually, the magic word was lotion. But i'll accept your apology cause you have a boo-boo eye.

Trivia

 * This episode marks the first kiss between Robbie and Cat so far in the series.
 * This episode also marks the first kisses between Robbie and Trina so far in the series (there were two).
 * Robbie kisses two girls in this episode and "falls in love" with both of them.
 * This is the first episode that Sinjin is absent.
 * Tori and Jade's skit was about an old lady coming home from Bingo Night and a mugger about to rob her. Ironically, the old lady was supposed to beat up the mugger.
 * This is the first time where Robbie and Trina interact with each other.
 * The (according to Rex) "hot" blonde is played by Jamie Snow, who also played Tara in Freak the Freak Out. She also played "Tammy" in the The Amanda Show sketch "The Girl's Room".
 * The entire theater clean-up dance was improvised by Elizabeth Gillies, Victoria Justice, and Richard Anna (the actor who played Derek).
 * Originally Tori was going to add "French kissing" to the French things she likes in the scene with André, but it was cut out because Dan thought it was a little much for Nickelodeon. (Which is odd because they've mentioned French kissing on Ned's Declassified and [mailto:Nick@Nite Nick@Nite] before.)
 * Lane mentions that Hollywood Arts has a middle school.
 * Running Gag : The specialist brought in to teach the class about stage fighting repeatedly corrects the class that his name is Russ.
 * There was a deleted scene where after Trina locks her door, Robbie says to Rex, "Oh well, I guess it's dinner for the two of us at the Olive Garden," and Rex replies, "Oh, NO! Not the Olive Garden! Please!".
 * This is the second episode where the title is said in the episode.
 * This is the first time Jade shows her "soft side".
 * The song Jade, Tori and Derek are dancing to is "Queen of White Lies" by The Orion Experience. While filming, Liz, Victoria, and the actor who plays Derek were actually dancing to "Fluorescent Adolescent" by the Arctic Monkeys.
 * "Queen of White Lies" was also heard in the Zoey 101 episode "Coffee Cart Ban." (Zoey 101 was a Nickelodeon show by Dan Schneider that Victoria Justice had starred in for a few years.)
 * When Tori and Jade are cleaning up after the food fight scene, Jade accidentally trips when she walks up to turn on the music. This was actually not meant to happen, but Dan Schneider decided to leave it in because Elizabeth Gillies stayed in character. Victoria's big, open-mouthed smile was not scripted as well; it was her reaction to Liz's slip-up.
 * Ending tagline: "But we'll implode!"--Trina
 * This episode is considered racist when Andre calls Tori white girl due to the fact that he is African-American.

Cast

 * Victoria Justice as Tori Vega
 * Leon Thomas lll as André Harris
 * Matt Bennett as Robbie Shapiro
 * Elizabeth Gillies as Jade West
 * Ariana Grande as Cat Valentine
 * Avan Jogia as Beck Oliver
 * Daniella Monet as Trina Vega

Goofs

 * It would be practically impossible to play the French Horn the way André plays it in the episode; the French Horn requires lots of air to play and was named one of the most difficult instruments to play by the Guinness Book of World Records.
 * When Trina leaves the table during the scene where Robbie is trying to convince her to go out with him, she takes her pink patterned backpack with her. When Cat sits down, she puts her black backpack with pink trim next to her on the seat. But when the part where Jade is storming away from the lunch area after getting water splashed onto her comes up, the audience can clearly see Trina's pink patterned backpack next to Cat.