Dye! Dye! My Darling

"Dye! Dye! My Darling" was the thirteenth episode of the fourth season of the television series Daria.

Plot Summary
The plot follows some story lines from the previous episode, Fire!.

The episode starts as Jane is in the Zoo with Trent, observing a Tiger for secret reasons.

The next day, or a few days later, Daria Jane and she reveals her surprise: a painting of Jane with her hair painted with alternated black and blond stripes, with a jungle in the background. She announces Daria that this will be her new look, and wants Daria's help to achieve it.

Later that day, Daria and Jane are in a shop, checking hair dye products. Daria is reluctant to assist Jane, despite her insistence. Jane hints that Daria may have a different motive, which irritates Daria. Back at the Lane's, Daria prepares the hair dye and starts painting Jane's hair in stripes, though still stating objections on doing the job. As this happens, Jane hints that Daria might be jealous of her and Tom, and be harboring feelings for him, to Daria's annoyance.

Later, when Jane reveals her hair, it is shown that the job was blotched: her hair is completely orange, and in bad shape, instead of having alternate blond stripes. Furious, she lashes verbally at Daria, accusing her of having done it on porpose to steal Tom from her and throws her out of the house. Immediately after, she and Trent ride to the store to get a black dye paint. As she talks to her bother, she remorsefully realizes Daria wasn't the better choice for the job and had only done it per Jane's insistence.

The next day, Daria goes to school alone and attempts to call Jane unsuccessfully. She is distressed enough to cal her mother, but Helen, in a midst of a important case, hasn't time for her.

That afternoon, Daria goes back to Lane's. Jane has dyed her hair back to black and the two girls talk: Daria assures Jane she hadn't blotched Jane's hair job on porpose. When Jane asks about Tom, and whether Daria is interested in him, or even if they had kissed, the latter flatly denies it. Jane accepts her appology and tries to difuse the situation.

That evening, as Daria comes home, she discovers Tom parked in front at her house. Tom wants to talk to Daria, but refuses her invitation to come in, as the Fashion Club is inside evaluating blushes. Daria enters his car and the two talk. Tom wants to talk to Daria about their situation but Daria rebuffs him, saying there is no 'their' situation and that Tom's presence is putting an edge between Daria and Jane. Tome counters that all he did was date Jane for a while and that now they are getting bored with each other. After both stating that they couldn't be interested in one another and would be betraying Jane if they did, Tom kisses Daria, who reciprocates. Realizing what she's done, she flees home.

The next day Daria comes to breakfast completely depressed and needing to talk to someone. Jake just rants at the newspaper and leaves without talking. When Quinn cheerfully informs Daria that the FC are preparing another meeting for that afternoon, Daria abruptly says that she needs to talk to mom. Quinn, however, informs her that she has been working 18 hour days and that's impossible. Daria asks Quinn for advice about her situation, but her sister misunderstands her story and offers no advice.

At school, when Jane cheerfully meets Daria, the later confesses she had kissed Tom. An astonished and hurt Jane flees the school to confront Tom at his home. After pounding and screaming at him, the two talk: they agree that the relation had run its course and was heading nowhere. A depressed Jane sarcastically proposes that Tom start dating Daria, to his confusion. Tom garantees Jane that he wasn't seeing her just to get to Daria, and that he looks up to Jane.

Meanwhile, a depressed Daria goes see her mother at her workplace. After hearing her story, Helen consoles her by saying people aren't always in charge of their own lives, and, however bad the situation is, Daria shouldn't make things worse than they are and that things will get better, which helps Daria's mind a little.

Later that day, Jane is picked up by Trent (presumably coming from Tom's house). After some light-hearted conversation, Jane asks to go to the Morgendorffer's.

There the two girls have a heart-to-heart. Despite Daria assurances nothing like the kiss will ever happen again, Jane informs her that she and Tom broke up, he is free and that she, Jane, is still mad at Daria. A disgruntled Daria says she doesn't believe Jane is ok with her dating Tom. When she asks Jane if they are still friends, she receives first an non-reply, which scares her. After, Jane answers "We're the kind of friends who can't stand the sight of each other" before she leaves.

The episode concludes that evening: Daria is lying down in her room and the phone rings. When she picks it up, we hear it's Tom.

Trivia
The title of this episode is sometimes written as "Dye! Dye! My Darling!" with the extra exclamation mark. This hearkens back to the source of the title, the British movie "Fanatic," whose U.S. title was "Die! Die! My Darling!".

It is possible the name could come from the album "Die, Die, my darling" from the punk band Mistifs.

Other Points of view
In-canon retellings of Daria episodes from other points of view are rare, but an excellent example for this one was completed by Dennis in "Tom's Eye View."

Variations of the episode
This episode has been featured in countless fanfiction works, due to the important interaction between Jane and Daria over Tom Sloane, and the betrayal Jane fells Daria did and the angst displayed. The adaptations include (but are not limited to) variations in which: Jane does not forgive Daria; The Kiss does not happen (either due to circumstances or because Daria refuses to kiss Tom); Daria not only kisses Tom but also sleeps with him; Jane forgives Daria but they do not reconcile completely...

Parodies of The Kiss
Among adaptations of the episode, the moment Daria and Tom kiss (The Kiss) has been parodied in countless ways in PPMB threads, particularly the dialogue between Daria and Jane that occurs the following morning:

''Jane - No walkee to school today? What happened?''

(no response from Daria)

''Jane - Hey, what's up? Talk to me.''

Daria - I kissed your boyfriend.

(Jane freezes on the spot, wide-eyed)

Jane - What?