Jane's Addition

"Jane's Addition" was the 13th and final episode of the 3rd season of the Daria TV series (episode number 313). It first aired on MTV on August 18, 1999. This episode was written by Glenn Eichler.

Summary
In this episode, Jane meets Tom Sloane at a Mystik Spiral gig, and begins dating him. Daria feels that Jane is focusing on Tom at the expense of their own friendship. Simultaneously, Daria and Jane enlist Trent's help on a school project. This proves to be a bad idea, further testing Daria's and Jane's friendship.

When Mr. O'Neill assigns his students to create multimedia projects, Daria and Jane decide to ask Trent to contribute some music. They plan to ask him during a gig at the Zon, but Jane becomes intrigued by a young man named Tom. During the Spiral's break, she and Tom go off to get some food, leaving a rather put-out Daria behind to speak with Trent, who agrees to help with their project.

Unfortunately, neither development works out well for Daria, as Jane starts spending more and more time with Tom, while Trent isn't putting any effort into his part of the project. This leads to tension all around, with Daria resenting Tom for what she perceives to be his horning in on her friendship with Jane, Jane -- who can't understand why Daria is so upset -- angry with Daria for the way she's acting towards Tom, and both girls upset with Trent for his lack of effort.

Eventually, Daria and Tom come to an understanding regarding Jane, with Tom convincing her that he's not out to steal Jane's friendship; in fact, according to him, Daria is practically all that Jane talks about. They don't exactly become friends, but the tension is mostly lifted. At school, Daria and Jane turn in their project, a so-so effort that's upstaged by Upchuck's entry... all thanks to Trent, who (not surprisingly) failed to fulfill his commitment. In the end, Daria and Trent reconcile over Trent's blunder and they remain friends, even though Daria is now keenly aware of Trent's slacker tendencies and his inability to stick to commitments, and they both covertly admit that a romantic relationship would never work.

Afterwards, she, Jane, and Tom share a pizza and each others' company... a sign of interesting times to come.

Trivia
This is the last episode where Daria crushes on Trent, and we were warned that this would happen back in "Lane Miserables". It's also explicitly clear -- if episodes like "Pierce Me" hadn't made it obvious -- that Trent was aware of the crush, as he tells her "I guess it wasn't such a great idea for us to get together" ('pretending' to mean the project).

On Hulu, the episode is mistitled as "Jane's Addiction", the name of the band from which the title was derived.

On “Jane's Addition” the Episode

 * “Jane's Addition” transcript at Daria Transcripts

Alternate-Universe Versions of “Jane's Addition”

 * "Truth and Consequences," by Mahna Mahna