Some observations:
Before Vic enters the room for the first time, the main characters' actions reflect their personalities: Jordan is sleeping, Brian is reading, Sharon is socializing, and Angela is observing everyone.
I find it interesting that despite Jordan's "I don't give a damn" facade, he elects to stay in class after Vic threatens to talk about him in his absence. Jordan might act like he doesn't care what people say or think about him, but he does.
In the same scene, Brian asks Vic to read their Lit submissions so they can get credit for it - typical Brian!
I love watching Patty and Graham unpack the car by piling everything on the porch
When Angela stays behind to give Vic her parents' "throwing our stuff out the window was disrespectful" speech, she must overhear the conversation he has with Jordan - the first hints of Angela understanding Why Jordan Can't Read (besides Vic's previous adjective assault).
Rayanne tells Angela to tell Rickie about Vic, Angela begins to talk about the socks but Rayanne interrupts her (and Angela does look annoyed by it, unlike previous episodes where all three of them have interrupted each other). Later Rayanne tries to talk to Angela in class about the socks, but Angela shushes her and Rayanne looks hurt. I don't think this was an intentional tit for tat from Angela - she really was trying to listen to what was going in class, but her statement is telling: "Shut up - I'm trying to listen." Angela is trying to listen in every sense of the word. She is trying to wake up. In other words, she is beginning the process of maturing while Rayanne is still looking at Vic's socks.
Brian, Mr. Traditionalist, refuses to take part in Vic's candlelight writing session - again, so typical! He won't even sit on the floor or at a desk like everyone else - he stands up and doesn't pretend to take part.
I love that guilty look on Angela's face as Rickie reads her fable. While the class discusses whether it makes any sense, Rickie glances at her out of the corner of his eye - I took that to mean he knows she wrote it. Whether it's because he recognizes her handwriting or her sentiments, he knows.
Angela, on the other hand, does not know that Sharon wrote the haiku, instead assuming (like the rest of the class) that Rayanne wrote it. This seems to be an indication of how well Angela knows both Sharon (her ex-best friend) and Rayanne (her new best friend). The fact that Rayanne keeps her pact with Sharon a secret from Angela does not seem to bode well. I can understand why Rayanne wants the general population to think that she wrote it since she has a reputation to uphold, but why wouldn't she admit the truth to Angela and Rickie?
Vic is a total hippie - I love his "QUESTION EVERYTHING" quote on the blackboard.
Although Angela feels that Vic treats the class as adults rather than children (which is debatable in itself), he treats adults as children. In his conversations with Patty and Graham, Vic himself acts like a child by interrupting them. He then treats them as children, manipulating them into doing what he wants. Vic is very smart and perceptive enough to know how to convince each of them to do his will. I'm not saying he's going to become a cult reader, but he knows how to approach each of them (e.g. complimenting Patty, characterizing Graham as "fragile," etc).
Just before Principal Foster walks into the office, there are two girls in the hallway that look too young to be in high school. I know it's been a while since I was in high school, but man they look young!
In the bathroom scene, Sharon peeks under the stall doors to make sure no one is listening to her conversation with Rayanne, similar to Father Figures when Angela peeked under the stall doors to find Rayanne. Apparently MSCL was the precursor to all the bathroom scenes in Ally McBeal
I love the look of panic on Angela's face when she gets back from seeing Vic and her parents sit down on either side of her on the couch - she just knows that she's in for a Parenting Lecture and there is no escaping it!
Anal math/timeline stuff regarding Patty and Graham's involvement in the civil rights movement and war protests - is it feasible that they were involved during the 60s? As we soon learn, they are 40 which puts their births around 1954 - that means that they were quite young in the 60s. Then again, as is pointed out in Angela's World, the movements of the 60s weren't bounded by calendar years - look at Karen in the Wonder Years. She was a high school student when she became a hippie in 1968, so I guess it's possible that Patty and Graham were young hippies at the tail end of the decade.
I love Angela's remarks regarding Patty and Graham's hypocrisy: "What about all those boring stories I had to sit through my whole life about how committed you were in the sixties, about how you believed in things.... Only now you're so terrified of causing trouble you can't even see what it means to me." She cuts right to the core of their argument, showing that she sees them more clearly than they might care to admit - as two people who claimed there were things worth going to jail for are now telling her to follow the rules, not to make waves.