Yet another episode kicks off with the backstory narration (the exact same one as the pilot and second episodes). Really, 80s sitcom viewers? I know we couldn’t binge watch back in the day, but surely the concept behind Growing Pains was not so complicated nor progressive that we couldn’t figure it out on our own just from watching!

In this episode, Maggie has a lead on a big story about contaminated water and it’s really taking her time away from Jason and he really doesn’t like it. And he really, really doesn’t like Maggie’s partner on the story, because he’s a man, and calls Maggie “Mags”, and all of this seems very threatening to Jason despite the fact that he and Maggie can otherwise not keep their hands off each other.  At any rate, Maggie’s working relationship with Fred is really throwing Jason off his game.

Maggie, of course, notices that Jason is jealous and confronts him about it…or, rather, laughs at him about it. In my experience, laughing at someone’s darker emotions almost never helps, and this time is no different. Spurred by his jealousy, Jason decides it’s a good idea to go to Maggie’s office in person and late at night, just to “ask her what Ben should do for his science project”. Even the kids know this isn’t cool and try to talk him out of it, but there’s no stopping the Jason Seaver jealousy freight train.

Karma has a funny way of rearing its head, though. Jason shows up at Maggie’s office, but instead of walking in like a normal person, he decides to creep along the glass like an intruder. Of course, Maggie and Fred then assume he is an intruder, perhaps one of the contaminated water goons, and Fred kicks the door open into Jason’s face.

Maggie and Jason then hash it out in her office (the first time this season an issue is not resolved in the Seaver family kitchen!). It turns out Maggie spent 15 years being jealous of Jason going to work in his “sexy psychiatrist sweaters” and so she has little time or patience for Jason’s jealousy. I think this was her attempt at empathy, but for me it fell a bit flat.  Jason, being a psychiatrist and all, quickly levels up his self-awareness and sees how he’s been overreacting.  Within minutes, all is well in the Seaver’s marriage once again.

At the end of this episode I’m left wondering:

• Seriously, when will Ben or Carol get a meaningful storyline? Ben had a pretty weak science project storyline in this one, but Carol had nothing at all. To be fair, Mike’s storyline in this one is pretty marginal as well, so I suppose it was at least equitable amongst the kids this time around.
• Is Fred a 1980s silver fox? I wouldn’t have thought so, but Jason was so jealous that I’m questioning my understanding of the 1980s male aesthetic. Fred did have a Tom Selleck kind of mustache going on…
• Is there such a thing as a sexy psychiatrist sweater?
• What happened with Maggie’s story? I kind of wanted to know whether they blew the roof off the story and caught the jerks poisoning the water, but we are left hanging. I know, I know, it’s a sitcom and the newspaper story was entirely secondary but honestly it was one of the most interesting things going on.