Season 3 Episode 18: Great Expectations

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Mike is in for some adventure. You see, Malia, the girl from the two-part Aloha episodes has sent him 8 pounds of pineapples and a letter explaining how she’s going to be in California. Now, what Malia says in her letter is that it’s too bad that she’ll still be 3000 miles from Mike, but what Mike hears is an opportunity to go see her. In fact, he recalls promising that if she ever came to the mainland USA, no matter where, he’d meet her. So come hell or high water, he’s going to find his way to California.

Sidenote: As far as we viewers can tell, this is the first contact Mike’s had with Malia in 17 episodes, and they only knew each other for 10 days in Maui, so this seems like the kind of overly-extravagant, borderline creepy move that is only successful in Hallmark movies. But hey, that’s me being judgmental and I suppose young love is blind to such practicalities.

Mike’s travel plans seem doomed at first because he’s broke, but Carol is a sucker for romance and is willing to lend him several hundred dollars to buy a ticket. Now he just has to convince Jason and Maggie to let him go. At first, Maggie is the sympathetic one and she comes super close to agreeing to let Mike go, but then when she contemplates Mike all the way across the country and alone with a girl he really, really likes, she sides with Jason and poor Mike is outta luck. He’s going nowhere.

Except that this is Mike we’re talking about, so he decides he’s going anyway, but sneaking across the country is a big undertaking even for Mike. Thankfully Ben and Carol are both in his court.  They’ve come up with a plan that basically involves a lot of pre-recorded audio of Mike saying stuff Mike would say. That way, any time Maggie and Jason need to talk to Mike, they can just hit play on the tape recorder…so long as they can pretend that Mike is closed off in some other room.

What’s really implausible about this is that they’ve apparently predicted not only the exact questions Maggie and Jason will ask Mike, but also the order in which they’ll ask them. Because they’ve got audio clips queued up, in order, to play one after the other that, for the most part, make perfect sense.  Also, the audio quality of their recordings is way too good to have been done on the old-school tape recorder that they’re using. Or maybe, maybe the Seaver kids are actually incredibly ingenious (and Maggie and Jason are totally predictable) and I’m just expecting too much from a sitcom.

You’re probably wondering, but what happens when Maggie and Jason expect to actually see Mike? Indeed, things do get really dicey when Jason expects Mike to report outside in five minutes to shovel snow. How will they get out of that pickle? The answer: Boner. The great thing about winter is that it requires layers. And layers legitimately make it impossible to tell your teenager from any other teenager of roughly the same size. Well done, Seaver kids.

Meanwhile, Mike has finally made it across the country. He’s been imagining how wonderful his reunion with Malia will be, the two of them like long lost lovers finally reunited. It will be magical…or, you know, not. Because when Malia arrives she is (rightfully) shocked to see Mike standing there. I mean, she’s there for a work convention so she has no time to go galavanting with Mike.

You can tell Malia feels bad that he flew all away across the country to see her, so she offers to get him a ticket to the convention dinner the next next, but Mike says he has to catch his flight home right away. As in, he says he has to leave in 10 minutes. Honestly, I’m not clear on whether this is true or he’s just trying to save face because why would he fly across the country if he’d only be able to hang for a few minutes at the airport?!?!? Regardless, they have an awkward hug and Mike’s just learned that if you’re going to fly across the country to meet a girl, maybe give her a heads up to see if she even has time to spend with you.

So Mike arrives home that night with a broken heart, which leads me to believe he really did leave himself a tiny window of time to see Malia at the airport, which also means this entire episode makes no sense to me. The only positive in all of this is that the kids have somehow managed to hide Mike’s trip from Maggie and Jason, that is until Carol asks Mike if he ate on the plane.

Way to go, Carol.

Now Mike has had the worst day ever, and he’s in trouble. Jason isn’t entirely without a heart, though. He shares with Mike a similar story of flying to an entirely different continent to surprise a girl, who then said she just wanted to be friends. But that maybe it’s still better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. And just when I think that I will escape this episode with only mild annoyance at its illogical plot, they start playing Swept Away again and now this episode is a front-runner for worst episode of the season in my Season 3 recap.

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

  • Did Mike really fly across the country to spend a half hour with Malia?
  • How did he buy a ticket over the phone without a credit card?
  • Seriously, what kind of equipment were these Seaver kids using to record Mike’s voice?

Season 3 Episode 17: The Mom Who Knew Too Much

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It’s another Seaver family chore day. You may recall last time this happened, the entire episode was about ageism against the poor, bumbling repairman. What topic will we tackle via a chore day today?

This time, it seems that Maggie and Carol are bailing on Seaver family chore day. Maggie feels like she and Carol are drifting apart, so she’s planned a whole day of girls’ fun. I think we all know that really Maggie is just trying to get out of chore day, leaving it all to Jason. I don’t blame her, because Jason weaseled his way out of the last Seaver family chore day under the guise of having to complete a big paper, which he conveniently left to the last day.

Yes, I have an insanely good memory for tiny plot details. It’s a fundamentally useless gift, but it’s all mine.

So Carol and Maggie are off for their girls’ day, which involves a trip to the salon, where their stylist refers to them as “broadies”, which would not only never fly today but also is a variation of ‘broads’ that I’ve never heard. He also comments on Carol’s curves, and since she’s still fifteen or sixteen, I don’t know how I feel about this. I know, I know. This is the 80s. Anything flew in the 80s. So Maggie’s stylist is definitely borderline inappropriate, and he’s also flirting with Maggie like there’s no tomorrow. For what it’s worth, Maggie is game to flirt back. Carol is seeing a whole new side to her mom, and she is intrigued.

This is where the true bonding starts. Maggie’s sharing all her little secrets from the past, most of which are entirely innocent but to Carol seem wildly exciting simply because they show that Maggie is more than just a mom.  Now that Carol feels even closer to her mother, she’s seeing them more as friends than mother-daughter and that’s when Carol makes her big mistake sharing one of her own secrets.

Carol chooses to share a secret about a wild night, one in which she and her friends claimed to be studying at a sleepover. In reality, they headed into Manhattan, bribed a doorman to get into a dance club, danced all night with guys who didn’t even speak English, then snuck back into the house before anyone noticed they had ever snuck out. Now, objectively, this doesn’t actually sound all that bad. I mean, far worse things could’ve been done, but you can tell from Maggie’s face that she is in a panic about this particularly secret. What else might Carol be hiding from her?

When Maggie gets home, she goes to Jason immediately to share Carol’s secret even though she had promised not to. Again, this seems extreme, but it is Maggie we’re talking about. And even though Jason just promised Maggie he would never let on that he knows Carol’s secret, he lasts about 10 seconds before blowing a gasket and making it clear to Carol that Maggie ratted on her.

Carol feels betrayed by both her parents, Maggie is majorly mad at Jason, and Jason appears flabbergasted as to why anyone’s upset at him. So after everyone spends the day stomping around the house mad at each other, Jason turns dinner into an opportunity to talk about how parental obligations supersede everything. This does not work.

Jason then resorts to trickery, where I’m once again left to question whether a psychiatrist would truly resort to such levels of manipulation to make a point. He fakes having an ulcer, but makes Carol promise he won’t tell Maggie. Of course, he knows full-well that Carol will go to her mom. Of course, that will be his way of proving that there are important situations in which you must sometimes break your promises.  Not only do I think this is a shady move on Jason’s part, but I also think there’s a big difference between a medical emergency versus a relatively innocent teenage lark.

At least now Carol and Maggie have a way to bond again, over their disgust at Jason’s tactics. I’m with them on that.

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

  • Did anyone in the 80s actually call women “broadies”?
  • Are Jason’s psychiatric tactics getting more and more questionable as we get deeper into this series?
  • What was so bad about Carol’s secret anyway?

Season 3 Episode 16: State of the Union

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After yesterday’s dramatic episode, how can Growing Pains possibly keep the momentum going? The short answer is that it cannot. Today’s episode is a bit of a hot mess. It’s not the worst of Growing Pains, mind you, but it’s not the best either. Now that I’ve suitably lowered your expectations, let’s get to it.

Maggie’s been burning the midnight oil for a while, it seems, working on some sort of multi-part health story which involves her undergoing a full physical on television. How is this news? Who knows. While she works away on this “news” story, Jason’s been holding down the fort at home. They’ve been ships in the night, barely finding the time to check in on household tasks let alone on each other.

This drift has Jason grasping at straws to find ways to spend more time with Maggie. He talks her into a lunch date but as he waits for Maggie at the office, Jason ends up chatting with Maggie’s boss and discovering they have a mutual favourite basketball player. Then there’s the kicker: Maggie’s boss invites Jason to join him for lunch with his favourite basketball player. Jason cannot resist and this is how Jason and Maggie’s lunch date becomes Maggie tagging along on a dudes’ sports lunch.

Maggie is not at all impressed. She’s even less impressed when her boss has no time for her to talk work, but has all the time to take Jason to a basketball game that night. Maggie and Jason end up in a passive aggressive fight about whether or not Jason should go to the game. There’s so many mind games here, the worst of which is when Jason acts like he’s decided not to go to the game, but only so that Maggie will feel bad and tell him he should actually go.

Once Maggie figures this out, they really have it out. This is the only interesting part of the episode, because we’re getting to the real crux of why they’re feeling distant lately. It’s not because Maggie is working so much. It’s far deeper than that. Jason, it seems, actually sort of resents Maggie working. This is a huge trigger for Maggie, because here she is trying her hardest to make something of her career while her husband is unconsciously trying to keep her playing small. You can actually feel the air being sucked out of the room in the midst of this scene, and it is the first real chink in Jason Seaver’s perfect-father/husband-armour. I’m not sure I’m ready for Jason Seaver to be knocked down a peg, but what I can say is that this scene feels like a legit relationship moment and I want to see how they work through this.

But then the phone rings and all that glorious relationship tension goes out the window. Maggie’s doctor has called with the results from her physical. She’s pregnant. Yup, pregnant. Just like that Maggie and Jason forgive each other and all that heavy stuff they’ve just raised has been sloughed under the rug. Not only am I disappointed that we missed a real opportunity to show a more complete picture of the ups and downs of marriage, but I’m also of the opinion that eventually whatever you’ve sloughed under the rug is going to come back with a vengeance so this doesn’t really seem resolved.

But this is Growing Pains, a sitcom, and I am once again overthinking things. I will let it go and accept that we’re about to boldly move into Growing Pains’ new phase: one in which they welcome a baby into the mix, which is either a chance to breathe new lifeblood into a show or kickstart an epic downward spiral. Only time will tell!

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

  • Are pregnancy tests really part of standard physicals?
  • Is Carol at all sad about Bobby? We hear nothing of her breakup in this episode and I’m still grieving the loss of Bobby Wynette.

Season 3 Episode 15: The Marrying Kind

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It’s a brand new week, and that means five more episodes of Growing Pains adventures. Are you excited? I am!

In this episode, Bobby has just brought Carol home from the Winter Formal. Honestly, I’m thrilled to see Bobby because even though they declared they were going steady back in Season 3 Episode 9, we haven’t seen Bobby since. That is no way to treat a steady boyfriend. The good news is they’ve both had a fantastic time at the Winter Formal and clearly things are going well between them. In fact, things are going so well that Bobby just proposed to Carol.

What?

Yes, Bobby just proposed to Carol. As in to get married. When they are both still in eleventh grade. And only two minutes and three seconds into this episode. Neither Bobby nor the Growing Pains writers are wasting any time here.  To be fair, Bobby wants them to get married after they graduate, not right this second. Still, one would expect Carol to be all, well, Carol-y and say they’re too young and what about school and all that jazz. But she is throwing caution to the wind and says yes. This is just the most fast-paced Growing Pains episode ever!

Following this momentous evening, Carol quickly arranges for the Seavers to host Bobby’s parents for dinner the following weekend so they can break the news to all of them at the same time. I think we all know that’s going to be one hell of an uncomfortable dinner party. Carol’s next order of business is to rush off to school to tell twelve of her closest friends. She swears them to secrecy but this is high school and in the 80s a teenage engagement is about as good as the gossip gets, and so it doesn’t take long for the news to reach Mike. Even Mike thinks this is too much too fast. And if Mike Seaver doesn’t support your plan, it’s probably not a great plan. Carol, however, remains undeterred.

Before we know it, it’s Friday night family dinner. Bobby and Carol think things are off to a great start with their parents so they decide to not even wait until after dinner to announce the news. I’m taking a deep breath for them, because I cannot even imagine breaking this type of news to my parents while still in high school.

They are greeted with stunned silence. For about five seconds. Then, as you might expect, all hell breaks loose and both sets of parents are shouting at the tops of their lungs. It’s time for Jason to take control of the situation, to bring some calm and rational discussion into the mix. Good luck with that, Jason, because Bobby’s dad is a bit of a hothead. Come to think of it, so is Maggie. Jason’s got his hands full here.

After taking Bobby’s father aside for a few minutes, Jason manages to get all the parents to agree that they should at least hear out the kids’ reasons for getting married so young. Bobby and Carol get about two reasons into their list when it becomes clear that one of the parents is going to refute any of their reasons with counter-logic. In other words, the parents are not at all willing to actually hear them out, and that’s where the whole evening really goes off the rails.  Bobby’s dad issues an ultimatum of the “as-long-as-you-live-under-my-roof-you’re-going-to-live-by-my-rules” variety, and Bobby decides that maybe he shouldn’t live under their roof then. Bobby storms out of the house, Carol storms off to her room, and with that the dinner party is over.

Whoa.

The night, however, is just getting started, because Bobby shows up at Carol’s window with a new proposal: running away to elope that very night. Somehow, Carol also agrees to this. She packs a bag, and out the window she goes.  If you ask me, the bravest part of this whole plan is that Carol is willing to climb out her window and onto a very tall ladder. I hate ladders.  Also, Bobby was not joking around with his choice of ladders. He brought one of those professional-grade, retractable ladders, and I have to wonder how on earth he managed to transport it let alone set it up without making a ton of noise.

At first they’re both super pumped about their impending marriage, but like many poorly-thought-out plans, things quickly unravel. First, Bobby says he can’t wait for Carol to be Mrs. Wynette (Bobby’s last name) and Carol breaks the news that she never wants to change her name. Bobby is temporarily bummed but then decides he can deal with this. Then Carol says she’s looking forward to their tiny apartment near Harvard, and Bobby is super bummed again because Harvard may be a good school for the scholarly, but it’s not a big school for football. The big kicker seems to be when Bobby mentions eating chili dogs for dinner every night. Somehow this is what gets Carol worried that maybe they’re jumping the gun on this marriage thing.

Carol expresses her concerns, and suddenly Bobby’s not trying to convince her otherwise, and now we all know that they both realize that they want different things for their futures.  It’s clear that the marriage idea is off the table, but they also seem to be completely breaking up, which doesn’t really make sense because couldn’t you just keep dating and see what happens and maybe you get married one day but maybe you don’t? Then again, I’ve never broken off an engagement, so maybe you just can’t go back to dating once you do that.

Regardless, this is the end of the Bobby Wynette character and I am incredibly disappointed in this entire story arc because even though Bobby has been a recurring character since Season 2 Episode 6, he has only appeared in six episodes that entire time. A Growing Pains chapter has truly closed with today’s episode, and I am allowing myself a moment to grieve the loss of a character we never truly got to know.

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

  • How did Bobby transport that professional-grade ladder to Carol’s on top of his car (which, you should know, does not appear to have a roof rack)?
  • What does Carol have specifically against chili dogs?
  • What ever happened to Bobby Wynette (played by Kevin Wixted)? IMDB shows fairly regular bit parts until 1997 and then things went cold and my brief (i.e. less than 5 minutes) internet search turned up no concrete clues as to his whereabouts. For reasons I don’t fully understand, this mystery makes me sad.

Season 3 Episode 14: Nasty Habits

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Today we’re back in familiar, light-hearted Growing Pans territory.  Mike is avoiding writing his English paper which he has put off to the very last day, and on which he requires at least a B or he’s not going to pass the class or graduate (!!!).I mean, that is some legit pressure. Dewey High does not mess around when it comes to passing or failing kids.

Anyway, Maggie and Jason are at their wit’s end trying to get Mike to just do it, and Mike’s ‘don’t worry about it’ calm, cool, collectedness is certainly not helping them feel better about the situation. Will Mike ever take his education seriously? Probably not, especially when he had actually made plans to go out with Boner that evening, even though he knew that he had an entire paper to write, and especially when those plans involved going to a local pizza joint to watch some hot girl toss pizza dough in the air. Come on, Mike.

Maggie and Jason have had enough and they sentence Mike to a night in his room, with zero distractions. Good luck with that! They try to take away all the obvious distractions, but really anyone who’s ever procrastinated knows that you don’t need anything special to put off your work. One’s mind is a wonderful procrastinating device all on its own.

Mike proves this to be true by finding all manner of ways to put off his paper, including:

  • Cleaning his room, which if you had seen the state of his room, had to have been only marginally more appealing than writing a paper
  • Playing air guitar and dancing on his bed…in the dark…with underwear on his head. It is unclear how darkness, or underwear on one’s head, would make this more amusing.
  • Daydreaming about the pizza tossing chick, who is definitely violating health codes with her unruly hair unencumbered by a hair net, and also because she drops the pizza dough.  Also, this pizza tossing happens to the soundtrack of a really sad Tiffany song, which doesn’t really work except that it happened to be a really popular song at the time, but also I shouldn’t complain because it is a million times better than the Aloha episodes with incessant Christopher Cross

The point is that Mike needs no help being distracted, and ultimately he falls asleep before writing a word of his paper. Maggie and Jason stumble across him in this state and this is when Jason decides to take matters into his own hands. He’s going to play some serious psychological mind games with Mike.  He tells Mike that maybe he’s been wrong to think that Mike would grow out of his laziness, that he might start to show his potential; Jason has accepted that “all he wants to be is a bum.” Ouch. If that sounds harsh, it’s because it is, and I am normally pro-Jason Seaver’s tactics, but I’m not sure I believe in intense shaming as a healthy way to spark action.

It does seem to work, though, because Mike finally cracks down and writes his paper. Also to the tune of the same Tiffany song, which lyrically really doesn’t fit with writing a paper, so it’s clear to me now that Growing Pains was somehow paid off to promote the Tiffany song and basically was like “we’ll just throw it in this episode.”  An hour and a half later, Mike has finally finished his paper and we’re left to believe that all will be fine in terms of his grade and graduation.

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

  • Would a paper written in 1.5 hours really be enough to earn Mike a B and ensure he graduates?
  • Was Growing Pains a front runner for product placement? I mean, a song isn’t really a product, per se, but this is the second popular song to be overplayed in an episode in a big way.
  • Would Jason really use a powerful guilt/shame double whammy to shift Mike’s behaviour?

 

 

 

Season 3 Episode 13: Reason to Live

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A very important preface: This episode deals with suicide. In the past, I’ve found it easy to criticize sitcoms for barely scratching the surface on important topics. But that’s really not fair, because their format is inherently time limited.  I no longer want to criticize any medium for trying to take on big topics. Whether or not we think it’s done particularly well, or whether it does or doesn’t go deep enough, isn’t it better when television tries to use its reach to tackle the full range of human experience? I personally think so.

I think we come to expect our sitcoms to be light and fluffy, or maybe it’s more accurate to say we are okay with heaviness, but not so much heaviness that we start to feel uncomfortable.  Suicide is a bit too uncomfortable for most sitcoms. So today I’m not doing the standard episode recap, because I don’t want to make light of a serious topic, and because, really, who am I to criticize how a fake television psychiatrist handles this type of situation when I’ve never been in a position remotely similar?

Here we go.

In today’s episode, we learn that Jason has been dealing with a crisis of confidence, one that has left him wondering if he’s made a positive impact on anyone around him. It takes a sort-of-by-chance/sort-of-orchestrated encounter with one of Mike’s classmates to help him reconnect with the importance of his work.

Today, we meet Jill. Jill is a fellow Dewey High Hooter, who is working with Mike on a school project that inexplicably involves creating a plaster bust of Boner (like, what?!?!). But really, Jill has sought out this working partnership with Mike because she knows his dad is a psychiatrist, and she sees how Mike gets in trouble at school all the time yet remains self-assured and confident in a way that tells her he has really, really good parents that love him no matter what. So Jill has ended up at the Seaver household with an eye on cornering Dr. Seaver into a conversation, and that she does.

Basically, this entire episode takes place on the Seaver’s driveway where Jason finds himself unexpectedly in the midst of a really heavy therapy session with Jill. We learn that Jill’s mother committed suicide, from which neither she nor her father have ever truly recovered.  Since then, Jill hasn’t formed solid connections with anyone, and has consistently gotten herself into trouble.  She feels alone, unseen and unloved. If there’s one thing we can probably all agree on: that’s pretty much the lowest human experience.  Jill has started to wonder if maybe her mother was right, that life isn’t worth living.

Again, it can be easy to criticize the speed and ease with which Jason gets Jill to see that her distancing herself from others, all her hopelessness about life, is really about her anger at her mother. But honestly, if I take a step back and actually think about what it would be like to be a teenager who’s lost a parent to anything let alone suicide, I can see how quickly one could get to a place where they felt hopeless and unloved. Imagine not having anyone to help you work through the complexity of your emotions.  Imagine how quickly that could translate into lashing out at the world, into desperately wanting love and connection but pushing it away because you are afraid you might lose it again. And then consider all of that at the age of 16.  Good God.

In the end, Jason gets Jill to a major breakthrough in her level of awareness and we end the episode seeing that Jill and Jason are continuing to meet, on the driveway, for ongoing therapy sessions. I also appreciate this, because it shows that the journey to make peace with our past and our negative emotions isn’t fully resolved in the eight minutes it took Jason Seaver to get Jill to her first major breakthrough. It’s still a work in progress.

At the end of this episode, I’m appreciative of Growing Pains for attempting to tackle these topics, in the 80s, when it seemed that fewer sitcoms tackled big things. I’m also appreciative of any show that delivers a message that states of hopelessness can transform through connection and compassion, that perhaps the most meaningful thing that any of us can do is to see the inherent goodness inside every person even when that person is suffering or acting out.

Thanks for bearing with me in this departure from the usual Growing Pains recap. I’m sure tomorrow I’ll be back with lighter fair.

 

Season 3 Episode 12: Scarlett Letter

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Buckle your seatbelts, we’ve got a good one here. Today’s episode deals with favouritism in education and you know how much I love to get on my soapbox with these types of topics!

We start off with Carol’s friends giving her a hard time for missing the greatest or worst party ever, depending on which one of Carol’s friends you ask. They think Carol was just studying, and she’s trying to convince them she was doing nothing of the sort. In fact, Carol claims she couldn’t possibly have been studying by the dim light of Bobby’s dashboard, where she spent the entire evening. Things are getting juicy, and Carol’s friends are impressed.

But then Coach Lubbock goes and ruins it by deciding to spring on his class the dreaded pop quiz, which I don’t think I ever had in my entire high school career. Are they a real thing? Anyway, Carol freaks out to her friends, because she was too busy making out with Bobby to read the assignment and now she’s going to ruin her perfect academic record. And I mean, she’s really freaking out about the fact that she may have failed something for the first time. She even goes to Mike for help on how to cope with failure!!!  She also feels compelled to brace her parents for her impending failure, but chooses to announces it to them in a way that definitely makes it seem like she’s saying she’s pregnant. Needless to say, poor Maggie and Jason both nearly have coronaries before Carol clears up the misunderstanding.

The next day Carol is bracing herself for the moment Coach Lubbock hands her a failing grade. And I bet you can guess what happens. She gets an “A+”. So now her friends don’t believe she and Bobby were doing anything untoward, which is I suppose super uncool in high school. But Carol doesn’t really care about that, because she’s just thrilled at her own brilliance.

Until she talks to Mike.

Mike takes one look at the answers on her test and declares it total bull you-know-what. He knows a circular answer when he reads one, and he immediately sees that Carol’s answers aren’t saying a damn thing of substance. Her answers are just like Mike’s, just with bigger words. He calls favouritism pure and simple, and now he’s got Carol questioning her entire academic career. Were all her A’s lies? Carol literally goes through all her old tests and papers, all of which she’s apparently kept in chronological order. She’s crestfallen because she’s deemed that a sizeable stack of these tests and papers were, in fact, not ‘real’ As. Ouch.

It’s at this point that Carol goes a bit off the deep end. She tries to remove her name from the Honour Society plaque, and yells at Coach Lubbock to change her A+ to an F. It’s at this point that Coach Lubbock calls in Maggie and Jason to talk some sense into Carol. Carol shares her woes with Maggie and Jason: she thinks that all of her teachers have merely been giving her As because they expect her to get As, just in the way that Mike gets Ds because that’s what his teachers expect from him.

Soapbox moment digression: this is a really good life lesson, because I’m sure all of us have had these experiences in education. Personally, I turned in some steaming piles of crap as papers and was often rewarded with excellent grades, simply by virtue of the fact that certain teachers loved my writing.  And I will also admit that I “significantly helped” a couple people with assignments and papers over the years, and they did not get the same good grades that I would have gotten had I been the one to turn it in. And the same thing happens in the workplace, where I promise you that we are all guilty of deciding we love certain people (and their work) more than others, the result of which is that we come to believe that people can either do no wrong or do no right. We may or may not be aware of it, but this happens literally everywhere in life. It’s disheartening and calls into question whether the concept of merit can ever truly exist. Okay, I’m done now. 

If grades are meaningless, Carol’s decided she’s done with academic pursuits.  She clearly feels like she’s losing a part of her identity and someone’s gotta make things right.  Enter Mike Seaver (and, I might add, this is the second time in the last three episodes when Mike has been the one to help Carol out!). Mike is trying to help Carol realize that no one will care about her grades once she’s out of school; they’ll only care about what type of person she is. Well, and the kind of car she drives. And then he gets off on a bit of a car tangent, but Carol has already made the connection she needed to make: the more she learns, the better a person she’ll be, which is why it’s super important to take her studies seriously.

This is, like, 100 layers deeper than the point Mike was trying to make, but whatever, Carol’s back to being a brain and balance in the Seaver household has been restored.

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

  • Where was Bobby in this episode? Surely Carol would go to her steady boyfriend if she were having crisis of confidence?
  • Where is Jason Seaver’s wisdom? I am worried that two of the three last episodes’ conflicts were solved by Mike.
  • Are pop quizzes a real thing?

Season 3 Episode 11: Broadway Bound

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We’re back to a storyline featuring someone other than Ben today, so I am heaps more excited than yesterday!

Now that he’s gotten the itch to be an actor, Mike is auditioning for another Dewey High play. But his co-star, Monica, who we might recall is best known around Dewey High for ‘looking good in gym shorts’, gives Mike an even better idea. She’s just read that there’s going to be a Broadway production of ‘Our Town’, which is the very same play at which they recently dazzled Long Island…or at least some small subsection of Long Island family and friends. Based on this raging success, Mike thinks they should audition for the Broadway production.

And Jason and Maggie think he has no ambition!

Mike is persuasive if nothing else, and he convinces Monica that it’s the best idea ever. It means that they’re going to miss their auditions for the Dewey High play, foregoing their chances at Long Island High School theatre fame, and they’ll have to cut school for the day.  But these are just tiny little details in comparison to a shot at the big time.

It takes some creativity to bring their plan to life. Mike has to bribe Carol to get to an appointment on her own when Jason and Maggie want Mike to drive her to it.  Mike also has to pretend to be Principal Dewitt over the intercom (sadly this means I don’t get a real Principal Dewitt sighting in this episode). He calls himself and Monica to the office, ensuring that none of their teachers give a second thought to why they’re not in class. It’s pretty smart, although one has to wonder how Principal Dewitt himself wouldn’t hear the announcement and catch them in the act.  No matter, Mike and Monica are off to their Broadway audition and they’re already envisioning themselves on stage, adored by fans and critics alike.

Their confidence takes a bit of a hit when they walk into the audition and see the sheer volume of people auditioning, and when they realize they don’t have all the requisite things like agents and headshots…and, you know, actual theatre experience. Monica gets increasingly freaked out about their lack of preparation and so she bails on Mike. She isn’t ready to have her Broadway dreams dashed, so her solution is simply not auditioning. If you don’t try, you can’t fail, right?

But Mike sees things the opposite way, because what good is a dream if you don’t do something about it? Those are wise words, Mike. So Mike goes on with his audition, because he drove all the way to Broadway dammit. Fear be damned! So he auditions and of course he doesn’t get the part. And like many a young soul, he takes this to mean that he has no talent. So now he doesn’t even want to audition for his high school play even though the affable Coach Lubbock, who moonlights as the high school’s theatre director, is willing to hold over the auditions for another day just for Mike and Monica.

When Mike tells Coach Lubbock he’s quitting theatre, Coach Lubbock says a big hell no. Okay, not in those exact words, but he does give Mike a pep talk that is really difficult to follow. The gist of it seems to be that if you give up every time you make a fool of yourself, you’ll never get anywhere. And also, that Mike is the most talented high school actor he’s ever seen.  Let’s just ignore the fact that Coach Lubbock just admitted he’d never directed theatre before Dewey High, so this doesn’t really mean much.

All that matters is that Mike is somehow inspired by Coach Lubbock’s words and decides that he will audition for the Dewey High production after all. His Broadway setback isn’t going to keep him from pursuing his dreams.

Meanwhile, back at home, Mike’s whole cover story is falling apart because the school called when Mike missed his audition at Dewey High, and Carol has no good excuse for why Mike didn’t drive her to the doctor. I sense that Mike is going to be in major trouble once again.  But maybe I’m wrong, because Jason in particular is actually sort of proud of Mike for pursuing something with passion, even if it means he skipped school. Say what? It may be the first time in Growing Pains history that I am genuinely surprised by Maggie and Jason’s reaction to Mike, and I am respecting them on a whole new level!

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

  • Can you really just show up for a Broadway audition and they’ll let you on stage?
  • What happened when Mike went home? Did Maggie and Jason actually let him get away with skipping school? I don’t believe it!
  • Does Mike get the part in the next high school play and does he kill it once again? We don’t find out. Ugh!

Season 3 Episode 10: This is Your Life

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 3Leave a comment

I have to tell you that I cheated and looked up the premise behind this episode before I started watching it, at which point I discovered it’s a Ben episode, and at which point I came narrowly close to not watching it at all. In other words, I’m already majorly biased against this episode. Let’s get this over with.

Ben’s got surgery on the horizon. He’s about to have his tonsils removed, but he doesn’t seem sick at all and it’s taking all my willpower not to go on a tangent about unnecessary “precautionary” surgeries in the medical system. Anyway, the Seavers are having Chinese takeout for Ben’s ‘final supper’ and his fortune cookie fortune is blank. Poor little Ben, already super anxious about his surgery, sees the blank fortune as a harbinger of death.

I know I’ve  been down on this episode in a big way, but I still feel for Ben because, as a kid, no matter how minor a surgery is, it’s still damn scary. My appendix burst when I was a 11 and the doctor basically sent me to the hospital immediately and I went directly into surgery and it was terrifying. It didn’t matter that dozens of adults kept telling me it was no big deal.

So Ben’s at the hospital trying to relax but he still can’t. Frankly, now I’m worried for him, because his doctor is Edward’s business manager from Silver Spoons. How’d he get to be a doctor? (also a super sad sidenote: in reading up on where Franklin Seales is now, I learned he actually passed away in 1990! I had no idea!). In a last ditch effort to ease Ben’s anxiety, Jason tells Ben that Seavers don’t let fear get in their way. Ben declares “then I don’t want to be a Seaver” and now I see where this is going.

While under anesthesia, Ben gets his ‘wish’ in a seriously vivid dream, one in which he escapes the hospital before his surgery even starts, catches a cab ride home (with the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island no less!), and packs his bags to run away, presumably to avoid surgery and because he no longer wants to be a Seaver? But as he’s trying to leave the house, the rest of the Seavers return from the hospital with Ben Seaver, who is decidedly not the real Ben Seaver.

(another brief sidenote, because is it way too coincidental that the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island, Alan Hale Junior, also passed away in 1990?!?!? I’m sorry, that’s a lot of morbid sidenotes in one post. I promise I’ll get back on track now.)

New Ben Seaver is in the house, and he’s played by the kid who played Sam McKinney on Diff’rent Strokes, and I remember very little about him except that he was an annoying character on that show, too. (But I’m pleased to share at least he is still alive, unlike our two other guest stars.) Anyway, new Ben is Ben Seaver 2.0. He is the perfect child, well-mannered and a total kiss-ass and apparently the focus of his entire family’s adoration. The family is all about Ben 2.0. Of course all if this is just a projection of Ben’s worst fears. Ben’s subconscious is really working through some insecurities because there is like five straight minutes of new Ben being the apple of the family’s eye, when I think all of us would’ve got the point with about one tenth of that time.

The long and the short of it is that Ben is freaking out because his family cannot see nor hear him, and also this new Ben is getting all the ice cream. For Ben, who loves food more than anything, this is the straw that broke the camel’s back. He wants new Ben gone for good. He’s also figured out that this whole nightmare Ben 2.0 situation is only happening because he wished he didn’t want to be a Seaver. He’s ready to be a Seaver again and is going to do anything to make it happen.

The rest of this episode is not worth your time either so I’m going to fast track it: Ben realizes that if he returns to the hospital, he can get his life back. He then steals the cab he took home from the hospital and drives himself back to the hospital. And just like that, he’s awake again and coming out of surgery and his whole family is there to greet him. Ben 2.0 is gone. Phew! And Ben has learned just how important his family really is.

With that, I’m very pleased to announce this episode is over and I can only hope that tomorrow’s is infinitely more entertaining.

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

  • Is this episode a who’s who of characters from other sitcoms or what?
  • I know I’ve asked this before, but when will Ben-centric episodes get good?

 

Season 3 Episode 9: Who’s Zooming Who?

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 33 Comments

Oh my gosh, you guys, I am so excited for today’s episode because it is one of the two Growing Pains episodes featuring Brad Pitt before he was a big deal. And I actually remember this episode vividly because, even as a child, I thought his character was super slimy. Let’s not waste another second!

Carol’s boyfriend is back in this episode, after yet another multi-episode hiatus during which he has not been so much as mentioned. I mean, the guy flew to Hawaii just to see her and then we hear nothing for six entire episodes? What gives? Well, Carol’s friends think Carol and Bobby’s relationship is about as dull as watching paint dry; Carol fiercely defends their relationship and claims that even if Mr. Perfect were to walk into her life right that very second, she would tell him she’s taken.

Enter Brad Pitt.

Brad’s moved all the way from California, and he’s trying to settle into life at Dewey High. And he seems to have his sights set on Carol. The two of them have walked home from school together, and Carol is being way too flirty for someone who’s supposedly so smitten with Bobby, and she’s got that day-dreamy, puppy-love look about her. Uh oh. But then Mike comes waltzing into the backyard and reminds her about Bobby. That’s right, Carol, remember your boyfriend Bobby? The one you said you loved more than anything? Mike’s about to call someone else out on their questionable behaviour and that someone is Carol, normally the most perfect of Seaver children. And Carol’s getting crazy defensive, which only proves she didn’t have the most innocent of intentions with Brad Pitt.

Suddenly, Carol is noticing all of Bobby’s annoying behaviours like his knuckle-cracking, and she’s reminded that his intellect is no match for her own. It seems like she’s leaning heavily towards breaking things off with Bobby. But then Bobby proposes a weeknight date, which is totally spontaneous and out of the ordinary, and then Carol is super torn all over again because maybe their relationship isn’t really all that predictable or boring. Maybe Bobby isn’t perfect, but there’s still a spark. In other words, Carol’s made zero progress deciding between her two dudes.

Carol’s confusion only continues the next day at school because Brad Pitt wants to go see a movie with her that night too, which of course conflicts with the date she already has with Bobby. Don’t do it, Carol. Don’t do it. But she’s not listening to me, she’s listening to her friend’s voices in her head. And Carol’s friends don’t appear to know the first thing about loyalty or virtue. So Carol says yes to Brad Pitt, and then has to back out of her date with Bobby. She does this by picking a fight with him over nothing at all, and not only does this get her out of the date but also leads them to break up.

Oh, the drama of high school romance.

That night, Maggie and Jason expect Carol to be heartbroken about her breakup with her first real boyfriend but, surprise!, Carol’s not upset because she’s got her hot date with Brad Pitt. And, man oh man, their date is escalating very quickly. Brad Pitt has zero interest in the movie itself and 100% interest in making moves on Carol. This is the sleazy character part I referenced earlier.

Then his sliminess goes off the charts, because Brad Pitt knew Carol had a boyfriend ever since he met her. And to top it off, the only reason that he wanted to go out with her was because he thought she was the most popular girl in school simply because she was dating the captain of the football team. Now Carol’s realizing that this whole Brad Pitt/new kid scenario is neither romantic nor destiny. It’s just Brad Pitt trying to become popular by hooking up with a popular girl…which Carol actually isn’t so I guess Brad Pitt sort of got what he deserved.

Carol now realizes what a big mistake she’s made and she is really heartbroken at having lost Bobby. She tries to make amends with Bobby the next day, but Bobby is now arm in arm with one of Carol’s best friends. For starters, that happened implausibly quickly even for high school, and secondly, that is beyond an uncool move in any friendship. Carol has no boyfriend and has been betrayed by her best friend. That’s a bad day in anyone’s books.

But do you know who comes to the rescue here? I bet you think it’s Jason Seaver, and normally you’d be right. But this time it’s actually Mike of all people! He’s brought Bobby to the Seaver house to pick up something, promising him Carol isn’t home when he knows full well that Carol is at home. This leads to Bobby and Carol hashing it out. What I learned in this conversation is that apparently Bobby and Carol were never going steady this whole time. What?!?!? Bobby flew to Hawaii to see Carol when they weren’t even going steady? The lack of committed relationship status turns out to be the crux of their argument, because neither can really be mad at each other for dating someone else if they weren’t even going steady in the first place. But they do love each other so now they’re going to go steady. At long last, after over a season of me wondering if Bobby is still in the mix, he is officially in the mix.

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

  • Will Bobby become a legitimate recurring character now?
  • How can Mike’s family constantly think so little of him when he does something like bring Carol and Bobby back together?
  • Like Mike, does Carol have the worst friends ever? Seriously, Debbie made a move on Carol’s man the very day they broke up. Not at all cool.