Season 2 Episode 21: The Long Goodbye

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Right off the bat I’m not too psyched about this episode, because it starts off with Ben making a video about the Seaver family for some school project. So far, Ben-centric episodes have not been the best. Although on the plus side, we quickly see that this episode features a guest star: none other than Kirk’s sister Candace Cameron (now Candace Cameron Bure),  just prior to her big splash in Full House, so there’s something. Still, I’m only cautiously optimistic about this one.

It’s Seaver family chore day and everyone’s in a tizzy trying to get shit done, except for Jason, who left a major article deadline to align with Seaver family chore day, conveniently extricating him from any chore responsibilities. This seems inconsistent with Jason’s character, but also–and yes, I realize this is a huge gender stereotype–men do tend to be less invested in household chores, so maybe it all makes perfect sense.

Anyway, it’s not just family chore day.  Jimmy the handyman is also on his way over to repair the furnace. Jimmy appears to be beloved by the entire family…or, at least, by everyone other than Maggie. Ben’s stealth camera work catches Maggie and Jason in the midst of a conversation about Jimmy, during which it’s clear that Jason is fiercely defending Jimmy whereas Maggie is certain he’s past his prime. Is this entire episode going to be about the aging handyman? Ugh. I fear it is.

Nothing Jason can say about Jimmy seems to deter Maggie from her rampant ageism. She’s convinced that he’s incapable of fixing a furnace, simply by virtue of his age, which appears to maybe be his late 60s. Also, has Maggie forgotten that she entrusted her garbage disposal repair to an even older repair man just one season ago?  How quickly we can forget!

Let me get back on track, here. Ben and Jenny (Candace Cameron) are still making their video, but they decide that the Seavers are too boring to be the stars of their project (as far as this episode goes, I tend to agree), so they opt to film Jimmy instead. Ben finds common ground with Jimmy, because it turns out people think Ben’s too young to do stuff and people think that Jimmy’s too old to do stuff, and that’s really the same thing and both are injustices. And this is the most interesting thematic moment we’ll get in the entire episode.

What transpires next is a string of events that reinforces Maggie’s ageism. First, thick, black dust comes spewing out of every duct in the house and Jimmy merely yells out “Sorry about that! Won’t happen again!”. I mean, I get why Maggie is peeved here because it made a hell of a mess, but you also have to wonder how dirty were the Seaver’s ducts?!?!?  Then the washing machine that Jimmy supposedly adjusted starts jumping around on the basement floor. Then the power gets cut and Jason loses 28 pages of the article he’s written because this is before auto-save (which really deserves a shout-out here as a miracle modern invention). Anyway, Maggie is a stone’s throw from tossing Jimmy out on the street, and after he loses his article, even Jason is starting to doubt Jimmy’s abilities.

Of course, none of these household snafus are Jimmy’s fault. We quickly learn that Carol is to blame for the washing machine, because she put every, single rug in the house in at once, which is clearly way too much for a load of laundry. And then Ben’s video finally serves a purpose because as he’s replaying it, the family sees that it was Ben who was responsible for the great, black-dust-spewing duct explosion. You see, Ben wanted to help but attached a hose to the outtake vs. intake.  Jimmy has been fully vindicated!

Anyway, once Maggie and Jason see the error of their ways, they are over-the-top apologetic towards Jimmy, but I guess all that matters is that everyone’s Jimmy’s biggest fan all over again. And we learn that old people still have value and, good God, this was a terrible episode.

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

  • Do families actually have big, seasonal chore days? Growing up, in my house every weekend involved chores, not just a few days a year. Every. Weekend.
  • If my ducts were blown out, would they be filled with the same kind of intense black soot that was in the Seavers’ ducts? Do I need to be worried about that?
  • Was ageism a particularly hot issue at the time this episode was released? And, even if it was, didn’t Golden Girls already exist at that time to more eloquently prove that old people are freaking awesome?

Season 2 Episode 20: Born Free

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 21 Comment

Uh oh, it’s report card time in the Seaver household, which is only bad news for Mike, and so much so that Jason briefly abandons his supportive father status by declaring that Mike is “this close” (insert a mental image of my fingers held closely together) to becoming a “good for nothing bum”. Ouch.

But maybe Maggie and Jason are right to be a little worked up about Mike’s report card, because Mike has earned a slew of D’s, including a D minus minus (that’s not a typo, that’s two minuses), which I’m fairly certain isn’t a grade that actually exists. The bottom line is this: Mike’s not reaching his potential, and Maggie and Jason are desperate for a way to get through to him before he reaches the aforementioned “good for nothing bum” status that they so fear.

Their brilliant idea is for Jason to take Mike to the Boston College campus, where he is delivering a speech, so that Mike can “see what he’ll be missing” at college if he doesn’t get his act together. I’m not sure about this plan, because I’ve yet to see a college campus that made me think ‘hot damn! I’m excited about school!’, and I actually liked school. Of course, they’re not going to sell Mike on this idea by being up front about the purpose of the trip. No, no. Jason’s got another way of framing it: a dude’s getaway in bean town. Mike falls for this hook, line and sinker, and with that they’re off to Boston.

Next thing we know Mike and Jason are on the plane, and what a plane it is. I’m talking a double decker airplane with a spiral stair case. For a flight between New York and Boston. This seems like a bit much for a commuter flight, doesn’t it? But enough about the plane. Right away Jason is working his psychiatric magic on Mike, trying to convince him to come to the college campus to at least hear his speech, maybe even for the whole day. Of course, this wouldn’t be to sell Mike on the college experience, but rather because the college campus would be crawling with girls. Jason sure knows the way to grab his son’s attention.

Mike, of course, is into the idea of girls aplenty, but he’s still so damn blasé about his future and his education. I mean, his plan for post-graduation is an extended party in Fort Lauderdale with Eddie and Boner. Jason is losing his patience quickly and I’m with Jason on this one, not so much because Mike wants to party at the beach as much as because he insists on staying friends with Eddie and Boner beyond high school and, for the love of God Mike, you need some new friends!

Anyway, Jason’s patience is shot now and he’s cutting right to the chase, bordering on lecturing Mike on the need to take his future seriously because time is precious. Jason, you forget that the concept of time being precious is lost on youth because, at that age, we all believe that our time is infinite. Just as Jason is really digging into Mike, they’re interrupted by a medical emergency on the plane. Someone needs a doctor, and Jason is the only doctor on the flight. At least temporarily, Mike is spared having to contemplate his future.

It turns out a woman on the plane is about to have a baby, because apparently she didn’t get the memo about the risks of flying late in the third trimester.  And sidenote, the baby-to-be’s father is played by none other than the hotheaded coach from the one episode where Ben played hockey, also better known as the father from The Wonder Years. God bless Growing Pains and its consistent re-purposing of guest stars!

Anyway, Jason has to step into action with the pregnant woman. At first he thinks he just has to stabilize the situation because the flight is so short, but wouldn’t you know that Boston is fogged in so the plane is going to have to circle around for a while. Jason might just have to deliver this baby himself! The only problem is that Dan, the father to be, is absolutely freaking out and getting in the way. So Jason tasks Mike with trying to calm him down.

Dan’s main concern is that he’s going to be a terrible father, because what wisdom could he possibly have to offer his child? Mike is doing his best to assure him that dads always know best and, in the process, suddenly realizes that maybe all of Jason’s pestering about his education is coming from a place of wisdom and knowledge after all. Maybe Mike does need to take his future a little more seriously, or at the very least respect that his father might just know a thing or two about life from which he can learn. Whoa. Dan and Mike are both having some serious revelations here.

And then, just like that, Mike and Dan’s meaningful moment is cut short by the crying of a baby. We have a newborn, folks! That’s right! And this child was born in the ‘magic carpet lounge’ on the second story of what must be the most luxurious commuter plane ever to fly the skies. That has to be good luck, right?

What’s important, though, is that Mike now gets that his dad has advice worthy of listening to and, not only that, but he also is really something else. I mean, he helped a woman give birth on a plane and you don’t do that without some education. Mike has seen the light, and he wants to learn a bit more about this whole college thing. Though it wasn’t quite how Jason envisioned his plan working out, it sure did work like gangbusters. Jason’s perfect parenting record remains intact!

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

  • At what point did it become socially unacceptable to call a psychiatrist’s patient a “mental patient”? Because these Seaver kids are throwing that term around constantly in these early seasons.
  • Why did they pick the world’s largest baby to play the part of freshly minted newborn? I mean, I know “newborns” on television are always bigger than real newborns, but this is like a straight up 6 month old baby.
  • Did two-story planes actually exist? [Update: I Googled this, and not only is one company making some seriously swank two-story aircrafts to this day (although they’re ceasing production in 2021…perhaps because no one really needs a double-decker plane), but some discussion forums fondly remember the days of second-story lounges on domestic flights. I particularly enjoyed this comment: “Quite a while ago (during the 70’s) there used to be bars and lounges up there. Anyone could go upstairs and get a drink and stretch out. (I think you could smoke up there as well).” My how times have changed!]

Season 2 Episode 19: The Awful Truth

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With a title like that, we have to be in for something extra special today, don’t we? Let’s find out!

Maggie and Jason are going out for a romantic lunch date and leaving the kids to their own devices.  This is the perfect set up for the kids to get themselves into trouble…or perhaps discover some sort of awful truth. I, for one, am excited!

With Maggie and Jason out of the house, we quickly discover that Ben needs help with a school project that he has, predictably, left until the last minute. He needs to map out his entire family history, and his plan was simply to ask his mom and dad to spell it out for him. Since they’re not home, he leans on Mike and Carol to help him, and this is where the kids unearth some really shocking information.

When Carol decides the best way to help Ben is to root through a trunk of Jason’s old stuff , she quickly finds a book with a rather troubling inscription. It seems, back in the day, that Jason’s intern friends at medical school bought him a book on how to score with chicks to help him cope with his divorce.

Say what?!?!?

As you would expect, this revelation throws the kids off-kilter in a big way. Even Mike is floored by this newfound information, and Mike is rarely floored by anything. The tides quickly turn in the kids’ minds: Jason goes from best father in the world status to a lying cheat in 2.2 seconds. How dare he have claimed that Maggie was the only woman for him when he’s actually been married before? This opens the door for some serious chicken-little-the-sky-is-falling thinking. The kids quickly concoct an entire alternate universe in which Jason has not only been married before, but possibly also has kids from this marriage, kids that he sees regularly, kids who perhaps even live on the same street as them. Mike, Carol and Ben are really letting their imaginations go wild here. Yikes.  There are some big questions they want answered, like who is this other lady, what happened, and can they ever trust their father again? Oooph. Jason better hope these kids can sort this out or he’s in for a world of unexpected (and likely unwarranted) attitude when he gets home.

The kids are dead set on solving this mystery, rifling through every one of Maggie and Jason’s private spaces in efforts to find some new clues. And clues they find. First, a signed picture from some lady named Petula, who they instantly assume is the other woman.  Jason has clearly not done as good a job as one would’ve expected on educating his kid on 60s music icons, but alas Petula Clark is likely too obscure a reference for most kids.  Then they find another picture of Jason with a different lady, during a time frame when he was supposedly married to Maggie and, whoa, is Jason’s ideal husband/father image about to be shattered? Then they find a letter from Maggie’s parents that references Maggie’s divorce and the kids are now reeling because how could it be that both of their parents have been divorced in the past. Good God, what is happening to their seemingly perfect family? It is falling apart at the seams right before their very eyes.

This is all too much for all three kids. They are so stunned, in fact, that they do nothing but sit silently on the couch, all in a row. Once they return home, Maggie and Jason are quick to notice that the kids seem a bit off, but of course they have no idea the extent of it. That is, until the kids start engaging them in mostly nonsensical conversations about love, marriage and divorce. It doesn’t take long for Jason to put two and two together to realize that the kids have figured out their dirty little secret.

As it turns out, the kids were sort of onto something. Maggie and Jason were both divorced…almost…but from each other, which all of us viewers saw coming but we know the kids didn’t, because they still thought Petula Clark was the ‘other woman’. The whole backstory is this: soon after their marriage, Maggie and Jason couldn’t see a way to make their marriage and their careers a priority, so they decided to call the whole thing off. But really they still loved each other so much so that in the very midst of their divorce proceedings, they decided to stay together. The divorce never actually went through. Phew! The Seaver children have been spared the shame of having two previously-married parents, and can bask in the safety net that is their parents true love for only each other.

In many ways, this title was misleading because really the truth wasn’t awful at all, and also Ben has a bit of a juicy story for his family history, so all’s well that ends well, I guess?

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

  • Surely, wouldn’t Ben’s family history project require more than just a history of his parents’ marriage? I’m thinking maybe he missed the boat on his assignment.
  • How could the Seaver kids turn on their father so quickly? Jason Seaver is clearly the pinnacle of fatherly perfection.
  • Did you know that Petula Clark is still active in music? The lady has been working for like 7 decades! Those Seaver kids should really know who she is. Actually, we all should!

Season 2 Episode 18: Carnival

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Well, after a long-than-anticipated holiday break, we are back with our regularly scheduled programming! Happy new year to all, and let’s see what the Seavers are up to today.

Maggie has been working like a fiend and Jason’s been taking on all the typical ‘mom’ stuff like attending Ben’s PTA meetings. This, of course, means that Maggie feels like a bad mother. It doesn’t help when Ben tells her that if he had a picture of Maggie to put in the locket he made, he wouldn’t miss her so much when she works late. Ouch.

This throws Maggie into a real tailspin, which she takes out on Jason with appalling passive-aggression. I feel for Jason here because, really, he’s just being a good dad, but of course Maggie’s not actually upset about Jason being a good father. She’s just taking her guilt out on him. Thankfully (and as always), Jason talks her off the proverbial ledge, but then Maggie takes her guilt a step too far: she decides the only way to be a good mom is to volunteer for the school carnival even though she’s really not got the time for it.

When Maggie shows up at the PTA and sees all the moms going nuts for Jason, this only adds fuel to her fiery inferno of guilt. Jason is a better mom than her and she will not have it. In response, she agrees not just to volunteer but to take on the carnival chairperson role. Now she really doesn’t have time for that.  But damn it, Maggie’s still going to try.

The thing is, Maggie’s trying to do all this for Ben, but volunteering for the carnival is really only taking her time away from Ben because now she’s too busy stuffing goodie bags and making the world’s biggest pot of chilli to pay any attention to him. In fact, she’s not just not paying attention to Ben, he’s actually getting in trouble for being a pest while the rest of the family gets everything ready for the carnival. I think we can all see that Maggie’s plan is backfiring in a big way.

Come carnival night, it looks like everything has come together quite nicely. It’s certainly a more robust elementary school carnival than I’ve ever seen or experienced in my own childhood. It seems like Maggie’s pulled off being a super mom after all, except for the fact that Ben now actually thinks she’s a bad mom, which if you haven’t noticed already defeats the entire purpose of all this carnival coordination.

When Maggie realizes that Ben has thrown away the locket with her picture in it, and run away from the carnival, she is off in hot pursuit, although still oblivious to what Ben’s upset about.  I feel for Ben because when I was a child I sometimes was shocked that my parents couldn’t understand why I was so upset. I’m sure Ben just wants to grab his mom by the shoulders and scream ‘why are you so dense?’

I’ll spare you the whole, drawn-out conversation between Maggie and Ben that finally helps her see the light. Suffice it to say, Maggie eventually realizes that her actual job was never a real problem for Ben. Sure he missed his mom when she was at work, but he understood that she loved her work. The carnival was a whole other ball of unnecessary wax.  But no matter, all is right again in the Seaver household.

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

  • Do school carnivals actually have dunk tanks or is this merely a television phenomenon? I remember Mr. Belding in a dunk tank in an episode of Saved by the Bell, and it seems a few other shows had them too (although Google proved surprisingly unhelpful for the search term “80s sitcom dunk tank episodes”, so perhaps we will never know.) Regardless, I’m sure today’s insurance liability alone would render a dunk tank a definite no-go.
  • Will Maggie ever ask herself “WWJD” (what would Jason do)? I suspect this episode would have gone a lot differently if it’d been Jason feeling like the bad parent. He probably would have just talked to Ben right off the bat and we wouldn’t have had to suffer through the whole carnival experience…

Season 2 Episode 17: Your Sins

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 23 Comments

In this episode, Carol wants a nose job. Say what? Let’s see how Jason and Maggie try to talk her out of this one!

It turns out that Carol thinks she has a big nose (which, and I think I’m speaking fairly objectively here, she absolutely does not). Maggie points out that Carol has her nose, but this does not sway Carol because she thinks her mom can get away with having a “big nose” because all her other features are so big. Whoa, that’s a burn on many levels, Carol. Also, Maggie does not have big features. What’s up with the mirrors in the Seaver household, because they’re clearly distorting Carol’s perception?

Maggie and Jason assume Carol hasn’t thought her decision through, that all she needs is a good dose of reason, but this is Carol we’re talking about. Carol has done all the research—she can outline how the procedure is conducted, what the risks are, and how much it costs, all without skipping a beat. In Carol’s mind, it’s not a whim or childish lark.  She’s also fully prepared to counter Maggie and Jason’s logic with her own logical argument, which is that Jason and Maggie also do all sorts of things to improve the way they look, so how is this any different? Touché Carol, touché!

Jason’s solution is what I like to consider a parenting classic: to avoid telling your kid they can’t do something, tell them they can do it, but only if they pay for it themselves. Granted, this is only a viable solution when parents know that the financial burden is totally outside the kid’s reach, which it is for Carol…

…that is, until wins $3000 in a radio call-in contest.

Now Maggie and Jason have a real problem, because now they have to turn around and tell Carol she actually can’t get a nose job whether she has the money or not.  Carol, quite rightly, berates them for their hypocrisy. Good thing Carol has a plan to get her nose job with or without her parents’ support.

She bribes Mike to drive her to the doctor’s office and basically forging her parents’ signatures on the consent form.  The doctor’s office isn’t buying it, and they call Carol’s house and Maggie is the one to take the call and she is beyond cheesed that Carol would willingly disobey them. Carol is their golden child, after all.  But no matter, Maggie’s got to get down to that doctor’s office and put a stop to this.

Little does Maggie know, she doesn’t need to worry about it, because Mike is going to unwittingly talk Carol out of her rhinoplasty. It turns out all those years of being teased about her looks might be a big part of the reason Carol is so adamant that she needs a nose job.  Once Mike sees this, he flips the switch from smart-assed and insensitive older brother to decent human being and helps Carol understand that teasing is just something siblings do, and that Carol is actually pretty.

Just like that, Carol sees the light and no longer wants her nose job. Jason and Maggie still storm into the doctor’s office to save the day, mind you, but it’s totally unnecessary at this point.

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

  • Couldn’t the writers or produces have picked a more believable thing for Carol to want to change about herself? I mean, her nose is tiny so it just didn’t make sense that it was the thing she wanted to change.
  • Is a nose job really only $2400? In today’s dollars that would be about $6000 and that seems awfully cheap for any medical services in the US (Update: I Googled it and learned that the “average cost of rhinoplasty is $5,350, according to 2018 statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. This average cost is only part of the total price – it does not include anesthesia, operating room facilities or other related expenses.” I suspect those additional costs would really add up…but still, that’s way cheaper than I thought!)

Season 2 Episode 16: My Brother, Myself

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It appears that it’s going to be a Ben-centric episode, so I have to admit I’m already biased against it. Let’s get this over with.

It looks like the Seavers are heading to a live taping of the Cosby Show. Fun fact: I refused to believe that the Cosby Show was taped in New York (I assumed LA like most sitcoms) and then Googled it. The Cosby Show was indeed filmed in studios in Brooklyn and Queens. Who knew! Also, let’s just remember that Growing Pains took place in the 80s and this was before everything came out about Bill Cosby so I’m just not even going to go there.

Anyway, the Seavers are going to a live taping and Ben is beyond excited, but just as he’s settling in for some Cosby Show hijinks, the unthinkable happens:  puberty strikes, seemingly in an instant. Some young girl is smiling and waving at Ben from across the studio audience and he’s feeling all the feels and doesn’t know what to think about this new experience.

One thing is for sure. He’s not thinking about the Cosby Show anymore.

Ben’s fascination with girls might be the most sudden and rapidly growing obsession I’ve ever witnessed. He has gone from never thinking about girls to total and utter preoccupation in the span of one day. As you would expect from a 10 year old, he has no idea what to do to actually impress a girl, so he of course goes to Mike. Now, Jason already had the foresight to warn Mike never to give Ben any advice on girls.  At first, Mike tries to uphold this commitment to his dad, but I think you already know that he won’t be able to resist giving bad brotherly advice before the episode is through.

When Maggie and Jason go out for the evening, Ben smells opportunity with the only girl to whom he has ready access: his babysitter, Trudy, who you might recall is allowed to babysit even though she is not allowed to stay home by herself. Before Trudy arrives for her babysitting gig at the Seavers, Ben finds his way to Mike’s room and this is where things start to go off the rails. Mike doesn’t think he’s offering advice but he forgets that Ben is like a sponge absorbing everything he says. According to Mike, ladies want someone dangerous, unpredictable and who could get into trouble at any moment.

I am shaking my head so hard at this.

Ben, of course, takes this to heart. Dressed like Don Johnson circa Miami Vice, which I suppose was the 80s version of ‘dangerous’, Ben is ready to work his best moves on Trudy. And by “moves”, I mean putting his arm around her because that is all a 10 year old can (and should) be able to think of. Despite the innocence of Ben’s moves, Trudy is still having none of it. She may only be twelve, but girl’s able to establish some very clear boundaries!

It’s at this point that Mike comes home (after being stood up for a date, no less!), and catches Ben in the midst of his attempt to woo Trudy, which wasn’t working in the first place and is now made worse when Mike openly mocks him. Ben feels supremely rejected and proclaims he is done with girls. Since Mike is home, it seems they can send Trudy home and end Ben’s embarrassment for good.

The wrinkle in this storyline, if you can call it a wrinkle, is that when Trudy’s sister shows up to pick Trudy up, both she and Mike seem instantly smitten with one another. Trudy’s sister is home from college for the weekend, and Mike is eager to squeeze in a date with her. That night. At the Seaver house. Somehow this lame excuse for a date is amenable to Trudy’s sister. Perhaps she is blinded by Mike’s claim that he’s an Ivy league college man. Oh yes, that’s right, Mike has lied about his age and says he’s a Yale student, all so he can have a shot with this girl he just met.  It’s some seriously bad role modelling for Ben, not to mention a super sleazy tactic.

Now that Trudy’s sister is smitten, poor Trudy is stuck hanging out with Ben, which she’s super angry about. But Ben is refusing to go back into the living room with Trudy after his embarrassing first advances. Mike has to fix this so that he can get some uninterrupted time with Trudy’s sister. You know, for their hot date…in the Seaver kitchen. Good grief.

This is where Mike defies Jason’s orders not to give advice to Ben, and also gives him the worst advice you could ever give a young man: “all girls mean the opposite of what they say.” I mean, this was obviously wrong in the 80s, too, but in today’s world Mike would be eviscerated for this type of comment.

Ben’s about to learn two important lessons. First, that Mike doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to women. And second, that girls most definitely do not mean the opposite of what they say. When Ben keeps trying to put his arm around Trudy, she finally blows a gasket. Her feisty declination of his advances at least helps him learn this second lesson quickly.

It is only when Ben stops trying to be a total sleaze and actually talks to Trudy as a person that she starts to be interested in him. Funny how that works. And just as they’re starting to have a real conversation and Trudy is finally keen to hang out with Ben to hear more about such riveting topics as live tapings of the Cosby Show, Trudy’s sister is ready to get the hell out of the Seaver household.

You guessed it, Mike’s lies have blown up in his face and Trudy’s sister is simultaneously angry that he’s lied to her and also repulsed that she’s wasted her night on someone two years her junior. So if you’re keeping score, tonight Ben gets one point with the ladies and Mike gets zero. And, as with so many other early season episodes of Growing Pains, I’m just glad this episode is finally over.

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

  • How were women not angrier in the 80s with these kinds of attitudes so dominant in pop culture?
  • Why do girls continue to be impressed by Mike’s bravado and sleaze?
  • When will I ever get an entire week of enjoyable Growing Pains episodes?

Season 2 Episode 15: Thank God It’s Friday

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 22 Comments

It’s Friday night and there’s a lot going on. Carol’s supposed to have a date with Bobby but he’s been grounded for getting his third speeding ticket in a matter of weeks. Jason’s been looking forward to a date night with Maggie all week, but she’s exhausted and doesn’t feel like it. Ben just wants to watch TGIF on TV (remember those good old days? I do.). And Mike’s got big plans with Eddie and Boner. Where will all these possible storylines take us? Let’s find out together.

With Carol’s date cancelled and Maggie bailing on date night, the whole gang (minus Mike) is hanging in this fine Friday evening feasting on TV dinners, on TV trays no less! This is just bringing back all sorts of memories of my family eating dinner on TV trays, watching Entertainment Tonight back in the days when it wasn’t smutty and before John Tesh started making new age music…

I got sidetracked there, didn’t I? Let me get back on track.

As the Seavers are digging into their TV dinners, the doorbell rings. It turns out Jason forgot to cancel Ben’s babysitter, and now she’s going to hang with the Seavers for the night because her parents are out and Ben’s babysitter isn’t allowed to stay home alone.  I’ll spare you the rest of this storyline because nothing really happens that’s more interesting than the TV dinner/TV tray nostalgia.

Meanwhile, Mike and the boys are trying desperately to come up with exciting plans for their Friday night. I guess Long Island isn’t a hotbed for teenage adventures…that is, until a Dewey High alum, now a college freshman, waltzes into the pizza  shop. Mike sees him picking up a massive tower of pizza boxes and he smells the sweet aroma of a potential party. Turns out Mike’s right, and he literally begs for an invite. College guy acquiesces and it looks like Mike, Eddie and Boner’s Friday night is looking up.

When they arrive at the party, it’s sort of like that scene in Pretty in Pink when Molly Ringwald goes to the party with Andrew McCarthy and she feels totally out of place amongst all the rich, popular kids.  Although Mike has always been portrayed as one of the cool kids, this party scene makes it clear he’s not quite at the upper echelons of the high school social pyramid.  Mike, Eddie and Boner instantly feel like fish out of water, but Mike is determined to fit in.

Mike’s strategy for fitting in is making moves on the first girl who looks his way. He thinks he’s hitting it off but then, within seconds she’s inviting Mike to the bathroom with her. He thinks that’s a little weird, but then things get even more uncomfortable when she assures him she’s not trying to get her hands on his stash because she’s got her own cocaine. Oh my, it looks like we’ve got ourselves a ‘very special episode’ here!  Mike and the gang have unwittingly stumbled on a party fuelled largely by cocaine and this is going to present us all with some super valuable learning moments. Let’s get back to the party.

What will Mike do when faced with the choice of being cool (i.e. doing coke) or being totally uncool (i.e. not doing coke)? I’m less worried about Mike than Eddie, who seems all too eager to just do coke to impress a bunch of snooty girls. He’s working the famous “just because you do coke once doesn’t mean you’ll get hooked” logic, which Mike is not at all sold on, and poor Boner can’t pick which side of the fence he’s on. What we have here is a cocaine standoff.

Mike is pushing hard for the boys to make a stealth escape from the party before they’re labelled ‘weenies’ for just saying no, but they are already too late: a whole gaggle of fellow Dewey High Hooters (yup, Hooters) have spotted them and now if they leave the party they will be socially doomed.  As I watch this, I’m just feeling incredibly grateful for what has turned out to be a highly sheltered upbringing during which the most harmful substance I was pressured to use as a teenager was alcohol, and even then no one really cared if you said no.

We reach the crux of the episode at this point: Mike has stalled as much as he can and now the blond girl is back and it’s an are-you-in-or-are-you-out moment. Without hesitation, Mike stands his ground and just says no, and without offering any feeble excuses. He just says he doesn’t want to do coke, which probably would’ve been fine if the entire party hadn’t heard him say it.

Now everyone’s laughing and some guy, who is probably two years older than Mike (although, to be fair, he looks 30), condescendingly calls them boys, as though doing coke makes you manly. Mike’s gonna seize this moment to escape from perhaps the most embarrassing social event of his life. The only problem is that Eddie and Boner don’t want to leave. Turns out best friends don’t always stick together because Eddie would rather try to score with some hot chicks even if it means trying out a little blow. And I will ask you yet again if Eddie and Boner aren’t the worst ‘best friends’ ever?

Now Mike is wrestling with the fact that he knows he made the right choice but, in doing so, seems to have lost the things that matter to high school boys (popularity, chances with girls, and his best friends). How can making the right choice come with so many negative side effects? Thank goodness Jason is there to help Mike make sense of this. Jason reminds Mike that, in the end, we must make the choices that are right for us, knowing we may not please everyone. Jason knows what’s what: that if we make decisions based on what we think others want, we’re setting ourselves up for unhappiness.  Mike feels better about his choice, and we find out that Eddie and Boner did leave the party after all, which Mike sees as a sign that they really are the best, but which I see as just another reason he should seriously reconsider how he defines friendship.

We end this episode with the classic “lead actor speaks seriously to the camera about the dangers of drug use”. The jaded part of me wants to mock this, but the older I get the more I can appreciate that networks were trying to do something to positively impact youth within a medium that was never really intended to do that. What I also appreciate is that Growing Pains took a slightly different take on the ‘don’t do drugs’ message, which was to focus on the fact that real friends won’t force you to do things you don’t want to do, that if someone only likes you because you’ll do drugs with them it’s probably not a real friendship. Plus, given that Kirk Cameron was (I think) already on his path to discovering religion in a major way, it feels like he is actually speaking with conviction, unlike so many of the actors that recorded these PSAs in the 80s. So I guess this is my long-winded way of saying way to go Growing Pains. I think you hit the mark better than many of your 80s family sitcom contemporaries.

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

  • Why is Mike friends with Eddie and Boner? Seriously. Why?
  • Was there an 80s family sitcom that didn’t have a ‘very special episode’ about drugs? I can’t think of a single one.

Season 2 Episode 14: Thank You, Willie Nelson

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 21 Comment

I’m intrigued by this episode’s title and can’t wait to see how Growing Pains and Willie Nelson somehow intersect.

Carol’s hosting the largest slumber party I’ve ever seen. Seriously there are easily a dozen girls at this party, and I cannot remember a time in my own life, beyond the age of 8 at least, when a sleepover was so well attended. The important facts about this slumber party are twofold: 1) they are listening to Belinda Carlisle’s ‘Mad About You’, which was one of my all-time favourite songs as an 80s child and 2) Mike and is creepily spying on the girls dancing in their night gowns…one of whom is also his sister.

Ben, who at his age is less appreciative of teenage girls in short nightgowns, takes a less mature approach to ruining the slumber party, which involves unleashing a snake into the mix. Oh, but wait, he’s only doing it so that Mike can intervene and “save the girls” from the dangerous snake.

But wait, because it turns out all this slumber party nonsense has nothing to do with the episode, because what this episode is really going to be about is Maggie’s parents, who have just rolled up to the Seaver household in their new motorhome, which is also their new permanent home, because they’ve sold their free-standing house to become rubber tramps. What? Stay with me here, I promise the pieces will all fall into place.

Maggie’s mom is clearly not happy with their decision to roam free on the open road. I wouldn’t be either if my husband sold the house without so much as asking me, which is exactly what happened to Maggie’s mom. Different generations, I suppose.

While Maggie tries to calm her mother, her dad takes Jason on a tour of the Vegabond Deluxe (the motorohome). Normally, Maggie’s father can’t stand Jason,  but he’s finding a newfound respect for him based solely on the fact that Jason is waxing poetic about life in a motorhome. I sense this isn’t how Jason actually feels, but he’s working some sort of angle with Maggie’s dad that’s not fully clear at this point.

Maggie’s being more direct with advice to her mother: tell her husband the truth about how she doesn’t want to live in a motorhome. Which she does. But because, as Jason so aptly put it, Maggie’s parent’s marriage “has never been based on truth”, this leads to a big old fight and Maggie’s mom decides she’s done with the motorhome (and possibly Maggie’s dad) for good. She’s going to stay with the Seavers for a while, and that’s really going to ruin Carol’s slumber party because grandma’s about to rock some Dire Straits on the piano and that’s a sure-fire party killer.

Jason heads back out to the motorhome to finish what he started with Maggie’s dad. It’s easier to see now that Jason is executing a carefully crafted combination of reverse psychology and good old psychiatric know-how. He’s already got Maggie’s dad believing that he wants to live the motorhome lifestyle too, and now he’s complaining about how Maggie doesn’t agree with him either. In other words, Jason’s really doubling down on showing Maggie’s dad they’re in the same situation and they’re in it together. But  all of this is merely a method to open door for Jason to start asking some deeper questions about what really made Maggie’s dad up and sell his house.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

It turns out the Maggie’s dad felt stifled at home once he retired. They had finished all the chores and all the endless fixing of things and then what was left to do? Was that all there was to life with what little time he has left? Whomp. Maggie’s dad is actually grappling with his mortality.

In the end this rather poignant, albeit heavy, moment is glossed over completely. Instead, Maggie’s mom tries to get through to Maggie’s dad one last time, they shout it out a bit on the driveway, and finally it emerges that all Maggie’s mom really wanted was to be asked what she wanted. Once Maggie’s dad hears that, he asks her and her answer is that she only wants what will make him happy. If that’s not circular reasoning, I don’t know what is.

What’s clear is that Maggie’s mom and dad are now on the same page and ready to hit the road in their beast of a motorhome. I, on the other hand, and now sitting here wrestling with some big questions about my own mortality and wishing that Jason had tackled this topic with Maggie’s dad because I could really use some of his sage advice.  But today that is not in the cards, so I guess I’ll have to work through it alone. These are the risks of Growing Pains viewership, I suppose.

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

  • Does it make me ageist that I tend to dislike any episodes that centre on Maggie, Jason or Maggie’s parents?
  • Does anyone else find it confusing that Carol is portrayed as a super dorky nerd, but then she has a slumber party with a dozen girls attending?
  • What did I miss that I still don’t see the connection between this episode and Willie Nelson? The likely answer is that I tuned out at various points in this episode and simply missed the reference.

Season 2 Episode 13: Some Enchanted Evening

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 22 Comments

Hang on to your hats. We have another Dewey High school dance in today’s episode!

Even more importantly, we have the return of the Bobby and Carol storyline at long last. Seriously, it’s been left dangling for 7 episodes (!!!!) and I have been waiting not-at-all patiently for the writers to decide Carol is finally worthy of an interesting storyline!

Carol and Bobby are coming home from a date, and Carol is hinting pretty hard that he should invite her to the winter formal, but Bobby is being both evasive and kinda twitchy.  It’s clear something’s going on behind the scenes and that most of our episode will be devoted to figuring out what that is.

Carol’s friends are not at all helpful. They think by Carol hinting so hard she’s ‘usurped’ Bobby’s masculinity and, of course, they think men totally can’t handle this. They also don’t think guys like Bobby ask girls like Carol to winter formals, which seems like a pretty crappy thing for friends to say.

Carol, however, remains undeterred. She runs into Bobby in the hallway and tries to confirm their date to study that night, but once again Bobby is both vague and eager to extract himself from the conversation. He can’t make it for their date and he offers no explanation, only promising to call her later to talk about it.

For any ladies out there reading, I think we all know that just because a guy says he’s going to call, it doesn’t mean he actually will, so colour me shocked when Bobby really does call. But then we find out that, even though he called like he said he would, he still didn’t explain to Carol exactly why he bailed on their date, nor did he discuss the winter formal. So, like, what did they talk about?

Anyway, Carol’s in a real funk, now, and she needs some motherly advice.  Maggie suggests that Carol ask Bobby to the dance. She also claims that it’s “extremely easy to do”, which I think we can all agree is not at all true, particularly in high school. Nevertheless, Carol takes her mom’s advice and works up her nerve to ask Bobby to the dance.

And then he says no.

Actually, he says “I can’t” but then offers absolutely zero explanation of why, even after he calls Carol back over as though he’s going to say something more. This is a classic moment in television and movies that I have never witnessed in real life, but I digress. After this exchange, Carol is distraught and questioning her entire sense of self.  She even gets Maggie and Jason all riled up, both of whom want nothing more than to kick Bobby’s ass for stringing their daughter along. I count on Jason to be my voice of reason, and he’s decidedly irrational in this episode and I don’t know how to handle it.

Thankfully, we flash forward a couple weeks to the night of the dance, and Carol is going out with her mom and dad, which I’m sure they thought was a nice way to help her feel less alone, but in actuality would probably only amplify her loneliness. Of course, this was Jason’s idea, and I have to admit that I don’t think it’s a very good one.

But I should know by now never to doubt Jason’s plans because there’s almost always a bigger purpose. This time around, he’s taken the family to the top of the entire state building, but the real surprise isn’t the view. The real surprise is that Bobby is working up there, which Jason knew (sidenote: I’m going to choose to overlook that he only found out about Bobby’s job by calling him to yell at him for not asking Carol to the dance), and he’s orchestrated this whole night so that Carol could see that Bobby hasn’t really rejected her.

Bobby makes things right with an apology and a romantic dance atop the empire state building. So I guess this means they are still a couple and maybe, just maybe, we’ll actually get a few more Bobby and Carol episodes.

During all of this Carol and Bobby madness, it’s worth noting that Mike is dealing with his own winter formal woes, which consist of countless young women (one of whom is a young Heather Graham!) trying to convince Mike to take them to the dance by acting like his servants. Ladies, come on.  His ultimate solution? He’s going to take an entire harem to the dance (i.e. three dates, all of whom are also seemingly okay with being one of three dates). Sigh. The only bright spot to this storyline is that Mike has a terrible evening because his dates have finally decided that it’s completely uncool that he took three dates to the dance.

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

  • Carol’s two best friends are portrayed as ultra ditzy, so how are they rocking words like ‘usurped’?
  • At one point Ben is walking around ‘snacking’ on an entire wedge of cheese that’s literally the size of his head, and Maggie and Jason don’t even bat an eye at it. I mean, I love cheese but wouldn’t any parent at least react to their kid having his grubby hands all over what’s probably a $40 piece of cheese?
  • Seriously, why wouldn’t Bobby just tell Carol he had to work on the night of the dance? He says he’s embarrassed by being a janitor, but what kind of high school job isn’t sort of embarrassing?