Tag: sitcom

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?

Season 2 Episode 11: Choices

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 2Leave a comment

Mr. Dewitt is making a comeback, but once again it’s only his voice over the PA system. Why does Growing Pains continue to dangle the promise of Mr. Dewitt appearing in person only to let me down time and time again? Cruel. 

At first, Mr. Dewitt calls Mike to his office, which makes perfect sense because Mike is always in trouble. But then he corrects himself and calls Carol instead. What is happening in the world?  How could Carol Seaver possibly be in trouble? But it’s clear when Carol gets home from school that whatever Mr. Dewitt had to say was good news for Carol. We quickly learn that Carol has the chance to skip a grade. The chance to get one year ahead in life is something that Carol is over the moon about, as is Maggie. Mike, of course, is not at all excited because that would place him and Carol in the same grade, which is far too close for his comfort.

The wild card here is Jason, who we might expect to be excited, but who in reality is just as unexcited as Mike. In fact, he’s downright reluctant to express enthusiasm for Carol leap-frogging into eleventh grade.  Ever the pragmatic psychiatrist, Jason cautions Maggie that they need to get clearer on what’s really motivating Carol to skip a grade. Is it because it’s what she really wants, or is she just trying to make her parents happy, or perhaps is she just trying to bury her head in books to avoid social interactions?  Jason is worried that they’re missing something, and he wants them to dig deeper with Carol. 

Maggie doesn’t really want to hear Jason’s rational thinking, but she has the good sense to realize maybe he has a point. She decides to see for herself.  The only problem is that all she does is ask a series of leading questions, to which Carol responds with one word answers. Maggie is satisfied that Carol has thought her decision through, but it’s clear to me that she could learn a lesson or two from Jason and incorporate some open-ended questions into her conversations. In doing so, she just might surface some helpful information. As it stands, she’s learned nothing about Carol’s true motivations.  

This becomes clear over dinner when Carol says that skipping a grade will ensure she doesn’t ‘make the same mistakes’ as her mother. Turns out Carol thinks that Maggie had to give up everything to get married and have kids, and that she regrets it to boot. See, Maggie? If you’d asked more than a few yes or no questions, you might have seen this sooner.  Well, Maggie and Jason now see a very big problem, which is that Maggie may have inadvertently been sending a message that excelling is everything, and also that Carol needs to put her career progression above all else. I’m just sitting here wondering if I was the laziest teenager ever because I had zero ambition at the age of 15 and hadn’t even started to contemplate the concept of career, but I supposed that’s an aside.

The point is that Maggie has some damage control to do.  Maggie tries to have a heart to heart with Carol to clear the air, to help her understand that she doesn’t regret any of her choices. Of course, Carol doesn’t believe a word of it. I mean, how could Maggie have given up a promising career at Newsweek for a local Long Island newspaper and not regret it? Carol really can’t wrap her head around that.

Since Maggie’s tactics have failed, it’s time to send in the big guns to rectify the situation. Jason is here to save the day, with his reel-to-reel (talk about a blast from the past!) in tow. He figures if Carol can just hear the joy of Maggie giving birth to her, surely she will understand that Maggie never regretted a thing.  Although I’m highly suspect that this approach would work in the real world, it seems to land with Carol. Finally, Maggie and Jason have gotten through to her. Carol gets that it’s not about choosing either a career or a family; it’s about recognizing that she has options and that Maggie wants her to make choices for herself.

And, in case you’re wondering, Carol’s choice is to not skip a grade, for which Mike is incredibly grateful.

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

  • Does anyone even know what a reel to reel is anymore? Does anyone reading this have countless audio recordings of their childhood moments sitting in a box somewhere like I do?
  • Will Carol ever get a storyline that isn’t about academics? I will keep asking, where is the Bobby romance storyline?!?!?

Season 2 Episode 9: The Kid

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 2Leave a comment

It’s Christmas time in the Seaver household once more! I am bracing myself for a legitimately heavy episode because season one’s Christmas episode involved a suicidal Santa and that has me thinking that Growing Pains really likes to make its holiday episodes meaningful. Will this season’s holiday episode bring us light-hearted festivities instead? Let’s find out!

We kick off with Mike trying to intuit what each of his presents are, which would be quite the talent to have, although I’ve never understood why anyone would want to ruin the surprise of their gifts. The best part of a gift is the surprise factor, isn’t it? That’s beside the point, I suppose. The point is that all the kids are too focused on what they want for Christmas. Mike wants a CD player, Carol wants a modem, Ben wants all the toys, and Jason is none too pleased that his kids don’t seem to understand the true meaning of Christmas.

Ben’s about to change all of that.  While out shopping for Mike’s Christmas present, Ben somehow falls into a dumpster and lands on a girl who’s in there looking for food. The meaning of Christmas is not lost on Ben, so he brings the girl home for Christmas Eve dinner. It seems that the rest of the Seavers only wanted to understand the true meaning of Christmas in theory, because they sort of don’t want to take this girl in, even temporarily. They are torn between their distaste of this homeless girl who smells and is dirty, and their realization that they can’t very well send a starving, homeless girl back into the cold of night especially on Christmas Eve. What message would that send to Ben about the meaning of Christmas, not to mention how we show compassion for our shared humanity?

What we end up with is a series of strained and awkward interactions with this poor girl, which I actually get because it really seems like awkwardness would be inevitable in this situation.  Imagine inviting a stranger into your home, and one whose day to day life looks so vastly different from your own, and then trying to find some common ground upon which to make conversation. Yeah. Awkward. To make matters worse, Maggie finds a jackknife in the girl’s clothes and then absolutely freaks out about how dangerous this girl might be. Thankfully Jason is there to talk her off the ledge, because honestly why wouldn’t a young girl living on the streets have some form of self-defence? Really, Maggie, did you think she was going to murder you all in your sleep? Come on, now.

Jason, of course, wants to talk to the girl because he thinks that he can fix everyone.  He wants her to call her parents because he is certain that they are worried about her and want to take her back, which I’m not convinced would be true.  But Jason is adamant that she consider whether she might be wrong about her parents. Perhaps they do love her and are worried sick about her. To Jason’s credit, he appears to have struck a chord with the girl.

The awkwardness isn’t over yet, though, because we still have Christmas Eve dinner, for which Carol has dressed up the girl as a little mini-Carol and the whole family is just stunned that she looks like a ‘regular’ girl now.  And then the Seavers continue with their tradition of saying what they’re thankful for, and Mike tries to make this poor girl participate. Of course, what she’s actually thankful for is not being outside freezing to death in the snow…”at least for one night”. Ouch. I’m not sure that’s quite what Mike wanted to hear, but that’s exactly why forcing the girl to take part in the ‘what-we’re-thankful-for’ game maybe wasn’t the best idea. Alas, after a couple more awkward moments, dinner takes a turn towards a light-hearted and celebratory feel.

Just when you think that this episode might take a turn towards more light-hearted festivities after all, we flash forward to the middle of the night and the girl is stealing all of the Seavers’ Christmas presents. Maggie and Jason almost catch her in the act when they sneak down to hide even more presents under the tree, but she’s able to hide from them. As she’s hiding, she overhears Maggie and Jason talking about how the kids have wrapped up presents for this girl.  For a moment, it seems like this has warmed the girl’s heart. Maybe she’ll put the presents back under the tree.

No such luck.

When the Seavers wake up, there are no Christmas presents to be found under their tree.  They’re about to comb the streets in search of the girl (but mostly their presents) but they don’t have to go far (at least to find the presents). It turns out she’s left them right on their front stoop. Christmas is saved…for the Seavers, at least.

But also, Jason seems to have gotten through to the girl, too, because the episode ends with her in a phone booth calling home and talking to her father. So maybe, in the end, Christmas is actually saved for everyone.

Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about this episode. Much like last season’s holiday episode, I sort of applaud Growing Pains for trying to address more serious themes. At the same time, neither a half hour format nor sitcoms in general really lend themselves to worthy exploration of important issues. What we end up with is sort of an idealized version of homelessness, in which the kid hasn’t come from a terrible home life, and thus appears to have the option of returning home, which I think we can all agree isn’t true for many living on the streets. I don’t know a good way to tackle this topic in a television show, let alone a sitcom, so I’m trying not to be overly critical about it. I suppose the best we can all do is take a moment to consider all that we have and can be grateful for, and some way in which we can give back to those who have less, especially at Christmas. And, really, I think walking away from anything on television motivated to do something good is the most we can ask for from this medium.

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

  • Carol finally mentioned Bobby in this episode (although, sadly, it was only to say she was thankful that he finally called after three weeks. You deserve better, Carol!) which has me wondering, where did Bobby go? When is he coming back? And why do female characters always wait around for guys who can’t be bothered to call?
  • What was Carol going to do with a modem in 1986? Was the internet even a thing?
  • Why was Ben out shopping by himself on Christmas Eve anyway?

Season 2 Episode 5: Employee of the Month

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 22 Comments

Ooooh, guys I have been waiting for this episode because it’s one I remember well. We are in for a real treat here! Let’s not waste any time on preamble.

In this episode, Mike wants a car. More specifically, he wants his parents to buy him a car. But Jason wants Mike to earn a car the hard way, with a job.  The good news is Mike is one step ahead of them. He’s found a job at WOB (World of Burgers) but he needs his parents to sign off on it. Despite Jason JUST telling Mike that he needed to be responsible and get a job to pay for a car, Maggie and Jason waffle hard on whether to let him work. That’s some seriously mixed messaging.  You can’t tell someone to be responsible and get a job, only to turn around and tell him that he can’t take the job that he got.

After Jason rambles on with a really protracted (and boring) monologue about the relative pros and cons of letting Mike work, they finally agree that he can take the job.  Thank god, because, really, I was about to get all uppity about their parenting tactics.  Mike gets to enter the bold frontier that is the working world, at a burger joint with perhaps my favourite oddly catchy slogan: ‘don’t get any on ya.’

Anyway, Mike’s first day is a bit of a hot mess and it’s super unclear if Mike’s actually got what it takes to deal with the pace and complexity of fast food. But somehow he pulls it together and within a month he earns the coveted role of Employee of the Month. This has gotta show Maggie and Jason that they were right to let Mike get a job, right?

You would think…but then the unthinkable happens. Mike gets fired. But it’s totally not his fault. In fact, this whole sequence of events is really triggering my issues around fairness. You see, Mike’s co-worker (who, incidentally, played a completely different character with a completely different name back in Episode 5: Superdad) is skating on thin ice. She’s one step away from being fired, and then she goes and leaves the cash register draw open and a whopping $37 got stolen. Mike takes the fall for it to save her hide. But guess what? Instead, Mike gets fired, even though he is Employee of the Month. How the mighty hath fallen. Also, do you see what I mean? This is not at all his fault! And then his co-worker whose butt he tried to save doesn’t even try to make things right. Super uncool.

Mike goes home, head hung low, and it seems like he’s going to tell his parents he had a pretty shitty day, but then the whole family is waiting for him on the back driveway. In his new (used) car. That his parents bought for him. As a reward for how hard he’d been working. That makes the whole “I got fired today” conversation a bit trickier, doesn’t it?

Which is precisely why Mike decides not to tell them. Instead, he pretends to go to work every day, even going so far as to smear burger grease on himself so it looks like he’s been toiling at the deep fryer. That’s commitment. All the while, he’s out there on the hunt for a new job but striking out right, left and centre, which makes sense since he’s only got one job on his resume, from which he was fired after only a month.

He’s doing a pretty good job of hiding the truth, that is until his co-worker stops by the house to borrow Mike’s uniform. His parents tell her that Mike’s wearing the uniform right now at work, but his co-worker is a little slow on the draw and doesn’t pick up on the need to go along with Mike’s lies.  Instead, she spills the beans that he got fired a week ago.  Well now Jason is all fired up because, in his mind, once again Mike has let him down, first by getting fired and then by lying about it. Jason is never going to trust Mike again (he actually says these words!) which, for both a psychiatrist and a parent, seems a rather extreme and punitive reaction.

I’m willing to bet Jason really wanted to take those awful words back when Mike finally confesses that he got fired, and then adds to it that he didn’t want to tell Jason because it felt so good that his dad was finally so proud of him for something. Talk about a punch to the parental gut. Hearing this, Jason does a total 180 and decides to forget all of Mike’s lying, which strikes me as the first sensible thing he’s done this whole episode.

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

  • Would you really get fired over $37? I feel like a stern warning and deducting that amount off the next pay cheque would be a totally sufficient consequence.
  • Why wouldn’t Mike just tell his parents the full story right off the bat? It was clearly not his fault he got fired. Wait, maybe I know the answer to this question…maybe it’s because they never believe him (see season 1 episode 18, or season 2 episode 4)!
  • Is Mike’s co-worker sort of awful for not intervening even after she watches Mike get fired?

Season 2 Episode 3: Long Day’s Journey into Night

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 2Leave a comment

Hold on, Growing Pains fans, because Carol has a new friend that’s sparking Maggie’s judgment flame in a big way. Do you remember how epically judgmental Maggie was in Mike’s Madonna Story? I mean, she was throwing around the word ‘tramp’ like there was no tomorrow. Well, that Maggie is back today. Let’s get to it.

As mentioned, Carol’s got a new friend, who is apparently bad news because she’s got Carol wearing makeup, piercing her ears, and–gasp!–wearing ‘sexy’ sweaters. Without even having met her, Maggie has declared this new friend a ‘slut’. Yikes, Maggie.

We meet Annie, the new friend, shortly thereafter and, in my opinion, she seems like your average teenager, and quite well-mannered at that. Maggie’s still not convinced, of course, despite the fact that at this point there is zero reason to believe that Annie is going to drag Carol to the dark side.  In fact, their wild and crazy plans were to go to the mall. Nothing happens at the mall, Maggie.

It’s no matter, anyways, because mall  plans are soon abandoned in favour of hanging out at the Seavers. Unfortunately, this is also how we find out that Maggie is sort of right about Annie. It’s not that Annie’s a slut, mind you, but she’s sort of making it seem like Carol’s friendship is secondary to her desire to get closer to Mike.

The plot thickens.

Mike, of course, like any other boy his age, is interested in Annie right away, seemingly for no other reasons than she is a) of a similar age b) blond and attractive and c) interested in him.  He and Annie have some flirtatious back and forth, but so far things remain hands off and innocent. Maybe Mike will make the right choice, here.

The plot further thickens when Carol leaves Annie alone in her room. Annie promptly makes a phone call, without asking to use the phone by the way, to tell a friend about how she’s only hanging out with Carol to get to Mike. Naturally, Maggie is the one to overhear this, which gets her all riled up plus now she has to wrestle with whether or not to break Carol’s heart by telling her that her new best friend is really not a great friend at all.

While Maggie is in front of the house, debating with Jason whether or not to tell Carol the truth about her friend, Annie’s busy making her move on Mike inside. And this is how Maggie is spared having to break the news to Carol, because Carol comes downstairs just as Annie and Mike are mid-kiss and that’s the end of that friendship…for now at least.  Carol freaks out, runs to her room, and then leaves Annie hanging out downstairs with the rest of the Seaver family which none of them seem to find at all strange.

Annie is nothing if not persistent, though, and she keeps pestering Carol to forgive her. While she admits her primary motivation was Mike, she also just really, really loved hanging out with Carol. Just when you think Carol is never going to get over her hurt feelings, she swings rapidly towards forgiveness. Just like that, the girls are fast friends again, and Mike is forgotten. Which, by the way, Mike does not at all understand. That’s girls, Mike.

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

  • Was one of the writers working through his or her own issues with women via Maggie? Maggie’s seriously harsh judgments are sort of inconsistent with her typical sweet demeanour and it’s sort of jarring to watch.
  • Can sweaters that cover every inch of your upper body actually be slutty?
  • Wouldn’t the entire Seaver family have found it incredibly weird that Annie was watching tv downstairs with them instead of hanging out with Carol?
  • Does Mike not know that hitting on your sister’s friends is both super uncool and bound to end poorly (particularly at that age)?

Season 2 Episode 2: Fast Times at Dewey High

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 21 Comment

Guys, I am abuzz with excitement from the title alone. We’re heading back to Dewey High and that means a high probability that one of my all-time favourite high school principal characters—the incomparable Mr. Dewitt—might just make an appearance. What a Friday surprise! On top of that, I feel like a play on Fast Times at Ridgemont High has to mean lots of hijinks and action and, good god, maybe we’re going to break the streak of bad episodes!

What we have here is the first day of school for all the kids. Carol, predictably, is super excited. Ben is not, though we don’t yet know why. The big surprise is that Mike is just as excited as his sister. He’s a junior and he’s already got a date for the welcome back to school dance. The day is looking pretty golden, for everyone other than Ben at least. What will these kids get up to?

I can answer that question for you. We’ll get 3 different storylines among which we can divide our attention:

  1. Ben Deals with a Vengeful (and Exceedingly Patient) Bully
  2. Carol Craves Change (alliteration unintentional but awesome)
  3. Mike Gets Exactly What He Deserves

Ben Deals with a Vengeful (and Exceedingly Patient) Bully

We find out why Ben has been particularly negative about going back to school. Apparently, on the last day of school the year prior some giant monster of a kid threatened to kick Ben’s butt on the first day of school this year.  What kind of 9 year old has the willpower to deal with that kind of delayed gratification? Regardless, Ben asks to be transferred to another school and the school is trigger happy so they call Jason in right away.

As we’ve come to expect from Jason, he gets to heart of the matter quickly. The long and the short of it is Ben is afraid, but Jason helps Ben have a major revelation, which is that everyone is afraid sometimes. At this point, I want to hug Jason Seaver yet again because that’s a really important lesson for kids to learn.  Ben decides to stand up to his fears, and it turns out the “big kid” from last year didn’t grow over the summer and now Ben’s head and shoulders above him. The bully backs down quickly, the crisis is averted, and Ben’s first day turns out A-okay.

Sidenote: the kid who plays the bully (named Louis Vasco in this episode) is the same kid who will end up playing Ben’s friend Stinky Sullivan—who you may recall was referenced in the last episode. I am mildly embarrassed that I recognized this character inconsistency immediately.

Carol Craves Change

More than anything, Carol just wants this year to be different. She doesn’t want to hang out with all the same people and have all the same experiences. For a smart girl, Carol doesn’t seem to understand that routine experiences and a consistent peer group are the hallmarks of every high school. Nonetheless, she longs to break free but she just can’t. She ends up in all the same classes as her old friends, sitting at the same lunch table and talking about the same things. Nothing is going her way.

In a rare moment of vulnerability, she confides in Boner who, it turns out, is less of an unsupportive jerk when he’s not around Eddie. Boner also longs for a different high school experience this year. They have a heart warming chat, and then inexplicably agree to be each other’s dates for the first-day-of-school dance, which at first I’m thinking Mike won’t at all be cool with, but then they clarify that they don’t have to actually dance together or even go to the dance at all. What?!? Are you as confused as I am as to why this is at all helpful? But they’re both happy so I’m just going to leave this snoozer of a storyline behind and move on to the main course.

Mike Gets Exactly What He Deserves

As mentioned earlier, Mike’s already got a hot date lined up for tonight’s dance and Elaine is crazy excited about the whole thing.  Mike is, too, until he spots an even hotter girl down the hallway. He’s instantly smitten and determined to find out who this girl is, and also to take her to the dance instead of Elaine. Eddie and Boner are both present for this moment of love-at-first-sight and, as we’ve come to expect from Eddie and Boner, they completely fail as real friends because they encourage Mike to track down the hot girl. Sigh. Fifteen year-old boys, am I right?

Now, Carol tries to tell Mike that this pretty new girl is, in fact, “Bucktooth Becky”, who Mike has known and teased for years, but Mike clearly saw perfectly straight teeth so he won’t hear a word of this nonsense. Instead, he practically stalks Becky from classroom to classroom trying to find out who she is. Finally, Mike gets what he wants, which is Becky saying she’ll see him later at the dance. But he still doesn’t know her name. 

Mike thinks he’s got a date with this hot ‘new girl’ but now he’s also got a real problem because he still has a date with Elaine, who is over-the-moon excited and practically swooning over Mike whenever she’s within eyeshot. Mike tries to let Elaine down gently, but fails so he does what he’s done before: he makes up a lame excuse that no girl in her right mind would buy for a second. He claims he “misfired on a power squat” and has to see a doctor. Elaine, you deserve better.

Mike at least gets exactly what he deserves out of this whole situation, because no sooner has he dumped Elaine than he runs into his mysterious blond. He can finally ask her name and, lo and behold, it is Bucktooth Becky. And she remembers Mike and all his teasing very well, thank you very much, and thus has no intention of going to the dance with him. She merely meant she would see him there. Now Mike has no date and also a pretty bruised ego.

Not only was this episode no Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but there was no Mr. Dewitt to be seen. Although Coach Lubbock did make his first appearance, and he eventually gets a spinoff sitcom out of this deal, so that’s something. Season Two, we are on thin ice so far.

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

  • Did anyone else notice that the student sporting a giant ghetto blaster on his shoulder in the hallway was playing Honeymoon Suite’s “New Girl Now” when Mike first spotted the “new” blond? Just me? Okay.
  • Where the hell was Mr. Dewitt? All I got was his voice on the PA system and its implicit promise that Mr. Dewitt would grace our presence. I am gravely disappointed in his absence from this episode.

Season 2 Episode 1: Jason’s Cruisers

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Welcome to Season 2! Are you excited? I am. Season two has got to hold more potential for quality episodes than season one, right? Tell me I’m right. I need to know I’m right.  Sorry, that’s not a pretty colour on anyone. Let’s see what Growing Pains delivers in its second season premiere.

The Seavers are taking a trip down memory lane with some old family movies and eventually someone pops in a tape of Jason from his college days. And he’s in a band. Singing. With funny hair that the kids apparently can’t get over because they are losing their collective shit and collapsing in hysterical laughter. I am perplexed by this, because wouldn’t it earn Jason some cool points to have once been in a band?

Jason takes his kids’ reactions in stride, but what he cannot handle is the overwhelming feeling that he is getting old. Despite being only 40 years of age, somehow these videos have left Jason feeling about two steps from the grave. As a fellow 40 year-old, I want to grab Jason and shake him by the shoulders because, seriously, you’re only 40 for god’s sake.

Maggie has other plans to help Jason reconnect with his youth. Her first attempt involves begging Mike to play basketball with him and let him win. That doesn’t work, a) because Jason quickly figures it out and demands that Mike actually try and b) because when Mike does try, he kicks Jason’s butt. Despite 40 not being old, a 15-year old is still going to mop the basketball court with a 40 year-old’s ass most days.

Maggie’s got to pivot to Plan B, which involves throwing a surprise party for Jason featuring his former college band, the Wild Hots. Sidenote: of course Jason Seaver’s college band was called the Wild Hots. I have major doubts about this plan, because if a video of his old band has left him mopey, I don’t get how seeing them in person is going to be any better. But Maggie knows Jason best, and it’s soon apparent that her idea has some merit. When Jason learns that the band’s keyboardist had a coronary (!!!!) at the plucky age of 38 (!!!), and that the guitarist is now a “chrome dome”, he no longer feels as old.  I’m not sure this is a healthy way for someone to regain their sense of youth. Feeling better about ourselves by putting down others doesn’t seem like a very noble approach for anyone to take, let alone a psychiatrist.

I suppose what matters is that Jason no longer feels old, and we get to hear him perform with his band, which I have to admit is sort of disappointing. I feel like I saw clips of a young Alan Thicke singing with his real life band on the E True Hollywood Story of Growing Pains and he was much, much better than in this episode. Maybe the rest of the Wild Hots were bringing him down? All I know is this was a bit of a lacklustre start to Season 2 and I’m hoping that things pick up.

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

  • Do you think Alan Thicke pitched this episode as a way of showcasing his musical background?
  • At what point did season premier’s start to become a pretty big deal because it’s certainly not at this point in the 80s?
  • Ben makes his first reference to his friend Stinky Sullivan in this episode. When do we actually get to meet Stinky?
  • Related to the above point, why does Growing Pains give the Seaver’s friends names like Boner and Stinky? Are there really kids out there that must suffer with nicknames like this?

Season 1 In a Nutshell

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Lordy, we made it to the end of season one relatively unscathed! And now I would like to present my first ‘in a nutshell’ post where I will unpack the entire season in all its glory before we launch headfirst into the second season.

In a Nutshell

I had fairly low expectations for season one. I remember not loving it even when I was younger and infinitely easier to entertain. But then the first three quarters of the season pleasantly surprised me. I got into it. I was excited to watch episodes and write about them for you. Then we got to episode 19 and the wheels fell right off this bus. It was a slog to get through the remainder of the season, and you could probably tell from the lacklustre (and considerably shorter) posts.

What we learned this season is that:

  • Jason Seaver is the world’s best television father. Not only is he the glue that holds this family together, but he’s willing to have virtually any conversation with his kids with such compassion and grace. I realize I’m writing about him as if he were real. I know he is fictional and scripted. Still, he is the saving grace of this season.
  • Maggie is a bit of a hot head, and I have to assume her Irish blood is partly to blame (I feel justified in saying this because I, too, have Irish blood coursing through my veins)
  • Ben is too young to have any interesting storylines whatsoever
  • Carol is too much of an archetype at this point to be interesting. We get it, she’s smart. But what else is she? We will have to wait for future seasons to find out.
  • Mike is simultaneously the family’s black sheep but also the favourite, which is a tough line to straddle. 
  • Season 1 tackled some big topics (suicide, virginity, death, bullying, jealousy, and integrity) and proved in the process that the Seaver family can truly handle anything

Best Episodes

  • Episode 10: Dirt Bike–Small-scale lies, pun wielding doctors, and ass abrasions, how can you go wrong with that combination?
  • Episode 9: Carol’s Crush–Puppy love takes a turn towards inappropriate when 14 year-old Carol falls for 23 year-old Jeff. Only in the 80s!
  • Episode 18: Reputation–Injustice is my hot button topic and this one left me all sorts of fired up. Mike just couldn’t catch a break in this one, but he proved everyone wrong by taking a test in his skivvies. Which also, only in the 80s!

Worst Episodes

  • Episodes 19, 20 and 21: Oh good God. I can’t even write about these in any depth because it will only get me all worked up. All you need to know is that they were horrendously, gouge-your-eyes-out boring and are better left in the 80s.

There you have it! Season 1 in a nutshell. Join me tomorrow as we enter into bold new territory, otherwise known as season two. 

 

Season 1 Episode 22: Extra Lap

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Wow! Do you know what today is? Today is the final episode of season one! But don’t expect a dramatic cliff hanger. This is the 80s and, in 80s sitcom life, season finales are no big deal. Do you remember when season finales were just an average episode, then the show ended for a few months and there was no hullabaloo when the next season rolled around? I do. It was a glorious time.

In this season finale, we tackle the biggest of all topics: death. But we also do it the Seaver family way, which involves a ton of lightness and the occasional deeply serious moment that leaves us wondering if the Seaver family might just be the most perfect television family ever. Let’s get to it.

Uncle Bob is in town and what we gather from early moments is that everybody loves him to pieces. But then, when Mike goes to check on him one morning, he finds Uncle Bob dead. Yikes. Imagine the weight of discovering a dead relative in your home at the age of 15? It’s a good thing Mike’s dad is a psychiatrist, because I think he’s going to have a lot of emotions to unpack. And this is exactly what happens.

We see the Seavers mourning, sharing memories of Uncle Bob in a series of montages that are about a character we’ve never seen before on the show and will never see again. At first I’m wondering whether this episode will actually deal with grief in a meaningful way or whether we’re just going to pay homage to some character to which we’ve not had the chance to develop any emotional attachment.

But then we get into it. Mike wakes up in the middle of the night, hungry, and apparently with a hankering for a big swig of buttermilk straight from the carton. This is strange enough, but then things get really strange when Uncle Bob comes waltzing into the kitchen. Needless to say, Mike is shaken. Is he seeing things? Is he going crazy? Is there a legit ghost in the kitchen? Mike’s determined never to find out. He’s going to do the rational thing and try to avoid sleeping ever again. 

Jason, being the ever-observant parent, finally notices that Mike seems hell bent on avoiding sleep. And this is where we encounter quite possibly the most perfect parental conversation about death that I can imagine. Mike tells his dad he saw his Uncle Bob in the kitchen the night prior. Many parents would dismiss or try to brush this under the rug, but not Jason Seaver.  Jason believes that Mike saw Uncle Bob, even if it was only his mind playing tricks on him. He also believes that Mike is working through some aspects of Uncle Bob’s death that he’s not quite ready to consciously deal with. Whoa. In some moments, I genuinely want to hire Jason Seaver to be my own personal therapist and this is one of those moments. Imagine not dismissing your child when he essentially tells you he saw a ghost, but instead helping him see that his mind is working through something big, which is perfectly normal. Yeah, I know.

That very night, Mike decides to confront the ghost of Uncle Bob and here we get to the crux of Mike’s grief: he is trying to make sense of sudden loss, the kind you can’t anticipate and the kind you’re 100% not ready for.  Mike has not been ready to let go. But after a heart to heart with the ghost of his uncle, Mike is able to make peace with his death and sleep soundly once more.

With that, we bring season one to a close. Hallelujah!

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

  • Is buttermilk for more than baking? Should I give a cold glass of buttermilk a try? I mean, if it’s good enough for Mike Seaver…
  • Where can I find my own Jason Seaver?
  • Is Mike able to process grief at a rate more rapid than the average human?
  • Why does everyone else in Mike’s family seem relatively unfazed by Uncle Bob’s death?