“'Cause You're Everywhere To Me”

Tonight's “Spanks For The Memories” could be the most unpredictable episode ever. At least until “Wine Weekend” airs in two weeks.

Between 1) only two stories being known about tonight, and neither one involving the Dunphys (let alone Alex), 2) this episode was supposed to air last week, but was reversed at almost the last minute with “Written In The Stars”, and we don't know why that happened, and were they supposed to air this way or are they out of intended order, 3) whether or not there will (ever) be a follow-up to Alex's story from last week, and 4) I haven't seen a promo or preview for tonight, so it could still be Alex-less, there are so many wild cards out there that a straight flush might not win.


Anticipation Level: Medium. Honestly, I have no idea how excited/fearful I should be about tonight. If last week's episode was set before this week's (i.e. the switch came because someone realized the two episodes were out of order) then the potential love triangle between Alex, Haley and Professor Fennerman could be in play this week. But if the switch were for another reason, then obviously we'll see nothing, since nothing's happened yet¹.

And even if the episode sequence is temporally correct, there's no guarantee of anything happening, particularly with the professor probably not appearing in this episode (he's not listed in the press release on the guest character list – I added “probably” in case there was an omission).


I'm going straight down the middle with this one since while the odds are against something happening, there's enough chance to keep my fingers crossed.

Emotional Moment Potential: Medium to High. Again, this is only if tonight's episode is airing in it's proper place – we know Alex isn't happy about where she stands right now in the pecking order, and at some point we're probably going to see that unhappiness manifest itself.

Game Changing Potential: Low to Medium. I'd have this higher if the professor was appearing tonight – one way or another the chance exists that however this story arc plays out Alex's academic life could be affected. Without him in the picture this week that is unlikely but not totally out of the question.

Chance Of An Alex-less Episode: Medium to High. And yet, for all this speculation, the whole thing may very well not matter, because there is a better than average chance that Alex might not even be there.

If nothing else, history may not be on our side here. Over the last few seasons, many episodes containing Alex's most emotionally charged stories have either followed or been followed by an Alex-less episode (e.g. after Sanjay broke up with her in “The Closest Case” she didn't appear in “She Crazy”). It's purely an emotional gut instinct on my part, but I feel that history could very well repeat itself tonight, and here it doesn't matter a lot if the episodes are airing out of order or not.

In Which Story Do I Want To See Alex Be A Part? We still don't know what the Dunphy story will be this week, so by default that's the one.

Are There Any Other Questions? I think I've covered everything. Maybe.

Oh, there's one more wildcard at my end – a storm is coming through here tonight (rain and/or snow) so rain fade could knock me out of watching this tonight anyway. You'll hear something from me tonight (sooner if something pops up which clarifies anything), but, like everything else, I'm not sure what I'll be saying.
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¹ I think Eddy was mucking around in the time-space continuum again when I typed that sentence.