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OK, so this post won't be about the question of Life, The Universe, And Everything (and those mice would surely have been better off picking Alex's brain instead of Arthur Dent's), but I will make some guesses as to answers to some of the questions about Alex's upcoming year. So let's do this:

1. Will Alex graduate from high school?

OK, on the surface, this is very much a question with a “Duh!” answer – she's in at least the top two in her class – how does she not graduate? Well, of course I think she will, so my answer is Yes. On the other hand...

If this were real life, I'd have about 99.999% confidence in my “Yes” answer. However, since this is fiction, I have to downgrade my confidence to a mere 99%. There is always the chance of something happening for the sake of suspense (especially in the next-to-last or last episode of the season), such as a surprise failure in a critical final exam (like what nearly happened to Richie, Ralph and Potsie on Happy Days), or maybe Alex gets implicated in a cheating scandal.

I think one of these scenarios could crop up near the end, but I think it will all get straightened out (Alex gets to take a “last-chance” make-up exam and/or gets to clear her name of any accusations).

2. Will Alex be valedictorian?

This one's more of a toss-up. Right now, just as in junior high, it's basically a two horse race between Alex and Sanjay Patel, her constant rival. Alex won out four years ago, thanks to an ill-timed robot incident that befell Sanjay. I'm pretty sure she can't count on that happening again.

Still, I think the answer to this one will probably be Yes as well, since I think we're going to see some sort of closure to what happened in “See You Next Fall”, where Alex was talked out of giving a scathing valedictorian speech by Haley. Since she's going to be separated from most of her classmates after senior year, this time she may feel even stronger about taking some parting shots, since there's less chance of ending up a “social piranha” (Haley's words, not mine :) ). I think someone will talk her out of it (Mitch, being the smartest of the rest of the family, reminding her about potential networking issues down the line is my best guess), leading to what I hope would be a more serious but still positive speech than the last time.

One alternative scenario could crop up where she is not valedictorian but still gives a speech: She runs for and gets elected Senior President. Of course, given her lack of popularity with her classmates this would be difficult if she attempted it.

3. Where does Alex end up going to college?

Obviously, this is the biggest question of the season, and the one with the most implication for what the show does with Alex next year and beyond (barring of course the 1% possibility of question 1 being “no” kicking this can down the road to Season 7).

As I pointed out a week or so ago, Alex is considering going to an eastern school, and her parents are not going to be happy about her going far away from home. If Phil and Claire can talk her into staying close to home, there are schools in Southern California (e.g. Cal Tech) that have the academic prestige that Alex wants. A compromise option would probably be Stanford up north – I once calculated it would be about a 5 ½ hour drive from there to the Dunphy house (at normal freeway speeds – given it's Alex doing the driving it would probably take longer). Alex would probably not want to do that on a weekly basis but monthly might make this palatable to both her and her parents.

Right now, my guess is that Alex goes to a local college, since that keeps her on the show on a weekly basis. If she goes east, she''ll probably be written out of the show, except for an occasional holiday appearance. If she goes north to Stanford, we probably see her at home about once a month or so, with the potential for the remaining episodes for them to go a similar Skype-like route that they used during Haley's brief stint in college in Season 4. That scenario would also keep open the possibility of an episode or two with an on-campus story for Alex (well, I suppose they could do both of these as well if she goes east, but I think that unlikely – they could also conceivably use her campus life as a spin-off show, but while I'd love to see such a show that's even less likely).

4. Will Alex get a steady boyfriend this year?

Sadly, I think No. There's already going to be Haley and Andy's on again/off again relationship, and Manny's going to be getting a steady girlfriend this year (and may just drag Luke into getting one as well). It would probably be overkill for Alex to join this party this year, but hopefully she'll at least get a date or two (including hopefully one to senior prom, and hopefully this time they make more of a story out of it than they did with “Baby On Board” - but that's a rant for another day).

5. But what about just getting a friend or two (either gender) – will that happen?

Unless she befriends Sanjay, probably not. I just don't see this happening either.

That's all for now – if a press release comes out for the second episode (“Do Not Push”) today I'll probably comment later.