“Livin' On A Prayer” (Second Quarter Review)

To put it mildly, it's been trying times for Alex these past few weeks.


In at least one way there was a mixed blessing in her short story in “Queer Eyes, Full Hearts”. We finally saw her senior year story advance after several weeks where not much of note happened to her. Unfortunately what we did see was not pretty, as Alex would spend three straight nights without sleep studying for a test. This was a sad turn of events for her character, as basically it showed that her therapy from last season was ultimately not very helpful, as she was actually putting herself through even more stress than before. I said at the time that I was really getting worried for her, and I still am (even though not much more has been said about her studies since that episode).

However, at least in “Three Turkeys”, for a brief time she was willing to at least have (gasp) some fun with Claire, including some time under Stimpy's “Happy Helmet” Phil's head scratching helmet from “The Feud”. She actually seemed content for a few moments. Unfortunately a stray newspaper fired from a T-shirt gun ended that, as the subsequent power failure forced her and the rest of her family to scramble over to Jay's house to get ready for Thanksgiving.

Interestingly from a big picture standpoint the most interesting thing to happen came before Alex even appeared. Claire mentioned that she was going to miss Alex (when she went away to college) after hearing a typically less than intelligently stimulating conversation between Haley and Luke – a sign that Alex may still be leaning towards leaving home next year.

And then came the emotional roller coaster for Alex that was “Strangers In The Night”. When white roses start randomly appear in the Dunphys' mailbox, pretty much everybody in the family assumes they're for Haley. But Alex thinks they're for her as she actually has a boyfriend for once.

Unfortunately, when asked about who this boy is, after she can't get her phone to work to show them a picture, she has to show them a supermarket ad in which he is modeling pork chops (no he's not Lady Gaga – he's holding up a package of them. And, for all we know maybe he can actually sing too). Needless to say, this sparks some doubt among the family (especially Claire and Haley) that maybe Alex is just making all this up.

The good news is that the boy really is her boyfriend, and the weird news is his name is Alec. The bad news is he comes over and abruptly ends their relationship, because he has to move to Africa to be with his surgeon father. This scene was probably the most heartbreaking scene of the season to date, and I don't know how Alex didn't just totally burst into tears once the door closed (we learned earlier that she had been crying when she couldn't get a date for homecoming, though we never saw that scene). I could see in her face that she was definitely close to losing it.

The last thing Alec left for Alex was a coffee cup with his name on it (except the last letter “c” was smudged). But that cup would be turn out to be another piece of “evidence” to her family that the relationship didn't happen as they assume that smudged “c” was actually an “x”. Later that night Phil and Claire went upstairs to talk to her about it, and that went about as well as their talk to try and get her to go back on her humanitarian mission in the first episode of the season – quite badly.

She does try to mention that she was able to set up a “rebound” date with a somewhat troubled (he went to juvenile hall for shoplifting) new kid named Teddy, but her words kept matching items in her room and Phil and Claire thought Teddy was fake too. It was only later that they found out that he was real, including the fact that it was he who sent the roses (to Alex).

Not much of note happened to Alex in the next episode (“Haley's 21st Birthday"), where she was spending that Friday night studying while helping with Luke and Manny to babysit (a suddenly curious about where babies come from) Lily.

We came back from holiday break with the Dunphys (and Manny for some reason) headed out to breakfast in “The Day We Almost Died”. The title turns about to be a little misleading, as while they spin out avoiding a driver who ran a stop sign there was no contact and it honestly didn't look that bad, considering how bad the family's driving has been historically. But it did apparently shake up Alex quite a bit (along with Haley's words about how she was afraid she had lost “you” - i.e. Alex, supposedly), as she agreed to let Haley give her a makeover.

Which only turned out be an even worse decision that her going on that humanitarian project – not only did a waxing job on her upper lip go badly (including a cell phone picture of her that Haley posted while taking a selfie that cost Alex a potential prom date), but the new outfit that Haley put her in, was, quite frankly, out of Haley's comfort zone, let alone Alex's. Basically, her look was a metaphor for the horror show this episode as a whole turned out to be (arguably the worst one of the series). And she couldn't go back, since Haley threw out the clothes she started the day in for no good reason.

And then to top it all off, Haley finally mentioned that the “you” that she almost lost was her cell phone, and not Alex. Needless to say, that did not sit well with Alex, who proceeded to try out some of her newly learned judo moves (just the skill a girl with burgeoning emotional problems needs) on Haley as revenge.

And then we ended the first half with “The Big Guns”, another killing time episode from Alex's standpoint (it was actually otherwise a very good episode) in which her only interesting development was that she was surprisingly tabbed by Luke in the end to give him tips on how to flirt with their next door neighbor's daughter.

And that's where we are at the halfway mark of the season. We still don't have a lot of clues as to where Alex is going next season, and to be honest some of the dark turns she has taken in this second quarter make me wonder if they're planning on something really drastic (as in maybe having something happen to her that forces her to repeat senior year or go to a lesser college?)

One possible piece of good(?) news: 3 new episode titles have been released (in addition to the previously known “Closet? You'll Love It!” and “Connection Lost”), and at least 2 have some interesting potential:

• ”Valentine's Day: Twisted Sister” (looks like probably another Alex and Haley story, although there's always a chance it has to do with Phil and 80s music again)
• ”Rash Decisions” (I'd guess “rash” will have 2 meanings – one or more family members will suffer from a rash, while someone makes a major [rash] decision they may end up regretting – we know Alex would definitely be a candidate for that)
• ”Spring Break” (this one probably airs after sweeps in March – I'm not sure where Alex might fit in to this one)

Hopefully some good things will finally happen for Alex. On the other hand, I'd be surprised if we don't have at least one (if not two) Alex-less episodes this quarter (last season's “Three Dinners” and “Las Vegas” were the 13th and 18th episodes).

That's all for now – I did confirm that both this week and next week have repeats so the next new episode won't be until February 4th. I might post some more retro recaps in the interim but I don't know.