“Every Turn Leads Me To A New Dead End” (Third Quarter Review)

Well (for the most part) there's two months of my life I'll never get back. My room isn't as big a mess as the third quarter of Season 6 turned out to be for Alex, although it did get interesting as it ended.

There actually was a hint of optimism as the quarter started – word got out (through articles about a guest star) that the first episode of the quarter (“Rash Decisions”) would have a story about Alex and a college interview. And there was “Valentine's Day 4: Twisted Sister” on the horizon, with hopes that maybe we'd get a story about Alex and another possible date.

And then it all fell apart. The press release for “Rash Decisions” made no mention of Alex's college interview, which meant the story was probably not going to be as important as I thought it should be.

And that's how it turned out. Instead of getting a story that took Alex's interview seriously and given her a chance to shine, the writers decided to play it pretty much for laughs, by having Alex go completely against her grain at the sight of an interviewer from Princeton with a chip on her shoulder about how all the kids she was interviewing were all alike. Alex's attempt to stand out by taking one of Haley's rebellious stories as her own went about as badly as expected, and probably wasn't going to work even before she accidentally called her interviewer a “slut”.

To make matters worse, the story wasn't even given a proper ending, although I think it's safe to say that Princeton was no longer going to be interested in her after that.

And then not only did we not get a date story for Alex in “Valentine's Day 4: Twisted Sister”, we didn't even get to see her at all, as the episode was virtually all about the adults (Manny was the only kid to even appear on the show). On the other hand, I suppose it was good news that Alex wasn't the “twisted sister” in the title (it was Gloria's disturbed sister from “Fulgencio”).

But at least we were spared back-to-back Alex-less episodes, as she and her siblings had a small story in “Fight or Flight” (where I wasn't expecting anything at all), in which her and Haley's attempts to help Luke break up with an old girlfriend via smartphone text backfired, as Luke's new girlfriend got wind of the text and broke up with him (and dissed Alex and Haley in the process). It was far from a game changing episode for Alex, but we've certainly seen worse.

The most interesting thing that we saw from Alex in “Connection Lost” (a surprisingly good episode filmed completely on Apple branded products) was her essay to Yale she kept revising and sending to Claire for her views. It gave us a bit more of a glimpse into her scholastic life, including that she once built her own robot for a competition, and that spends her free periods at school as a teacher's aide (although honestly I'd rather she use some of that time to relax). There was also one downside of that essay – her mentioning that she's in (only) the top two-percent of her class. Does that mean she's no longer number one in her class?

And I still love that smirk she got on her face when that book about maternity came for Haley.

But then she was absent again for “Closet? You'll Love It!”, an episode where all the other kids had prominent roles in the various stories (even little Joe had a role as Gloria was trying to wean him off pacifiers). There was not even a mention of where she was, as if she never existed.

(One prediction from my last quarterly review that I nailed: I did note last year the two Alex-less episodes both happened in the third quarter, and that held true again this year.)

The final episode of the quarter, “Spring Break”, while probably the best episode of the season so far (I'm still thinking about it, but it may knock “Come Fly With Me” out of my top five), was also its most heartbreaking, as far as Alex is concerned.

It's not just that Harvard turned her down, it's how she chose to react to this news that has me worried, by willingly going to a music festival with Haley and doing things that fit more into Haley's lifestyle - drinking alcohol, climbing one of the stages and dancing (she was very lucky not to get arrested for that, which would have been a horrible game changing moment for her – as it is I hope nobody shot and YouTube'd a video of that and had it go viral), then starting to get into a van with some total stranger named Weasel (which, crazily enough, almost makes her next door neighbor Ronnie, Jr. look passable as a potential boyfriend).

Luckily for Alex, Haley stopped her from taking that potentially tragic turn. This led to what will likely be one of Alex's most memorable, and saddest, rants ever, as she questions why she ever bothered going through the last 12 years of her life studying her brains out when at that moment it looked like it was going to mean nothing. Haley intervened again to try and remind her that everything would turn out OK, but one wonders how much mental damage has been done to Alex, especially with all she's gone through this year as it is.

In all, there was so much disappointment in this third quarter of the season, with not much going well for Alex.

And so here we are – just six episodes left in the season to play out in the next eight weeks (assuming the season ends May 20th). Will things turn out OK for Alex in the end? There is definitely potential for some good moments (a potential romance which seemed highly unlikely at the start of the season), but also just as much potential for bitter disappointment (she may not even get to be valedictorian, and who knows how many other top schools reject her), including the possibility her story fades away long before the season does.

It's looks like it's going to be a very interesting last quarter.  I'll try to have more thoughts and guesses on what's to come tomorrow, but no promises - it's the last day of my vacation and I'll probably be down in the dumps.