“We May Never Pass This Way Again” (Season 6 Wrap-Up)

Seventeen episodes into this season, after the Alex-less “Closet? You'll Love It!”, I was ready to make this end-of-season post a rant-fest, as in “How dare they treat Alex like that, blah, blah, blah...”

And then the last seven episodes happened, with an unprecedented focus on Alex (six out of the seven episodes had at a least a small story about her). But while they saved the season from being a near total disaster, did they save the season, period?


Sadly, and barely, not quite, for four reasons:

1) The first 17 episodes still happened, and not only did they hardly scratch the surface of Alex's stories, for the most part what they did do was treat her not very nicely:

• Having her whole family turn against her because they felt she ruined their perfect summer;
• Having Alex go sleepless for three nights straight studying for a test; 
• Having Alex go through a breakup for the most implausible of reasons (her boyfriend had to move to Africa to be with his surgeon father); 
• Then having her rebound with a boy who had run afoul of the law at least once (thankfully that didn't go anywhere);
• That horrific “makeover” that Haley convinced Alex to go through;
• That botched (in more than one way) college interview for Princeton;
• And, in general, how it seemed they always had her melt down in the face of adversity.
   

2) Even with the amazing things that happened in the last 7 episodes there was one disturbing trend that ran through the first two: Alex turning to alcohol to cope with some unexpected turns of events (her not getting into Harvard, and then her sudden loss of confidence as she wondered would she still be as smart when she got to CalTech). Although in fairness this trend did not continue, it still bears watching to see what happens next season if things don't go smoothly in her freshman year. It would make for compelling television if it were to fuel a total meltdown but I'm not sure I want to see it.

3) There still was so much they could have done, at the end of the season. I wanted to see a story when Alex finally made her decision where to go to college (I still believe she didn't make her final decision about CalTech until after her scene with Jay in “Grill, Interrupted”), and how Phil and Claire would react. I wanted to see her make her (co-)valedictorian speech. And a story about her senior prom (did she even go, and if so was it with Sanjay?) would have been nice too.

4) The final episode, although set at a graduation party in her honor, really needed at least a little more emphasis on Alex – they needed to let her give a speech at the end thanking everyone, and another speech from another family member (my preference would have been for Phil to ditch the silly song and just speak from his heart). Doing this alone would have moved my final thumb from “down” to “up”.

Still, it was nice to see Alex get so much focus (especially in those last 7 episodes) for a change,  even if not everything went right. I just wish more things did.  And we did get a few wanted emotional moments along the way.

A quick list of my top 5 favorite moments (not all were happy):

1. Alex's kiss with Sanjay
2. Her emotional meltdown at the music festival
3. The heart-to-heart between Alex and Jay about her being the family leader when he's gone
4. Alex and Haley bonding at the movie theater
5. Alex actually looking relaxed under Phil's "Happy Helmet" "Real Head-Scratcher (TM)"

And so, I'll be on a semi-hiatus for the summer – I'll post a few things (hopefully a couple of times a month) but certainly not the ten+ posts I've averaged over the season. After that, we'll have to see what Alex's role is going forward – if it diminishes (clearly her role will be nowhere as prominent as this past season but it's entirely possible they might have even less for her to do than they had the first five seasons) so will my posts. But more on those possibilities over the summer.

Finally, thank you to everybody who has viewed my musings over the past eight months – 2,300 page views may be a blip on the radar in the Internet world but it's still a lot more than I expected when I started this blog.