"No Time For The Motivation"

It's about 8:30 in the morning, it's my day off, yet I feel like I have a million things to do, yet I'm not sure how much of a fig (no, not the Fig whom Alex met on Christmas vacation) I give about it.  The biggest reason for this antipathy?  Tonight's "I Don't Know How She Does It" looks so uninspiring from an Alex standpoint that it broke my "whatever" meter.

Anticipation Level: Very Low.

Emotional Moment Potential Level: Very Low.

How little do I think Alex will be involved if she's even in tonight's episode?  Let's just say I hope the show's staff remembered to water Ariel during filming.

But, again, that's assuming she's even there, which brings me to:

Chance Of An Alex-less Episode: High. Keep in mind this is based on averages - so far, there have been 15 out of 158 episodes where Alex has gone missing, or just under 10 percent (right now it's actually about 9.5%).  So when I say there's a high chance she's missing, it's still only going to be about maybe 20-25% that it happens, but the chance tonight is higher than it would normally be.

(For perspective, if I was doing this blog a couple of years ago, then I would have rated the chances of her not being in "Las Vegas" as about 75%, which is about as high a probability as I'd ever reach.  And I would have been incorrect with the episode with the second highest Alex-less potential, last year's "Fight Or Flight" which I had at about 60% by showtime.)

This is mostly because, again, like the last two weeks, Alex has not been mentioned or seen once in the lead up to tonight.  But unlike those last two weeks it's also a gut instinct thing - because I just have a feeling that there isn't a lot of reason for her to be there.

Oddly enough, Alex and Maisie being at the Dunphy home (instead of their dorm) last week actually makes me slightly more optimistic that she'll be there like normal.  The press release mentioned that the "kids" (none named) were happy that Claire is ably keeping up with the housework in spite of her increased workload.  If Alex is still living at CalTech then she's probably not going to be one of them.  But if she has moved back home (which was strongly hinted at by the fact she was doing schoolwork with Maisie at home) she should (but not necessarily will) be there.

That is probably the one interesting aspect of tonight:  the search for the definitive answer of whether Alex is still living at CalTech or is back home might end tonight.  Or it might not.