“She's Losing Her Mind. She's Fallen Behind.” (“A Stereotypical Day” Recap)

So finally, after 241 posts of holding back, I've finally come up with the perfect time to use a line from “Nobody's Home” (my all-time favorite song) for a post title.

And, truth be told, given how badly tonight went for Alex, I probably could have used the entire bridge of that song, but I didn't want a paragraph-long title so I settled for the above two sentences.

Which brings me to what happened tonight. You can probably already guess that this is not going to be pleasant.

Ironically enough, I guess the biggest problem for Alex was the fact that everybody was home, making her life miserable, on top of her being sick. I had a feeling I was not going to be happy with the rest of the Dunphy family at the end of the night, and I was definitely not wrong about that. So who treated Alex the worst?

I'll cut Phil some slack – he did go through a pretty traumatic experience (at least there wasn't a clown in that locked closet) and needed some comfort, but he was still being a bit selfish by treating Alex like little more than a house pet just to make himself feel better without considering her feelings.

It's a tie between Claire and Haley for with whom I'm next most unhappy. Claire basically forced Alex to play bad cop to her good cop so that she wouldn't have to yell at everyone else. And Haley was being particularly cynical by pretending to help Alex get out of the house, just so Alex wouldn't figure out and blurt out to everyone that she got fired.

And then there's Luke. I am so angry that he'd steal all of Alex's hard work just so he could be lazy and keep his little summer/after school job, that I am simply at a total loss for words.

And then, to (almost literally) add insult to injury, they couldn't even give poor Alex even one small win to end things, as she was forced to sit out of school for at least the fall semester. Let's just hope this is merely a small bump in the road for her¹ (at least she saved herself from potentially flunking out, but will she pressure herself to catch up?), but I'm far, far from optimistic about that right now, especially given that we know she has a story coming up later about possibly questioning her commitment to academics after she starts that barista job.

So in the end, this episode probably lands on two of the three “Poor Alex” lists I made last summer. It definitely goes past “Crazy Train” to the top of the “angry” list, while I haven't decided yet where it fits on the “sad” list (it's at least number four, above “Under Pressure”, because her life trajectory at least didn't hit a roadblock there as it did tonight).

Alex's Line Of The Night: ”I'll tell you what happened here – the same thing that's been happening all damn day! Me, dealing with animals who don't care that we are air conditioning the outside, and insist on rotting their brains by watching vapid housewives spit wine on each other. And you (Luke), can't even be bothered to use a plate!” That was definitely one of her classic (and now all-too-frequent) meltdowns.

As for me, I haven't quite gone into full-on cry mode, I think because I'm more angry than sad, but I'll probably get there before I sleep.

I guess all that's left is to get my annual “yes, this is just fiction, but” post ready. Maybe.

¹ Just like I hope in real life Ariel deferring going to UCLA for year is only a bump in the road for her. Again, life imitates art, I guess (or is it vice versa?)