“Right On The Target But Wide Of The Mark” (“Weathering Heights” Recap)

In one way I can relate to Alex's disappointing story tonight:


Back in my younger days there was someone I used to be able to defeat at Scrabble all the time with very little difficulty. Until one night I couldn't come up with the right letters to save my life, and she finally won – fair and square. I wasn't sore about it, but I think it was years before we ever played again.

But, on the other hand, I didn't go around doing an “in your face” dance like Alex did to Luke. So, I actually wasn't very happy with Alex this week (especially with the “fake revelation that turns into more gloating” ending). Yes, I've said before that happens once in a while – even Alex can go too far (even by her most incurable fans' standards) on occasion. Tonight was just one of those unfortunate nights when you couldn't blame her family for trying to give her a comeuppance¹.

And that story went totally in the opposite direction than I thought it was going to go. When they started with Alex not knowing what for her should have been a simple crossword clue (I'm a terrible crossword solver but I knew the answer was “Eureka!” right away – I was expecting Claire to come up with it first in a role reversal from “The Butler's Escape”), I thought they were going to do a story where Alex legitimately suddenly became not nearly as smart as she's always been. (I'm no expert – can mononucleosis affect the brain in an extreme case²?)

That would have made for a far more interesting and dramatic (if potentially scary) story, especially if that dance she did in a flashback (the one that was posted as a GIF) was actually in the present as a sign of her getting her mojo back.

I think that's what made tonight so disappointing. I'd much rather have a story where I can root for and/or commiserate with Alex (which usually happens no matter what the writers are trying to do), and we just didn't get that tonight.  Even worse, we actually got teased at the end.

Alex's Line Of The Week: (As she tried to come to grips with losing to Luke) ”What if it's more than that? What if mono permanently changed my brain? I've always defined myself by my intelligence and if that's gone, who am I?”

 If only that line had been the centerpiece of what I wanted the story to be (as long as it had a happy ending)...

And on that bummer of a note, it's time for our first break of the season. And after the Halloween episode in two weeks, there's another preemption (that same tired old music award show they air every November). So we're probably looking at close to a month at least before anything interesting happens.

Which is November 9th, the night after Election Night. Given the insanity we've gone through so far, who knows if something really crazy happens that causes another (unplanned) preemption?

¹Doubly unfortunate was that overall this was probably the worst episode since “The Day We Almost Died”, and that includes the 5 Alex-less episodes that have aired since that atrocity. There were a couple of chuckles and a half-decent moment at the end but there were far more cringe-worthy moments.  And I couldn't even sympathize that much with Luke and Claire, given how they treated Alex two weeks ago.

²According to the Wikipedia article on mononucleosis, encephalitis, the brain disorder usually associated with mosquitoes, is a rare side effect. So, yes, it is possible but highly unlikely.