“There's Always A Chance, A Tiny Spark Will Remain”

[9:13 AM Jan. 11 - Updated to revise my prediction about the Emotional Moment Potential.]

We've come up to the final episode of the first half (and the final episode until at least the start of February¹), “Sarge & Pea”. Alex is part of a story evolving at her coffee shop job as Haley and Cam visit (the latter with a huge chip on his shoulder which is at the moment the main focus of that story), but will she be more involved than the last time we saw her there (“The Alliance”), or is she destined to just be part of the scenery again?

Anticipation Level: Medium. Well, Alex should have a decision to make in the very near future: Stay at this job, go back to CalTech, or try to do both? In real life the new semester started last week, so if this episode is set around then one would think she would have to make that decision tonight, with the next new episode at least three weeks away.  Unless someone makes the decision for her (there's one possible scenario which I'll get to shortly).

Of course, there's also every chance this gets completely ignored (like many things involving Alex's life), and the main part of this story probably still involves Cam so I'm not super optimistic about tonight, especially since among all tonight's stories this one probably will get the least focus.

On the other hand, there are two reasons for hope: 1) There is a bit of recent history of big things happening for Alex in the last episodes of the first halves of past seasons (“Under Pressure” and “Spread Your Wings”), and 2) there is at least one outside person (based off the promo photos) with whom Alex possibly interacts (but there are others where he interacts just with Haley, too, so even that night not amount to much).

And finally there is the fact we are going on another lengthy break: Any chance to see Alex when we have to wait for the next one almost by default ramps up the anticipation level. So, in balance, medium anticipation seems about right.

Emotional Moment Potential: Low To Medium. I do see one possible crushing scenario for Alex: what if Cam's actions in his story causes Alex to lose her job (especially if she already decided she wanted to stay there and forego CalTech)?  (I suppose the same could happen with Haley and that stranger, but that seems a lot less likely.)

[EDIT:  The more I think about it, seeing those photos where Alex, Cam and Haley start fiddling around with that tablet, which I'm guessing belongs to the lady that Cam is feuding with this week,  makes me think that is more likely to happen than when I originally wrote this.  So I've stricken out the "Low" part of this prediction.]

I don't see her possible interaction with that stranger being directly emotional (unless it's her boss and the above happens).

Game Changing Potential: Medium. Another “split the difference” rating: obviously if Alex is going to make a decision tonight this will be a huge game changer episode. If not, it won't.

Are There Any Other Questions? Nothing yet.

It looks like another “cross the fingers” night is in store. At least this week it will be tonight (unlike last week's wait). If anything comes up today (I've seen no promo commercial yet) I'll let you know, otherwise you know when to look for me.
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¹ “Grab It” will air on January 25th. I've heard no word yet about February 1st.