“(Like) A Sunday Morning, It Came Without A Warning” (“Heavy Is The Head” Recap)

A quick scheduling note: next week's episode “Finding Fizbo” will air 30 minutes earlier than usual, at 8:30. ABC is continuing an all-week mini-documentary series (“When We Rise”) that night at 9:00 and decided to move Modern Family up instead of pre-empting it (like they did with a mini-series last February sweeps). I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad sign about the future. If you're planning on recording you may want to double-check everything.

Anyway, back to tonight's episode that came out of nowhere with an actual Alex story:

There was one very, very good thing about tonight – it was nice to see Alex with a story basically all to herself (with only brief interactions with Manny and Haley). That's something I wish we would see much, much more often. I guess I sort of finally got one of my wishes I made before the season started.

At least the other two stories look like they won't turn around to haunt Alex like I feared (although I'm not 100 percent sure trying to turn that lot into parking will be as easy as it sounds – let's keep an eye on that one for a little longer). Both Phil and Claire look safe for now.

As for Alex's story, well, at least we're moving – she has gone back to school, and we did see her life at the coffee shop (of course, we never got to see the steps that got her there, but I think I've ranted plenty about that). But maybe now we're going a little (?) too fast.

When I was going through in my mind the various scenarios for how Alex would handle her future (a blog column I never got around to writing during the holiday break), I did think that trying to both work and go to school was a possibility, albeit not a likely one¹. The biggest reason why was because I thought trying to do both would be a case of Alex biting off more than she could chew, especially given how much time she needs to invest to succeed at CalTech. And that was if Alex stayed as a barista and didn't advance further up the corporate ladder (OK, it's a coffee shop – it's more like a corporate step stool).

So, naturally, Alex found a way to throw herself under the bus (I think she really was trying to get fired when she went to the manager with the staff's demands²), and now instead of just being a barista she has to take on the duties of the manager as well, which probably means long hours at the coffee shop and for not a lot of pay (she probably would be an exempt employee and not get paid overtime for working more than 40 hours which is probably what she will be stuck doing). Not to mention, once again, she probably lost out on a couple of new friends (who will probably quit and leave her with even more work).

I think she'll still try to make a go of it, at least for a while, even though she might not have any friends at the coffee shop anymore (one of the reasons why she stayed). I just wonder if carrying yet another large load of work might lead to another serious meltdown later (she now would have school, many hours of homework and a job). As worrisome as that would be, however, it might finally give us that emotional Alex moment this season has lacked.

Hopefully we also get a moment where Alex asks Claire for some advice about running things.

Alex's Line Of The Night: ”I thought I'd quit the coffee shop when I went back to school, but I'm kind of loving it. Plus it taught me something important - if you pretend to be what people want you to be, you can have as many friends as you want. [emphasis mine] God, I would love to have another crack at high school.”

I'm not sure if that bold part is really true or not (and I thought she already learned that lesson in "See You Next Fall" by getting invited to a party after changing her speech), but, then again, I've never really cared about having any friends in the first place so what would I know.

All in all, tonight was a lot better than I had any right to expect, even if I wouldn't exactly call the ending a win for Alex. Trying to balance work and school may lead to a few more bumps in the road for Alex, but at least she's back on that road.

It's nice to be wrong for good reasons sometimes.
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¹ The most likely scenario would have been for Alex to quit her barista job and go back to school, and that was her original plan as we saw. The second most likely scenario would have been the opposite – stay at her job and not go back to CalTech. The least likely (except in the paranoid part of my mind that always expects the worst for Alex) was for her to lose her job yet not (get to) go back to school.

² I'm pretty sure if I ever tried that at my job I'd be told where not to let the door hit me on the way out.