“But You Pretend Like I Don't Know” (“Winner Winner Turkey Dinner” Recap)

So Alex actually got away with one, tonight. I guess being the afterthought on the show does have its perks once in a blue moon.

While just about everyone else ended up having to admit shortcomings (and it turned out to not just be all about the adults, as that sneak preview of the opening hinted earlier today), Alex's procrastination, which forced her to use Claire as a school study test subject instead of a monkey, never came up. And she never did have to admit her cheering on Claire was solely about that project and not about actually being supportive of her mother.  I was really waiting for that whole pre-dinner scene to come full circle and put Alex in the cross-hairs of someone else's accusation.

And yet I'm not sure I shouldn't feel guilty about believing that's a good thing.

Forget that – I'm not going to feel guilty. Given how often Alex usually ends up on the short end of the stick, I'll gladly take a scene where she basically gets to sit back and watch everyone else throw each other under the bus, after she added more than a little fuel to the fire herself, of course, calling out Gloria then (indirectly) Claire.

The only thing I can't quite give her a pass on is why did she pick on Gloria? Alex really didn't need to call her out, IMO – Gloria wasn't part of her positive/negative reinforcement study, and why should Alex have cared how Gloria got to 100,000 steps?

All in all, though, we got more out of Alex than we could have expected without her getting into her own predicament, so I'm happy about that.

Alex's Line Of The Night: ”Thankfully after it's done (Claire's 10K) I'll still be able to give out the banana I bought.” It was good and funny to see a little old-fashioned Alex snark come out.

So it's yet another break already. I'd say we were spoiled by having six straight new episodes to start the season, but, given how some of those went for Alex...