“Sing For The Laughter, Sing For the Tear” (“A Sketchy Area” Recap)

For a while, I was beginning to think that one scene they showed between Alex and Gloria was going to be the only time that story would even be mentioned.  Then, at least they got back to it at the end.

And then, it looked like Alex would be the only person who appeared on tonight's episode¹ to not get at least a partial happy ending.  Then that last nice little talk with Jay happened (another pairing we never get enough of, like with Alex and Phil), and at least her spirits were lifted at least a little bit.

Unfortunately, speaking of spirits, I'm guessing that was not a soda she had in her hand in that scene.  I don't want to make too much out of that yet, but if two weeks from now Alex ends up being hurt a lot by whatever developments happen, I'm going to be really worried about how she copes with them.

My initial gut reaction was that Jay was correct in advising Alex to stay the course and not give up on her science ambitions – if she wants to pursue singing (of course, once again we heard how beautiful Alex's, and, in real life, Ariel's singing voice is) she's still young and has plenty of time to follow a new dream in a few years.   And given her overachieving ways, who's to say she can't be both?

My only concern is seeing that Alex was stressed out again tonight, hopefully she doesn't turn into a basket case when all is said and done.  Still, on balance I'm glad Jay said what he said.

One thing about why Alex was stressed didn't ring true: since when has Phil decided to put pressure on her to get a good job? After all, he was the one who talked her out of that internship last year and told her to relax this past summer, and it was he and not Claire who worried about her going sleepless for three nights studying for a test during her high school senior year (and yet I thought at the time he hadn't done enough²).  That he was putting stress on her doesn't sound like him.

Also, I do wonder why (besides story advancement, of course) she wound up at Jay and Gloria's house instead of at school (she said she couldn't stay at home or at school).  Is being at school becoming too stressful for her, too (again)?

The second half of that story never did dive into the question of whether Alex really was that stressed out as early as first grade, but I have a sad feeling it was.

Alex's Line Of The Night: ”I guess you're right - it would be pretty dumb of me to give up on the career path I'm on. I could make half a mil(lion) my first year out of school.”

I was going to ask if this was the first time she was thinking in terms of money after she's done with school, but then I remembered she was looking into taking business courses a couple of years ago. (And, of course, she wasn't sure whether she should take a job instead of an internship before her senior year in high school.)
 
All in all, while the story was kind of short, it was nice for Alex to have something to do for a change.
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¹ Haley, Lily and Manny are the first ones to appear on that dubious scoreboard.  Since this turned out not to be Alex's week on the sidelines I'm now getting a feeling she might just add her name next week.

² I know that contradicts to some degree with how I felt that Phil was clipping Alex's wings by talking her out of that internship.  But it was clear four years ago that Alex was hurting herself by staying awake for three straight nights, whereas while both of them acknowledged that there would be also be a lot of stress in that internship, there was a degree of uncertainty how it would affect Alex – yes it's possible she could have hurt herself again but we just don't know.