“And What I Taste Is Bittersweet“ (“Did The Chicken Cross The Road?” Recap)

As soon as the first act went to commercial, three words crossed my mind: “I jinxed it.”

When it seemed like they had gone through the whole Alex job interview story in the first 6 minutes, I thought we were looking at “Baby On Board” all over again, with a potentially big Alex story (Alex going to prom with Michael) basically disappearing (and Alex herself) after only a couple of scenes.  And, for the longest time, that's exactly what this looked like, as her story seemed to morph into not only a story about Phil and his realization (the other half of the equation that would have made tonight most disappointing), but even worse, it seemed like it would end up being a story about just about all the Dunphys (even Haley – more about that in a moment) except Alex.

(There was one more parallel with “Baby On Board” that crossed my mind after I posted this morning – that episode also ended with an unexpected pregnancy.)

At least there were a few saving graces: 1) Alex did return later, 2) she got the job in spite of everything (the best surprise of the night), and 3) we did get yet another nice finish with her and Phil.

Now there is a very little bit of mixed emotion with #2: It does end a potential multi-episode arc about what Alex might do next year.  But it's a very small nitpick and I really shouldn't sour Alex being happy for a change.

It wasn't a total wipeout, but I am still disappointed they didn't do much more with her end of the story.

So now, let's look at where we go from here, on both fronts:

How does getting this job affect Alex as she gets closer to graduating CalTech?  If, as I suspect, actually starting this job depends on her actually graduating, will she start feeling more pressure over the next few months?  Among other things, if even something small goes wrong¹, will she overreact?  And if something big goes wrong, will the fears I had about her senior year in high school (where I was afraid something would derail a near 100 percent chance of her graduating and turn her life upside-down) come to fruition four years later?

And, as I touched on a couple of days ago, how will Alex react when she finds out about Haley having a child?  Does she mock Haley (as she did when she was younger) or be supportive of her?  And does she start reassessing her relationship with Bill – perhaps she'll want more of a commitment (maybe even a child of her own)?

(Actually, the latter might happen anyway if she starts feeling more pressure at school.  Or maybe Bill does the reassessing if Alex's focus shifts much further towards her studies and away from him.)

Too bad it will be at least three weeks, and probably longer, before we start getting answers.  And that's if we get answers: we are still talking about Alex, after all – the show does still treat her as an afterthought a lot, as we saw to more than some degree tonight.

Alex's Line Of The Night:  (after Phil said he knew Alex would get that job:)  ”You say that about everything.” (Phil: “Well I know, but...”) ”No - Thank you.  Riding a bike, my first cello concert, freshman chemistry, this job.  Every time I was sure I couldn't do something, you'd convinced me I could.  It's nice to have a believer in the house.”

A beautiful moment, but her words made me realize again why I still wish Phil hadn't changed his mind last year and talked Alex out of taking that internship.

It's hard to believe we're already nearly a third of the way through the (final) season – seven weeks went by really fast.  I known I bemoaned it earlier but maybe it is a good time to catch our breath for a few weeks.
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¹ One thing I never got around to mentioning about last week's Alex-less episode: Claire's story about getting a poor grade on a history paper she was so proud of would have been a very interesting story for Alex to have had during her high school years, especially considering if it had contributed to her only being co-valedictorian with Sanjay.