"I'm Looking Forward To Looking Back On These Days" (First Trimester Recap)

I will say this about the first seven weeks this season - I'm not feeling as pessimistic about the rest of the season for Alex as I was this time last year.

No I'm not saying the first third of the season was great, but at least some good things did happen for her, and there is at least hope for things to happen during what still appear to be the final 15 episodes of the series.

Things started slowly, as Alex didn't have much to do in the first two episodes ("I Love A Parade", "Kiss and Tell"), but at least she did get to relax for a change (like Phil wanted her to do) until July 4th, and she was still happy about her love life with her hunky (albeit still not in her intellectual league) fireman boyfriend Bill.

In the third episode ("A Sketchy Idea") we got our first surprise Alex story of the season, as she ran off to Jay and Gloria's house to get away from her parents, who atypically were putting pressure on Alex to make post-college plans (usually it's Alex who puts the pressure on herself while Claire and Phil put their parenting of her on cruise control).  In fact, Alex wasn't even sure she wants to get a job or go into further study - she actually wanted to try her hand at singing.  Admittedly while it wasn't a total shock she wanted to do this, given her beautiful singing voice, I was still glad Jay talked her out of totally abandoning her science trajectory for the time being,  until she could establish herself enough to have a solid background as a fallback.

And then the first of (probably many) Alex-less episodes reared its ugly head ("Torn Between Two Lovers").  I think I'll stick with the song with the same title, thank  you very much.

The next episode ("Good Grief") was probably the most talked-about episode (if not particularly in Alex's case), as it contained the much-debated death of Alex's grandmother Dede.   Although she wasn't a big part of the story, we did see a surprisingly saddened Alex - she took the death harder than I though she would (until Bill came over to console her, ending in a rather "unique" way which put them on the wrong side of being "caught in the act"), given she had a much stronger bond with her other grandmother who died five years earlier.  I have a feeling she never quite got over the first death and Dede's passing just brought back more pain.

Alex-less Episode #2 was next ("On The Same Paige").  And that's the one dark cloud going forward - just how many more times will Alex go missing the rest of the season?   I said five at the beginning but I have a feeling that number's going to be too low.

The final episode of the first part of the season ("Did The Chicken Cross The Road?") was the best episode of the season, as it actually gave Alex a rare happy ending which I really didn't see coming.  Alex was in the running for a much-sought after post-graduate job with the government, and as part of the process she and her family went through a group interview,  But it didn't seem to go that well, as most of her family proceeded to inadvertently undermine her opportunity with their own actions/words.  The worst offender was Phil, whose story of a class trip to the Soviet Union ended with him being duped into sending sensitive photos to a "friend", which had to raise a red flag with the interviewer, and drew Alex's ire afterwards.

Amazingly, Alex managed to get the job in spite of all that, and we ended with a nice scene of her appreciating all the times Phil had encouraged her to move forward with her life.  His talking Alex out of taking that MIT internship last season notwithstanding, I guess Phil really is a natural-born cheerleader.

So things are actually looking up for Alex's near future for a change - she still has Bill (I'm not 100% sold on him as Mr. Right, but if Alex is happy I'll be happy, for now), and she has a dream job to look forward to after she graduates (we hope) at the end of this season.  It should be an interesting next few months to see what twists and turns happen to Alex in these stories as things head towards probable closure in May.