"So Hold Your Head Up High, It's Your Time To Shine"

Hopefully you've enjoyed (or will enjoy) your Thanksgiving meal today (or at least had a good day if you're not in the U.S.A.).  And you're not reading this after a six hour turkey coma (yeah, I've said before that's mostly(?) fiction).

It turns out there's actually some news about Alex to discuss.

One of the next two episodes has been made a lot more interesting with the release of some promotional photos ("Kids These Days", "The Tree Of Strife").   But which one?  Well, if you're viewing this from the home page, you're going to have to go past "Read more" to find out...

(Or click the links, I guess...)

It looks like we're getting an Alex story next week in "Kids These Days" after all - most of the photos are of Alex with Claire and Gloria.  Some of the photos are them at a restaurant, the others are at presumably either a department store or dress shop, where they are apparently shopping for an outfit for Alex.

It's the red dress that she ends up trying out that makes for a potentially interesting story - it's definitely an atypical look for Alex¹ , even beyond the fact she rarely wears dresses as it is.  Is this dress for a big date with Bill (Yay!), or is the fire going out (pun not intended) in their relationship and Alex is looking for a spark to rekindle it (Uh-oh!)?  Or is it none of the above (e.g. a Christmas party)?

And does this mean Alex may be further coming out of her cocoon - willing to dress more for attractiveness than comfort?  And will this be a one time thing or a major paradigm shift for her?

I do get a little nervous about seeing Alex in uncharted territory, but hopefully this time a story about a potential big moment in her life will actually mostly be about her, unlike a couple of weeks ago (it's still possible it's not though - it could be a story about Claire and Gloria having conflicting views on how Alex should dress, which would be very cynical seeing that Alex is now an adult and can make her own decisions).

And, yes, oh by the way, if you haven't already guessed or seen, there's no Alex in the photos for "The Tree Of Strife".

In other news, Ariel is scheduled to do a daytime talk show circuit next week - Tuesday she's on "Live with Kelly and Ryan", and Thursday she's on "GMA Day".  If she mentions anything important about Alex I'll dish about it afterwards (much afterwards on Thursday - I leave for work before that show).
________________________________________________________
¹But not for Ariel of course – I wouldn't be surprised if she's actually worn that dress before in real life herself, either at a public appearance or a hot date.