“Some Were Born To Sing The Blues” (“Commencement” Recap)

I'm trying to find a bright spot (other than Alex graduating, of course) to what was a bitter disappointment of an episode (OK, overall maybe it wasn't one of the worst, but as far as Alex is concerned, oh H-E-Double Hockey Sticks yeah, it was a major bummer), but all I can find is maybe one or two tiny ones.

Maybe Alex finally did find some friends (or at least sort of friends) at CalTech who all got together and decided to break into that library just before commencement.

And they didn't get caught – had that happened Alex probably would have been kicked out of school just hours before getting her degree.  Not to mention arrested, which would also probably gotten her fired from that government job before she even started.

So much for the good, and even those are questionable – why was Alex taking these risks which, as I said, could have cost her everything after all these years?  Now for the bad/ugly.

The biggie, of course, is that, on what was to be her biggest day (which almost wasn't, for two reasons)., we don't even see Alex until the last few minutes of the episode.  If this doesn't show how much of an afterthought Alex has been over most of the past ten years, I don't know what else the show can do to try and make her life irrelevant.

In all honesty, had we not already known her graduation was going to be at least partially shown, going into the final act I would have thought this was going to be an Alex-less episode after all.

And that the show's powers-that-be chose to make Alex go almost to the brink of giving up everything she's worked for at the very end of the journey¹ (no, not physically, but certainly mentally) screams volumes about what they think of her (and Ariel?).

Which brings me to the biggest storyline complaint about tonight.  Why did Jay accept the offer to be the commencement speaker in the first place (and, as a sub-complaint, if she did do it, why did Gloria bribe the school superintendent to make that happen)?  Everyone in the family knew this day was Alex\s commencement – if he's not the speaker then the family (save for Cam, who had to be there even before Principal Brown's accident²) has no reason to be there³, leaving them free to solely focus on Alex's big day (which should have been the biggest part of this story from the beginning).

As it was, because of all that happened, they (again) almost missed it (shades of “See You Next Fall”),  Although, admittedly if they hadn't seen Alex on their way to rushing over, she might have missed it, by questionable choice, herself.  So I guess you can add one more small bright spot after all – they did save her day (well, I give most of the credit for that to Haley and Luke – the other attempts were pretty lame).

Finally, how could they have not known Alex was having a crisis – don't you think somebody would have tried contacting her at some point during the day and maybe at least figure out something might just be amiss?  Either they wouldn't be able to reach her, or, if they did, even if she said everything was fine, her tone of voice would suggest otherwise.

So, as for why Alex looked disheveled, I guess there's your answer – it's hard being Alex when she's being thrown under the bus⁴.   This episode should have been like a love letter to her life story, but, instead, it was closer to a “Dear John” letter.

Alex's Line Of The Night: ”If mathematics doesn't matter, then nobody can be certain of anything, and I've just wasted the last four – no – sixteen years of my life, and there's no point in me graduating.”

Two things: 1) if 0 really did equal 1, wouldn't that have been an indeterminate number of years? And 2) for Alex it actually would probably been closer to 18 or 19, counting pre-school and/or kindergarten.  Either way, it's pretty sad that one night of madness could cause her to feel that way.
Right now I'm not sure whom the post title fits more – Alex or myself (or the rest of her fans).  I don't think any of us are going to get any parties started any time soon.
________________________________________________________
¹ For those thinking about the title of this post, no, there is no pun intended here.

² Although, as a token of apology to Alex for throwing her under the bus earlier this season, I would've like to see Cam at least try to beg out of attending the high school commencement to be more of a part of Alex's day.

³ And, for the record, yes I am still unhappy Phil chose to go on that business trip four years ago instead of staying home and not miss Alex's high school graduation because of that ear infection.

⁴ Yes, I've used that phrase a lot today. Thankfully for Alex it's not literally true or her laundry bills would be astronomical.