“She's Losing Her Mind. She's Fallen Behind.” (“A Stereotypical Day” Recap)

So finally, after 241 posts of holding back, I've finally come up with the perfect time to use a line from “Nobody's Home” (my all-time favorite song) for a post title.

And, truth be told, given how badly tonight went for Alex, I probably could have used the entire bridge of that song, but I didn't want a paragraph-long title so I settled for the above two sentences.

Which brings me to what happened tonight. You can probably already guess that this is not going to be pleasant.

“You Feelin' Alright? I'm Not Feelin' Too Good Myself”

Last week was kind of a bummer, as even in New York, Alex was almost non-existent in the season opener. There is more to look forward to tonight, though, in “A Stereotypical Day”, even if Alex would disagree (I doubt she's looking forward to mononucleosis). But just how much?

"It Never Rains In California" (First Impressions - "Weathering Heights" - Season 8, Episode 4)

The press release is out for the fourth episode, along with some promotional photos, some of which look familiar (some of them were also posted with the press release for tonight's "A Stereotypical Day") - since it seemed like there were a lot of photos for tonight's episode I'm guessing they're actually with this one.

Unfortunately none of this has anything to do with Alex - there's no mention of her in the release so we're just going to have to wing it again.

My pre-show post for tonight's show will be up shortly.

"When You Close Your Eyes" (First Impressions - "Blindsided" - Season 8, Episode 3)

The press release is out for what I originally thought was going to be a key episode for Alex (before we found out her mononucleosis story was actually happening next week).

Now? Probably the exact opposite.

"I'm Wide Awake"

I found an interesting article on EW.com today - Modern Family co-creator/executive producer Christopher Lloyd dished out some tidbits about what will happen during season 8, including a couple involving Alex (one we know about, the other...):

“I Am The Passenger” (“A Tale Of Three Cities” Recap)

Well that was about as ho-hum a beginning for Alex as you could get. It wasn't terrible, but really, she was just along for the ride again.

“Vacation, All I Ever Wanted”

Welcome to the first pre-show thread of Season 8. For those new to this site, what I do on the morning of each new episode is post my thoughts on what I expect to happen that night. I'm still tweaking the format a little bit (I have a new section to add but it will probably be at least two weeks before I need to use it) but basically it's the same one I used last season.

Then later that night I'll post a recap with my thoughts on how life went for Alex (technically I won't be posting a recap if the episode is Alex-less, but I'll probably say something anyway). The earliest I will ever post this will be at 12:31 Eastern (U.S.) time, so as not to spoil anything for west coast viewers (obviously if you are reading this outside of North America then you do so at your own risk, as I have no clue how long it will be for other countries to air new episodes).

So with that out of the way, what are my thoughts on tonight's season opening “A Tale of Three Cities”?