Episode Title: Parental Guidance
Season 08, Episode 28
Episode 188 of 344
Written by Michael Filerman and
Lawrence Kasha
Directed by Nick Havinga
Original Airdate: Thursday, April 30th,
1987
The Plot (Courtesy of TV.Com): Laura has a baby girl - 8lbs, 3 oz! Anne goes back East. Mack
asks Greg if he could be Paige's father, but Greg insists he never slept with
Anne. Jill intercepts Olivia's letter for Peter and burns it. Paige thinks
she and Peter are getting married. Peter tells Abby that he'd rather marry her.
Abby tells him to dump Paige. After he does, Abby tells Peter to take a hike.
Mack and Karen tell Paige that Greg may be her father. Crying, she says Anne
was just being vindictive, but thinks this is why Peter broke it off with her.
Ben tells Val that his obsession is ruining the family, and she thinks he has
come back to his senses. Ben makes plans to leave the country, but tells Val he
got a job in South America. Ben asks Mack to keep an eye on the family, and
tells Gary that he's glad that the twins have him as security, in case
something should ever happen to him. Ben leaves for his "job" in a
taxi, but one gets the feeling he is really leaving forever.
When we
last left off, Anne had been humiliated via Mack and his invitation to dinner
and his “Kiss the Cook” apron. Spurned,
Anne announced she would be returning to New York or wherever and then also
threw a plot twist our way by telling Mack that Anne is Greg Sumner’s
daughter. Hmmm, is that true? We shall explore this question a bit more as
we discuss Parental Guidance.
Actually, in truth we don’t
explore this question all that much this ep, although it does come up. Mostly it seems like the writers want to draw
this mystery out a little longer, keep it going over the summer and not resolve
it until we get started with the ninth season.
For the purposes of this ep, we have some footage of Mack wrestling with
his feelings on how Anne was such a manipulative liar (“The more I spend time
with Anne, the more I feel I don’t know her at all,” he opines in a scene that
I have already forgotten about but which I put down in my notes as, “Good
acting from The Dobsonator”). Also, we
get a little bit in which Karen and Mack try to tell Paige that she ain’t
Mack’s daughter, but she’s having none of it.
Paige is more familiar with her mother’s manipulations and can see right
through this little charade. She tells
Mack that Anne only invented this little bit of information after she got
burned by him, that it was self-defense and nothing more. That’s about all we get for this storyline
this ep, and I do have to admit that while there’s nothing wrong with this
story, it’s not really compelling me in any special way. Is it because of my 20/20 hindsight vision
and the fact that I know how this is going to turn out? That’s a possibility, but I also think this
just isn’t a particularly exciting story.
MBG seems to find it compelling, however, and she started
talking about how she isn’t sure who the real father is, that this is a good plot
twist and all that, but I think I disagree.
Mostly it’s the fact that Paige has only been on the show for a year and
yet we’ve already seen so many examples of her being used as a plot
function. She’s introduced and the first
mystery is, “Is she really Mack’s daughter?”
Then after we got past that, we saw the Paige Matheson headstone and the
mystery became, “Is Paige actually dead and this girl is just an
imposter?” Now that we’ve added Anne
into the equation and then sent her packing (for a few years), we are now faced
with the new mystery of, “Who is Paige’s real father?” I remember really liking the Paige character
a lot and I have the feeling that I will still like her once we move a little
further away from this year and she’s become more established, but I have to
say the season eight Paige is not really doing it for me the way I
remembered. Part of it is the fact that
she shows up to the series and immediately starts getting so much attention and
so many stories built around her, while at the same time old veterans I love
like Laura and Lilimae are getting absolutely nothing to do. Part of it is that I just want this character
to be; I want to get nice and settled
on who Paige Matheson is and what she’s like and what makes up her core and
then let her go about having her stories from there. Instead, the writers throughout this year
have been so eager to keep her shrouded in mystery, her true origins always
cloudy or unknown, and it’s just getting old at this point.
Hey, I just mentioned Laura and
how she’s got nothing to do and, wouldn’t you know it, she actually kinda sorta
does have something to do this
ep. Now, before you get too excited, I
should mention that Laura’s entire story pretty much remains offscreen this
week; in fact, off the top of the head, before doing any research to confirm, I
have the suspicious feeling that Laura doesn’t even actually show her face this
ep, that rather we just get a lot of offscreen Laura being mentioned by other
characters. I just took a quick look at
the (probably wildly inaccurate) IMDb page for this episode and Constance is
credited just like normal, none of that “(credit only)” business like they
sometimes do. However, I’ve got the ep
pulled up in front of my on my computer and I can definitely confirm that Laura
is nowhere to be seen during the biggest announcement of the ep, which is that
she has given birth yet again.
Seriously, this is awkwardly done, because we start the scene with Mack
in the bathroom (he’s just standing at the sink in his robe, not taking a shit
or anything like that) and then the phone rings and we cut to Sumner on the
other end, standing in a hospital and looking proud while that bad music I’m
always complaining about this year plays over the soundtrack. As soon as Mack answers, Greg is all enthused
and is like, “Laura just had a little girl!”
Oh yeah, and a little later we get to add Cigar #28 to the Sumner Cigar
Counter (in a scene on his ranch in which he’s talking with Mack).
I’m
happy for Laura for having this little girl (and for finally getting a girl after
the double whammy of boys that was Jason 4 and Daniel), but Jesus, couldn’t we
have at least seen….something? This feels like footage was chopped out for
syndication, but I’m pretty sure that’s not it, since I watched the ep via my
DVDs and then again via my top secret internet measures, in which the eps are
all original broadcast versions. It’s
just odd how we don’t get any footage of Laura going into labor, or making the
journey to the hospital, or doing the whole “Push push” thing that’s so popular
amongst women giving birth; we get none of that. Instead, we just have Greg making a
phonecall, in a static and boring shot of him standing in a hallway in which it
appears the director (this week it’s Nick Havinga, who has done some very fine
work for us in the past) decided to just plop the camera on a tripod and let
the filming commence. The fact that
Laura is so disrespected by the writers at this point that they can’t even bother to
give us some small bit of footage of her giving birth just shows that this
character is better off retired. I think
I might have said something like this before, but fuck it, here it comes
again. Understand that when I say Laura
is better off retired, it doesn’t mean I don’t love the character, because of
course I love this character, and I have since the Pilot. But we will be losing
Laura very soon, just a few eps into season nine, and right now I think that’s
the right decision, because why bother having her in the show, in those
scrolling squares, a main cast member who’s been around since 1979, if you’re
not gonna give her anything to work with?
I again remind you that neither J.B. nor Peter (nor Paige, for that
matter) are main cast members right now; they are also credited as guest stars
or recurring or whatever, and yet they get major, significant storylines that
span all year, so why is Laura sitting off on the sidelines? It seems disrespectful to the character, but
it also reeks of the writers not even wanting to write this much for her. I definitely get the sense that Constance got
pregnant in real life (which I already knew, but I even went and double checked
and confirmed that she gave birth to Marguerite Weisman on February 25th,
1987) and the writers just had to scramble to write this pregnancy into the
story. You get the sense that they just
don’t care, that they’re maybe even resentful at the real life Constance for
having the gall to get pregnant yet again (remember she was pregnant in real
life the last time Laura had a baby on the show). In my memories, this pregnancy and the baby
and what winds up happening with the baby over the next six years provide us
with great material and tons of exciting stories, but at this exact moment,
only focusing in on this eighth season and how Laura’s pregnancy has been handled,
it kinda sucks. Laura’s an original
series cast member and she’s a very interesting and funny character and she
deserves more respect.
We
get an interesting bit of business between Olivia and Abs early in the ep. If you’ll recall, our last ep showed Olivia
catching a towel-clad Paige romping around Peter’s apartment, and that’s got
her all upset now, so she shows up at the start of this ep to her new house
with Abs (if I haven’t mentioned it yet; the two have now settled in a fabulous
new place which I believe they will inhabit for the rest of Abby’s time on the
series), all upset and distraught. Abs
asks her what’s wrong and then Olivia pulls a joint out of her purse and hands
it to Abs. She’s all crying and tells
Abs how she wasn’t going to smoke it and doesn’t even know why she got it in
the first place, and Abs says it’s okay.
I like that, by the way. I like
that Olivia stumbled and went and bought the joint but now she’s giving it to
Abs and being direct with her, and I like that Abs doesn’t get mad at her
because of it. Also, even though I
support Olivia’s path to sobriety and all that, I kinda like to imagine that as
soon as Olivia gets to bed, Abs is gonna call up a boy and have him over to blaze
up the doobie and hop in the hot tub together for a nice stoned shag.
I
gotta say, as we are moving closer and closer to our season finale and the end
of our discussions of season eight, Olivia is really coming out smelling like a
rose this year. It seems that no matter
what’s going on in the series around her, Olivia always delivers, proving my
point once again that Tonya Crowe was a very underrated little actress. I’ve loved watching her grow from the little
nine year old girl she was when first introduced and start to become a much
more important part of the series. This
year they gave her the big cocaine storyline to work with and I thought she did
great, and I still think she’s great right here, even in a small scene like
giving the joint to Abs. I always
believe in Olivia as a real person and I like that she’s allowed to be flawed
and sometimes a little brat, but there’s a certain core goodness to her. A lot of the stories this season have been
wildly problematic, but Olivia has looked good the whole way through.
You
know that whole letter that Sylvia wrote and that she wanted to be given to,
you know, somebody or other in the event of her death? Well, I’m not compelled by this plot arc
either, but it’s still here and we’re still dealing with it. Last ep, Olivia got angry and mailed that
letter to Gary, information she volunteers to Abs in this ep. As soon as she hears this, Abs kicks into
action, calling Gary up and saying how Olivia was so upset and all that, and
then she makes up a fib right and quick by telling him that Olivia wrote an
angry letter and mailed it to him, but she regrets it and doesn’t want him to
see it. She suggests that Gary send the
letter back to her and she’ll tell Olivia she destroyed it, to which Gary
agrees, although I do have to question this.
As I’m watching this play out, I feel two ways. I continue to marvel at Abby’s ability to
swoop in and clean up a situation with some lies, but I also question whether
these lies would still work on Gary.
After three years of marriage and another year or so before that in
which they were shagging a lot, I’d think Gary would be able to recognize
Abby’s manipulations when they come his way.
I’m not so sure I believe he would just believe Abs about this letter
and agree to send it back; he’s seen her work before and he knows how she
operates, how she’s able to talk in a way that sounds so gentle and genuine,
even when every word she says is dripping with falsities. At the same time, I can see how complicated
these things are, that their long marriage would make Gary familiar with Abby’s
lies but also with her moments of honesty, those times when she lets her guard
down and just speaks the naked truth.
In
any case, Gary never sees the letter because J.B. gets word of its impending
arrival and nicely takes care of it. She
shares a short flirtation with Gary, something about going off to sunny
Acapulco to shag a lot, and then as soon as he vacates the room, she grabs the
stack of mail and goes through it, finding nothing. Fortunately, a little later the letter
arrives and J.B. throws it right in the fireplace, making me wish I had a
fireplace of my own. In fact, since this
story isn’t all that interesting, let’s just take a detour and talk about how
great fireplaces are and how I wish they were still standard in all houses. How amazing is it to just light a total fire
and have a fire blazing inside of your home, but nicely self-contained in this
little area made just specifically for the purposes of having a fire? And why is the heat from a real, true fire so
much better than the heat you get just by pushing a button and turning it
on? And why are fires so unbelievably
romantic? Why is making sweet love in
front of the fireplace just so unbelievably appealing? Finally, how awesome would it be to have a
fireplace that you can just throw paper into whenever you feel like it? If I had a fireplace, I would burn all my
mail just for the sheer joy of it.
Let’s
talk about Ben and then we’ll wrap it up.
Ben is achingly close to leaving the series forever, and in fact, this
ep marks his penultimate appearance. Watching
it, I actually thought this might wind up being his very final appearance,
because it sure feels that way, but he gets one small scene over the phone in
our next ep, so that’s the truly last appearance. Anyway, as we catch up at Val’s house this week,
we see that Ben is becoming more and more unhinged, more and more of a paranoid
maniac. Sure, things looked bad when he
was attacking Lilimae and nearly breaking her neck in the middle of the night,
but I’d say they’re looking worse now.
Things kick off when the ever popular ice cream man comes rolling up to
Seaview Circle and Lilimae gets ready to head out with the kids. Val tells her to pick up a pint of ice cream
for the grown ups later, making me wonder why Val doesn’t just walk the five
steps required to go out to the ice cream truck alongside her mother and
children, but whatever. As soon as
Lilimae opens the door, Ben appears at the top of stairs screaming and throwing
a hissy fit, saying how it’s insane to think the kids can go outside, questioning
whether anyone is listening to him, going on and on about all the planning
they’ve been doing, and so on and so forth.
After a moment, he sorta snaps back and starts rubbing his forehead and
going on about how weird he’s acting, then he takes the kids outside to get
their ice cream.
Throughout
the rest of the ep, we get a lot of Ben telling Val how he’s getting back to
work, how he needs to get back to work “working for a crusty old alcoholic
journalist” and not working with Abby or Gary or whoever. Val is very pleased to hear this news, but I
think us viewers should all be getting that sinking feeling in the pits of our
stomach. We all remember how Richard
made his evacuation from the series, and this has a familiar ring to it. Similar to Richard’s M.O., Ben acts casual
about how he’s gonna have to go off to somewhere far away (I think South
America again, but I wasn’t paying that much attention) and it’s no big deal,
but then when he gets private moments with characters like Mack or Gary, he somewhat
shows his hand. In the case of Gary, he
goes on about how it’s good to know Gary’s around in case something bad ever
happens to him, that Gary will be around to take care of Val and the kids. Really, this feels like Ben giving permission
to Gary, that he’s admitting that Gary is Val’s true soul mate and the one she
belongs with.
Our
final scene of the ep brings us even stronger flashbacks to Richard’s final
moments on the show, as Val walks Ben out to the curb and helps him climb into
the cab and drive away. They hug and Ben
says how he’ll call her every night at nine, and she’s being all nice and
supportive and everything seems nice, but when Ben gets in the cab and begins
to depart, we hold on his face and we all realize what’s going on. Ben is blowing town and he’s never coming
back. Now, if this was really Ben’s
truly final appearance, I’d start going on about how great Douglas Sheehan was
in this role and how much I’m gonna miss him and what qualities Ben brought to
the table over the course of his four years, but we still have one more teeny
tiny appearance from him next ep, so I’ll save my thoughts until then.
I’d
say that’s about all I’ve got to discuss with Parental Guidance. Overall,
it was pretty good. With these last few
eps of season eight, I find myself enjoying them much more than I enjoyed
anything that was going on concurrently with Hackney running around and
spraying diarrhea all over the series, but I still think these eps are a little
weak, a little lighter and fluffier. I
think the show is improving itself as we get closer to season nine, but I also
think the season has been so inconsistent that it’s hard for me to get too
excited about these eps, even if they are significantly better than most of
what we’ve been given throughout this last year. I think it will be easier to lighten up when
we start season nine, a whole fresh year of television, and I can just
officially leave all my traumatic memories of Hackney in the past.
Okay, we've got a mere two eps left to go before we finish this year, so let's move right along to an episode with a very long title, Do Not Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate.
The Paige "Who's Your Daddy" plot only "works" because she's fighting a budding crush on ole Greg after he unceremoniously kissed her that one time at his house.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you completely on Paige. I end up loving her as a character. I think it starts once she gets on at the Sumner Group. But before that, they didn't develop her character well. As you said, she is a plot device, and that continues into the finale and its aftermath in Season 9.
ReplyDeleteAnd "Hackney running around and spraying diarrhea all over the series". LOL. This is what I love about your writing, and why I am glad you are back.