"Gracie's Bully"
There is nothing more terrifying than having your 10-year-old classmates meet one (or both) of your parents, and I know this from experience. I felt for poor Gracie Carr, who so obviously wanted both her bully and her mother to disappear from this class trip to the station. She was probably thinking that the
only upside was not having to have class.
If only Kelly and Chuck knew that they were probably just making the situation worse for their daughter by wanting to confront the bully, whether through a "conflict resolution" session or the terrifying way that Kelly ended up going about it. (I'm well out of elementary school, but if tomorrow Patricia Heaton said to me, "I will come into your room while you are sleeping and I will rip your head off," I would probably faint.) As soon as Xander Tucker gets over his fear of Kelly, he's going to start bullying Gracie sevenfold. Perhaps by then Chuck will no longer be blinded by Xander's gorgeous, divorced mother and will actually be able to stick up for his daughter's well-being.
The Ryan and Montana storylines kind of fell flat tonight, which was too bad, because they just weren't given enough to do. Ryan's mini-me was the kind of funny, self-assured person that Ryan will never, ever be, which is what made the whole thing more depressing than funny. Mini-Ryan obviously knows how to deal with people - even if he only gained a girlfriend by pulling a fire alarm for her and getting suspended - but just the thought of taking girl advice from a 10-year-old kid was a little creepy. Montana's inability to pronounce "Monongahela" would, in the normal world, probably have disqualified her from a "meteorologist" position in Pittsburgh (if a fifth-grader can do your job better than you can, you deserve to be fired), but I'm OK with suspending my disbelief, because Ayda Field always plays Montana with such conviction that I can't help but crack up. I suppose my real problem with the Ryan-Montana stuff is how awkward the attempts to throw them together are. I'm talking about the halfhearted way that Ryan has been forced to hit on Montana when the two have absolutely no visible chemistry.
On the other side of the chemistry spectrum, we have Gary and Marsh. Gary's investigation into Kelly and Chuck's "boat" (the "She's My Daughter 2") could be dragged out for weeks and I wouldn't care. It's something about how little he thinks of his so-called superiors that always works, and that, combined with his love/hate relationship with Marsh, gives us the best matchup on the show. Poor Marsh. As if crying at
Casey at the Bat (and dressing up in full turn-of-the-century baseball regalia, complete with mustache) weren't enough, he's now out $150 for betting that he
wouldn't cry. What can I say? I just love these guys.
To tide you over till next week, here are the best lines of the night:
" "They're riveted because they're watching a 60-year-old man have a nervous breakdown."
" "A grown man staring at a bunch of kids? Their teacher is ready to call
Dateline."
" "I've seen you laugh at footage of bullfighters being gored!"
It's a new episode next week, but I'm not sure how the writers' strike will be impacting how many new episodes we'll be seeing in the near future, or even
if we'll be seeing them in the near future. More on that as it happens.
Check out clips from Back to You
in our
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