Monsters of Television

“I gotta stand up, beat my chest, and wreck his banana party.”

It’s a bed-head showdown!

Of all the episodes so far this season, this one felt the most like a late-90s, early-00s WB show. The stakes are unfair and immature, the lyrics of the background music intermingle at the same volume with dialogue. Lux even looks like the younger incarnation of Amy Abbot from Everwood this week. Same “I’m always on the brink of tears” face and everything.

And we see a lot of her this episode. Even though Cate and Ryan are off doing their morning show (which I assume is a Monday-Friday gig), Lux is chilling at home, mourning the loss of Bug. Apparently, a loser boyfriend skipping town is on the list of excusable absences from the school we never see this whole episode. But Cate indulges by providing Rocky Road ice cream when she gets home from work and they talk about how Cate will always be there for her. Aww. She’ll regret making that promise later.

Since Lux doesn’t have to worry about school in this episode, her plot revolves around Tash’s life, namely that she is being placed in a foster home three hours away. When the girls are out shopping, Lux sees Tash’s mother (we know this to be true because they have the same wavy hair) and a light bulb goes off. The answer to every orphan’s problems is finding his or her biological parents to take him/her in! Yes! And this becomes Lux’s big plan to keep Tash from leaving. Hey, it worked for her, right?

Meanwhile, Baze, suffering from a sinking feeling Ryan is encroaching on his dad territory, calls the station to talk to Cate and inadvertently enters one of those keep-your-hand-on-the-car-for-hours-to-win-this-car contests. Ryan is also in the contest so it becomes a tinkle-tinkle contest to see who is the best for Lux (and, tangentially, for Cate). One of the major themes of this show is that the adults are just as stupid as the kids so it’s fitting that something as ridiculous as keeping your hand on a car could be blown up into a proving ground for fatherhood. Baze is egged on by the increasingly present Jamie (with little Math to balance it out), who gives Baze the tip he needs to beat Ryan: Ryan’s Achilles heel is Baze being Baze. And that’s how it all comes out.

Through some miscommunication (it is a television dramedy afterall) Baze thinks Ryan knows about he and Cate sleeping together even though Ryan only thinks Baze made an unsuccessful pass at Cate. Ryan punches Baze in the face anyway and we dive into some more tenets of the sit-com. Cate thinks Baze told Ryan about their passionate night (he didn’t). We suddenly get the “you just told me” reveal (as in “I didn’t know until you just told me, doofus”). Cate follows that up with one of the more famous sit-com explanations for cheating of the last 20 years: we were on a break. Cate insists she thought they were broken up that night, despite Ryan proposing to her and them just having a fight and Ryan being the most understanding guy in Portland to put up with this the last month and a half. He says he’s done and walks. Which probably just as well. Yeah, Ryan, take your normal name and leave. Baze, Lux, and Cate (with a C) will stick together. Way to go on growing those testicles, buddy.

That’s when Lux shows up. The thing with Tash’s biological mom doesn’t work out (shocker) so she insists Cate step up and foster Tash, too. Lux knows Ryan and Cate just ostensibly broke up but she’s still pounding away on this, using that “I’ll do whatever I can for you” bit against her. Cate, lucid through tears, says that that’s a big decision she can’t make right now. Lux is furious. The evil teenager rears its ugly head and the Sage-for-Your-Age Collective officially falls apart. Lux is now just as thick-headed and unfair to her folks as a teenager should be. Baze and Cate have made her stupid.

Speaking of Baze, Lux convinces her susceptible father to try to take in Tash. They meet with the social worker and Baze is collected, organized, and even has a room for Tash to stay in (well, a partitioned section of his loft). The Social Worker lays it down that there’s no way a judge would let Baze, a single not-of-kin man, take in a sixteen year-old girl by himself (drag). But Baze cleaning up his act does mean he can have shared custody of Lux. Lux takes her up on that and leaves the killer attic bedroom for a bed and a curtain above a bar.

And so we begin the WB-like montage to an up-and-coming artist as Cate, her house now empty, drinks wine and eats Rocky Road while Lux looks at a picture of her and Cate and sobs. Baze looks completely confused by tears. Tash — who knows?

I kind of like the idea of Lux being in the house Bro built. A young girl with the faintest propensity for maturity and sass living among a bunch of boys that can’t touch her has a lot of potential. I imagine we’ll open with a scene next week of Jamie and Math sitting silently in the room with Lux, not entirely sure what to do. Predictable but funny. Or maybe we’ll get something new. The show has certainly progressed over the last few episodes, dispensing with the candy-coated endings for dramatic and untied ones. I think in order for this show to really make it, though, they need to make people fall in love with one of these characters. They need an Ephram or a Lorelai or a Pacey even. I’m not entirely sure this cast has been given the opportunity to make its case to endear itself to the audience. But we have a few episodes before that decision has to be made.