Episode Report Card Shack: D+ | 14 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT The Known Soldier
By Shack | Season 6 | Episode 20 | Aired on 05.05.2002
Annie hands the email back to Ruthie so she can read about why Dopey's a happy American. It would have been funny if Ruthie had slipped here and revealed that he's already married Plot Contrivance, but she doesn't. Dopey is happy that a complete idiot like himself can get into medical school, and says that America has the best medical care in the world. Note that he doesn't say that it's the most affordable, nor the most accessible.
Ruthie hands the email over to Mary, who reads that she loves America because it's full of cute boys! Well, no, but it would be more accurate than what she actually says. She says she's training to become an "airline attendant" and is happy that she has the right to travel freely, which she hopes will eventually allow her to escape from this awful, awful show. Mary hands the email over to Lucy, who is grateful because women in America are allowed to choose their careers and "follow in their father's footsteps" if they want to. And if they're lucky, make about seventy percent of their father's salary! Hooray!
Lucy passes the email over to Simon. Since they've pretty much run out of rights that they're willing to address on the show -- nobody's going to talk about bearing arms? -- Simon's happy that they have cars, and that he can drive, and that there are airbags and speed limits. Whatever. I'm sure Morgan will have stopped reading by now anyway. Simon hands the email over to Robbie. Ruthie explains that Robbie has become part of their extended family. Robbie's grateful for becoming part of the Camdens, because now he can be judgmental and uppity and put the women in their places. Actually, he says, "[I] learned that you don't have to be blood-related to be a family. Sometimes circumstances create a family that you love just as much as your own." Well, I hope he remembers that when Simon reveals that he and his "life partner" want to adopt a child. Robbie says that this is what "America is all about." Except in the South, where they've got laws against that sort of thing.
Robbie hands the email back to Ruthie, who tells Morgan about the twin boys. She says that though the boys can't talk well enough to contribute to this discussion, she theorizes that they're just happy to have been born Americans so that they "don't have to sneak over the border or stand in line for years at the INS." So many, many presumptions in that statement. You do realize that there are millions and millions and millions of people out there in countries that aren't America that are perfectly happy with their lot in life, aren't you? Man, I sound like an angry crank, don't I? Let me just amend that I love living here in America, but I don't have much tolerance for folks who act as though, just because we have a lot of rights and protections compared to many other countries, we still don't have a long way to go on this journey. When you're living in a ditch, a cave seems like a big improvement -- and it is -- but it's still not a mansion. Let's not go resting on our laurels and acting smug about it.