Episode Report Card Cate: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Consideration
By Cate | Season 6 | Episode 10 | Aired on 12.09.2001
After a commercial break, the show comes back with a man in a uniform walking into his house through the front door, to be greeted by a blonde woman. Since we've never seen these people before -- and since the man bears an uncanny resemblance to Larry Hagman -- at first I thought I'd accidentally switched the channel and was watching some bizarre, warped version of Bewitched. I'm not so sure it's a great idea to come back from commercial with characters that nobody recognizes, but that won't stop the fine scribes at 7th Heaven. It turns out that this guy is the fire chief, and Mary has wormed her way into the house to speak to him. It must be the Camden stalking gene that allowed her to work some sort of spell on the chief's wife, since I find it hard to believe that the wife would be so charmed by Mary's delightful manners that she would let her into the house and ask her husband to "hear [Mary] out." Mary manages to be offensive, even while simply introducing herself: "I'm Mary Camden, and I'm just asking for a little consideration." Way to get his back up, Mary. I suppose, though, since the Theme Mallet has only been wielded about seven hundred times this episode, that another reference to the episode title was a little overdue. The chief says he spoke to Mary's old supervisor, and while he said she worked hard, he also told the chief about how Mary got involved with that hunky firefighter dude and left the program without notice. Mary spews some garbage about how she "was born to be a firefighter," in an attempt to rewrite show history yet again. She also insists that the chief has to give her a chance. No, he doesn't, you moron, so just quit it with that entitlement bullshit. The chief natters on for a while about the importance of responsibility for a firefighter. He tells her, "You're just not responsible enough to be a firefighter." Well, that's pretty obvious, but it's still nice to hear someone say it. It's not so nice to hear him tell her, "As I look at you with your low-rider jeans and your French manicure, I don't think you want to be a firefighter as much as you want to hang out with firefighters." He's probably right about that, but it's still sexist and inappropriate. While Mary sulks, he talks about the nobility of firefighters some more. All true, but after September 11th, who doesn't know that? Making herself look even more childish and irresponsible, Mary asks him what she's supposed to do with her life. He doesn't know, and he doesn't care. Nor should we. Next!
Back in the CamPound, Joy is asking, "Are all ministers' families like this?" Thank God, no. I grew up living next door to various ministers' families, and they've all been pretty nice. It's true, there was that one boy who used to ride his bike down the street while wearing a bucket on his head. He also used to urinate in my mom's flowerbed, but at least he wasn't a stalker. Robbie uses Joy's question as a dig against Dopey, who does not consider Robbie to be a member of the family. After delivering a seemingly endless soliloquy about how the guys are lucky to have each other, Joy leaves. She has inspired Robbie to express his admiration of Dopey. Dopey's not won over, though. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Robbie's heartfelt plea was delivered about as woodenly as if he'd been ordering pizza.