Episode Report Card Cate: D | 1 USERS: C YOU GRADE IT How do you solve a problem like Mary?
By Cate | Season 5 | Episode 7 | Aired on 11.12.2000
We move on to Lucy. You can tell Beverley Mitchell is struggling to hold back tears of joy at the impending departure of Jessica Biel. I'm sure her happiness did a lot to help her get through delivering lines like, "You've been better at everything than I am." She spews a whole bunch more platitudes about Mary needing the discipline of team sports. Like Dopey, she promises to help Mary in any way she can. What exactly that could possibly entail is left to our imaginations. Lucy finishes her speech with a beatific smile and even manages to say "I love you" without giggling. "I'm free," thinks Beverley. "Ding dong, the witch is dead!"
It's hard to imagine what could be more stupid or offensive than Simon's speech. We know we're in trouble when he starts it out with, "Here's what I like in money: it tells you right who you are with numbers." Wow. Words fail me. And how about this: "The first thing you have to pay off is your personal debt, the money you owe Sam and David." Huh? He admits that a professional financial consultant might not agree, but that he is speaking as her brother. Who would you rather have managing your money? I thought so. I keep expecting Simon to channel Maude Flanders and wail, "Won't somebody please think of the children!"
Ruthie is mad and she's not gonna take it anymore. Her opinions are more in line with mine, for a change, as she calls Mary selfish and points out how little Mary cares for her family. Okay, that's cool. But then this speech veers off into unexpected comedy as Ruthie waxes absurd about the cold dinners she's been forced to eat while waiting for Mary to come home, and being woken by Mary clomping up the stairs when she gets home from work. Yeah, I'll cry you a fucking river, brat. People have real problems, you know. The continuity person must have drifted off from the boredom, because he or she lets Ruthie whine about Mary not coming home for pizza that time.
Okay, you know, that whole story line was incredibly pointless, even for 7th Heaven. Mary did bring home pizza, and she did wake up Ruthie for their stupid slumber party. Once Ruthie had been asleep for hours -- which she had -- what difference would it make whether Mary woke her up at twelve or one? I know grandstanding about non-issues is a hallmark of the Spelling oeuvre, as is mangling real issues until they become unrecognizably stupid, but Ruthie's self-righteous indignation about the pizza incident just makes me want to cry and cry because the people who thought it up share my species. I wonder if Ruthie's gonna try to pin the extinction of various animals or that pesky global warming on Mary too, but she just runs off. It's a little awkward, though, because she has to run around the coffee table first, and people have to move their legs for her to get by. Not quite as dramatic an exit as they may have been hoping for. Eric orders the rest of the hellspawn to follow Ruthie upstairs so he and Annie can talk to Mary alone.