Episode Report Card 2 USERS: C+ YOU GRADE IT Li'l Orphan Annie
By Sara M | Season 8 | Episode 17 | Aired on 02.22.2004
Side-wipe to a sobbing Lilly, sitting in the church. Lilly thinks that she's a terrible person, and she wants to cancel the wedding. She was being selfish when she asked her father to walk her down the aisle, and Annie has no reassuring answer for that, because Annie thinks she's right. I don't, however. Lilly says that she's avoided getting married for so long, and she thought that doing it with her dad and new family around her would make her feel better. But she was just thinking of herself. "And that's totally normal," Annie says, "for me, anyway. I do it all the time." And notice how Annie doesn't deny that Lilly is being selfish. Annie says everything will be okay, and she really believes that. She doesn't want Lilly to be sad on her wedding day. And Annie's bad feeling? "It's gone." Lilly says that she's so "glad" to have Annie in her life now. I can't imagine why.
After watching this episode, my dad was so appalled that he called to complain that the fact that I recap it, and that he's a fan of my recaps, means that he has to watch this show every week. As consolation, I told him that if it ever turned out that he fathered a child out of wedlock, and she came back into our lives and wanted him to walk her down the aisle at her wedding, but he had Alzheimer's, that I wouldn't be opposed to it. He said it was small comfort.
Next morning, Annie is dressed in her best funeral -- I mean, "wedding" outfit. SamVid, too, are all decked out in black and they even managed to get their ties on. Ruthie runs out and Annie critiques her style, "a little less lipstick and more hairspray." Ruthie's an idiot to take fashion advice from her mother. The phone rings. Annie walks into Martin's room without knocking to find him and Asslee chastely making out. Martin lies that Asslee was just helping him with his tie. Annie doesn't even care. Lucy walks up and says that she and Kevin will take everyone to the church, and she and RevCam can come when they're ready.
RevCam walks in and says he has to talk to Annie. It turns out that Ginger finally realized that her husband was dead. Annie makes it all about herself, saying that she had a feeling and blah blah blah. And then Annie decides not to tell Lilly about her dad until after the wedding. They can lie to Lilly that Ginger missed the plane, and then, after the wedding is all over, Annie will tell her the truth. She thinks that's what their father would have wanted. For his daughter to think that he didn't care enough about her to make the flight to her wedding? Hmm. This whole "don't tell Lilly" thing may well go down as the worst decision in history since the greater European powers decided to take a "wait and see" approach to Hitler's rise to power and building of a massive army. Or since The WB decided to air Brenda Hampton and Aaron Spelling's new show about a minister raising his large family.