Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT "No Crimes, Real Peeps, Saddle Up"
By Jacob Clifton | Season 3 | Episode 10 | Aired on 12.04.2008
This episode's shitty version of Marc brings Wili last night's Closet security tape, and giggles and wiggles about the mysterious "things" he had to do to get it. Wili doesn't care. Frankly, this Marc I do not like much so I don't care, and anyway unless it involves spending the rest of his life making it up to Cliff, I don't really care either way. It's been a few weeks and I'm still grappling with the idea that this show is not, and never was at any point, actually about Cliff. I simply cannot wrap my head around that on this fundamental level. Marc waits for Daniel to shuck some clothes and show off that sick body, but no. Just the endless longing. "Stop it. Freeze. You see the way Daniel's looking at her? The way Betty looks at a cheeseburger. I've been looking for the wedge to drive between Connor and that sweet little schoolmarm, and Daniel has just given it to me: He's falling in love with her. And I'm back in the game."
It's funny, because they've never really obscured this storyline from us: pretty much told us from the second Molly showed up how this was going down. And I feel like I should be bothered by the fact that Wili's corporate scheming has been replaced by this bizarre Every Weird Girl Thing At Once application of her evil skills: the baby-wanting, the husband-wanting, the feeling-having, the Having It All of it all... But no. It rings true, and she's doing all of these nutty things completely in character. And frankly, the time for considering Baby Boom in a feminist context is pretty much over, because we've explored it so thoroughly in our entertainment and our lives that now it's just: a thing that happens. Remember the Mommy Wars and how the job-havers and the home-makers complacently bitched about each other and condescended to each other and acted like assholes? Doesn't that feel kind of archaic to you now? The evolution of culture is punctuated not with shouts and murmurs, but with blessed silence. The fact that we can finally talk about career/children without screaming or getting militant -- or tossing absurd generalizations at it -- is a greater sign of our growth as a people than any manifesto: when the fight stops, the world starts up again. We all turn back into just people.
Amanda comes home to a lovely dinner, courtesy of Betty. "What's all this business?" she asks, and Betty says that after a long day of hard work (at two jobs yet!), she thought Amanda would be hungry and tired. I love how their solution is to just legitimize Betty's constant nurturing of Amanda by converting them to a working couple. "I'm going to be cooking and cleaning up for you anyway, you might as well earn it." She gives her a wallet from Hilda's boutique as well and Amanda is totally touched. "You know, because yours got stolen, and you need somewhere to keep your rent money." Amanda is agog: "Betty, this is Prada." Betty corrects her -- it's PLADA -- and then Amanda's voice does that amazingly touching break it does when she says thank you, and they sit down to eat, and they are a little family.