Episode Report Card Gwen: D | 1 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Troubled Water
By Gwen | Season 3 | Episode 5 | Aired on 11.21.1999
Ally pours herself a glass of wine while shooting dirty looks to her dad at the fireplace. Ally's mom scrubs at the sink. George tells her that there was no affair this time. He was sitting in a bar... "Oh, I thought you don't drink," pipes Mom. They bicker a bit about the old my-wife-doesn't-understand-me routine. Ally butts in to clarify that her mom already knows about George's three-years-ago affair. Yes, says George, and I know about hers. "You had an affair, too?" Ally asks all numbly. Why isn't she bitching out her mom? Oh, it's because she's Daddy's Little Electra. Sorry. So then Mom points out all the ways in which her one-night fling was different from Dad's affair. Guess what. She says the word "penis." Ally's trying to make them stop, saying that she doesn't want to know anymore. Oh, here's an idea, Ally: leave the room! Instead she stands there and sings to herself like a little baby drama princess. Her mom tells her that she should hear the arguing because Ally's almost thirty, so it's time for her to take her head out of her "little Romeo and Juliet idea of reality" and face the fact that life is sometimes hard. Ally bellows that Romeo and Juliet are dead and asks her mom if she didn't "read the book." Instead of saying "Uh, yes, I did read the play" and then slapping the hell out of Ally for sassing her, Ally's mom says something about R and J getting to die while still believing in love. Blah blah. Ally is disgusted that her mom doesn't seem to believe in love. She forces her parents to lie and say that they love each other. Mom McB tells her that she should just stay in her dream universe. "I don't LIVE in a dream universe, Mom -- sometimes I just RETREAT TO IT!" yells Ally in that annoying, no-one-understands-my-romantic-soul crybaby way of hers. I think she should run to her room, slam the door, and write "My mom is a bitch!" in her Backstreet Boys diary. Ally's mother says some junk which serves no purpose other than to segue into Ally's next line. "No, a dream world is when I walk into my bedroom, close my eyes, and see a unicorn. Reality is walking into your parents' room as a three-year-old child and seeing you in bed with another man." Nice mismatched pronouns there. She gives the folks a few seconds to absorb this and listen to the oboe. Then she says, in the most pouty voice imaginable, "Don't make fun of my fantasy life, Mom. You inspired it." She finally sniffles off to her bedroom, leaving her parents to stare at each other and me to say, "Big freaking whatever."