Episode Report Card Miss Alli: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Go
By Miss Alli | Season 8 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.10.2005
The Paolos get to the airport, and they wind up stuck on a United flight leaving a half hour after everyone else. They get this information from Mama Weaver, of all people, and I'm fascinated by the fact that she would sort of isolate herself from other people and then choose to socialize with this particular team.
In the gate area as the teams wait for the Independence flight, Rolly and Hunter are screwing around, and Rolly whaps Hunter on the leg. Hunter says, "Ow!" Char tells Hunter, "Get away from the kid," just as Hunter is warming up to whap back. First of all, settle down, Char. Second of all, it isn't necessary for an adult to refer to somebody else's child in that child's presence as "the kid." That's just enormously rude. One of the Gadzookskis is stirring up shit, and tells Char, "You don't want him sucked into anything." Hmm. Into what, I wonder? The Cult of Rolly? The Cult of Boys Hitting Each Other? I hate to tell you, but many boys are already sucked into that cult by the time they're this age. And it doesn't even take Kool-Aid. The hitting is the Kool-Aid.
Hunter, meanwhile, interviews that he and Rolly are the same age, so they naturally hang out together. Also, it appears that neither of them has much to say, so. And I suppose it's not out of the realm of possibility that they both find their families kind of embarrassing. As if to demonstrate this very point, Char comes over to the boys in the airport and says, "What are y'all talkin' about?" You know what? It's really none of her beeswax. Unless you have reason to believe the kid is up to no good, he's too old, in my opinion, for her to just march over and demand to know what the conversation was about. Ask him if he was talking about flights or strategy if that's your concern, but don't do this. Of course, I picture her saying, "I'm entitled to ask him, because I'm the adult, blah blah," and…if this is true, what happened to them all just being friends? Anyway, in an interview, Char actually says that they're freezing Hunter out of their planning discussions, apparently because he's friends with Rolly. Which…come on, lady. What do you think he's going to spill, anyway? Your incredible and time-tested Let's Run As Fast As We Can strategy? Don't you think he wants to win the million dollars, too? Apparently to Stassi, Char remarks that she "pulled Hunter aside and told him to shut his pie hole." The "pie hole" thing doesn't bother me as much as it did some people, but the attitude does. Nobody here has shown enough strategy to warrant getting all Spy vs. Spy about it. Besides, I don't really advocate setting the kids up like this by talking to the sister about how you smacked the brother down in front of his friend. At any rate, this earns her -- and I do mean earns -- a moment where Hunter, sitting next to Rolly, remarks, "She's a bitch." Again, this happens with boys that age, but this doesn't seem to be a dynamic nearly as comfortable as Char's early comments would suggest. Interestingly, Rolly doesn't even laugh or anything at the "bitch" remark; he just kind of sits there looking uncomfortable, like you do after you watch a guy get really dogged and shown up by his mom.