Episode Report Card Angel Cohn: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Toy Soldiers
By Angel Cohn | Season 1 | Episode 5 | Aired on 05.05.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.This week Trevor stoops to a new low, which involves sitting in Claire's waiting room and eavesdropping on patients as they leave her office. So when Joe comes out all down with love and burning his love letters to his high school sweetie Peaches (also known as Robin Peachtree), Trevor pounces. He retrieves the charred letters and concocts a convoluted meeting for the duo that involves Trevor getting Claire to fly Robin up as a caterer for a singles group shindig. Of course, Claire thinks that Robin is an old friend of Trevor's, and that by meeting Robin she might gain some real insight into his life that doesn't involve Pandora or Aphrodite, but she's let down… again. She really should know better by now.
Once Joe and Robin are reunited, they are happy, until Joe starts suffering from symptoms of PTSD and freaking out about having to go back for another tour of duty in Iraq. Claire gets all preachy about how she told Trevor that these two would never work out because Joe the Soldier isn't ready to date or return to the war. Things go sour for the lovebirds when Robin discovers that Joe's heading north to Canada to dodge the Army. Trevor decides to plan their one date, and it is the homecoming dance that they never got to go to. Basically this amounts to him crashing a local high school dance, but one of the teachers is in Claire's single group and desperate for some intramural love with a fellow educator. Trevor makes that match happen with no hands.
Of course everything gets wrapped up with a neat bow, Robin finds out that Joe's going back to the Army so that eventually they can be together, and Trevor gets credit for another match. We haven't seen his string with beads in a while, though, so I'm not sure if tonight's counts for one or two. Also, Claire doesn't dance, and then she does, and we're supposed to find her hot and appealing, but I'm not buying it. Not one bit.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Cindy is taking a much-needed mental health break from weecaping this show this week, and frankly, I can't say that I really blame her. Sigh. I expected such good things from it and then weekly it disappoints me, though this episode wasn't nearly as bad as anticipated (my expectations have been significantly lowered in each subsequent week that this show is on) so either I've been beaten down so I like it, or it kind of got remotely better. Whatever. On with the show.
We open on a white background with an unfamiliar guy and a girl making out with each other and tinkling little music with a steady heartbeat playing in the background. For a second I think I accidentally turned on Dollhouse or something and I actually paused my DVR to check. Nope, it's this show. And cute guy is in a hospital bed being whisked away from a girl called Peaches while the sounds of bombs fly over his head. Then we see cute guy talking to Claire in her office. It was all a dream. Cute guy says this was a less violent version of his recurring nightmare, and that he's a coward (despite two tours of duty in Iraq) because he wrote letters to Peaches and never sent them. She tells him he's free to live his life now. Cute guy takes the letters out into her waiting room and starts setting them on fire, and My Girl receptionist tells him that's not cool as Trevor looks on.
After some shots of the city, we see Trevor in his room, weepy with tissues and surrounded by the letters and Felix's dogs. Felix doesn't understand why Trevor is crying, and our Cupid says that it is because Solider Boy was only able to survive the war with the memories of his beloved Peaches. Crying Trevor promises Joe that he'll get Peaches for him. Credits.
Felix wants to know if Peaches is a stripper. Valid question. Nope. Her name is Robin Peachtree and Joe gave her that nickname in high school when they were neighbors. Joe asked her to the homecoming dance, but his father got re-stationed before the dance. Then Joe didn't talk to her for a while, until he was in Iraq and under fire. Felix does remind Trevor that it is a federal offense to tamper with mail, but Trevor is a God and above said laws. Felix knows when to pick his battles, so we see them in front of a computer looking at Robin's website; she runs a Cajun restaurant in Baton Rouge. "Why would Cupid need magic arrows when he's got Google," asks Felix rhetorically. Also a good question. She apparently does catering, which becomes a key point.