Episode Report Card Sara M: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Missing: Alice, and Eleven Cast Members
By Sara M | Season 8 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.16.2003
Gracie, the CPS lady, and some other woman are having a meeting. Unknown woman, who is revealed to be Mrs. Miller, says she "doesn't know" if she can go through with everything. CPS lady uses RevCam's patented brand of ESP-by-way-of-reading-ahead-in-the-script to know that Mrs. Miller was also sexually abused when she was a child. Mrs. Miller says that her father did, in fact, abuse her. Oh, that's great. Mrs. Miller thought being sexually abused was so awesome that she let it happen to her children, too. Ugh. CPS lady explains how the upcoming proceedings against Mr. Miller will go: Mrs. Miller will probably be ordered not to have any contact with her husband (why?), or her children, or her alcohol. Because she's an alcoholic, by the way. Didn't you know? I guess you should have read ahead in the script to understand what was going on, like everyone else apparently did. Gracie asks where she's going tonight, hoping it's not with her horrible mother. CPS lady says she can either live with a relative or a foster family RevCam found. And yeah, I guess it's pretty weird that the CPS doesn't have foster homes already lined up, but, after recently seeing the foster homes some of those kids end up in, maybe it's better that they use RevCam's references. Then again, those foster parents in New Jersey who allegedly starved their four male charges were regular church-goers, and their pastor came out in total support of them on 60 Minutes, so I don't know. But let's not confuse one horrible topic with another. This show is about sexual abuse, not bad foster homes.
Gracie says she doesn't think she has any relatives left who won't molest her, now that she knows her maternal as well as paternal sides are child molesters. She'll take the foster home, figuring that nothing that happens there could be any worse than what happened in her family home. Good luck, Gracie. I hope you're right. Gracie adds that she blames her mother almost as much as her father, because her mother never did anything to stop him; she just drank all the time so she could pretend nothing was happening. Gracie tells her mother that she hates her, at which point Mrs. Miller scrunches up her face and starts shaking. Aw, I know I'm supposed to hate Mrs. Miller for letting her kids get molested, but I totally felt bad for her here. She looks a lot more pitiful and helpless than she does evil. Mrs. Miller asks Gracie to live with her brother; Gracie says she can't do that until she knows her father will stay in jail. I don't quite get the logic, but I'm not going to question it, because Mrs. Miller makes me feel like crying. How embarrassing. Stupid 7th Heaven and its emotional manipulation.
In the hallway, Mizzz walks up and apologizes to RevCam for being "short" with him yesterday; she was waiting for Gracie to tell her what was wrong and she was afraid that RevCam would interfere with that. She knows people don't like her, but everyone knows they can trust her. RevCam says he respects and admires her for that. Note that he didn't say that he liked her. Also note that Mizzz does not say that she respects and admires RevCam, just that she knows that his job isn't "a walk in the park either." "Oh, but it is!" RevCam says. "Just last year the church gave me, like, unlimited time off when I decided that I didn't like God anymore. And check out this mansion I get to live in! Seventeen bedrooms and an unfinished garage apartment!" Mrs. Miller comes out of the meeting room and asks Griffith if he's coming home. He says he isn't if Gracie isn't. "But you don't have any place else to go," Mrs. Miller says. Griffith says that RevCam found him a place to live, and will help him get a job. He says he'll see his mother in court. She walks away. Mrs. Miller broke my cold, black heart, y'all. Alice and CPS lady come out of the room. Griffith hugs his sister and apologizes for letting this happen to her. Gracie says that Griffith isn't responsible for any of this; she knew what her father was doing to him all along, but didn't say anything "until he started to do it to [her]. Then [she] just couldn't stand it." And there goes about ninety-five percent of whatever sympathy I had for her. Great job, writers. Gracie has decided that what happened to her will not ruin her life; nothing in her future can ever be as bad as her past, and she's going to finish school, play basketball, and go to college. And because we have to somehow tie this storyline in to the Martin/Asslee snorefest, she says she'll do it all no matter what her classmates may say. I'm glad Gracie's feeling better and everything, but…wow. Her emotional recovery was faster than mine after watching Mrs. Miller. Gracie turns to RevCam, because he needs to have something to do in this scene, and tells him not to let anything happen to Mizzz because she needs her. Whatever; Mizzz can take care of herself, thank you very much. "We all do," says RevCam, "because there are other houses and other families just like yours." Um…that should make Gracie feel loads better?