Episode Report Card Cate: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Letting Go
By Cate | Season 6 | Episode 19 | Aired on 04.28.2002
Lucy and Mary and their boyfriends are sitting silently in the living room. When the doorbell rings, the girls scramble all over each other to answer the door. Ah, they've been waiting for the famous Patty Mary to arrive, and here she is now. She's even ruder than she was on the phone, as she tells her brothers, "Okay, I've met them. Can we go?" She explains that their mother is widowed and alone and "frightened," and that's why the Hunky Buffalo Brothers have to leave right away. Patty Mary can't go to Buffalo herself. That's because she's in school in San Francisco, in case you care. We learn that neither Ben nor Kevin told their mother they were coming to Glenoak. Lucy and Mary get all pissy over that and starting interrogating their hunky beaus. Kevin hasn't even told his mother that he has a girlfriend -- if you can consider someone you've been on one date with a girlfriend, that is -- and Ben didn't mention the trip because his mother has heard gossip about Mary being arrested in high school. That's right -- there's gossip about Mary's arrest in Glenoak making the rounds of the social scene in Buffalo. I find that plausible, don't you? Mary points out that since she was arrested as a minor, her court records were supposed to be sealed, but we all know how the legal system works in Glenoak, don't we? Ben and Kevin give their girlfriends only cursory answers anyway, since they've learned that the reason Patty Mary wants them to go home is to check up on their mother because she's dating. The Hunky Buffalo Brothers find this news disturbing, and agree to go home. Hmm…maybe this is the most dysfunctional family that's ever appeared on the show.
Patty Mary goes upstairs to use the bathroom. On the way, she runs into Simon. Since it's impossible for people on this show to have any contact with members of the opposite sex that does not in some way involve dating, or a discussion of dating, Patty Mary asks Simon how old he is. When he says he's sixteen, she says she's too old for him. I wonder if I should be taking notes on these conversational techniques so that I can apply them in my own social dealings. I'm sure the next man I meet will find it intriguing if I immediately decline to date him. Whether or not he's actually asked me on a date is irrelevant. Yep, I'll soon be the most popular girl in town.
Annie is engaging in some boring bonding with the twins when Patty Mary walks by the door. You can tell she's anxious to get away without being seen, but it's too late, and she has to talk to Annie. She explains to the woman that she and her hunky brothers don't want their mother to date, and that's why the guys have to leave for Buffalo so soon. I can't say it makes any more sense to me now than it did the first time I heard it.