Episode Report Card Cate: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Ay Carumba
By Cate | Season 6 | Episode 8 | Aired on 11.18.2001
In the CamKitchen, the twins smear food all over their faces in a way which the show's writers probably thought was cute. How wrong they are. RevCam is delivering a mini-PSA about heart disease, which the writers have helpfully dumbed down for two-year-olds. Psycho Annie comes into the kitchen starts hassling RevCam about his lack of support for her abandonment of their children. I want to point out, though, that while Eric has not exactly been praising her to the heavens, he has been supporting her by not doing the right thing and, say, getting a social worker involved. But that's not good enough for SuperMom, who is pissed that RevCam is still skeptical of Mary's alleged improvement. Annie makes a little speech about not judging people -- which I normally would support -- but since Annie has just banished her children to an unfinished garage, I don't know if I'll ever be able to take seriously anything she says from now on. She starts to walk up the stairs, but unfortunately, she comes back down again when RevCam mutters something about it having been a mistake to attempt to point out her mistakes. She says something about the stairwell being a "tunnel of sound," which must be extremely convenient for all the family members who eavesdrop there on a daily basis. Annie pretends to be interested in RevCam's opinion on her mistakes, and when he tells her that he thinks Mary has some problems, she belligerently demands to know what they are. RevCam confines himself to listing only a few, pointing out that Mary is "irresponsible, self-centered, and inconsiderate to other family members." Annie offers excuses for all these flaws, and even tries to throw them back on RevCam by accusing him and the rest of the family of being "inconsiderate of her and her needs at this time." It's slightly gratifying to see RevCam roll his eyes at this bullshit, though it really would be so much better to see him stand up for himself now and again. In a totally vile non sequitur, Annie tells him that he's wrong, just like he was wrong about wishing Nixon had apologized. I'm not exactly a fan of Richard Nixon, but I'm sure even he never threw his underage children into an unfinished garage.
Up in the Treehouse, Lucy says she is going out to get a breath of fresh air. Ruthie is smart enough to correctly interpret that Lucy really wants to spy on Robbie and Joy, but dumb enough to start talking about that Survivor thing again. She says that if Lucy's not around to protect her territory, she doesn't know "what will happen to it." Lucy wearily asks, "Don't we have it hard enough without turning on each other?" Her question is greeted with silence from the others. I'm sure Ruthie's joke that Lucy "is the weakest link" was met with the same silence by viewers everywhere. It sure was in our household, anyway.