I love the way this episode is so tersely called "Bye." The writers couldn't get much more dismissive, unless they'd called it "Buh-bye!" Maybe they wanted to call it that but David Spade threatened to sue them, since he didn't want to be associated with the show. The on-air promo people, on the other hand, recognize a golden opportunity when they see one. At all the places I've worked, the people who put together promos are some of the most jaded individuals you could ever hope to encounter, and they love to put together over-the-top ads for shows they can't stand. I mean, wouldn't you get cynical if your job consisted of selling dreck like 7th Heaven? I suspect that attitude influences this promo more than a little, as the voice-over guy dramatically intones, "Five years ago she danced her way into our hearts. Now Mary has lost her way..." You know, I can't imagine why the Emmy awards people spend so much time televising awards for crappy miniseries that I would watch only if I were in a full body cast and couldn't reach the remote control. Instead, they should have categories like "Most subtly sarcastic promo" or "Best mockery of a detested character in a promotional piece." Hey, I'd start watching the Emmys again. Anyway, the promo people keep calling this episode "Mary's Goodbye," but it's listed everywhere else simply as "Bye." I thought I'd point that out so you wouldn't get confused come Emmy time. Heh. I'm just joking, of course.
Cliché alert! RevCam's in his office, giving a lecture on recognizing troubled teens and taking action to help them. There's a long close-up of him talking earnestly. Because you've seen this technique employed four million times already in every awful sitcom since the dawn of time, you know immediately that there's nobody sitting across the desk from him. Mr. Cate bet that Eric would be talking to Happy; I bet that he'd be talking to himself. I won -- not that either of us had cared enough to come up with stakes for the bet. Also, neither of us imagined that Eric would alternately sit on one side of the desk and then the other as he plays the part of both lecturer and lecturee. Somebody's seen a few too many pretentious off-Broadway plays, I'm thinking! Eric's speech is convoluted and pointless. The only thing that sticks out is that he claims that "every person has a certain amount of free will." He says that like it's a bad thing. He tells himself to stop talking to himself and go home for dinner. Playful music lets us know that this is "funny."
I have a great idea for revamping the opening credits. Now that Mary's leaving, they've got just enough characters to rip off the Brady Bunch opener. Unfortunately, John's character has pretty much been turned into Alice already, so he should feel right in place there in the centre square. As an added bonus, this could help the actors get used to their future careers on Hollywood Squares.
Speaking of perfect Hollywood Squares candidates, Deborah Raffin and Ed Begley Jr. are not just any old guest stars; they are accorded the honour of being "Special Guest Stars." And I thought this program couldn't do humour very well. Well, that shows me. SuperMom is scurrying around the kitchen, examining the petty cash coffee can and counting the bills in her wallet. Either she's still trying to figure out where Mary found the money to pay her bills or she's checking to make sure Mary hasn't lifted any cash from the family today. The perky, annoying music in the background sounds like it belongs to another scene entirely. RevCam comes in and immediately asks what's for dinner. That's kind of rude. If Mr. Cate walked in and asked that right off the bat, I'd probably tell him that his dinner was still at the grocery store. Annie says they're having chicken and asks him if that's okay. What kind of stupid question is that? If someone were kind enough to cook for me, I don't think I'd be inclined to critique that person's menu choices. Besides, the chicken is all prepared to be put in the oven already. What's SuperMom supposed to do, chuck it and start from scratch? Actually, the chicken has been sitting on the counter throughout this scene, its salmonella count multiplying rapidly. For all we know, it's been sitting there all afternoon. And we don't even get a PSA about kitchen hygiene? Eric and Annie talk about Mary for a while. There's probably some way for this scene to get even more boring, but I'm not sure science is advanced enough at this point to show us how. Suffice it to say that the CamRents are upset because they don't know where Mary got the money to pay her bills. To lift their spirits, they decide to invite the Hamiltons over for dessert and coffee. Wow, sounds like a blast. I feel bad for the Hamiltons, whoever they may be, because it sounds like Annie expects them to do the dirty work of cheering up her and Eric. The CamRents speculate on where Mary might be at this very moment.
Mary is down at Flicks, of course, where the ticket-seller tells her they've just started running a new movie. Thank goodness. If I had to watch another scene like last week's, with Mary laughing at that Marx Brothers movie while showing off the half-chewed popcorn in her mouth, I'd probably get homicidal. Oh, and Mary acts rude and surly to the ticket guy. I know, I was pretty shocked by that too.
At Ma Camden's Family Feedbag (tm Mr. Stupidhead), Annie is ripping up some lettuce into a bowl. I'll bet it's the same bowl she marinated the chicken in and didn't bother washing afterward. Lucy comes in and starts simpering about how sorry she is that she stayed so long at the library. Please, someone make it stop! She brags about how she writes better if she lets something "sit for a day and then [goes] back for a final polish." I think the people who write the dialogue for this show should consider employing the same technique. Except instead of that "final polish" stuff, they should just highlight ninety per cent of the dialogue they wrote and then hit the Delete key. Yes, that would be a definite improvement. Loser -- I mean Lucy says something about wanting to do her best work for senior year. I've got a news flash for her. Everyone in Glenoak goes to Crawford Clown College. They've already accepted Matt, which has to mean that mastery of the "oxygen in, carbon dioxide out" principle makes you a shoo-in. Hey, whatever happened to Annie taking her courses? Did the producers finally realize what the viewers knew all along, that that story arc was boring and poorly handled? Annie is grateful to have such a sucky daughter, but she's not so grateful that she won't harangue that daughter, ad nauseum, about Mary. Where did Mary get the money? Where is Mary now? What happened to Mary's bookstore job? And of course, whatever happened to Lucy's Homecoming Bitch nomination?
RevCam has the same conversation with Simon while doing a piss-poor job at pretending to pay attention to the twins. Then -- because the third time's the charm -- we get to endure the same conversation yet again as SuperMom calls Dopey on the phone and harasses him for info about Mary. Except here the third time is most assuredly not the charm, for not only do we find out nothing new, but we are subjected to Matt's patented "wacky nervous" routine again. It really wasn't funny the first fifty times Tori Spelling performed it, so I fail to see how it would suddenly become funny now. Hope springs eternal, I guess. Annie rudely hangs up on Dopey without saying goodbye. At least they play that for comedy this time instead of pretending it's normal for people to act that way. It feels suspiciously like a shout-out, except that I would imagine the writers probably hate our guts. Annie and RevCam go on to have a conversation in which they invent a way to eliminate both world hunger and the music of Celine Dion. Nah, I didn't think you'd buy that; you must have guessed already that they would just discuss Mary some more. We're almost ten minutes into the show and nothing has happened yet. I find myself nodding off, so I take a short break to watch the kitchen faucet drip for a while, hoping that the comparative excitement will wake me up. Feeling more rested and refreshed than I've been since this episode began, I turn on the VCR again. Ah, I'm just in time to hear RevCam say that Mary's former employers already told him they didn't give Mary any paycheques recently. I wonder if it ever occurred to anyone involved with the show that by telling RevCam all Mary's personal financial business, these characters were behaving highly unethically. In fact, I'll bet they were breaking the law. But I guess that's nothing when compared with the evil, evil sin of under-age Mary drinking that half a beer. Is this attitude completely hypocritical? Well, I think it is.
Annie calls her father. In yet another misguided attempt at humour, the writers have Annie's dad make some stupid joke about Alzheimer's. And people write us hate mail?! Catherine Hicks just smiles wanly as if she's as annoyed by this as I am. He guesses that Annie is calling because she's worried about Mary. Gossip sure travels fast in 7th Heaven land. Annie asks if he's lent Mary any money, which he hasn't. He compounds my annoyance with this scene by referring to Mary as "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary." My own nickname of choice would be "Mary, Mary, Rude, Ignorant Ho." Maybe we can all lobby the producers about that. Annie hangs up on her father in mid-sentence. Heh. Well, all right, that was kinda funny. Annie phones him back and he pretends to not remember talking to her before. That wasn't funny at all. Writers, please, if there are jokes to be made, leave them to Gwen and me, or the posters in our forum. That's my PSA for the day. Thank you. SuperMom wonders whether Frankie and Johnny could have given Mary the money, but RevCam thinks not. He says, "Nah, they can't afford it. Do you know what pot costs these days?" Well, no, I haven't smoked in a really long time, so I couldn't tell you exactly. But around here it was always pretty cheap. Oh, wait, that was a rhetorical question, right? That doesn't make it any less stupid, you know.
Annie calls Matt back and asks him if John might have lent Mary the money. Dopey is sure John wouldn't do a thing like that. Was I absent that day in Morals 101 where they taught us that lending or borrowing money was a big ol' sin? Because actually, I think it's pretty nice to help someone out with a loan if you can. Oh, I forgot, I'm not religious, and by basing my morals on how I would like to be treated myself, rather than on what RevCam tells me is right, I'm probably committing another big sin. Sob! It's all so confusing. My head hurts! Annie asks Dopey to harass John about Mary's financial situation and then hangs up on him rudely. Okay, now I know it's a shout-out to MBTV. Thanks! Oh, and Gwen would like to see Annie's sailor top again week. Thanks again!
Ruthie comes downstairs and tells the CamRents that she was the one who lent Mary the money, except she tells them it was twenty bucks, which was pretty stupid, even for Ruthie. Now the CamRents are more suspicious than ever. Ruthie informs Lucy and Simon of what she has told the parents. Lucy starts to hyperventilate and screech something about the CamKids being "stupid" to think they could get away with this. She's always been my least-loathed Camden, but man, is she ever annoying in this episode. Simon reassures her that the CamRents won't figure out their big, bad secret.
RevCam asks Annie if she's noticed anything missing from the house recently. She's appalled at his implication and calls him "creepy." Word, Annie. The CamRents come up with the brilliant suggestion of calling Hank and Julie. Annie and Julie make incredibly dull small talk for a bit, and then Annie comes right out and asks if the hated couple lent Mary any money. When Julie replies in the negative, Annie rudely hangs up on her. You know, the shout-out thing was cool at first, but it's getting a little tedious now. I got it the first time. Please don't call her back, please don't call her back, please? Damn, she calls Julie back. She asks if anything has gone missing from Hank and Julie's house. No, only any modicum of respect I may have had for Ed Begley. Ho-ho, I kill me! Anyway, Annie hangs up on her again. The fates are kind, however, and Hank and Julie's "special guest star" appearance ends. Unfortunately, Eric and Annie's conversation continues. And let me reassure you that it's still about Mary and her money, just in case you thought they may have changed the subject or something. They discuss and veto The Amazing Robbie as a possible source of the money, and Eric again accuses his children -- or as he so oddly calls them, his "coconuts." Shudder! Isn't that slang for testicles? He pegs Ruthie's confession as a smokescreen.
Ruthie and Simon have been listening in from the stairs. They run upstairs to the twins' room, where Lucy is holding the twins' piggybanks at the level of her chest. Held there, the piggybanks look disconcertingly like some sort of bizarro science fiction-inspired fake breasts. Evidently one of the twins is fooled too, because he reaches for her "piggybank" (wink, wink). Oops, sorry, I almost forgot about the stupid dialogue in this scene. Ruthie tells Lucy that the CamRents are onto their deception. She also informs her that tomorrow is the day when Ma Camden will be putting more money into Lucy's fake breasts -- I mean, the twins' piggybanks. Ruthie says this all urgently, is if it's information that she just found out, even though I don't recall the CamRents discussing the twin's money in the kitchen before. Maybe the writers are hoping we won't notice. Maybe they tried to insert that information into the CamRents' conversation but couldn't come up with any way to make it fit. I know that usually they take the clunky, non sequitur approach to forwarding the plot, but perhaps, in a brief fit of restraint, they decided that would stretch credulity too much. I should probably offer the writers some positive reinforcement here. Rah, rah, sis boom bah, go writers!
The Hamiltons have answered their summons. Everyone makes the most incredibly stupid, bragging small talk about their kids. Can anyone tell me why some people do this? It can only lead to trouble. It's like this awful Ontario custom of inviting everyone from your wedding to watch you open wedding gifts. You just know somebody's going to get their feelings hurt because their gift looks cheap. You also know that once the bragging starts, one parent is going to feel bad -- unless this parent is wise enough not to give a shit what the other parent's kids are doing. I so rarely run into parents of people I went to school with (living 400 miles from my hometown may be part of it), but when I do, and the inevitable bragging begins, I just smile politely, tell people I live in Toronto, say I'm happy Muffy's doing well, and then get the hell out of there. But I always want to say something like, "I've just been elected prime minister of Canada." Or, "Well, I'd love to chat but I'm on my way to the methadone clinic now." The best part of this scene is where Eric expresses considerable doubt as to whether Dopey will ever get into med school. Hey, I've been saying this for a year now -- which, coincidentally, is about how long I've been writing these recaps. I finally figured out who the Hamiltons are. They're Dopey's roommate's parents. That explains their function on the show, which is to cheer up the CamRents and provide them with advice. Considering John's role on the show is to counsel Matt, I guess there's a nice symmetry there. Well, except for the "nice" part. Finally, Mrs. Hamilton gets around to asking about Mary. The CamRents hem and haw while the Hamiltons exchange significant looks. Did I mention that gossip travels fast in Glenoak?
Lucy rings up Dopey at his Swingin' Bachelor Pad. He answers in a really irritating falsetto. He explains that it's to throw StuporMom off the trail in case she calls again. I'll just pretend I never heard that conversation. Lucy and Matt discuss how weird it is that the Hamiltons are visiting on a school night. They discuss the fact that they have no money to cover for Mary's "loan" from the twins. They discuss that they don't know where Mary is.
Why, you sillies, she's in the theatre, of course! It looks like she's watching the Warner Brothers cartoon with the singing frog. Yeah, yeah, synergy, okay. But why is there a cartoon on after the movie? I probably shouldn't ask questions like that; I should be content with the fact that Mary's just holding her bag of popcorn and not chewing any popcorn with her mouth open. She gets up and leaves the theatre. As she's walking out, she looks at her watch, then walks back over to the ticket-seller and asks for another ticket. He tries to talk her out of it, saying something about waiting "twenty-four hours between screenings," which makes no sense to me whatsoever. Mary just throws him some attitude. He tells her the tickets are five dollars at night, rather than the one dollar she paid during the afternoon. First of all, what kind of moron pays for the same movie twice in one day? And what kind of jerk would require her to, unless it was a sold-out show? There was only a smattering of people at the last show, and there's no compelling reason to believe the crowds will be breaking down the door to catch the showing of a fifty-year-old cartoon often seen on TV. Secondly, how bad off is Mary if she spends her day at the repertory cinema? I can think of better ways to spend one's time, but it's not like she's kicking orphaned puppies or bilking old people out of their savings. She counts all her change. It doesn't look like it's enough, but the ticket guy gives her a ticket anyway. She repays him by rudely telling him that if the movie has already started, she wants a refund. I believe that is another regrettable attempt to be funny.
It's time for the Hamiltons to sing for their supper -- or their dessert, I guess -- by pretending to care about Mary and her stupid problems. Mrs. Hamilton gives Annie a hug in the kitchen. There's none of that girly stuff between the men, though. Mr. Hamilton is giving Eric solid, heterosexual advice over in the living room. It actually is pretty good advice about how RevCam shouldn't wait too long before helping Mary. Of course, after this snippet of useful advice, we're back to the tired old refrain of "I wish I knew where Mary got that money."
Annie leads Mrs. Hamilton into the twins' room, where they both stop in overblown horror to see Ruthie pouring rice into one of the twins' piggybanks. Annie calls Eric into the room. Lucy and Simon come in too, because of, you know, the busybody thing. After taking a nice, long look at the Camdens' discomfiture, Mrs. Hamilton finally says that she and her husband will let themselves out. You know this latest news will be all over Glenoak within the hour. Oh, look, it's kind of convenient that Dopey picked this moment to show up so that all the kids will be there for the big, dramatic confession. Ruthie tries to take the blame, saying that she's been stealing the money bit by bit. I think the jig is up, though, when she claims she used the money to buy a horse. Dopey admits that he and his siblings stole the money for Mary. RevCam says, "Go downstairs and take a seat in the living room." We'll have to wait and see whether Dopey interprets that as a command to steal his parents' furniture in the same way he used to steal their groceries. SuperMom says, "This is pathetic, really pathetic." I know, Annie, but some people actually like the show, and meta-statements like that from you could ruin it for them, so you might want to hush up. If you wrack your brain, I'm sure you can come up with something nicer to say about the show! Why, even I can come up with a thing or two, if pressed. RevCam wants to organize a good, old-fashioned intervention. Yippy skippy. Annie asks what they will do after that. Potato-sack races? No, RevCam says he has an idea. That makes Annie look sad. RevCam just looks kinda blank.
The whole Camden family waits for Mary. She walks in, sees the lynch mob, and wants to know what they're all doing in the living room. She asks RevCam, "What is this, one of your creepy interventions?" Hee! They've used the word "creepy" twice in this episode to describe Eric! I love it. RevCam tries to glam it up by calling it a "prevention." Not surprisingly, Mary wants no part of the process, no matter what RevCam calls it. But what if he dubbed it "The Amazing Robbie's Big Schlong-ervention"? Okay, maybe then she'd consider it. Finally, RevCam orders her to sit down; I beg Mr. Cate to crack open a bottle of wine. Uh-oh, time for another cliché alert! RevCam starts off with, "I was taught that life is a school, and some lessons are harder than others." He passive-aggressively pretends to take the blame for Mary's woes by claiming he should have offered her some guidance earlier. I whimper in pain as RevCam catalogues many of the ways those fucking loser Glenoak busybodies have violated his over-eighteen-year-old daughter's civil rights. There's the pool hall guy sharing with RevCam why he fired Mary; the pizza guy doing the same thing, but then going it one better by stating that the reason he fired Mary was because she was hanging around with the wrong crowd. Can't Mary sue for wrongful dismissal? What about invasion of privacy? There's the stuff about the Greg Brady cop suspecting that Mary was drinking and then shooting his mouth off about it, even though he can't know for sure since he never gave her a breathalyzer. Annie breaks in to tell Mary how much she loves her, but she's shaking her head while she says it. She's not the only actor who does that. I've seen this phenomenon a lot, and I find it mystifying. What's also mystifying is that Annie calls Mary "kind." Maybe she meant to say "kind of a loser," but the editors were feeling frisky that day and decided to edit out the rest. I have to laugh when Mary gives her parents a weary, heartfelt, "Oh, please!" SuperMom plays the probation card, pointing out that if Mary is caught driving drunk she will go to jail. I can't believe I'm saying this, but the rest of Annie's speech is quite good, even if I can't muster up a whole lot of sympathy for Mary -- especially when she reacts to her mom's nice speech with an irritated sigh.
Dopey puts on his best church elder voice for his soliloquy, and he even steeples his fingers to reinforce the church theme. Or do you think maybe I'm reading too much into this? Ugh -- the Dopester goes on about how he hasn't been around much, and that maybe he should have cornered her sooner to shove his opinion down her throat. He says, "I see so many young women who are losers." I'm sorry to say, he does not follow that up with a big wink and, "It's mostly when they're lying underneath me, counting ceiling tiles, if you know what I mean. Heh? Heh?" No, instead it's blah blah, "responsibility," blah, "affects us all," blah, "best you can be." He tells her he loves her, but at least he doesn't shake his head while he's saying it. Maybe Barry Watson is a better actor than I thought. ["Go lie down." -- Sars]
We move on to Lucy. You can tell Beverley Mitchell is struggling to hold back tears of joy at the impending departure of Jessica Biel. I'm sure her happiness did a lot to help her get through delivering lines like, "You've been better at everything than I am." She spews a whole bunch more platitudes about Mary needing the discipline of team sports. Like Dopey, she promises to help Mary in any way she can. What exactly that could possibly entail is left to our imaginations. Lucy finishes her speech with a beatific smile and even manages to say "I love you" without giggling. "I'm free," thinks Beverley. "Ding dong, the witch is dead!"
It's hard to imagine what could be more stupid or offensive than Simon's speech. We know we're in trouble when he starts it out with, "Here's what I like in money: it tells you right who you are with numbers." Wow. Words fail me. And how about this: "The first thing you have to pay off is your personal debt, the money you owe Sam and David." Huh? He admits that a professional financial consultant might not agree, but that he is speaking as her brother. Who would you rather have managing your money? I thought so. I keep expecting Simon to channel Maude Flanders and wail, "Won't somebody please think of the children!"
Ruthie is mad and she's not gonna take it anymore. Her opinions are more in line with mine, for a change, as she calls Mary selfish and points out how little Mary cares for her family. Okay, that's cool. But then this speech veers off into unexpected comedy as Ruthie waxes absurd about the cold dinners she's been forced to eat while waiting for Mary to come home, and being woken by Mary clomping up the stairs when she gets home from work. Yeah, I'll cry you a fucking river, brat. People have real problems, you know. The continuity person must have drifted off from the boredom, because he or she lets Ruthie whine about Mary not coming home for pizza that time.
Okay, you know, that whole story line was incredibly pointless, even for 7th Heaven. Mary did bring home pizza, and she did wake up Ruthie for their stupid slumber party. Once Ruthie had been asleep for hours -- which she had -- what difference would it make whether Mary woke her up at twelve or one? I know grandstanding about non-issues is a hallmark of the Spelling oeuvre, as is mangling real issues until they become unrecognizably stupid, but Ruthie's self-righteous indignation about the pizza incident just makes me want to cry and cry because the people who thought it up share my species. I wonder if Ruthie's gonna try to pin the extinction of various animals or that pesky global warming on Mary too, but she just runs off. It's a little awkward, though, because she has to run around the coffee table first, and people have to move their legs for her to get by. Not quite as dramatic an exit as they may have been hoping for. Eric orders the rest of the hellspawn to follow Ruthie upstairs so he and Annie can talk to Mary alone.
He warns Mary that the conversation is about to get "adult." Stephen Collins is probably an expert at that, since I hear he writes "erotic thrillers." But here it just seems like he's talking about the joint Annie found while searching Mary's room. He goes off on a convoluted thread about how it's hard to keep lies straight. Okay, dude, that's great. Mary expresses some indignation at the room search. Unfortunately, she chooses to broadcast her ignorance again by calling the CamRents "Communists" -- at least I think she means the capital-C kind. With someone that dumb, who really knows? Every so often Annie comes up with a really good speech, and this is one of those times. She talks about Mary's rights, as opposed to her privileges. Mary has the right to be indignant, but the privilege of privacy is one she must earn while living under her parents' roof. RevCam asks Mary if she's tried smoking marijuana. She counters the question with one of her own: "What is so wrong with just experimenting?" Annie stays quiet during this discussion. I never saw the episode where she admitted to smoking up in her youth, though it sounds like a funny one. RevCam says that he has never tried pot. He struggles to answer the "what's wrong" part of her question. I never thought the writers would have the gall to use the "gateway to hard drugs" argument, but, well, there it is. It makes me wonder if RevCam dropped some heavy acid in his day and if that's what's causing the flashbacks to the seventies, which is about the last time the "gateway to hard drugs" argument was even considered relevant. When that's all taken care of, Annie mentions something about accepting the offer from the Colonel. Eric elaborates by telling Mary she will be spending "winter in Buffalo." Ha! I'm not knocking Buffalo -- some areas are quite lovely. It's just that I watch the Buffalo channels all the time, and the only thing you can be sure of in winter is that it snows practically every single day. The CamRents are sending her there so she will get a fresh start away from Glenoak. They've planned it all out for her, including the course she will have to take at the community college with her grandmother.
Mary is indignant that she is being foisted off on relatives, and she panics as she asks, "What are my other choices?" Despite that fact that Mary is a legal adult, RevCam tries to tell her she has no other choices. He tells her she'll be taking the redeye to New York. I wonder if he means she'll be travelling through one of the NYC airports. That opens up a whole realm of possibilities, such as "missing" her connecting flight and just staying in New York. Stupid loser RevCam tells her he has taken possession of her car now. What state is Glenoak in again? I want to move there so I can arbitrarily seize the possessions of other adults over whom I have no legal claim, the way RevCam does. Annie says she has put two suitcases in Mary's room, and RevCam informs her that they will be driving off at nine o'clock. They leave Mary in the living room. She looks pissed off, which really isn't all that big a stretch from how she usually looks.
Upstairs in her room, Mary is packing when Lucy walks in. Mary tells her to get out, and Lucy gets all sucky again, begging Mary not to "leave like this." She claims she didn't know about the CamRents' plan to send Mary off to Buffalo, but that maybe the parents are more concerned with Mary's "safety" than her "happiness." This inspires Mary to scream at Lucy to "get out!" You know, for once, I can actually understand how Mary feels. Too bad it's about five minutes before her departure. She informs Lucy that yes, this is how she intends to say goodbye, and she warns her to keep the other loathsome siblings away from her too. Lucy just stands there, flaring her nostrils, until Mary picks up something to throw at her. Heh! That makes Lucy scurry off.
The CamRents are in their bedroom, still talking about why they're sending Mary off. Give it a rest already. I love it when RevCam says he'd rather have a daughter who's angry at her parents than dead. Yeah, I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean either. He reassures Annie that they are making the right decision. Annie wonders if it's wrong to push their "problems off on someone else." Well, probably, but then these people can't even cheer themselves up; they need the Hamiltons to do that for them. I wonder if all of week's episode will consist of Eric and Annie reiterating this conversation some more. Mary interrupts their dull platitudes by screaming up that she will meet them in the car.
The rest of the losers are in the kitchen, finding it hard to believe that Mary is leaving without saying goodbye. Dopey calls her a "piece of work." Aw, how cute. I didn't realize he'd turned into an eighty-year-old man since we last saw him. The CamRents say goodbye to the kids and then leave to drive Mary to the airport. Dopey repeats that Mary is a real piece of work. Okay, Matt, use an archaic expression once and it's kind of cute. Use it again, especially in the same conversation, and people are just gonna think you're a freak. Lucy and Simon moan about how sad they are. Ruthie cheerfully asks if anyone wants cake. Dopey shrugs cheerfully and makes a dive for the free Camden food.
The CamRents are waiting with Mary until her flight departs. That's smart thinking, I suppose. Mary admits that they were right in assessing that she'd lost her way. She says, "I actually tried praying for some way to get out of the mess I was in. But if this is the answer to my prayers, then I am never praying about anything again." Annie looks distraught by this. Oh dear, what if Mary goes away and becomes an atheist or a vegetarian or -- God help us -- a lesbian? Annie tries to take part of the rap for sending Mary away, but Mary prefers to blame it all on Eric. There are lots of other things I wouldn't mind blaming on Eric. How about poverty and disease and global warming? Works for me. Mary deigns to hug Annie, but just stands there when Eric tries to hug her. Against my better judgment, I'm a little moved by Eric's pain. Mary turns and walks away woodenly. Or maybe she's "acting" -- it can be hard to tell sometimes. She leaves without turning around or saying goodbye. The CamRents use the time during that last shot of Mary to squeeze some glycerin drops into their eyes in preparation for tonight's big crying scene. At least SuperMom is taking a more proactive approach to cheering up RevCam. She parrots a bunch of his rationalizations for sending Mary away, as they clutch at each other's heads and make ample use of the glycerin.
While this episode was allegedly "sad," I'd be more inclined to save my sympathy for Gwen when she has to recap week's. Not only does it look like it will be chock-full of "comedy" -- always so painful to watch -- but it looks like the long-awaited appearance by the Olsen twins will finally occur. At least the G rating will preclude the twins making a Simon sandwich. At least that's something to be thankful for.