I'd like to begin this recap by saying that Pablo is a fucking tool.
Thank you.
Pablo's driving his little doppelganger (a.k.a. his sister Stephanie) somewhere in the car. Pablo asks Stephanie if she wants him to tell her a bedtime story, even though they're nowhere NEAR her bed. "Let's do 'Goldilocks,'" says Pablo. "Okay. Goldilocks was of lower economic and socialist [sic] status. And she had many, many problems. One of which was homelessness. Now once, after having a crisis at home, Goldilocks simply had to leave her abode because it was far too stressful for her to stay." Before Pablo can continue with his lame attempt at social commentary, Stephanie stops him cold. "That's not a good story," she states, with alarming four-year-old clarity. "Once upon a time, there were three bears..." she begins, attempting to train her obviously retarded older brother in the mechanics of proper storytelling. "That's about the bread lines in Russia," retorts Pueblo. "Uh-uh," responds Stephanie. Pueblo attempts to argue with his obviously-much-smarter sister, but Stephanie puts a dainty hand on his shoulder and says, "Quiet!"
Amen, sister.
Reason #1 Why Pablo Is A Fucking Tool: Do you think he actually tries to tell his little sister stories like this when cameras aren't around to capture it? I'm thinking that Pablo wants the world to think that, since he's soooo much smarter than everyone else, he just can't abide these silly little stories. Silly little stories, by the way, that were primarily created during times of oppression and destitution in a vain attempt to make simple people forget their immediate surroundings. Pablo needs to get over the fact that there's a camera in his car and GET OVER HIMSELF SIMULTANEOUSLY.
Bleah. CrAbby. She tells us that they have twenty days left of school and then they're off to the real world. Yeah, right. I think she's off to Europe on her parents' dime. I hate her. Montage montage montage. Morgan's scared to go to a new place, Allie can't wait to get older, Kiwi's all irritated with his mother because she's totally in his face (not to mention his "business"), Brad thinks he'll miss his family, Pablo could definitely be without his mother for, like, seventeen years. I'm sure she feels the same, Pueblo.
Then Pueblo's talking about his mom and how she's on her third marriage. In her car, Pueblo grills his mom about whether or not she's going to go on to number four. Haven't we already covered this conversation in a episode? Oh, yeah. We did.
Pueblo's mom thinks out loud that maybe she'll only want boyfriends now and what does Pueblo think about that? Pueblo thinks that'll be a problem because it would be creating a very unstable home life for his little sister. You know, he may very well think that and believe that, but it's the WAY he says it that makes me want to shove my remote control up his left nostril and whack him about the head with a tennis racket. Just say what you mean, Pueblo! Don't be all high-falutin' about it! Don't flaunt your sixth-period basic English vocabulary words at your mother. Knock it off. Oh, and Pueblo? KNOCK IT OFF.
Reason #2 Why Pablo Is A Fucking Tool: Because he doesn't give his mother a break. Yes, she's had failed marriages. No, that's not entirely cool. Yes, it's disturbing to the family environment. No, it doesn't give you a reason to constantly treat her like shit. Yes, I will torture you with medieval instruments if I get the chance.
Beneath the arty Pueblo Photo Montage, Pueblo tells us that his mom left Ecuador to come to the States when Pueblo was two in order to make money. "She made a lot of sacrifices for the things that she did," he says. "And one of things that she did was sacrifice us. Maybe it was worth it. Let's hope it was." Well, if one child turns out as thankless and annoying as Pueblo, probably not. However, if the other child turns out to know a fairytale from bullshit, then maybe so.
Then we're at school, and Morgan is packing up his backpack as he tells us, "College and stuff like that...it's closing the door. It's the first step you have to take toward responsibility. And [since] I'm the childish kid that I am, responsibility is my enemy." After Morgan relieves a candy jar of most of its contents, his guidance counselor talks to him about some school that Morgan's obviously applied to. There's some talk about open admissions and proper environment or something, but all I can pay attention to is little Morgan's face; he looks like he's twelve or something, and he so totally doesn't want to go to college or to grow up. And you know, now that this season is coming to an end, Morgan's one of the kids I want to follow. If PBS were to do a whole "follow-up" special (like The Real World, but only with more class and less Puck), I'd be super-glued to my set, waiting to find out what Morgan's up to and what he's turned out to be. No, I'm not being sarcastic. Shut up and eat your Cheetos.
"I don't know what I wanna do in college, dammit!" says Morgan, later in that time period (yeah, cuz we have no idea what day it is), while sitting at the kitchen table with his dad. "One day I wanna go to CLC, the minute I wanna go to Columbia, minute I wanna stay home for a year, minute I wanna go to Chile for year or something like that...not Chile, but --"
(For those of you outside of Illinois, CLC is "College of Lake County" and it's sort of our version of a community college. And Columbia is Columbia College, a pretty decent film/theatre/arts school in downtown Chicago. Got it? Good.)