CBS congratulates Judging Amy on nailing three Emmy nominations. Where's my "thank you"? Where would these chuckleheads be without me? Nowhere! I made this show what it is today, with my witty commentary and clever analysis. I totally did. Girl, you know it's true.
Amy's in the courtroom. Some dude with a drug-sniffing dog found a bag of weed on this punky looking kid. Amy's presiding over a motion to suppress the evidence. Bruce, for once, isn't staring at his teeny tiny desk, but at Donna, whose hair looks, well, just like Amy's, all wavy and headbanded. Blah, blah, blah, the lawyers talk and Amy talks and I talk to myself to drown them out. Amy asks the lawyers to submit their arguments for and against suppression in writing, and dismisses the lot of them. As they shuffle out, Donna tottles over to Amy's desk with some papers. Amy leans back in her chair and sighs, "Donna, your hair." Donna says she changed it because her hairdresser thought her 'do was looking "lachrymose." She starts to explain the meaning of lachrymose, but Amy interrupts and tells her that she knows what the word means, she's just never heard it applied to hair. "Your hair looks...nice," Amy finally forces, with about as much enthusiasm as a coma patient. Donna smiles sweetly and sails off. Amy stares at Bruce, who widens his eyes in a "that girl is whack, yo" expression. Except Bruce would never say the words "yo," or "whack." Of course, Bruce never gets to say any words. Because he never has any lines. Because Amy Brenneman is scared that he can act circles around her. Because he can.
Back at the Ranch, Gillian and Peter show Maxine pictures from Evie's ultrasound. Maxine seems rather unimpressed, probably because Twiddledee and Twiddledumb are getting in the way of her cooking breakfast. Peter points out the baby's legs, and the baby's feet, and the baby's penis, all proudly, as though he had anything whatsoever to do with the formation of his child's genitalia. Lauren is stunned and amazed that Peter said "penis." "That's a bad word," she trills, her mouth in a teeny "O" of shock. "Not when it's that small," Maxine snorts. Tee hee. I'm so glad I stopped resisting the power of Maxine. Just give in to her power. Don't fight it. Come over to the dark side. Amy comes clattering down the stairs, spilling books and papers everywhere. She announces that she's teaching a class at Yale. I guess Harvard, her own alma mater, didn't want her. As she gathers her note cards, and books, and papers, and notebooks -- dude, Amy, get a backpack -- Lauren starts asking all kinds of pesky questions about the baby, and his penis, and why the two of them -- the baby, and the penis -- are inside Evie and not Gillian if Gillian is the baby's mommy, and Amy more or less tells Lauren to shut the hell up and get in the car. As Lauren pouts and tumbles off the stool at the breakfast bar, Maxine's Batphone rings, calling her to save the world. She dashes out. Maxine, you forgot your lasso of truth!
Maxine arrives...somewhere, to find one of her former DCF charges sitting...somewhere, with his skateboard. He's been accused of shoplifting from a local department store and called her to bail him out. Maxine is all cranky because she didn't get to finish breakfast. Okay, first of all, what kind of department store opens so early that one can attempt to shoplift, be caught, and make a phone call to one's former DCF caseworker, all before breakfast? Department stores open at ten, generally. I know this. I am a champion shopper. This entire set-up is bullshit. Let's call it "Not Particularly Creative License" Moment One. Oh, and another thing: The kid? It's Chip, from Kate & Allie. Allie's going to be pissed about this, Chip. Chip tells Maxine that he's fifteen now (which he so is not. According to the IMDB, he's 25) and out of foster care and living with his no longer alcoholic dad. And his mother is still dead. Allie's dead? Poor Chip. Oh, and Chip? Thanks for the exposition there. Maxine wonders why Chip called her, and not his father. Chip says that Maxine was "always straight with [him], back in the day." Chip is full of remorse about the stealing thing. Maxine promises to put a good word in for him with the police, but warns him that if she finds out he's been stealing other stuff, the police will be the least of his worries.
Newspaper office. Snarly Bald Editor Dude tells Vincent that "the vice president of the chamber of commerce got whacked last night in a car-jacking." Vincent is dismayed. He's also one fine piece of man candy in a snug black thermal. SBED tells Vincent that "the money shot" is that the man happened to be wearing women's clothing when the entire thing went down. Maybe I'm just picky tonight, but who wrote this episode? I'd like, first of all, to ask who on earth talks like SBED? Second, if the victim is a respected member of the Hartford community, and a prominent member of the Chamber of Commerce, who was also secretly a cross-dresser, what was he doing driving around town in a dress? Wouldn't he, oh, you know, try to confine the cross-dressing to his home, where no one could find out, and cause scandal and heartbreak for his family? I'm calling this Not Particularly Creative License Moment Number Two. Sadly, there will be more. The SBED finishes his run-down of the Cross-Dressing Case by telling Vincent that "the guy's a militant homo-hater." Vincent smiles his half-smile. "Wow," saith he. He says he'll start on the story by talking to the cops. SBED calls Vincent back into his office and tells him that what he really needs is a quote from the widow, talking about the clothes. Vincent wonders why she'd be willing "to talk to [him] about that." SBED snaps that Vincent is "going to charm her in spilling her guts and [he's] going to write it up and get it to [SBED] yesterday." Vincent stares at SBED blankly. SBED claps his hands and tells Vincent "they don't have all day." Vincent stumbles out. SBED goes back to Central Casting, where he sits under a little sign reading "Gruff, Foul-Mouthed Newspaper Men."
Halls of Justice. Mentally Handicapped Mom fights for custody of her baby. MHM has the "mental capacity of a twelve-year-old." DCF says that the baby is suffering from failure to thrive, and would benefit from foster care. MHM sunnily informs Amy that she is perfectly able to take care of her baby, and thrusts the baby into Amy's arms. Bruce smiles encouragingly at MHM. MHM makes some charming but clearly "simple-minded" commentary about her child. Yawn. Amy informs the crowd that they're going to trial, but that in the meantime, the baby needs to be in temporary custody. And then we have the "God, Please Don't Take Away My Baby" portion of the show. Screaming. Squealing. Squalling. I pray for this episode to end, but the timer on my VCR says we're only fourteen minutes in! How can that even be? God, where'd I put the Xanax?
Vincent, in his little convertible, sits in front of the Cross-Dresser's house. He looks like a tasty morsel of man meat in his corduroy camel car coat. ["Damn, that's one spicy alliteration meatball!" -- Sars] He sighs. He shuffles up to the door. He sighs. He rings the bell. He sighs again. He asks the widow if he can ask her some questions. Sigh number three. He looks like he'd rather be anywhere but on her doorstep, invading her privacy. She rather nicely tells him she has nothing to say. He sighs. And half-heartedly shoves his foot in the door, looks at the ground in shame, and mumbles, "whywasyourhusbandwearingwomen'sclotheswhenhedied?" Mrs. Cross-Dresser opens the door, all teary and calm, and softly asks Vincent to please leave her alone. Vincent apologizes as she gently closes the door in his face. He shuffles down the steps and feels like a whore. Sighs all around.
I love these Philip Morris commercials, where they're all talking about the charities Philip Morris gives to, and how they're working it so inner city kids have tutors, and sick old ladies get tangerines and babies get pre-natal care, because when the announcer guy goes, "Working to make a difference. The people of Philip Morris," I always have the urge to scream "working to make difference in your life expectancy!"
Maxine goes to see Chip's Pa. He snips that he's working his ass off for the kid. She tells him about the shoplifting, and wonders why Chip called her instead of his own father. Pa says that Chip knows he'd ground him, that's why. Maxine pertly tells Pa that she doesn't need his attitude. She adds that in the last six months, Chip's grades have gone down, and he's having trouble at school. She wants to know why. Pa sighs and sits in his old ratty recliner and tells Maxine he doesn't know why, because Chip never talks to him. He explains that Chip only talks to his therapist, some authority on children whose mothers killed themselves. He says her name is Dr. Kumbaya (Maxine corrects him -- it's "Kubiac." But that's not funny). He's not all that thrilled with Dr. Kumbaya.
At the newspaper, SBED gets all in Vincent's face because the story my chewy hunk of male muffin wrote about the Cross-Dresser doesn't have any verbiage from the widow about the clothes. Vincent asserts that he doesn't want to torture the widow. He thinks the man's life might be more interesting than the sordid facts of his death, and asks for one more day to do some research. The entire newsroom laughs at him.
Halls of Justice. Drug-sniffing dog. Illegal search and seizure. Evidence suppressed. Case dismissed! Then the dog attacks Alleged Drug Dealer. Amy starts hyperventilating, but manages to catch enough breath to toss the Dude and the Dog out of her courtroom. She looks very washed out in a black turtleneck. Amy, honey, you'd look so pretty if you'd just put on some lipstick. Bruce buries his head in his hands. He's probably wondering how he can get off this show and onto something where he might get some lines, like The West Wing. That's a talky one.
Maxine visits Dr. Kumbaya in her office. She's a slim, shorthaired, patronizing redhead. I notice that Maxine is carrying a really great leather tote bag. Kumbaya informs Maxine that she's "very much on top of [Chip's] issues." If that's what the kids are calling it these days. Kumbaya sniffs that the shoplifting episode was just a little backsliding, and that such incidents are to be expected. Maxine wonders what triggered said incident, seeing as Chip was doing so well just a scant six months earlier. Kumbaya gets all patronizing and tells Maxine that she, Maxine, is not a trained psychologist, and she ought to leave the psychoanalyzing to the experts. She smiles sweetly and tells Maxine that perhaps Chip's father has had a lapse in sobriety.
SBED's office. He and my sweet barrel of boy batter argue about the details of the cross-dressing story. Vincent wants to present a balanced picture of the man; SBED wants the sensational angle. Their mouths move, but I don't hear anything, because I'm so impressed with Vincent's clean hair.
Back at the Ranch, Amy's working on her notes for her lecture at Yale. Lauren comes in from a night with her father and Leesha -- with pierced ears. Amy wigs, because she told Lauren that she couldn't -- oh, whatever. Basically, Amy is pissed because she didn't give permission for the ear piercing. She runs off to Yale in a huff.
Okay, so Amy's in mid-lecture. Yale Law School, right? These kids are full-time law students. As far as I know, full-time law students do not take night classes, correct? So why is Amy teaching a night class at Yale? That's the third instance of Not Particularly Creative License. Oh, and Amy is a rotten teacher. She's not up on case law, and she's reading her lecture, word for word, from note cards. Her students stare at her like she's a total idiot. Which -- nah, too easy. They're all too clean and alert to be actual students. I'm just saying. Also, no one is napping in the back. Have the writers never been to college? Everyone in the lecture hall fixes Amy with the look of death. She looks plaintive. Her evaluations are going to suck.
Ranch. Gillian and Peter are deciding how to decorate the baby's room. Don't they have a home of their own? Anyway, Peter wants cowboys, but Gillian thinks cowboys are too violent. Peter says that he "played with guns and he turned out all right." Maxine peers up from her paper and says that, actually, he "preferred with dolls until [he was] six." Hee. I love it when they make fun of Peter. Peter says, "They were boy dolls." Enter my warm slice of man pie, returning Maxine's microwave. Peter says they're giving the microwave to Evie. Maxine informs Vincent that she wasn't pleased with his piece on the cross-dresser. He defensively tells her it's a "balanced piece." I know who the balanced piece is in this -- wait, that doesn't even make sense. Anyway, Maxine tells him that there was more to the man than the dress he died in. At this prurient piece of gossip, Peter snatches the paper, and he and Gillian start reading the article. Maxine informs Vincent that journalism is not a noble profession, and he's better than that. She sneers. Vincent calmly thanks his mother for her opinion and says he hopes Evie enjoys the microwave. He does this odd bow thing, and leaves. Dumb and Dumber, still reading Vincent's article, start snickering. Maxine gives them both a dirty look and snatches the paper away from them. It's official: I really hate both Peter and Gillian. They have no redeeming qualities.
Halls of Justice. Amy whines to Bruce that her students hate her. Bruce is wearing a plaid coat and an argyle sweater vest, in an alarming and unusual display of bad taste. Donna heads their way -- dressed exactly like Amy. Bruce and Amy just kind of stare at her as she sails by. Single White Female, much? That's a timely rip-off.
Maxine and Chip are outside, somewhere, feeding some pigeons. I think they're in Chip's yard, and these caged birds are his pets, but who the hell knows? Maxine asks Chip what's going on with him. Chip tells her he's "just chilling." Oh, sweet God, find the writer of this episode and throw him or her out of the WGA right now, please. Chip sighs that he misses his mother, but he's "keeping it together for his Dad." He starts telling Maxine about an incident when he and "Amanda" were "driving around," and Maxine's Spidey Sense goes off. She first wonders why, he calls Dr. Kumbaya "Amanda," and second, why they were just "driving around." Chip tries to convince Maxine that Kumbaya was driving him home, but she doesn't buy that old tale. Then he pulls out the "You Wouldn't Understand; She and I Have a 'Special Friendship'" Line. Maxine and I both raise our eyebrows. Yeah, I've heard all about them "Special Friendships." On Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.
Halls of Justice. Mentally Handicapped Mom case. Failure to thrive. Not malicious. Iron deficiency. Baby developmentally on scale. MHM was worried that she wasn't doing a good job, and when some women at the market told her the baby was too fat, she stopped feeding her. Amy smiles encouragingly at MHM. I pop a couple of these red pills, and a few of these pretty green ones, and two or three blue ones.
Maxine visits Kumbaya. She tells her that Chip seems to think he and Kumbaya have some kind of "special" relationship. Kumbaya smiles patronizingly and says, "It's called transference." Instead of saying "transfer this, bitch," Maxine just smiles tightly back at Kumbaya. Kumbaya spins this whole long reasoning about the transference deal, and tells Maxine, again, that she, Maxine, isn't qualified to make any call on the success or failure of Chip's therapy whatsoever. Maxine smoothes her hair and looks away. You know she's trying to figure out how hard she can smack Kumbaya and still keep her job. Kumbaya tells Maxine that when she first met Chip, he had "similar delusions" about Maxine. Maxine raises her eyebrows. Kumbaya reads from a file, saying that Chip told her that Maxine said that he, Chip, was the kind of son she always wanted. Maxine sputters that she said no such thing. Kumbaya smiles smugly, because that proves her point.
Amy meets Leesha at a restaurant. Leesha thinks it was, like, so totally healthy of them to meet, and she blathers for fifteen minutes about "the modern family" and yadda yadda yadda, Lauren is a great kid, and so on and so forth and ass-kissing ad nauseam. And then Leesha tells Amy that "Michael said your marriage was like the Hindenburg, which I guess was like a pretty big disaster." Amy looks sick. Isn't it refreshing how this show tackles stereotypes and just lays them to waste? This is such a balanced portrait of the ex-wife and the girlfriend. So, then Amy and Leesha turn on one another and bicker about Lauren and the ear piercing, and being a part of Lauren's life, and being a parent and getting the last word, and, well, meeee-oww.
DCF. Chip comes barreling through the door, furious at Maxine because Kumbaya told him she can no longer be his therapist. Maxine tells him that he has an "unrealistic idea of the nature of [their] relationship." Chip's face falls. "She said that?" he asks. Maxine tells Chip gently that he romanticized his relationship with Kumbaya. Chip tells Maxine that Kumbaya told him that she loved him. Maxine looks concerned. Chip elaborates, saying that Kumbaya told him "it wasn't just about sex." Maxine asks him what he means. Chip repeats himself angrily. Maxine, shocked, can not believe that Chip and his therapist got busy. Chip, very conveniently, saved a bunch of love letters from Kumbaya. He hands them to Maxine and demands that she tell him he imagined it all now. Maxine looks perturbed. Wow, for a leader in her field, Kumbaya is pretty dumb, writing letters to the fifteen-year-old boy she's supposed to be counseling. But the writers are clever, hoo boy! I've never heard of an older woman, well known in the community and respected in her field, having sex with a much younger boy, one who is in her care. Like, Mary Kay LeTourneau, much, writers? ["Or Ta-MAH-ra Jacobs?" -- Sars]
Back at the Ranch, Maxine is rereading the Chip/Kumbaya love letters when my hot cup of love choco enters looking for Amy, who is "up and gone." Vincent pouts that they were "supposed to go running." Maxine is short with him as she peruses the letters. Vincent takes off his cap and rubs his head and asks to talk to Maxine about what she said about his article. Maxine tells him she doesn't have time for "a dressing down." I'll tell you who I'd like to dress down...again, that sounds dirty, but makes very little sense. I'm sorry. The lust affects my brain. Vincent says that he'll "be brief." I know whose briefs I'd like to...damn. I have no end for that sentence. Vincent informs Maxine he likes his job, he doesn't think it's "ignoble," and that while he doesn't need her approval, he'd appreciate it if she didn't go out of her way to "run [him] down." Maxine tells him she's sick of all the changes around the house, and gets really worked up about things in general, and works herself into wondering if there is such a thing as a "moral choice anymore." Vincent leans against the counter and tells her that's a rhetorical question. She snaps that it isn't, that he's young and "invested in the future." She asks him to tell her if "the civilization is intact, or it's just a free-for-all?" Vincent stands up straight and tells his mother that moral choices are simple, and personal, and "they add up. Little things, like admitting when you're wrong." He raises one eyebrow, and gives Maxine a dirty look, and walks out of the room. Oh, burn.
Thank God Bruce is back in his usual turtleneck and slacks. He's lovely. Amy eats a donut. She complains -- surprise, surprise -- about her crappy life. Bruce says that whenever he thinks he's having a bad day, he remembers that the very day Winston Churchill became Prime Minister, his aides woke him up in the middle of the night to tell him that the Nazis had invaded France. In other words, things could be a whole hell of a lot worse, Princess.
The police, under the direction of one Maxine Grey, burst into Kumbaya's office. That is so not going to help the mental health of the poor patient whose appointment they interrupted. Kumbaya sputters, and Maxine gives her the dirtiest of dirty looks. Kumbaya picks up the phone to call her lawyer and actually utters the line, "Do you know who I am?" Maxine and I roll our eyes. Maxine says Kumbaya is "a statutory rapist." Kumbaya tells Maxine that if she believes Chip's tale, she's the deranged one. Maxine calmly says that she read Kumbaya's letters. Kumbaya puts down the phone. Maxine continues, telling Kumbaya that she turned the letters over to the authorities. Busted!
Halls of Justice. Amy lets MHM keep the kid, because she's trying hard to be a good mother. MHM tells Amy that she's "a very good judge." Bruce smiles. I think Amy Brenneman was trying to looked pleased, but all we got was sort of shell-shocked.
In the halls of the Halls of Justice, Amy catches up with Donna and tells her not to dress like her anymore. Donna agrees. That was easy.
Maxine goes to see Chip. He's been crying, and tells her he never wants to see her again. She says he needs to talk to someone, that what happened with Kumbaya was not love. He weepily tells her to shut up. He starts to bawl and goes inside the house. Maxine looks sad and just stands there. Damn, Chip is not a bad actor. Who'd-a thunk it?
Maxine gets home to find Vincent babysitting. She tries to make my bowl of steaming love soup something to eat, but Vincent will have none of it. He leaves. Maxine tells him goodnight, falteringly. He doesn't budge an inch, wishes her a chilly good evening, and bails. Maxine looks, again, sad, and, again, just stands there.
In the classroom, Amy is still sucking as a teacher. She finally loses it and gets bitchy and mean and snaps at a student, and lo and behold, the kids start to like her! She puts down the note cards and starts what, I suppose, is supposed to be an engaging lecture. Blah, blah, blah, the students adore her and her sassy ways! She's so clever! She's so funny! She's so inspiring! This was the most awkwardly acted scene I've ever seen Amy Brenneman do. In her defense, this is a really poorly written episode. And this scene was the worst. I won't even go into the "the law is a living thing" speech. Or the "the family is the cornerstone of civilization" bit. Gawd.
Back at the Ranch, Maxine is brushing her hair and feeling guilty. She picks up the phone to call Vincent. She hangs it up. She picks it up again and dials. The machine picks up. She says, "Vincent. I was wrong." And hangs up. At the Rancherito, Vincent listens to his mother. "I love you too, Mom," he says. And then my icy mug of man beer goes to the fridge and gets out a can of Guinness. Yup, that's my boy.
And then I rewind to see who wrote this episode. Lyla Oliver and Randall Caldwall, what were you smoking?