The episode was decent overall I guess. The only really good parts about it were the Bright/Hannah and Jake/Nina moments. Every other part of the episode alternated between me wanting to throw up and yelling insults at the writers for their stupidity.
First off, the good. I liked the whole Nina/Jake story. It felt very real that Nina would be having second thoughts about jumping into this relationship with Jake. They both acknowledged the fact that Sam has to be a major factor in all of her personal decisions, and I could see how she would be hesistant to bring this new man into his life...especially if she has any doubts about how long the relationship is going to last.
Bright and Hannah were by far the highlight of this episode for me. Both of them hit home runs with their acting tonight. Sarah Drew did an excellent job portraying Hannah's reaction when Topher (how come hardly anyone in this town has a run of the mill name?) asked her out. You could tell that she was both excited and completely terrified at the same time. Plus, I love how she jumped up and wrapped herself in the blanket when Bright came in her room, even though she was completely covered. Such a great Hannah moment. And Bright...he has officially replaced Andy as my absolute favorite character on the show. He is so much more complex than I ever thought he could be, and he is much wiser than anyone else on the show, excluding Hannah, seems to be willing to give him credit for. I never wanted him and Hannah to get together more than I did after he gave her the speech about living every day like it was a gift. I also thought that his telling her that someday she'd find someone who saw all the things that he did, but would actually deserve her. I immediately took that to mean that he did have some feelings for her, but my sister, who was sitting beside me watching, thought that it was more a brotherly thing to say...I don't agree. P.S. Hannah watches
Laguna Beach too. We share a guilty pleasure.
Unfortunately, that brings us to the Andy/Amanda story. I know the flashbacks are supposed to make me feel more sympathetic to Amanda. It didn't. Maybe it is just because I find this whole storyline so repellant, but all the flashbacks did was make me hate Amanda more. She came off as the bad guy in most of the scenarios, and I didn't feel the least bit sorry for her for staying with her husband out of guilt. Also, I found Charlie's reaction to be a little hard to believe. He basically said that he knows that she is cheating on his dad, but it's okay because she's happy. What a load of crap. I guess it could be argued that Charlie is 'older' than most 12 year olds because of his dad's situation, but I still can't believe that a person his age would react that way. This whole thing just smacks of the writers trying yet again to justify a colossal error in judgement...oh yeah, and probably my biggest gripe of the night is how they recycled last week's "fast one" by trying to make it look like Amanda was ending things with Andy, when actually she was coming to get a warm and fuzzy feeling about their shared complicity in this wretched affair. Plus, they tried to ruin one of my favorite songs (
Dice by Finley Quay) by connecting it to an Amanda/Andy moment. For shame.
In conclusion: Nina and Jake were good; Bright and Hannah were awesome, and Amanda and Andy should go sit in the street so everyone in town (or the world for that matter) can walk by and spit on them....good day.