jediwands

everwoodfan52

My Thoughts.....

I just love the Amy/Ephram theme music..

Tough to see Ephram giving Amy the silent treatment...this just isn't him!

Yes, Harold, Amy had a full life before she met Ephram, but she had really crappy friends! Right now with Laynie gone I don't see any really good friends except for Ephram.

You missed your chance, Ephram. Why did you wait so long to respond to Amy? Idiot! You finally have her and this is what you do?

Harold outside wearing slippers. Love it! He and Andy are a couple Yentas gossiping about their children.

Poor Andy works so hard to be in Ephram's life and Ephram doesn't give him a chance! Just respond, Ephram. Don't be a disrespectful jerk.

"Hey, Ephram." A greeting from the "In Crowd". Wow....Ephram has really arrived. Pretty soon he might not even get uninvited to parties.

I love all of the Ephram/Nina talks. He obviously has a ton of respect for her....she had him at Favor.

Ephram...the mullet is starting to develop. Please nip it in the bud now! lol

Yes, Celine Dion would have been a much better option.

I love when Andy gets into his protective parent mode. He puts Mama tigers to shame.

That husband is such a jerk! He's her rock? It's tough to be sympathetic to a guy who is so weak that he can't control himself while away.

It's interesting that it's Harold who gives AMy advice/pep talks and Rose who gives Bright advice/pep talks. Does either parent know what's going on with the other kid?

Poor Harry....finally got used to Andy and now has to break in another hot shot doctor. lol

Should Andy be discussing a patient's case with Nina??

Did Ephram actually expect Amy to stand still and not do anything with her life while waiting for him to make up his mind? The world does not revolve around you, Ephram!

Amy sitting heartbroken on her bedroom floor lamenting about her life without Ephram...one of the best scenes of the series! Amy is definitely in love. Harold called it.

I love Delia....
Ephram: Broke up with Amy.
Delia: Already?
Ephram: Shut up, Delia.


It's really difficult to know if Harold's advice is good advice. I'm wondering what would have happened to Ephram and Andy's relationship if Andy had told him about the pregnancy right then and there. Would it have been any better than the way it eventually played out when Madison told him? Tough to know. A great discussion question.

I do love seeing Harold rooting for an Amy/Ephram romance. I guess he no longer considers Ephram a future felon with Tuburculosis.

Wonderful school hallway scene. PDF rocks!

Poor Bright. He does often act jerky, but he is trying to figure out what to do with his life. It's not easy. Sports was his life, but now he has to go in another direction. Another direction was never an option for him.
Who Moved My Cheese is a great book!

Here we go.....it's Hannah!! I forgot how timid she was when first on the scene.

Love the way they made us believe that Andy was going to tell Ephram about Madison and doesn't. Phew....what a relief!

It appears that both Amy and Andy need Ephram to be a part of their lives. We should all have an Ephram as part of our lives. (Everyone except Madison of course!)

jediwands

^ Hey, you are #1!

I still have to watch then I will respond to your thoughts!

everwoodfan52

Finally!

Jerry D

I thought that this was an interesting episode that followed a theme concerning how deception and the inability to communicate can lead to misunderstandings and do real damage. We saw this theme resonate in all the major stories that were featured in this episode, from Andy dealing with a patient who was trying to hide his philandering ways from his wife, to Ephram and Amy not communicating with each other about their activities, which led to a temporary breakup between them, to Bright attempting to fool Rose about being unsure about his future, to Andy continuing to hide Madison’s pregnancy from Ephram.

One thing that struck me about this episode was the huge difference between how Amy communicated with Harold versus how Ephram didn’t communicate with Andy, and how Andy had to find out the real reason that Ephram was upset from Harold, who had learned that information from Amy. I loved seeing how Amy found it so easy to tell Harold everything that was going on in her life, and I loved the fact that her and Harold are so close again after everything they went through in the aftermath of Colin’s death and I loved seeing Harold give her sage and loving advice and how he told her that she would know what to do to make things right between her and Ephram. I’ve always enjoyed seeing Harold’s caring and loving side when he interacts with his family, especially Amy, and I’m also enjoying seeing Harold treat Andy as a partner and a friend like he did in this episode, when he went to see Andy in the middle of the night to tell him that Ephram didn’t know about Madison’s pregnancy and to tell him the real reason that Ephram was so upset and distant from him. On the other side of the coin though, we saw that Ephram basically refused to communicate with Andy despite numerous attempts on Andy’s part to talk to him, and in typical Ephram fashion, he bottled up all his frustrations and only initially communicated with Andy in a surly and angry fashion. We saw this pattern repeated multiple times on this show, where we would spend the first part of the episode seeing Ephram moody and sullen, and Andy overreacting and saying the wrong things to Ephram, but then they’d come to an understanding in the second part of the episode and communicate with each other in a mutually respectful and considerate way, but their “truce” never seemed to last.

I was disappointed that we didn’t see much of Delia in this episode, but the focus of this episode was mostly on Ephram, and Ephram and Andy’s relationship, or lack of one. I thought it was sadly prophetic and telling when Andy told Harold: “I came to Everwood for one specific reason - to build a relationship with my son. It’s what Julia wanted and it’s what she knew I needed. And that was starting to happen. But now, it’s-it’s like I'm living in this time warp an-and all the progress that we’ve made over the last two years is just shot to hell. I mean, he won’t talk to me. I can’t talk to him. It’s like there-there’s this wall between us and I put it there the day I decided not to tell him that Madison was pregnant. I did that and I-I need to undo it before our relationship turns into...” Andy was absolutely right that hiding Madison’s pregnancy had put up a wall between him and Ephram, and his continuing to hide the truth from Ephram would have disastrous consequences not just for him and Ephram, but for Amy as well, who ironically Harold was trying to protect by advising Andy not to tell Ephram about Madison’s pregnancy.

I was amused seeing Harold sneeringly talk down to Jake like he used to talk down to Andy, as he saw Jake as a rival just like he used to see Andy as a rival, but I really admired the way that Harold helped Jake with one of his patients, even though Jake was trying his best to take all of Andy and Harold’s patients away from them, and I thought that scene really illustrated what a good doctor Harold is, and how he really cares for his patients underneath his pompous exterior, and I loved how Harold told Jake that their job was to heal and do good, and how important it was to get to know the patients (or as Jake ridiculously called them, clients) that they served. It was also funny seeing Harold try to interrupt Jake’s walk-a-thon and order his patients not to participate in it, but a lot of his rants about and toward Jake seemed like his rants against and toward Andy and Dr. Trott in Seasons One and Two, so I found Jake, and his presence on the show, to be totally unnecessary.

Ephram and Amy’s interaction in this episode started out on a rough and hostile note as Ephram dropped some classes so he could spend some time with Amy, but Amy, not knowing that Ephram had done that, signed up for a bunch of extracurricular activities because she wasn’t sure if Ephram would be spending any time with her or if they were even together, and she wanted to be busy because she didn’t want to dwell on missing him, and their lack of communication caused a huge fight between them, as Ephram, disappointed because he had intended to surprise Amy by taking her to a concert only to find out that she was out with her friends, lashed out at her in school, and she responded in kind, which prompted a huge fight between them as angry words were exchanged and they broke up, but later they both realized how much they loved and needed each other and they made up in a really sweet way and they lovingly and publicly displayed the love and affection they had for each other as they came to an understanding about their relationship and they acknowledged that they needed to talk to one another and be honest with each other.

The medical story in this episode tied into the overall theme of the damage that lies and deception can cause as Andy diagnosed his patient Dean with Chlamydia which he had contracted in Las Vegas, and Dean didn’t want his wife Mary to know that he had cheated on her, but when Andy told him that his wife might be infected too and that it could have dire consequences for her, he tried to get Andy to bring his wife in under false pretenses and test and treat her for this infection without telling her what she actually had, but when Mary came to see Andy, she saw through this ruse and said that she knew her husband was a philanderer but that she wasn’t ready to give up on her marriage even though their entire relationship was based on nothing but lies and deceptions, and I found her sad resignation to be so heartbreaking as she asked Andy not to tell Dean that she knew what he had done and that he had put her in a risky and dangerous position due to his philandering ways. I felt that this scene foretold what would happen when Ephram found out about Madison’s pregnancy and he also found out that Andy ordered her not to tell him, and in this episode, we were given another “tease” as it seemed like Andy was ready to come clean with Ephram about Madison’s pregnancy, but instead, after being talked out of telling Ephram the truth by Harold, (who I really thought gave the wrong advice to Andy) he confessed to Ephram in their final talk that he had yelled at the Julliard professor who had given him a bad evaluation. The old adage “oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive” not only applied to this episode, but to Season Three itself as Madisongate loomed over this season and all of these characters like a ticking time bomb.

I liked how Andy talked to Nina and confided in her about Dean’s case, and I think that Nina, knowing first-hand about cheating, was right to tell Andy not to cover for Dean and allow him to deceive his wife.

As always, Bright was a hoot, as he first told Rose that that he was unhappy with the situation he found himself in, and that he felt lost and frustrated having to go to Community College because in his mind it showed how much he had messed up his life as his dreams of going to Notre Dame on a football scholarship were dashed, but then she caught him hosting a big party at their house when he thought she’d be away! Rose was right to call him out on his deceptive behavior, and she was also right when she told Bright that he needed to start thinking about his future and start doing something about it, and Bright, feeling contrite, asked her for help and he told her that he would do what she advised him to do.

In this episode, we got to meet Hannah Rogers, who we learned was staying with Nina while her parents were traveling, and Nina asked Ephram (and by extension Amy) to show her around. In the one scene where Nina introduced her, Hannah came across as very shy, and at that point it wasn’t clear what role she would play in future episodes, but like Jake, she would soon play a major role on this show as Amy’s friend and confidante and as Bright’s girlfriend.

I liked the final talk between Andy and Ephram as Ephram finally let his guard down and Andy told him that he missed him and he needed to be a part of his life and that he wanted Ephram to be a part of his life, but this heartfelt scene between them seemed so reminiscent of so many other heartfelt scenes between them in earlier episodes where they seemed to make a breakthrough in their relationship only to have that breakthrough forgotten in the next episode. In addition to that, this breakthrough was clouded by the knowledge that Andy was still hiding Madison’s pregnancy from Ephram, and all the progress that they made as father and son would be swept away in just a few months when they traveled to New York for his Julliard audition and they met up with Madison, and Ephram finally learned the truth.

Overall, I enjoyed this episode as it touched on what can happen when people don’t communicate and/or tell each other the truth, and it set the stage for the tragic and heartbreaking events that were to come.

Jerry D

I thought that I would be the first one to respond to this thread because I watched the show yesterday and I wrote my commentary yesterday afternoon, but I went to bed too early and I slept too late, and Betty beat me to it!

everwoodfan52

I need to beat the two of you so that there would be something left to say!

Jerry D

jediwands

That’s what happens when I actually put the new episode up at the correct time.

jediwands

everwoodfan52

I love the way that you pick up common themes in all of the episodes. It's so true that there was a lot of deception going on and bad communication. We can't forget the most serious deception: Andy deceiving Ephram. The only characters who were actually openly communicating were Andy and Harold!


I loved this as well. As I was watching the scene I thought to myself....Harold is very pompous and likes talking down to his rivals, but he honestly is a very capable doctor...very caring about his patients....and very important to the town. He deserves much respect from both Andy and Jake.

jediwands

jediwands

I’m slowly watching. I watch and comment as I watch then write the review so it’s a process. LOL. Almost done with the watch.

jediwands

Finished watching the episode! Thoughts coming soon!

Jerry D

Thanks Betty, and that's so true.

I always felt that Andy respected Harold, and the very fact that he offered him a partnership showed how much he respected him, but I don't know if Jake respected him or Andy. Jake was basically out for himself.