The Everwood Rewatch Fest: "Friendly Fire" (S1, Ep. 3)
 

We'll keep this up for one week and then go on to the next episode. After you've watched the episode, you can comment on it anyway you'd like, big or small. You can focus on certain characters, scenes, quotes, or the episode as a whole. You can tie the episode to the rest of the series, or comment about it as a self-contained episode. It's all up to you! You can always give your thoughts after the one week period, as all rewatch threads will stay open for more thoughts and anymore discussion. Thanks!









Friendly Fire
Written By: Oliver Goldstick
Directed By: Danny Leiner

Imdb

If you haven't already, please feel free to comment on our previous episodes:

The Pilot
The Great Doctor Brown

This was one of those episodes that told me that Everwood really was different. It’s not many family dramas that would reveal that the kindly pregnant neighbor lady was actually a surrogate for a never-previously-mentioned 55-year-old woman. :look: This, it should go without saying, is a Good Thing.

• “I dig legs.” Somehow I had blocked the memory of Amy being this occasionally weird, hee.
• AUGH! Wendell! I have nothing else to say to that, just...AUGH! (And yet, I'm the one who reintroduced him into the 300,000,000,000 Word Story.)
  
• Oh, but how much do I love Andy’s middle-of-the-lake freakout? So very, very much. “I’VE MOVED INTO A SNOWGLOBE! WHAT AM I DOING HERE?!” :lmao:
• Similarly, Ephram with a whisk! :lmao:, the Sequel.
• And, I’m sorry, but the baby’s mother looks way older than 55, at least based on the mid-to-late-50-somethings I know *cough*myparents*cough*
• Finally, Ephram’s reaction to the surrogacy has been interesting to me since the first time I rewatched this episode after all the Madison drama. “I don’t know how she did it. I don’t know how anyone could just hand over a baby.” It’s the kind of line that’s fairly unnecessary, really, which makes me wonder if Berlanti had actually thought things through at this stage in the game – was Ephram always supposed to father a child? I could believe that Berlanti had planned that far in advance, and yet, there were certain elements of that story that just seemed so much soapier than the kind of vibe with which Everwood started. Of course, Everwood started with a guy who talked to visions of his dead wife and a girl desperate to procure help for her comatose boyfriend, so...what was I talking about, again?

To this day....I'm trying to figure out how Andy managed to cut the cord with that wisk!





I kind of liked Wendell. He was pretty disheveled...but he was kind of a cool character in his own way. He had decency, he was empathetic, he was smart (well, he was in the honors Science class), he was funny, and I believe that he could have been a good, caring friend to Ephram.
I wish that they had kept him on.

He didn't. He chewed. :look:

Sorry, I have been quiet.... I watched "The Great Dr. Brown" a few days ago, but when I came back online everything had already been said. :look: And I had forgotten a lot... I should start taking notes, something is wrong with my head.

Yuck!


Magilla wasn't mentioned. What did you think of him?

:lol:




I adore him and Delia together... I haven't watched Friendly Fire yet, though... (I just couldn't stop myself from making that "he chewed" comment...)

I really didn't care for the Magilla storyline. Poor Delia! She had difficulty finding friends...I find that fact really difficult to believe. An adorable girl like Delia would have found a couple of nice girls to sit with. She was cute, didn't have purple hair, stood up to Miss Violet (that would have earned her respect and a following). Here comes Magilla.....he bullies her and becomes her friend....then acts mean to her when he's with his other friends....then plays barbie dolls with her.....then has to move and is not allowed to see her again! How much should that poor girl take! :eek:
I really didn't see a need for that particular storyline.

The only major problem with Magilla I had was that I could never actually buy him as a bully, even a grade three or four bully. His insults were awful, he wasn't even that big and he was not scary at all, and in fact actually looked scared of Delia at times! Now, we know that Delia can throw one heck of a punch, but he sure didn't know that!

I would just say, for future reference, even if people have already kind of said what you want to say: say it again. That's totally what I do when I'm not first. :lol: The whole point of the thing is for everyone to give their thoughts, so it's not a big deal if anyone is repeating. Heck, if I didn't repeat people's points, I'd barely post at all! ;)

Oooh, no that does happen. It happened to me. And I was an adorable, strong-minded little girl, I don't mind saying so, and I had difficulty finding friends when I came to school. It only takes all the other kids already knowing each other, really. My hair wasn't purple, by the way.

Repeating others isn't really my thing... I don't like to do that. I like to repeat myself... :P but others... I could just agree, though, if you want me to. I just think agreeing is not productive and thus completely unnecessary, not a person of big words, if I have nothing imortant to say... I prefer to shut up. Except if it's late in the night. Like now. :look: Bye!

This is very true. By the time Delia arrived, most of the other students had spent enough school years together to have formed their little cliques and general friend groupings, and Everwood wasn't the kind of community very used to seeing newcomers anyway, so she was really something of an anomaly -- different from what it might be like at a school that was used to seeing a couple of new kids a year, as would be likely in most other places. At the same time, though, I can accept her sudden transition into popularity between S1 and 2, since the others girls were still at a young enough age to be willing to eventually embrace a newcomer like Delia, as long as she was acceptable to them in particular ways. I would have had a much harder time envisioning as dramatic a turnaround for her if the Browns had moved when she was 12 or 13, though.

Also, with Delia's situation it is pretty realistic: To be socially more passive when your mother just died and you have been moved to the middle of nowhere. It is obvious that she really wants friends, but she isn't very active, she doesn't do that much about it, because God knows she has enough things to worry about at that point. By the time summer rolled along and everybody was having fun at the pool, she was ready to have fun again and really wanted to have fun again, that's why she became more active, socially, because a pool isn't all that much fun when you're on your own. I believe when the summer came, she was a different person towards these girls, she acted differently, because she didn't just want friends anymore, she needed them.
That explanation would work with a 12-year-old for me as well, but from what it looks like from the outside, the cliquism you have in America is a lot worse than what I have ever experienced in my entire life, so you're probably right and at the age of 12 Delia wouldn't have made friends so easily anymore...

^ Agreed on both points you two.

Not much more to add to the discussion though. Andy's, "I was once a happy sack of hormones" remains to be one of his best lines. Ever. :lol:

Some people didn't like the whole speechifying scenes in Mama Joy's(maybe at TWOP), but I still like how they work so well together. Plus, Treat makes an ass of himself in front of Nina for the first time! What's not to love there?

:)

Aw, I actually rather like the speechifying, as well. Mainly because, while it could come off as this stagey, expository exchange, it's so totally in-character for Andy and Harold both. Plus, Nina reacts the way a normal person would, so that helps mitigate the stageyness, too.

• Longest Previous-lies EVER?
• Ephram and his chicken legs! Wendell really does seem like something out of a more typical high school show, the quirky, loser, weirdo, freak teenager with random confidence. Doesn't fit on Everwood at all, though. But his few appearances are worth it for this great exchange:
  
  Quote:

  WENDELL: Wonder what they're talking about? EPHRAM: Ah... well, no. I don't care. WENDELL: It's probably not that exciting anyway. It looks exciting because of all the wild gesticulating and massive hair flippage that's going on? You'd think they were solving the world's energy crisis, or better yet... revealing their secret crushes. That's what they want us to think. My guess is, they're debating which lip gloss has the best flavor. EPHRAM: They come in flavors?

• I also adore this exchange:
  
  Quote:

  EPHRAM: Look, Delia, you wanna make a friend? The first step, don't look so needy. DELIA: Is it these pants?

  So cute. Although, Ephram's solution to Delia's inability to make any friends being a yo yo just proves just how much he has no idea how do make any friends either.
• Harold going "hmm" at the end of the scene where Andy puts his foot in his mouth (he's so good at doing that, hee) is soooooo funny. Cracks me up every single time. His exaggerated pleasure in the face of Andy's humiliation never gets old.
• I've got to say, as much as I hate Amy's friends, that is damn good popular, bitchy teenage girl writing. "Yo, goth guy".
• Another example of Andy's loneliness. At least it's a little funny with the snowglobe line, but I absolutely love the writing of this line:
  
  Quote:

  ANDY: I hope you're watching this, Julia. You'll be getting a big kick out of this! 'Cause this is for you, sweetheart! That's right, Mrs. Brown. Your whole family left a civilized life in a civilized city for some godforsaken mountain town 'cause your train stopped here in 1964 and you fell in love with some purple mountains and some fluffy clouds! But you didn't know this town, Julia! You didn't meet the people! 'Cause you didn't get past the gift shop!

• I love that Irv and Edna are playing Monopoly at the diner for some reason, I love that Irv does end up getting Edna fries even though she cheats, I love that Ephram is eating a doughnut after Andy helps Nina give birth, and I LOVE how obvious it is that Sarah is NOT holding a real baby.
• Aww to Harold coming through in the end.
• I've always thought that last scene could have used an Irv voiceover. It just kind of ends out of nowhere.

Yeah, nothing really all that profound to talk about in that one, heh, but I still like it. :) It's clearly nowhere near as good as the first two episodes, or even the fourth, but it does work in its own way. Maybe because of how quotable so much of it is.

I was gonna mention this too! Like, I understand a season finale being that long, but the third episode?! Tsk. :lol:

Oh! And continuing the lip gloss discussion, Gregory's, "you're making me uncomfortable Wendell" delivery is so perfect there. The epitomy of deadpanned goodness. ;)

Ok, I finally managed to watch another two episodes! :D And my first question:

Why the hell is this one called 'Friendly Fire'? :look: Don't get it at all.

I hope I won't mix up things with the SL in episode 4 because I watched it right after episode 3.

Episode 3 was also new for me. And now I finally know why Nina was pregnant and I never knew about it. It wasn't her child and so it wasn't even mentioned again...
But you know what? I don't really know what to think about the fact, that the woman Nina became the child for was 55... I can't decide. Because I totally agree with Andy and Nina that every woman has the right to have a family no matter what. And it must be hard to realize that you aren't able to become own children. It must be horror, especially when you're no longer that young. To find a surrogate mother has to be almost impossible and I love Nina for what she did for the woman. :nod:
On the other side... Ephraim was right with what he said. She'll be 70 when the child is 15. And who in the world would love to have a 70 years old mom in highschool? I know this sounds very shallow and I wouldn't care about it but so many teenagers out there can be horrible to their 'classmates' or 'friends'. Besides of that I know that every person always can die but the 15 years old teenager will think more about death with a 70 years old mom as with a 40 years old one. That's totally natural but the truth. And I'm not sure if that would make a teenager happy or enjoying this age. :shrug:

I felt really sorry for Delia and Ephraim in this episode. Delia trying so hard to get a friend and I was so mad about all these stupid kids in her school! :mad: How can kids be so mean and not talk or spend time with such a nice, sweet new classmate?!
About Ephraim... :( I so hate Amys friends. How can somebody have such friends? I've always been a person like Ephraim when it comes to friends. For me quantity never was important, quality is everything I care about. :nod: That's why I don't get Amy there.

Another thing about Ephraim, I loved in this episode was him playing piano again... Finally the people in school did recognize that he not only is a 'freak'. He's a special talent and I love it!

ETA - Totally forgot about Wendell... :lol: He cracked me up! Will he be in more episodes?

Rewatched this one last night.

Kinda meh on the whole episode. I agree that I can also see both sides of the surrogacy issue. Nina's a sweetheart to be willing to help Sarah out, but seriously - did she just think people were not going to notice that she suddenly wasn't pregnant anymore but didn't have a new baby to show off? Also I don't for a moment believe that Harold didn't even know the baby wasn't "hers", he was her doctor for crying out loud. And what was wrong with her accepting the baby shower gifts and then passing them along to Sarah? If anything she should have told them that before she accepts the shower or gifts she needed to explain the situation so that nobody felt put out. Bah, whatever. It was all for Shutup Carl to be home more anyway, which is never a good thing, so I'm just glad they didn't drag it out for any longer.

What else happened in this episode? Oh, Amy and the Bitches. Like I said in the last ep thread, being from a really small town myself I can understand why she didn't want to just drop them as friends but I certainly don't blame her for kind of backing away from them. I also didn't really see her reaction as going along with disinviting Ephram, they were going to do whatever they wanted to no matter what she said. I thought she did a good job of silently expressing her disapproval. Not to mention, she didn't even go to the party. That was good of her.



Mrs. Baxworth: "He's improving!" Haaaa. Also loved Ephram playing faster and faster to throw Amy off during their argument.

Wendell - I go back and forth on Wendell. Mostly he really annoys me, but he can be funny too. The lip gloss thing was rather amusing, especially Ephram's reaction about the flavors. Hee!

ETA - Just remembered another funny throwaway moment - when the guy stops by to get his boat key and Andy makes him stay and watch Delia: "That Oz gives me nightmares." Delia: "Me too." Cracks me up for some reason.

She for sure did amazing on this. :nod: I think there hasn't been a better way for her and for Ephraim to get out of this 'situation'.

Forgot about it as well. :lol: This scene cracked me up as well.

This episodes starts a little bit slow for me, but it works it self up all through the episode and because of that makes the episode so great in the end. The whole Nina surrogate brought up many issues. What does you guys think about a 55 year old woman adopting a kid? I personally agree with Ephram with not envying that kid, in a too young age he will be forced to take care of his mother as he shouldnt. We get introduced to both Wendell and Magilla, I didnt like Magilla in this episode (as I probably wasnt supposed to), but I DIG Wendell so far. Come on, that guy made Ephram show Amy his great talent ;)

The scene when Andy has his second speech for Nina and ends up not putting Nina in the great light as he intends has some fun moments, first of all this comment by Andy made me laugh :P

And then seeing the satisfied look at Harold from seeing Andy make a fool of himself :P


So after Ephram impressed Amy with his supertalent, Amy decides to invite him to a party. Ephram tells him that he probably wouldnt fit in with her friends, this also leads up to a scene I really hate watching!

If I ever would have made a hate list, this girl and her friend would be very close to the top of it! The scene were they tell Ephram that he cant come just makes me sick, and you can see how uncomfortable Amy is about that situation.


Andy with the boat scene is of course Epic, I could recognize myself being in such a situation, thinking what the heck am I doing here.

I know I am not supposed to laugh at this situation, but it is one of those moments were you ironically ask yourself what could ever be worse than this. Seeing Andy's outburst is just funny to me but still tragic :P

Another fun moment I just want to share because its fun, the akward moments between a father and a son :P
Back to more drama ;) Amy/Ephram in the dancing room, Amy is trying to excuse her friends behaviour saying that they aint always like that. Ephram is to upset and end up comparing them with Nazis and it all ends up with Ephram going out with this line:
Im not sure what you guys thought about this scene, but is sure is a proof that Amy and Ephram are real friends now, you dont argue that intense with people you dont care about ;) I think if I look from both sides they both had their own points and I dont see any one of them as worse than the other. What do you guys feel? Was Amy bad because she didnt stick up for Ephram when the girls rejected him? Was Ephram hard on Amy, when he told her that she was just like a Nazi? I understand Ephram being very hurt by what happened, but I also understand that the situation was really difficult for Amy to deal with.

Delia/Ephram.
I liked the scene when Ephram gives Delia tips on how to easily make friends by looking like you are occupied with something, him giving her the yoyo too :love:
Brown Teamwork!

Just have to add another sparky comment from Ephram towards Andy in this episode, this happens when Delia tells Andy that somebody has taken her jacket:

Ephram is just so on point when he feels to point out how clueless he feels Andy is ;) :P

After all of this we move on to a big scene of this episode, Andy delivering Nina's baby! The whole scene is epic to me, in its own seriousness with the whole giving birth the writers have put in this hilarious worker at the Donut place.
I will just add the quotes that makes me laugh ;)

And the whole thing is amazing, how Ephram gets to help with Andys first time delivering a baby! Great Brown Teamwork here too ;) And Ephram made it through without barfing :woot: I also think Ephram was a little bit amazed about what Andy just did, I dont think he has ever been so close to seeing Doctor Brown before ;)

Moving on to Amy explaining the messed up situation with Ephram to Edna, and Edna as always gives her great advice.

Edna/Amy has many great scenes together!

But here comes my favourite Amy/Ephram scene in this episode. The part were she tells Ephram how he scares her, that she at first didnt intend to be friends with her but now she cant deny the fact that what he does affects her!!

:love:

Okey moving on to a Harold scene, how Harold always needs to prove that he in some ways are better than Andy ;) The scene were Andy and Harold discusses who Nina's family doctor is ;)

As mentioned before, the Harold/Andy moments is just adoreable :love:

And that was my thoughts on this episode. I know that I mostly just refers to scenes I love rather than discussing them, but I like to keep things open and wait for some of your reactions. Maby we will have one of our burning discussions sometimes from this thoughts, who knows ;)

I go back and forth on this one. On the one hand, since they set up Sarah's age to be a factor in this ep it's easy to focus on it, but on the other hand, she's not significantly older than Harold and Rose and nobody batted an eye at the thought of them adopting in Season 4. So...I don't know. I really think it just depends on the family, the overall health and lifestyle of the adopting parents, etc.

Good point about Harold and Rose adopting. I also liked Andy's line about maybe the kid will be luckier than Ephram was, as depressing as it is. Things happen at any age.

Betty is going to absolutely love knowing that there's another Wendell fan around. :D

And I very much agree that both Ephram and Amy were being too hard on each other, expecting too much from each other. Ah, young love. ;)

moving this over:

103:

I finally started to like Nina in this episode, she actually had some personality. I felt like the first few episodes she just seemed to be "there" but we got to see her personality this episode. I didn't understand why everyone was so weird about Nina being a surrogate. It felt a bit far fetched. People might judge but I don't feel like they'd say anything to her about it. 55 is really not that old. I'm sorry buts not. I have parents in law who are about 70 and they are great grandparents to my sisters kids and would be fine parents with a child who is 15. Especially with people are are living to be older in this day and age. (With that said, the lady looked a lot older than 55 lol) Also she surely popped out of nowhere with that pregnancy? Are we supposed to assume there was a big time jump between episodes or what? How did she go from 0 to 9 months pregnant and no on knew? I'm so confused.

I love Amy being a dancer and it was cute to see how impressed she was when Ephram was playing. I loved their little argument because it just showed the chemistry between them. Ephram was right that her friends were rude but he did tend to get over-upset about things. :lol: i mean they are dumb teenage girls. Its their party. They have ever right to disinvite him if they dont want him there IMO. Amy's little speech to Ephram about how she cared about him was really cute.

moving this over:

103:

I finally started to like Nina in this episode, she actually had some personality. I felt like the first few episodes she just seemed to be "there" but we got to see her personality this episode. I didn't understand why everyone was so weird about Nina being a surrogate. It felt a bit far fetched. People might judge but I don't feel like they'd say anything to her about it. 55 is really not that old. I'm sorry buts not. I have parents in law who are about 70 and they are great grandparents to my sisters kids and would be fine parents with a child who is 15. Especially with people are are living to be older in this day and age. (With that said, the lady looked a lot older than 55 lol) Also she surely popped out of nowhere with that pregnancy? Are we supposed to assume there was a big time jump between episodes or what? How did she go from 0 to 9 months pregnant and no on knew? I'm so confused.

I love Amy being a dancer and it was cute to see how impressed she was when Ephram was playing. I loved their little argument because it just showed the chemistry between them. Ephram was right that her friends were rude but he did tend to get over-upset about things. :lol: i mean they are dumb teenage girls. Its their party. They have ever right to disinvite him if they dont want him there IMO. Amy's little speech to Ephram about how she cared about him was really cute.

LOL So true about Nina and the pregnancy.

Did you know Emily is a really good dancer in real life? So good, apparently she could have gone into professional dancing of some sort but she chose acting. But she started dancing at a really young age.

The chemistry between Ephram/Amy was scorching.

Nina didn't do anything in the first 2 episodes to make me dislike her. Now that kid that told Delia her dad could afford to buy 1,000 yo-yo's I'd have said to him: " He can afford to buy 1,000 yo-yos because he doesn't spend his money buying hundreds and thousands of dollars on yo-yos!" What a brat.