Posted by Dustin on 08.18.2008 at 9:41 pm

Aside from the Claudia Joy storyline, I really wasn’t feeling the latest episode of “Army Wives.” As with the past few ones, I’m mixing my thoughts in with the recap. This time mostly because so many of the story lines just dragged and I don’t have much to recap really.

Pam helped Roxy study for her GED test. Roxy was a pile of nerves, even though she knew the stuff backwards and forwards. When she got to the school to take it, she panicked and ran out, thinking she didn’t need a GED that much. She admitted to Pam she was only doing it for the boys, for them to be proud of her. Pam said they’d be proud of her regardless. Eventually, when nobody was pushing her and the pressure was off, Roxy told Rolland she wanted to take the test, she was ready. She took it and aced it. All her friends gave her a little party to celebrate.

Roland counseled a boy whose father was killed in Iraq. He seemed to be coping, but his mother wasn’t. As it turned out, neither were. The mother felt guilt ridden and blamed herself for her husband’s death. The father wanted to get out of the army, but she pushed him to stay in as he was close to retirement. She felt she pushed their luck, and he was killed. She was then handing over the death royalties to the son, who was spending like there was no tomorrow. In the end Roland helped them out. I’m starting to feel about Roland as I felt about Claudia Joy a few weeks ago. It seems they (the writers) aren’t sure what to do with Roland, so they are giving him all these causes to champion week after week. Joan was no where to be found in this episode.

Denise spent the first half of the episode trying to skirt what happened with Getty with Frank. He confronted her about seeing her kissing his hand. She said the man was dying, it was sad, she worked with him every day. However after meeting with Getty’s father, who told her that his son was in love with her, she couldn’t skirt it anymore. She was caught covering up her bike and finally told Frank what was going on between her and Getty. She said they got close, she didn’t know if she loved him, but they kissed. However she wouldn’t let it go further. He stormed off in anger.

Frank wanted to return to Iraq, venting to Michael, but Michael felt he needed to fix this first. Frank went to talk to Denise, who suggested marriage counseling. He agreed to do whatever it took to save the marriage. Honestly, this shocked me. I did not expect Frank to just roll over so easily on something like this, and that says a lot about him and his willingness to make this marriage work. So Frank gets points in my book for that. Of course I’m also expecting to take those points away should he storm out of the counseling meetings, which I am expecting him to.

Finally the one story of the episode I liked, Claudia Joy’s mother came to visit. Claudia Joy was a bit shocked, it was unnanounced, without her father, her mother brought almost no luggage and traveled coach! Apparently her parents are well off and this is just unheard of. You could tell, there was trouble in paradise. To make things more stressfull, Claudia Joy has never been close with her mom. Apparently her mom was the disciplinary figure, while the father was the warm one showing all the love. The father called Claudia Joy time and time again after Amanda died, her mother didn’t. Eventually Claudia Joy heard from her dad, who had no idea where her mom was. As it turned out, yup, the mom left the father and announced she was getting a divorce. Poor Claudia Joy didn’t understand, until the mother broke down. It seems her father has a gambling problem and over years had gambled everything away. Her mom tried to hide (ie protect) her from this truth, but she couldn’t anymore.

Though I felt this story was predictable, I liked it. I knew there was trouble in paradise, it kept me interested to find out what the trouble was. I was thinking the father was cheating and the mother couldn’t take it anymore. The gambling problem was a nice surprise, even if I didn’t pick up on those hints, which I should have.