In this second episode of Life Unexpected, we find Cate and Baze struggling to get their places ready for a home inspection by Lux's social worker to determine whether they are fit to be her guardians. We also get to meet some of Lux's foster kid friends, who sport interesting names like Bug and Tash (pronounced like "tosh"... short for Natasha, we later hear).
Lux's friends are not so keen about her ditching them for her parents. They had a whole plan about getting emancipated and moving in together. They encourage Lux to ditch them since they had no problem ditching her before and probably will again. Lux defends them at first, then unfortunately hears Cate say on the radio that she doesn't have a kid. Cate was, of course, forced to say that thanks to the producers of her show not wanting to ruin her image or something. I'm not sure people care so much about radio personalities, but maybe I'm wrong.
On top of that, Cate is majorly stressing about the home inspections. She won't be able to live with herself if she doesn't get custody of Lux. Putting a damper on the situation is Baze's inability to act like a grown up. Instead of replacing the batteries in a smoke detector, he hits it with a baseball bat. That sort of thing. He gets a wake up call thanks to both Cate calling him out on subconsciously sabotaging the whole thing and his friend, Math is what imdb is telling me his name is, telling him he's an idiot if he doesn't see he has an amazing daughter.
Cate and Baze finally band together to show the social worker that they've got things together, or at least they're on their way to getting things together. But the social worker informs them that it's out of her hands - Lux requested to go back to the foster home!
This time, it's Ryan to save the day. He encounters Lux packing up to leave and tells her how much Cate is trying, and also shows her the new bedroom they've prepared for her in the attic. How sweet was that bedroom, btw? Any teenager would love to have that kind of private attic space. We also found out how Lux got her name, in our touch of cheese for the evening. A nurse named her Lux because she was blonde but came from two brunette parents, and Lux means light. Oh, double meaning!
While there were certainly many poignant moments in the episode, I think my favorite was when the social worker was telling Cate and Baze they were granted custody, but that Cate was given primary custody, meaning Lux is not allowed to live at Baze's. The look on his face when she said that was so sad. I think I said "awww" out loud.
We also see that Cate decides to go on air and tell the truth - she has a daughter, and she's ready to grow up alongside her. Which we all saw in the preview, so it wasn't exactly a surprise that she'd do that by the end of the episode either.
I skipped over a whole bit of business involving Lux's friends stealing Cate's engagement ring... mostly because it was really obvious who did it, and Tash being so blatantly rude about Lux getting everything they've all most wanted is a little ridiculous. I know it's jealousy and whatnot, but whatever. She was annoying.
Overall this episode wasn't quite as strong as the pilot, but the show is just getting its legs. Next week appears to be a focus on Lux's relationship with her boyfriend, Bug. Bug, huh? Well, I have to say that is a slightly less distracting name than "Jeep", which was the name of a character in that movie Legion I saw a couple days ago. Really. Jeep.
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I agree with you on the stuff with Lux's friends. It was predictable and not all that interesting. Although I did like that Tash and Cate had a nice little exchange there, with both of them realizing some things about Lux.
ReplyDeleteThat bedroom was pretty awesome! My boyfriend commented that it was "just like Greg Brady's!"