Everleigh

Didn't Cam recruit Manny to the football team because he could block? Or at least move through a crowd of people when he has to get a cake to a judging table on time. When did he become a kicker? I didn't see all of season 5 so maybe I just missed it, but kicker is not the position I'd expect a kid his size to play in high school. Gloria "benching" Cam at dinner was pretty funny though. So Mitch being weirdly competitive with small children is a running thing now? There was that handball kid and now this little girl genius. Loved that Mitchell was forced to realize his kid wasn't the most special kid in the whole world. Too many parents never get that message. Nice to see Haley and Alex acting like sisters without all the bickering. Don't really care for the Haley/Andy thing though. I think we're supposed to believe it traveled through the family one by one, thus slowing the cold's progression and allowing it to linger for a couple of weeks. But for that to be believable, we should have seen someone sick with it in the previous episode.

That Dan Schneider thing is horrifying (if true), he's produced so many shows centered around young girls. But I don't know if those allegations are well known enough to be the inspiration here. The episode was fine. Up until the baby Noah crisis cliffhanger at the end. Hopefully it's just a minor scare that doesn't dominate next episode. I find it hard to believe that the producer guy would go through all the trouble of registering a script but not bother writing a half-assed treatment to make it look legit. It was said over and over again how smart and careful he was, and strictly filming projects in states where it's basically legal to have sex with teenagers is some pretty next level shit, so I found it hard to believe he'd be that careless when it came to registering the script. I like the new guy a lot more without the mustache. I wouldn't mind if he stuck around, especially if he continues to annoy the other detectives a little bit. As corny as the whole Uncle Nick scene was, I still found it cute. I like the relationship Olivia and Nick have. They seem to respect each other and look out for each other and there's no unnecessary tension, just a regular old friendship between co-workers. I just wish they'd let Olivia and Amanda be on friendlier terms. Does anyone else feel like Amanda comes off as a bit needy when it comes to her and Nick? Or at the very least, it seems she's more invested than he is. She's so desperate to get him back on the squad and is constantly bringing his name up, not to mention him apparently not calling her back for some time in the first episode. I don't like it, it's not really a flattering look for her. Plus, based on their personalities, I would have guessed it'd be the other way around. If they're going to keep this thing between them up I wish they'd keep it in the background, along with Baby Noah. Also, they're super obvious. Who stands that close to someone when having a conversation, even if they are sleeping together. So based off the look she gave Nick, Olivia knows they're together? And then sends them off to Canada together for a nice little romantic getaway on NYPD's dime. That was sweet of her. Hope the department didn't bother shelling out the money for two hotel rooms.

Oh that's right, thank you. I had completely blocked out the events of "Strange Beauty" for some reason, so I didn't remember the deputy chief being named as the one who was inappropriate with her. I didn't even recall that her former Captain had visited NYC, I thought this episode was the first time we saw him and instantly didn't like him. I thought Amanda's reveal to Olivia in "Educated Guess" that something bad happened back home that "wasn't worth pursuing" was all we had heard of it up until now. If they do go through with exploring what happened to Rollins in Atlanta, I would also like to see Olivia support her through it. I agree that they don't need to be best friends or anything, but it'd be nice to see them interacting a bit more and Olivia has seemed a little cold with her ever since Amanda made that insensitive comment in Rapist Anonymous and then lied to her in Gambler's Fallacy. I just hope it's not Amaro rushing to Amanda's rescue and punching someone out on her behalf.

I think my favorite part of the episode was when Gloria breaks open the bunny thinking there's a gift inside, as silly as that was. And then her hysterical panic after she finds out she hurt Jay's feelings. The Phil, Haley, Luke experiment bit was predictable, but I thought the pep talk Phil gave Haley was really nice. Not everyone knows what they want to do with their life when they leave high school so Haley's not alone in being a little lost, and maybe now they'll finally move her out of the bratty teenage phase and have her actually exploring her future as an adult. I found it hard to believe that Claire would actually want Alex to stick around and attend a nearby college after trying to force her out of the house last week to preserve the family's perfect summer. It may have been established in the last episode that the Dunphys needs Alex in the house to keep them all safe and out of trouble, but it still didn't seem like any of them actually wanted her around. So I didn't blame Alex for wanting to choose a college far away from her family initially. If I was her, come graduation, I'd pack my bags and wish them all good luck.

My sister-in-law's sister named her kid Orion as well. While relatively uncommon, it's not unheard of. I wonder when we're going to find out what exactly happened to Amanda in Atlanta before her transfer to NYC, because they seemed to be hinting at it coming up again this season. That line about pretending something didn't happen doesn't make it go away was a huge red flag to me. Guess now that Olivia is off the hook, they have to turn to their other female lead to victimize (even if they have to do so retroactively). But I admit to being curious about what went down. It's been implied that she was assaulted in some way on the job, but did they ever actually say who it was? Or even suggest it? Are we meant to believe it was her former Captain? Because I found her interaction with him this episode to be a little odd. He seemed to be hitting on her and came off as kind of sleazy, but she appeared to be on friendly terms with him so I don't know. In the season 13 episode where she tells Olivia her reason for leaving Atlanta, she says something happened at work but that "it wasn't worth pursuing," which is what the Atlanta "victim" tells Rollins the Captain told her when she reported Shakir. So is the Captain the one who encouraged Amanda to keep quiet about whatever happened to her? I feel like whoever it was is going to show up in NYC in the coming weeks for some reason or another and he's going to attack someone else and force Rollins to come forward. I generally like Amaro but I didn't miss him in this episode. I'm actually not looking forward to him coming back into the mix because I could do without the awkward interactions and lame romantic drama we're likely to get between him and Rollins when he finally does return.

I thought Sarah handled Amber's pregnancy reveal as well as could be expected. Not sure what people were expecting, but Amber is a young woman living pay check to pay check in some shitty apartment (where she doesn't even bother to lock her own door), who's having a child with an emotionally unstable man. That's pretty terrifying for a mother. Of course Sarah is going to remember how hard it was for her and not want her own daughter to face those same difficulties, so I don't blame her for not breaking out into celebration the minute Amber dropped the news on her. Sydney's always been a brat and I'm not surprised she turned out to be a bully. I'm glad Julia and Joel didn't go the "not my child!" route and refuse to accept what the teacher was telling them, but when Julia told Sydney they weren't mad at her I had to roll my eyes. They should be mad at her. Her behavior was pretty awful and extremely hurtful to another child. At least express your disappointment in her actions instead of letting her run off shrieking like she's the victim. I actually agree with Julia that Joel has no right to come back into her life now. She made her mistakes and he's entitled to feel hurt and betrayed by those mistakes, but her actions didn't warrant the break up of a marriage where two kids are involved. Yet he refused to work on the relationship or even entertain the idea of forgiveness, so I don't blame Julia for moving on or being angry that she had to. I thought last year perhaps something else was going on with Joel that would explain his reluctance to stay and work it out, especially considering how devoted he seems to his kids, and again tonight when Julia lashed out at him and he apologized, I thought for a second maybe he was about to offer the real reason why he just couldn't be bothered to try to fix things all those months ago, but alas, nothing came of it. When Max told his parents to make photography as an elective happen because it's what he wanted, I seriously thought they were going to immediately call Hank and ask him if he could come in and teach a photography class once a week. The whole special need lunch thing was just annoying. Tell the kids' parents to pack a lunch if the kid has special dietary needs and call it a day. Appreciated the meta of Hank addressing the audience's concern about how the hell Amber and Ryan managed to have sex when he was in the hospital in pretty bad shape.

Of course it's possible and no one said otherwise. I was simply using the word Julie Bowen used in the interview to describe her co-star and explain the wardrobe issue, hence the quotation marks around it. That's how I viewed Alex's interactions with the therapist, as well, and I actually enjoyed their relationship and wouldn't mind seeing more of it. I also agree that all the Dunphy kids can be disrespectful little brats, and I'd add Lily into the bratty group as well, although she at least has the excuse of being very young. But with the exception of Manny, all the kids on the show are often annoying little snots who are constantly rolling their eyes and shrieking at their parents, so I don't find Alex's attitude any worse than the other kids' either. Haley's tendency to shriek and scream at her parents can be particularly irritating to me, especially since she's still doing it as an adult, but it's par for the course.

According to an interview Julie Bowen did last year, the show intentionally dresses Ariel Winter in unflattering clothing like bulky sweaters and loose fitting t-shirts to hide her "sexy" body, because apparently they think nerds don't have breasts, so I agree that it's not puberty that's been unkind to Ariel, it's wardrobe. She's a perfectly healthy weight. I also agree with the last couple of posters that Ariel is a good actor, easily the best of the "kids" in my opinion, and that includes Sarah Hyland. She does the most she can with the sarcastic nerd shtick they give her, and on the rare occasion they do give her something more to work with, like Alex's nervous breakdown in last season's "Under Pressure", she really shines. As for this episode, it wasn't a particularly memorable season opener, but it got a few laughs from me. I normally find Cam's antics amusing, but he was way too over the top here. There's no way that Cam would think that Mitchell would appreciate him showing up to his work function like that. And I felt kind of bad for Alex. She admitted in therapy last year that she feels like an outsider in her family and at times it seems like they don't even enjoy spending time with her because her interests are different, so this notion that Alex is some kind of dark cloud hanging over the Dunphy household ruining everyone's day was more depressing than funny to me, even if the family decided in the end that she's a necessary dark cloud that keeps them all out of trouble.