S03.E04: N-E--NEW JJ

[GRChereck]

Quote

Seeking a new outlet for her superpowers as JJ prepares for college, Maya sets her sights on a receptive Ray. JJ gets involved in a (too) high stakes poker game, while Dylan discovers what really happens after her bedtime.

[GRChereck]

"You're pretty magic yourself." x

Aww, Jimmy and Dylan are always such a sweet pairing... :) 

Maya was a little nuts in this episode, but it should be interesting to see where she goes next (with JJ's growing independence, and Ray having had his fill of her attention for the time being) -- there's still Dylan (and I hope we see a pairing of the ladies soon), as well as her marriage to tend to (I still 'ship Jimya <3 ), and we still don't know what she what sort of education / career she may have been pursuing or job(s) she may have had before she had JJ... (Also, I was glad Ray at least mentioned Pepper this week -- because I don't remember having seen that dog since the DiMeos were staying at Kenneth's place, before the London trip!)

JJ being able to do up his jacket zipper may have given him a major boost of confidence in his own abilities (similar to how his pajama-top button became the determining factor of whether or not he could handle going away to summer camp), but Kenneth was great reminding him that 1) not everything is going to happen for him at once, and 2) when it comes to pushing your limits to see what you can do, there's a difference between building useful skills and acting on stupidity (unnecessarily putting yourself in risky situations -- just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should). 

Edited November 3, 2018 by GRChereck
clarity

[Mystery]

2 hours ago, GRChereck said:

"You're pretty magic yourself." x

Aww, Jimmy and Dylan are always such a sweet pairing... :) 

 

Yeah, I love them together. This show is so good at turning the expected around. Like, we all *knew* that probably wasn't Kyla Kenedy doing cartwheels, but this show makes a joke out of it! 

I couldn't help but wonder, during Maya's "Last IEP" stuff at school, if they hadn't gone through all that "last IEP" stuff *last* year for JJ's first senior year. 

I'm glad that Ray got to crawl out of the cesspool of creepiness that this show throws him in so often. It's my least favorite part of the show. 

Edited November 3, 2018 by Mystery
typo

[bros402]

This was a good episode - Jimmy-Dylan plot was great. I hope that they have Maya become an advocate - but a lot of her requests were a bit too late - career counseling should start at 14, per IDEA recommendations for transition planning. She should've also requested that they loop in voc rehab.

Also, in my experience IEP meetings are never held in a room that big, they are usually held in some back room somewhere that students never know exist until they see someone go in. Or they think it's a closet. One time I had an IEP meeting in a room that was like 2 doors past a random door in the library, it was a conference room the school had in the middle school for some reason. Since positioning them like that around the desks makes it seem adversarial - and, also, why wasn't Kenneth there from the get-go with JJ? I'm trying to figure out who all of the people were at the IEP meeting - we have the LEA rep - the principal, dunno who the guy next to her was (Was it one of the people in the episode last season where Maya goes into a meeting and tells them to get funding for aides for everyone else?), and I think three other people? So guidance counselor, a special education teacher, and a general education teacher (Why not have Mr. Powers there in a gen ed capacity, flesh him out a bit?).

I wonder how Maya planned on getting Ray an IEP? He definitely seems like he has an anxiety disorder - so maybe through that - but that would be more geared towards a 504 plan - and there aren't many reasonable accommodations for driving (Or was that in the dream?)

[readster]

4 hours ago, bros402 said:

This was a good episode - Jimmy-Dylan plot was great. I hope that they have Maya become an advocate - but a lot of her requests were a bit too late - career counseling should start at 14, per IDEA recommendations for transition planning. She should've also requested that they loop in voc rehab.

Also, in my experience IEP meetings are never held in a room that big, they are usually held in some back room somewhere that students never know exist until they see someone go in. Or they think it's a closet. One time I had an IEP meeting in a room that was like 2 doors past a random door in the library, it was a conference room the school had in the middle school for some reason. Since positioning them like that around the desks makes it seem adversarial - and, also, why wasn't Kenneth there from the get-go with JJ? I'm trying to figure out who all of the people were at the IEP meeting - we have the LEA rep - the principal, dunno who the guy next to her was (Was it one of the people in the episode last season where Maya goes into a meeting and tells them to get funding for aides for everyone else?), and I think three other people? So guidance counselor, a special education teacher, and a general education teacher (Why not have Mr. Powers there in a gen ed capacity, flesh him out a bit?).

I wonder how Maya planned on getting Ray an IEP? He definitely seems like he has an anxiety disorder - so maybe through that - but that would be more geared towards a 504 plan - and there aren't many reasonable accommodations for driving (Or was that in the dream?)

The show has not handled IEP or 504 or even the school assessment in any realistic way here on the show the last 3 years. That's been one of the problems with the show, I get it's a comedy, but it comes to the point where you want to go: "This isn't realistic to the point, there would be law suits." Plus, for all that Maya has been portrayed about helicoptering and so forth, she didn't think or know of anything of this? Plus, yes Kenny would have been present too and no, I don't care how big the school is, that would not be a place for an IEP meeting, even in small schools it's some back room, closet that is far away from others. Plus, if it's say by a teacher's lounge or anything. They either hang up signs about it being that kind of meeting or tell others to stay away until it's over. They want to respect privacy. However, at this school they have the administration and teachers act like they don't follow any state rules or use common sense and then act like the biggest idiots on things when you want to go: "How did you get a PHD or Masters?"

[dmmetler]

I’m just going to assume that there was someone there from the local CC student services office and from vocational rehabilitation. Both could be involved in transition planning, and rolling it into the IEP makes more sense for a show than having it be separate meetings. 

[bros402]

19 hours ago, readster said:

The show has not handled IEP or 504 or even the school assessment in any realistic way here on the show the last 3 years. That's been one of the problems with the show, I get it's a comedy, but it comes to the point where you want to go: "This isn't realistic to the point, there would be law suits." Plus, for all that Maya has been portrayed about helicoptering and so forth, she didn't think or know of anything of this? Plus, yes Kenny would have been present too and no, I don't care how big the school is, that would not be a place for an IEP meeting, even in small schools it's some back room, closet that is far away from others. Plus, if it's say by a teacher's lounge or anything. They either hang up signs about it being that kind of meeting or tell others to stay away until it's over. They want to respect privacy. However, at this school they have the administration and teachers act like they don't follow any state rules or use common sense and then act like the biggest idiots on things when you want to go: "How did you get a PHD or Masters?"

I can understand the show taking artistic license with a lot of things, and I understand that they may have not wanted to make a new set just for an IEP meeting, but they could've just held it in a set like the lunchroom, put up some walls, then it could just be "oh it's a meeting room attached to the lunch room." 

 

Kenneth arrived at the meeting, but only at the midpoint, it seemed, which was a bit peculiar - maybe he had to do something and was just coming back to assist JJs. Para's are people and they need to pee too :P Let's just assume Kenneth had to go to the bathroom!

There are a lot of schools where they do not follow federal regs or common sense - and teacher's don't need PhDs or Masters, they only need Bachelors degrees. In my BA program, there were quite a few not-so-smart folks.

With Dr. Miller, I can see her as semi-realistic as far as a show like this gets - she just seems like a timid person who does not handle confrontation well. Probably lets the district do whatever they want with funding or placement, which the district might like - better for them to have someone in charge there who accepts whatever they tell her to accept.

This episode did an IEP meeting better than I would have expected out of a sitcom, but I imagine that it would've been a bit more contentious than that - although at least Dr. Miller going "That was great, JJ, We'll.... take it into consideration." - since with this show, you would expect her to immediately agree and all of that fun stuff, but going "We'll take it into consideration" is accurate.

15 hours ago, dmmetler said:

I’m just going to assume that there was someone there from the local CC student services office and from vocational rehabilitation. Both could be involved in transition planning, and rolling it into the IEP makes more sense for a show than having it be separate meetings. 

To be fair, at my final IEP meeting, the district didn't do *anything* to help me out - they had nobody from the local CC that I had applied to and been accepted at, and never even told me about voc rehab - found out about it when I was getting driving lessons at a special clinic - they asked if DVR gave me a voucher, I was like "what's DVR" and then I learned about it. But a person like Maya would be on top of this already, and probably would've had a voc rehab counselor picked out 8 years ago to bug the secretary to give JJ an appointment with. 

[kathyk24]

I hated this episode. I hated the subplot about Dylan's bedtime I had an 8:00 bedtime when I was in first grade. JJ would have had occupational therapy when he was six I can't believe that they wouldn't teach him how to zip his jacket. JJ was asking for accommodations that he already should have had. 

[tennisgurl]

Jimmy and Dylan were so cute together, that was adorable. I mostly liked the episode, even if I would think that JJ could have used a zipper awhile ago. But, I guess it was just Maya being overprotective? It was funny seeing Ray get increasinglying freaked out by Maya and her smoothing, even if its really nothing we haven't seen from her before. 

Seriously though, I WANT TO KNOW WHO THE BEAR WAS!

[bros402]

On 11/4/2018 at 2:39 AM, kathyk24 said:

I hated this episode. I hated the subplot about Dylan's bedtime I had an 8:00 bedtime when I was in first grade. JJ would have had occupational therapy when he was six I can't believe that they wouldn't teach him how to zip his jacket. JJ was asking for accommodations that he already should have had. 

Zippers can be tough. He may have not been developmentally ready for zippers at 6, and it was never revisited after, let's say, age 8 or 9 and was given up as a lost cause.

 

But once he did a button, they should've explored zippers

[SnarkySheep]

So...was that beginning part a dream or reality? I thought a dream, because it was way over the top even for this show. But then Maya made reference to the bear. Color me confused!

And Dylan shares a bedroom with her two older brothers...but never noticed they weren't in bed when she was? When they were in London Jimmy mentioned the house was like 900 square feet...but Dylan never heard people playing Jenga in the living room? Sure, ok.

[GRChereck]

On 11/4/2018 at 10:02 AM, tennisgurl said:

It was funny seeing Ray get increasinglying freaked out by Maya and her smoothing, even if its really nothing we haven't seen from her before. 

After that Halloween episode, I found her regression here (even with a different character besides JJ) a little annoying; but judging from the premise of the next episode (this Friday's "S-T--Stage Mom," in which she supposedly wants to prove to the kids that her life doesn't have to revolve around them by pursuing an interest outside the home), it sounds like this was maybe a necessary step to get where she's going (now that Ray has challenged her to "find something else" and JJ has offered to help her draw up an "Individualized Mom Plan").

On 11/3/2018 at 1:02 AM, bros402 said:

I wonder how Maya planned on getting Ray an IEP? He definitely seems like he has an anxiety disorder - so maybe through that - but that would be more geared towards a 504 plan - and there aren't many reasonable accommodations for driving (Or was that in the dream?)

I seem to recall that when Maya talked about setting up a meeting with the principal and the Driver's Ed instructor to discuss the problems Ray was having in that class, they both may have likened the idea to an IEP meeting, but I don't think she was seriously considering pursuing a formal, full-on IEP for him. (Also, that part definitely wasn't in the dream -- the dream was when she tried to physically make him more like JJ, with the wheeled desk and taping his mouth shut. o_O )

(Another thought, re: Pepper -- now that the DiMeos own their home instead of leasing / renting it, I wonder if they've mostly been keeping the dog in the back yard since they no longer have to worry about the landlord coming around and seeing him...)