2-10 “Breaking Point”

Queen’s “Don’t Try Suicide” came out in 1980, and eight years later Heathers gave us Big Fun’s “Teenage Suicide (Don’t Do It)”

It’s nearly 30 years later and teenage suicide is still a tragic societal problem. Our beloved Facts had a go at commenting on it in 1981 with a Very Special Episode that had potential but ultimately, sadly, falls flat.

We open with Natalie trying to put together her Visible Woman model. I had one of those! I never built it.

After Jo enters with laundry, Tootie, with great fanfare, announces the entrance of the new student council president, Blair Warner! Blair chooses an interesting political identity.

I don’t think we’ve had a hint up to now that Blair was interested in or involved in student government. She was on the debate team a couple of episodes ago, and she played the lead in Romeo and Juliet in Season One until she got kicked out of the play for plagiarizing Emily Dickinson. I suppose there is overlap among all those things, and the truth is that if Blair decided she wanted to be student council president, she’d’ve had no trouble winning that battle. After all, she was elected Harvest Queen three years in a row.

So everyone assumes that Blair is a shoe-in for student council president, but Blair false-modesties that they haven’t counted the votes yet. Jo mocks, and the girls passively introduce the never-seen-before character who suddenly is Blair’s biggest rival. Jo notes that it’s only her first semester at Eastland and she’s already giving Blair a run for her money, which makes no sense at all and frustrates me because this episode would have been so much more powerful if we cared about the character who dies. Imagine if this episode had featured Sue Ann or Nancy or maybe even a Molly Ringwald cameo as Blair’s competition.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The point is that you don’t show up as a new student in one of the upper classes in the spring semester and suddenly become popular enough to unseat someone like Blair in a popularity contest. I managed to get a seat as one of the four off-campus representatives to our mini-college government when I was a new transfer, but that was only because I finished fifth of six and one of the top four was discovered to have burned down the on-campus pub the previous semester. I wish I could remember who finished sixth. Poor fucker.

Anyway, this is the other student council president candidate, Cynthia.

She has just arrived with Mrs. Garrett, who carries the box of votes. Blair says she’s not nervous; Cynthia admits she has butterflies. Blair says something snarky in French and quickly translates. Cynthia, it turns out, speaks French way better. As Mrs. Garrett goes upstairs to count the votes, we are to understand that Cynthia is like Blair only smarter and less bitchy and we want her to win.

Natalie interviews the candidates for the school paper so that we can learn that Cynthia’s father is a diplomat, and she became interested in leadership when a couple of her dad’s friends were over for dinner, and one of them said, “Little Cynthia has the makings of a leader.”

Cynthia: “And then Anwar said, ‘You’re right, Menachem!'”

Up until just about two seconds ago when I googled it so I could spell it correctly, I wouldn’t have recognized the name “Menachem Begin” if I’d read it. I did know about Anwar Sadat, though, and I always understood that the implication was that she was a little kid at a round table with some hugely important world leader having to do with Israel and Middle-Eastern peace.

That’s how I’ve gotten through life, y’know: by knowing just enough to keep up and sound smart in mixed company without having to go into great depth about much. For example, I’ve always been able to tell you that the Battle of Hastings was in 1066. Until recently, when my husband was the first to ask a follow-up question, I hadn’t had to admit to anyone that I didn’t know what the Battle of Hastings was.

Natalie provides a good transition by expositing that in this election, the person with the most votes is the president and the runner-up will be the vice president. We don’t need Cynthia for a little while longer, so she announces that she’s going back to her room. She generously wishes Blair good luck and Blair snots back at her while the other girls say goodbye. Tootie goes upstairs to snoop on the election count.

Blair finally admits that she is a little afraid that she’ll lose, and she doesn’t know how she’ll save face. Jo has a suggestion, courtesy of the movie Shogun, which, in the context of what happens later, is pretty damn grisly. What do you think: deliberate or careless?

As we waste more time waiting for the mini-climax before the Big Event, we learn that Blair’s platform involves revolutionizing Eastland by changing the school song. Blair and Jo snipe at each other a little, but it turns out that Jo voted for Blair after all.

Mrs. Garrett and Tootie come back downstairs, and Tootie tells Mrs. Garrett to be careful that she doesn’t get killed as the bearer of bad news. Mrs. Garrett hopes times have changed and tells Blair that she knows Blair will be mature about this.

Blair: “How mature am I going to have to be?”
Mrs. G: [Cheerily] “Mature enough to accept the responsibility of student council [pause] vice president.”

The next morning, as the girls clean up after a meal, Blair is still disconsolate and Tootie is just as incredulous that Blair didn’t come in first. Blair whines, Jo mocks, and Cynthia bounces in, apologizing for being late due to being on the phone with her father. She is less than enthusiastic when she says her father was “pleased” about the results of the election.

She has missed breakfast, and Blair tries to snot that there’s nothing they can do, but Tootie offers to go into the kitchen and come up with something. While Tootie is gone, Jo tries to give Blair a lesson in sportsmanship, and Blair demonstrates that she is an irredeemable witch. Truly, it’s painful to watch.

Tootie comes back with cinnamon toast and hot chocolate, and Cynthia is so grateful that she gives Tootie the heinous necklace that she’s been wearing around everywhere. She says it symbolizes friendship and hospitality, and that Tootie has always made an effort to make her feel welcome. This is how I first learned that the giving away of treasured items is a cry for help. Perhaps that fug necklace is a cry for help as well.

Mrs. Garrett enters with a newspaper and says that she was just reading about Cynthia’s father going away to Germany on a diplomatic mission. Specifically, he’s going to Berlin. Remember that this is during the height of the cold war. Not that it’s relevant to the show at all, but I find it interesting to consider the political backdrop for this show.

Everyone assumes that Cynthia will be going along to Germany, but I don’t know why, because this is a boarding school and kids come from all over. Tootie’s parents are in DC and Sue Ann is from Kansas. Blair’s character was originally from Texas, but they rewrote her to a New York socialite because of the way Lisa Whelchel delivered a particular line. Which is funny because Lisa Whelchel is totally a Texan girl.

Cynthia clarifies that she’s not leaving; she’s at Eastland because her father thinks it’s important for her to be in one place (see I told you), and to be a regular teenager. Once again, she abruptly excuses herself to her room. Everyone bids farewell except Blair, who is still pathetic.

Blair announces that she’s going back to bed (at 9:00 a.m.), and everyone laughs at her.

Later that afternoon, Mrs. Garrett brings a bag of onions into the kitchen where the three girls who aren’t Blair are working. Apparently Blair is upstairs staring out the window with one leg hanging over the sill, and now I realize that all these suicide jokes are quite intentional; perhaps to underscore the fact that we make suicide jokes too lightly when it is in fact a really big deal.

Blair lumbers down the stairs in her bathrobe, still despondent. Jo and Mrs. G try to give her a pep talk about bouncing back from defeat, but Blair is having none of it. She asks Tootie to cancel her date with “Chuck” tomorrow night (oops – tomorrow is Saturday – cancel with Tom on Saturday and Chuck on Sunday).

Natalie mentions that she needs to go finish interviewing Cynthia, which sends Blair further in the dumps. Tootie’s had enough, so she decides to join Natalie on her interview.

Mrs. Garrett and Jo keep working on Blair, encouraging her to have a good cry (Mrs. G by being sympathetic; Jo by continuing to mercilessly mock Blair). Blair says she’ll try.

Jo finally hits the formula by making Blair cut an onion. It’s very interesting how she cuts it into giant, uneven chunks without ever even peeling it. But it serves the purpose. Now everyone is crying.

Tootie interrupts the cry-fest by running into the kitchen and yelling desperately that something is wrong with Cynthia. She’s unconscious and there was an empty bottle of pills next to her. Natalie went to get the school nurse; Mrs. Garrett instructs Jo to take Tootie and get the headmaster, and then she orders Blair, who has been whipped into decency by this tragic news, to call an ambulance. “Yes, ma’am,” Blair says soberly, underscoring the gravity of the situation.

We fade back to the kitchen, where Jo is beating the nut chopper like it killed her dog. Turns out the girls are putting all their effort into making fudge for Cynthia for when she comes to. Blair asks the obvious question – what if she doesn’t – and Mrs. Garrett tells them to think positive and keep busy.

They talk about how it doesn’t make sense that someone like Cynthia who seemed to have it all (even going so far as to beat Blair) would “try something like this.” Jo posits that she didn’t really want to kill herself anyway; that she clearly set it up so she’d be found. Jo shares the story of her friend Gloria back home, who killed herself by jumping off the school roof. We know Jo had a rough past, but this detail is extremely sad and so very realistic. Young Tootie can barely process it. Mrs. Garrett assures Jo that to lose a friend like that is a horrible experience. Jo hides her feelings and keeps chopping.

Natalie comments that the odds of knowing two people who tried to kill themselves are almost impossible, and Mrs. Garrett begins the PSA by noting that suicides among young people are quite common. The phone rings.

Why the hospital is calling Mrs. Garrett in the kitchen instead of the headmaster or Cynthia’s parents, I have no idea, but Mrs. Garrett takes the call and says, “What?…I can’t believe it.”

Jo doesn’t suffer sugarcoating. “Cynthia’s dead.” she says. Tootie protests that it can’t be true, and Mrs. Garrett gives her the sympathy hug as all the girls process the news.

Later, in Cynthia’s room, Mrs. Garrett, Blair, Jo, and Natalie listlessly pack up her belongings. Mrs. Garrett tells the girls that they don’t have to be there, but Natalie insists that they want to stay. Blair comments that Cynthia had great taste, which is just a segue to Blair putting the election into perspective.

Jo copes by being hard. She tells Natalie that Cynthia’s not “gone,” she’s dead. She rebukes Blair’s comment that Cynthia seemed to have everything by pointing out that getting dragged around by a diplomat might not be so great. Even so, Jo turns to flipping through Cynthia’s notebooks (“not snooping, just looking”) in hopes of finding something that makes sense.

Then Jo notices the shipping labels, and asks why, if her parents were going to Germany, Cynthia’s belongings are being shipped to Nevada. Mrs. Garrett replies that her father is going to Germany alone and they’re shipping the stuff to her mother in Nevada.

Blair: “Nobody lives in Nevada except Wayne Newton! Or women getting a divorce.”

Indeed, Cynthia’s parents were getting divorced. Natalie says she doesn’t know what she would do if her parents got divorced (which probably unintentionally foreshadows a conversation the girls have in a later season). Blair protests that she’s lived through it three times and Jo comments that if everyone killed themselves when their parents got divorced, half the country would be wiped out.

Tootie ambles in, and Jo cries that she’s just a kid and she shouldn’t be there. Tootie objects that she’s the one who found her, and anyway she doesn’t want to stick around. She just wants to return the fug necklace that Cynthia gave her. She’s angry at Cynthia, and Jo sympathizes. She says she was “Mad as hell” when Gloria killed herself, and I think that’s one of two times that the h-e-double hockey sticks word is spoken on the show (the other time is at Edna’s Edibles and Mrs. Garrett says it to Jo).

The PSA conversation continues with Natalie wondering what could be so terrible that would make you want to stop living at 16, and Mrs. Garrett encourages her to keep that perspective. “When you feel like you’re at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”

We learn further that there are signals that we don’t always recognize, and Mrs. Garrett encourages the girls to be open with her, their parents, or each other about the struggles that they undoubtedly have at this volatile time in their lives.

Blair suggests that they set up some kind of suicide hotline at Eastland, and everyone is on board. Mrs. Garrett comments that they’re pretty much done, and as they begin to file out, Tootie says she forgot something.

So, yeah, this episode is fine and kudos to the producers and writers for trying to address it. But ultimately, we didn’t have enough time to establish a relationship with Cynthia so that we were fully hit by her suicide. Of course the suicide of any teenager is tragic; plus it’s the 80s, it’s a VSE, and obviously they’re not going to dispatch one of the main characters, but this show was in the unusual position of having four Season One rejects who had already come back a couple of times this season, and it would have been so much braver to bring one of them back. It feels like such a missed opportunity.

And also, we never hear about the suicide hotline or Blair’s student council duties again.