8-21: “Younger than Springtime”

I have a new method for deciding which episode to recap. It’s deeply involved and goes to the depths of my soul. In order to prepare for it, I almost had to cut up 33 pieces of paper. Then I realized that I could use numbers one through nine for both the season number and the episode number, so I only had to cut up 24 pieces of paper . This week I used an empty Kleenex box as my proverbial hat. Maybe next week I’ll upgrade.

This method’s gift is a delight indeed! A late season eight episode that I barely remember. According to the description in the little booklet that came with the complete series DVDs, in this episode, Blair sets Jo’s dad up with someone using her computer dating program. This is not what happens. Blair sets Jo’s dad up, yes, but computer dating, which indeed appears elsewhere in the series, does not appear here. Weird.

Speaking of the future, Andy begins our episode by blazing through the front door, breathless with excitement about The Walking Dead! Oh, he doesn’t mean the television show that would premiere twenty-three years later, he means a band – apparently the greatest rock band in the entire world – called The Walking Dead.

There is a Philly-based classic rock cover band called The Walking Dead, and one of them is a dead (ha!) ringer for Jerry Garcia. Holy shit, wait a minute, The Walking Dead as in zombies…the Grateful Dead…I think I just figured out that Jerry Garcia is in fact alive and well and playing in a Philly-based classic rock cover band.

Andy wants to go to the Walking Dead concert in New York, and all of this is irrelevant, but it’s hilarious so I’m going to keep recapping it. Natalie and Tootie do not think Andy should go to the show, and I’m disappointed in Tootie, who has experience with this type of thing. Natalie contributes that in Detroit, the Walking Dead destroyed all their instruments and set them on fire, then jumped the fire with their motorcycles. Tootie contributes that in Chicago, the lead singer took off his pants and ate them. This is all supposed to horrify Beverly Ann, but it sounds quite tame to me; more like a clown show than anything truly metal. He could’ve been asking to go see Mayhem.

Enter Jo and Blair, who set up that Jo’s father, Charlie, is coming to visit with his girlfriend Marlene. One-liners are exchanged until Charlie Polniaczek arrives. He is alone, and when asked where Marlene is, he says she couldn’t make it.

Natalie and Tootie go open the store, and Beverly Ann leads Charlie to get some towels to wash up, leaving Jo and Blair alone in the living room with the basket of plastic vegetables that I love so very dearly.

Blair tells Jo that it’s obvious that her father has been dumped, and he’s going to need a lot of support. Jo argues that she knows her dad, and even if it’s true that he and Marlene are no longer together, he’ll be fine.

Charlie returns to the living room, where Blair gives him a pat on the arm and tells him to be strong before retreating upstairs. Jo asks him what’s new, and he immediately starts talking about how sad he is that Marlene turned 50, became a grandmother, and dumped him “like toxic waste” all in the same week. I wrote a whole paragraph about fifty being young for grandmotherhood, but upon further reflection, I’ve decided it’s fairly average. Google concurs.

He’s pretty broken up about the breakup (see what I did there?), and Jo suggests that he stay with them instead of going to the hotel. Charlie readily agrees, and it’s here that I start suspecting that Charlie and Beverly Ann are going to get together.

We fade to the room that is now just Jo and Blair’s; they redid the attic and moved Natalie and Tootie into it earlier this season, but I haven’t recapped that episode yet. Jo is working at a typewriter. Blair enters, wearing a heinous outfit that is worthy of Jo’s bad taste.

Blair asks where Charlie is, and when Jo tells her that he’s taking a walk, Blair worries that Charlie is depressed. She talks about how in every failed relationship, there’s the dumper and the dumpee, and since Blair has only been the dumper, Jo should welcome her advice.

Jo: “Wait a minute, are you saying I’m the dumpee?”
Blair: “No, Jo. In order to be the dumpee, you first have to have a date.”

That’s dumb. Jo has had plenty of dates and relationships, including with William Ogden Smith III, with whom Blair was profoundly impressed; and beautiful, dumb Eddie Brennan, with whom I am, if not profoundly impressed, at least mildly smitten.

Oh God, Blair declares that the only way to get over a relationship is to start another one, and that is horrible advice. Rebounding is most certainly a thing, but it’s at best temporary salve for the painful sting. And there are so many things wrong with fixing someone up with a person who is on the rebound, as Blair immediately tries to do. Jo shuts her down, and then gathers all her stuff and leaves the room so Blair can pick the phone right back up and tell her friend Cynthia to bring her mother when they meet at the museum that afternoon.

In the shop, Andy begs Tootie and Natalie for advice to get Beverly Ann to let him go to the Walking Dead concert, and Tootie suggests that what always worked for her is being extra nice and helpful around the house. OK, that is not how she got Mrs. G to let her go to Jermaine Jackson.

In the living room, Charlie comes down the stairs just as Beverly Ann gets back with groceries, which Andy immediately takes off her hands. He shuffles off, leaving Charlie and Beverly Ann together to talk about parenting, and it is so clear that they’re gonna hook up.

But Blair’s agenda is still on deck, and it arrives in the form of her friend Cynthia Parks, and Cynthia’s mother Margaret.

Cynthia looks so familiar, and the IMDB check reveals that actress Susan Walters was Dolores (otherwise known as “Mulva”) on Seinfeld! There is so much Facts and Seinfeld crossover, and it has only just occurred to me that it’s not weird that New York-based actors might show up on multiple New York-based shows. You can throw Law & Order into that mix too, although alas, poor Susan has not been cast in any of its incarnations.

Blair introduces everyone. She is not very subtle about trying to fix Charlie up with Margaret “Call me Maggie” Parks, and Jo is not very pleased.

Later, Blair returns without Charlie, and Jo tells Blair off for abandoning him. Oh c’mon, her middle-aged dad does not need a babysitter. Sure enough, he comes in shortly afterward, walking on air. He had a great time, and he responds to Blair’s inquiry about Maggie by saying that she’s charming. He shares that he’s going to Antoine’s Petit Chateau and rushes out of the room for a mirror to put on a tie. Blair forces Jo to concede that she was right about setting Charlie up, but in fact, we’re all being set up. Ding-Dong! It’s Charlie’s date!

Jo is pissed, and even Blair is taken aback. Natalie and Tootie join in the controversy where, true to character, Natalie thinks it’s no big deal; it’s just one date. Tootie says that every marriage starts with one date, and Jo could end up calling her “mom.” Tootie is getting a little ahead of herself.

Having had two relationships with 22-year age gaps, I have a little experience here. I realized recently that the lovely 44-year-old that I dated when I was 22 is now pushing 70, and that was a big wake-up call. I can’t imagine being involved with someone that old at my age. But I absolutely cherish the relationship we had, and I wouldn’t undo it. So I say Charlie, you go on that date and have a great time! But don’t turn it into anything serious.

Good Lord, the outfit Blair has changed into for her date is even worse than the one she was wearing before. Do I need to do a blog post about Blair’s terrible clothing now?

A few days later, which we only know because Charlie says so, Charlie comes home to find Jo not waiting up for him on the couch. He’s no fool, and he makes her admit that she’s not comfortable with him going out with Cynthia. He says that she makes him happy and he hopes that Jo can be happy for him too and she promises to try. I’m just shocked that he’s still staying at the house. Besides the fact that he’s hooking up with a kid barely out of college and would probably want to be alone with her, that house is overcrowded as it is, and I think that after a few days of dad on the couch, everyone might start getting testy.

Our next scene is of the subplot, and yay! We get Andy singing Walking Dead lyrics!

In my personal graveyard
Take the pulse of my love
Carve my name on your headstone

I’m just gonna let that speak for itself. BUT Beverly Ann has decided to let Andy go to the concert, so I guess our subplot is resolved. And now is as good a time as any to acknowledge that I was wrong about Charlie and Beverly Ann hooking up.

Speaking of Charlie, he and Cynthia come into the house. They’ve been playing tennis, and Charlie is excited that Cynthia and Jo can get to know each other since they’re “going to be seeing a lot of each other.”

Cynthia refers to Charlie as “Chuck,” which clearly annoys Jo. To Cynthia’s credit, she names the elephant in the room, but assures Jo that it isn’t serious.

Jo does have the inside track here, and she tells Cynthia that if Charlie is taking her to Krakowski’s Polish restaurant in the city, which he is, then he’s serious.

Cynthia responds that she can’t be responsible if Charlie gets attached after a week; she’s only 23 and she intends to have lots of relationships before settling down.

Jo doesn’t want to see her dad getting hurt.

Cynthia says he’s a big boy who can take care of himself.

Damn, I feel like I was at their tennis match. On the one hand, it’s true that no one is responsible for anyone else’s feelings, and a person wanting to get serious after a week is pretty ridiculous. A 51-year-old should especially know better. On the other hand, leading someone on when you know they’re more into you than you are into them is kind of a shitty thing to do.

Later, Jo and Beverly Ann are the only ones home. Charlie and Cynthia are off on their date and Andy is at the Walking Dead concert. So are Blair, Natalie and Tootie; Beverly Ann sent them to spy on Andy.

Andy describes the concert as “radical.” Blair, Tootie, and Natalie describe the “movie” as “loud.” Blair’s outfit…I give up.

Everyone but Jo heads off to their pre-bed rituals so that Jo can receive her returning father alone.

Charlie tells Jo that he won’t be seeing Cynthia anymore, and Jo tells him not to be too hurt; she’s young and fickle. He agrees. “That’s why I broke it off with her.” He says that the more they talked, the more he felt like he was with his daughter, and if he was going to be with someone’s daughter, he wanted it to be his own. Awww.