2-8 “Teenage Marriage, Part 2”
Previously on The Facts of Life:
When we last saw Jo and Eddie
They was runnin’ off to wed
Blair ‘n’ Edna tried to stop ’em
But they pushed ’em close instead
Jo said, “Only Eddie gets me!”
Eddie said, “Babe, say ‘I do!'”
And they rushed right out of dinner
And so now I bring to you…
…the conclusion of “Teenage Marriage.”
Blair rushes back to the lounge, where Natalie is reading and Tootie is helping Mrs. Garrett roll yarn into a ball. Everyone jumps as Blair frantically explains that Jo and Eddie have run off to get married tonight!
They’ve taken off on Jo’s motorcycle and are going to pick up Eddie’s duffel bag at the YMCA. Back in 1979 or so I was the poster-child for the YMCA’s after-school program. I mean I was literally on their poster. My folks have a copy of it; I’ll have them send it. I tried various Google image searches but came up short. I found this, though, so it wasn’t a total loss.
AUTHOR’S EDIT: I FOUND IT!!!
Mrs. Garrett says that she keeps trying to reach Jo’s mother but no luck. This is yet another TV plot that would have to be revised for cell phones. It doesn’t really matter, though, since Jo is taking this whole plunge in part to rebel against her mother. I’m not sure why Mrs. Garrett thinks that reaching Jo’s mother is the key to stopping her marriage.
Blair says that she can just picture Jo in a few years, living in a tenement with twelve screaming kids, while Eddie drinks beer and belches. That’s a great example of how this show sometimes takes two steps forward and one step back. By all means, address the issue of teenage marriage, but next time leave out the microaggressions related to class and gender.
Nevertheless, it does hint at a complex problem, which is a society that suggests to a girl of 16 that marriage is something she should give any thought to at all. Witness my angst in the recap of part one. As a child/tween, I wanted to be Jo and I wanted to have an Eddie. I understood that I couldn’t get married right out of high school, but I still imagined that I would meet the love of my life any day now and be with him for ever and ever and ever. At the end, when (spoiler!) Jo decides not to marry Eddie, my heart was broken back then. I couldn’t imagine letting a guy go when he loved you that much. Especially when he was sooooooo cute.
Now, with an extra 30+ years behind me, I just want to shake some sense into Jo and Eddie, whom I now see as adorable but idiotic kids, and it’s a relief when they split. It’s still sad, though. It’s so sad, in fact, that you forget that Jo and Eddie were only together for three and a half weeks when Jo went to Eastland. It’s that chemistry, I tell ya.
Jo returns to the lounge still in her dress from dinner, which means that she did not change into proper gear before she and Eddie rode home. I’m not all ATGATT or anything, but that dress is really inappropriate for riding. It’s almost like costuming never rode a motorcycle.
Jo has something to say. When Mrs. Garrett tells her that “Paul Revere already got [t]here with the news,” Jo glares at Blair. It’s a Blair glare.
Blair sighs that there’s nothing more she can do, and Jo wants her to put that in writing. They stalk angrily out of the kitchen, with tiny tot Tootie toddling behind. Little Tootie, who is barely in seventh grade at this point, thinks it’s fascinating and exciting that Jo is going through with it, because she doesn’t know any better. She gives Jo a big hug. Eddie sheepishly comes into the room. Because she, too, is young and naive, and also because she is awesome, Natalie welcomes him.
Natalie tells Eddie that while she’s not sure she approves, she wishes them all the best for a happy marriage. See, now that’s the attitude everyone should have had from the beginning. When Jo had her Romeo and Juliet talk with Mrs. Garrett in the last episode, Mrs. G. wasn’t being judgy, she was just helping Jo see the realities. That was a good way to approach it too. Tootie’s method, instructing Eddie to “take real good care of this girl, y’hear?” is dumb. Mrs. Garrett wonders why they have to leave tonight, and Jo says they have to get back to the base. They’re going to take her bike and stop in West Virginia to get married, because the legal age is 16 there. Apparently it’s not anymore, there or anywhere else. Thank heavens. That’s too young. 18 is too young, really.
Mrs. Garrett tells them they can’t leave tonight because it’s freezing outside. Tootie makes a “frigid bride” joke and Jo insists they’ll be fine. Mrs. Garrett exhorts Jo to at least discuss it with her mother. Based on her response, I think I was right about mentioning her mother not being helpful.
Nevertheless, as Jo stomps away to get her suitcase out of storage and Eddie sheepishly follows, Mrs. Garrett hand-wrings that they just have to keep her there until her mother calls. Natalie laments that the quick departure means she won’t have time to get Jo a wedding present. Tootie suggests mailing them to her, which inspires Mrs. Garrett to come up with the idea of having an impromptu bridal shower to keep Jo there until her mother calls. She sends Tootie and Natalie upstairs for gifts and decorations and summons Howard the chef, whom she asks to thaw the sheet cake in the freezer. I have never heard of keeping cake in the freezer. Is that something people do? I guess so.
When Jo and Eddie return to the dining room, Mrs. Garrett tells Jo that she can’t leave when she and the girls have planned a bridal shower for her. Jo is genuinely touched by the gesture and agrees to participate as long as it doesn’t take too long. Mrs. Garrett hopes it will take just long enough, and she orders Howard the chef to take Eddie to the Chugalug for a bachelor party. So Eddie must be 18.
Jo is surprised that Mrs. G. would do all this for her, since she thinks Jo’s making a big mistake and all. Mrs. Garrett confirms that she indeed thinks Jo is making a huge mistake, but she guesses that Jo thinks she’s old enough to make her own decisions. Things would have been so much easier if they’d just treated Jo like this to begin with.
Blair comes downstairs with some decorations.
Jo is awful as she petulantly announces that if Blair is coming to the shower, then she (Jo) isn’t. Mrs. Garrett tries to end the childish bickering, but Blair sasses back that she wouldn’t want to go to her bridal shower anyway, when she doesn’t even know what her silver pattern is. Oh, Blair.
We fade to what must be some minutes later in the dining room, for which they seem to have found a tablecloth and balloons in addition to the festive toilet paper. Party small talk ensues, and Jo asks if she can open the gifts so that she can pack them. Tootie has given Jo her photo album (after removing Michael and Billy Dee). Natalie has given her a fancy diary she hasn’t used yet. Blair comes into the room and unenthusiastically presents Jo with a box.
“It’s not a present,” she says, “it’s something I’m tired of.” Jo opens the box.
Blair looks very fond of Jo in this screen cap. It’s cute.
Tootie calls it a “great warm-up suit,” and Natalie comments that it’s the nightie Blair bought at Saks Fifth Avenue. Blair corrects her that it’s not a nightie, it’s a peignoir. Because of this scene, I have always known what a peignoir is, even if I only learned how to spell it just now. Jo notes that it’s brand new. Blair:
“I was just going to unveil it at some slumber party. It’ll be much more effective where you’re going to unveil it.”
It’s too bad Mrs. Garrett is off getting her gift for Jo. She’d probably have a great facial expression. Something like this.
Jo is genuinely touched, and she thanks Blair. As Blair starts back upstairs, Jo invites her to stay. Awwww. Jo is softening.
Mrs. Garrett returns with a gift, and I am amazed at how much event-neutral wrapping paper these people have lying around. Jo opens it, and it’s a Bible. Mrs. Garrett says it’ll watch over her, and no one deserves it more than she does. Man, this is getting poignant. Jo doesn’t help by getting all mushy and musing over how hard it is to give up friends, and then noting that the girls and Mrs. G. are more than friends, they’re family. Sniff. She leaves to pack her gifts and also so no one sees her cry.
Tootie says she hopes she’s lucky enough to land her Prince Charming when she’s 16. See – that’s what I’ve been saying. Girls were/are raised to believe that finding the right man and getting married and living happily ever after is the ultimate goal. And when “the right man” comes with grandiose declarations of eternal love and the situation involves teenage rebellion and the package looks like this:
…we think that it can’t get any better. Except Natalie, who, in response to Tootie’s daydream says, “Bite your tongue! You’ve got your whole life ahead of you!”
The phone rings, and Mrs. Garrett crosses her fingers in hope and hurries to the lounge. It’s Mrs. Polniaczek, and Mrs. Garrett is palpably relieved to have her on the other end of the line. She begins to explain that Eddie is there and Jo is preparing to leave school to get married. She explains that they’ve been stalling her as long as they can. Uh oh. Just then, Jo comes back from upstairs, big smile on her face, which fades quickly as she realizes they’re all in on a set-up.
Jo is understandably angry about the phony double-date and now the fake shower, but Blair insists that the shower wasn’t fake. Jo’s not buying it. All she can see is that everyone has betrayed her, which is of course what she would see, because she’s a rebellious teenager. Mrs. Garrett tells her that her mother is on the phone and begs Jo to talk to her. Jo retorts, “Tell her I left to get married.” Snap. Fade to black.
When we come back, Howard is in the dining room, explaining that Jo swooped by the Chugalug on her bike, got Eddie, and they took off.
He says at least he talked them out of riding all the way to West Virginia in below-freezing weather. He sent them to a motel instead. Good move, although if they had tried to ride from Peekskill to West Virginia, which is at least a five hour ride, in below-freezing weather in the middle of the night, they might have earned a Darwin award. You simply can’t ride under those conditions. I have to wear a jacket on a bike when the ambient temperature is 70 sometimes. I do appreciate that no one makes a big deal that Jo is the one in the relationship who has the wheels.
Mrs. Garrett shakes out of Howard that Jo and Eddie are likely at the Ritz, a cheap motel on highway 6. United States Highway 6 does indeed run right through Peekskill, oddly enough, just off of Howard street.
Mrs. Garrett announces that she’s going to go find Jo, and Blair begs to come with her. Because nothing could possibly go wrong by taking one 16-year-old on a mission in the middle of the night in freezing weather to find another 16-year-old, Mrs. Garrett agrees.
Jo and Eddie arrive at their fleabag motel. Eddie notes that it’s warm at least, and Jo says it’s “nice.” And I bet she thinks it is, because she’s 16 and she’s with the the boy that she thinks is the only one who gets her, whom she expects to marry tomorrow. It’s not perfect, but it’s still the dream. Eddie says they forgot something, and Jo agrees. She hands her helmet to Eddie (he doesn’t seem to have been wearing one), and she wheels her motorcycle into the room because it could freeze outside. It’s a perfectly nice starter bike, but it sure as shit isn’t fit to ride 300 miles in freezing weather. And they’re not dressed appropriately for a ride that cold.
Nevertheless, none of that is what Eddie was talking about. He wants to carry her over the threshold, and again 12-year-old me swoons. And good lord, the chemistry between the two!
They start to unpack, and Eddie is very impressed by the “nightgown.” Jo corrects him that it’s a peignoir, compliments of Blair. He wants her to put it on, but she’s shy, so she makes the excuse that it’s full of tags and pins and stuff. Blair has scrawled “Over seventy percent of teenage marriages end in divorce” under “100% silk” on the tag, which of course just drives Jo closer to Eddie.
Jo complains that Blair never gives up, and another red flag goes up as Eddie says, “It’s time for you to forget about her, and everyone else. Except you and me.” Poor Eddie is just young and dumb and naive, not creepy and controlling, but in hindsight you can see how damaging these poor young kids’ views of marriage are. Jo agrees to put on the peignoir.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Garrett and Blair arrive at the motel’s office. They make a couple of jokes about the seedy nature of the hotel. The stereotypical fat white man with suspenders, a stained white t-shirt, and a cigar opens the door and says there’s no vacancy before closing the door on them. A contrived comic-relief exchange ensues before the guy finally tells them that Jo and Eddie are in one of the honeymoon suites, which are the ones with the ice buckets in them. Har har har.
Back in the honeymoon suite…
“Man, does my bride look classy.” exclaims an adorable, breathless Eddie. Jo shyly credits the silk and says that expensive clothes really do make you feel different. It’s true. It was quick-drying, moisture-wicking skirts and pants from REI rather than a silk peignoir that did it for me, but the principle is the same.
Eddie comments that he’s lucky, doing the same squirmy-shoulder dance that my guy does when he thinks I look particularly beautiful. Jo sincerely says that she is lucky too. He shyly sits down on the edge of the bed and invites Jo to join him. He tries to go in for the kiss-recline, but she pulls away, admonishing him that she doesn’t want to get pregnant. Because the only possible problem a 16-year-old Jo has with pregnancy is the lack of wedlock, Eddie protests that they’ll be married tomorrow. Jo says it’s also that she can’t finish high school with a kid, and also, duh, they can’t afford one. Eddie tells her to stop worrying about money.
Poor dumb Eddie thinks it will somehow work out; that his responsibility is to be a husband and father and provide for wife and children through his military service. That’s a perfectly respectable path to choose, and nothing at all is wrong with it if it’s freely chosen among several well-considered options. For people from backgrounds like Jo’s and Eddie’s, the options are typically much more limited unless someone breaks the cycle. Jo is starting to break the cycle by pursuing her own education and therefore options, and she starts to see that her vision of the future is different from Eddie’s. The rest of the conversation speaks for itself:
Jo: “How much do we have?”
Eddie: “You wanna talk about that now?”
Jo: “I’d like to, yeah.”
Eddie: “All right. I get five hundred bucks a month.”
[Me: Yikes, even for 1981.]
Jo: “Well, I guess we can make it if I get a job too.”
Eddie: “Oh, no way. No wife of mine is gonna work!”
[Me: Ugh, but such an example of what I was saying before about his distorted view of what was ideal as well as what he was capable of.]
Eddie: “Besides, you’ll have the apartment to take care of, and all those other Navy wives to hang out with.”
[Me: OK, just ugh. Not about being a homemaker, which again is fine as long as it’s freely chosen among several well-considered options, but about poor Eddie’s limited vision.]
Jo: “You mean at the PX and the laundromat?”
Eddie: “Yeah! And they go shopping down on the mall – oh, they have lots of fun, honey.”
Jo: “I don’t want to have fun! I want to finish high school so I can go on to college.”
Eddie: “Now how are you gonna go to college? I’m in the Navy now. We’ll be moving around a lot.”
Jo: “We will?”
Eddie: “Yeah, but don’t worry, you won’t be lonely. You’ll have our kids to keep you company..”
Jo: “Kids? I thought we just said – hey, we have a lot to talk about.”
[Me: Thank heavens.]
Jo says she doesn’t want to end up like her mom and dad who argued until they divorced. Eddie promises nothing will split them up, and they’re interrupted by a knock on the door.
Jo immediately goes on the defensive, saying that they have no right busting in there. But now Mrs. Garrett is mad, and she chews Jo out for not appreciating the fact that Mrs. Garrett has promised to take responsibility for her (because of the deal to keep them in school back at the beginning of the year). Finally she starts acting like an adult, telling Jo that her mother is on her way up, and Jo is going to stay put until she gets there. Jo, indignant, argues that her mind is made up, Then she talks about how she loves Eddie and she always will. He agrees, and she says:
“That’s why we can’t be married now.”
Mrs. Garrett tells Blair that they should go back outside for a bit.
Once they’re gone, Jo and Eddie are alone in the room. Poor Eddie is devastated. Jo explains that she was mad at her mother, and that she and Eddie had missed each other a lot, but it’s not the right time. Thank heavens she’s finally come to her senses. Poor naive Eddie doesn’t understand why they can’t get married if they love each other.
Jo: “We’ll still love each other a year from now. Five years from now! Right?”
Eddie: “What if something’s different? A lot could change between us!”
Jo: “Then, uh, getting married now would have really been a mistake.”
A heartbroken Eddie gathers his peacoat and his duffel bag and says he’d better be on the midnight bus to Chicago.
The last thing he says is:
“You sure look classy. Take care, huh?”
Awww. Eddie Brennan, a sweet boy, full of charisma, whose love for Jo was genuine if naive, leaves Jo. Both are heartbroken, even as Jo knows it’s for the best. It’s not the last we’ve seen of Eddie. Keep reading for the next chapter of the Ballad of Jo and Eddie.
