What lengths would you go to for your kids? I think most parents would say anything, and that’s true of Katie in a sweet but scattered American Housewife.
For Katie, going to any lengths for Anna-Kat doesn’t require running into a burning building or lifting a car off of her or anything – it’s going to a yoga class with the Westport moms without giving away any judgement. Katie really does consider it a super-human feat.
While the past few episodes have tackled Katie’s insecurities around the Westport moms, this one skips to the next emotional hurdle. They no longer make her feel so bad, but she still can’t stand them. We’re given a glimpse of all the things Katie has to deal with on a daily basis in a great scene of her waking up the family. While she’s dealing with a daughter who wants to conduct fire drills to save her horse best friends and a son who refuses to wear outlet mall polo shirts, the Westport moms are free to guzzle raw juice and passive-aggressively needle each other about getting chubby. While dropping off Anna-Kat and Oliver off at school, Katie can’t keep her “ughs” down enough and they erupt like a nervous reaction. There really is no other suitable reaction to a Tara Summers, a mom who slaps a snack out of a child’s hand and dresses exactly like her daughter every day.
Katie, however, needs to befriend them for Anna-Kat’s sake. Autumn Summers (ace name) is having a birthday party at the aquarium and Anna-Kat is worried about not being invited. As a weird kid who liked horses and worried about birthday party invites, this episode hit me hard. It also made me realize that this kind of thing probably hit my parents harder.
Anna-Kat might be worried about the party, but for Katie it turns into a full-blown crisis. She promised Anna-Kat that she would get her invited to the party and she pretends to be another Westport mommy to secure the invitation. Despite the perfect yoga outfit and vocal inflection, the moms either see through her act or just don’t like her anyway. Anna-Kat is not invited.
At this point, I thought there would be some kind of mea culpa, where Katie would admit her condescending attitude and convince militant vegetarian Tara Summers that just because the moms don’t get along doesn’t mean the kids should suffer. Just like last episode, American Housewife doesn’t take the sitcom-approved easy way after. Nothing sways Summers. Katie and Anna-Kat just have to accept that some people are mean and petty and invite the entire class save three to the aquarium. The best thing to do isn’t to wish to be at an aquarium where you aren’t wanted but, as Katie shows Anna-Kat, find the other kids that were left out too. Anna-Kat has a great time playing with her new friends, although Katie’s a little on the fence about Eyeball Shirt.
Katie takes her own advice and realizes how important Angela and Doris are to her. Real friends are the ones who will prank a Westport mom's house with old meat.
While the main plot was well-written and executed, the side plots were a little random this week.
When Taylor proudly posts her C+ graded math test on the fridge, Greg is indignant that she would consider C+ a good grade. It turns out that Taylor has her entire life figured out (athletic scholarship, junior college, marry well) and it’s a bit sad. The fact that their daughter’s goal in life is to marry well worries both parents about the Westport values seeping into their children’s brains. Kids are, after all, taught to feel like garbage at a much earlier age in Westport. Taylor doesn’t understand Greg when he tries to tell her that math will be a little more useful later in life than basketball, so he takes a different tactic. He teaches her that she shouldn’t be proud at being bad at anything, just as he isn’t proud that he isn’t good at sports. Taylor only gets the lesson when he publicly shames her for her grade.
In yet another episode, we also get a basic “Oliver is a jerk who only cares about money” plot. It isn’t so much a story as it’s just a little thing that goes on in the background of scenes. Oliver complains that Katie bought him a bent bat polo shirt at the outlet mall and reluctantly agrees to do chores to pay for an authentic shirt. The best moment in the episode is Doris torturing Oliver once again by messing up his cleaning efforts (even she admits that it’s unhealthy for her to bully a kid). Oliver doesn’t learn the lesson Katie intends. Instead, he teams up with Luz from across the street to convert flawed outlet shirts into perfect polo shirts and sell them at profit. Maybe Oliver is the one who has Westport figured out. Instead of trying to fit in, or fight it, he’s exploiting it.
What did you think of tonight's episode? Let me know in the comments!
