Vanessa learns about a rafting trip Mike is planning with Eve and she suggests that Mike needs to find some thing in common with Mandy so they won't wind up with Mandy just being a "holiday daughter"-someone they see on major holidays but never really get together with otherwise.
Mike is quite willing, but he and his middle daughter just don't have much in common. They go shopping together, resulting in Mandy being delighted at re-making her father, while Mike enters the house in a crazy leather jacket and an otherwise ridiculous look. They try again, going back to ping-pong days of Mandy's youth. This time, she can tell her dad is letting her win and insists he try. After losing three straight points, she flings her paddle to the bushes and storms off saying she hates this game. The reason Mike let her win years ago was because she is a horrible loser.
The two wind up bonding about how neither of them are quitters. Mandy was still working out issues involving her summer internship in New York where she got dismissed from the program weeks early. The high point in this main plot was how Mandy, after first acting like she didn't care, later entered and said she was racking her brain to come up with something they had in common-the ping pong games. It showed that she did care.
The other plot involved Vanessa wanting Eve to favor Hillary Clinton for president (the following year) and how Vanessa couldn't seem to get Eve to understand the women's lib issues of years earlier. Eve expressed her huge disagreements with Mrs. Clinton on policies and that those issues were more important. They did have a nice discussion, including a wonderful scene where Vanessa got Larabee to come over to, she hoped, talk about how excited he was on election night in 2008 because a black man was elected. Larabee made a point of saying that he was only excited that night because he thought the better candidate won. He said it would be ridiculous to support someone just because they had something-like race-in common if you didn't also believe them to be the better candidate.
This hit on the one thing about this episode that truly bothered me. Vanessa actually said, that she'd support any woman candidate no matter what their positions were on the issues, just because it was time for a woman to be president. I guess it was to set up the Larabee scene where he made clear how dumb that position would be. Vanessa is normally portrayed as an intelligent woman. But what she said about not caring about a candidate's position, only what sex the candidate was, had to be the dumbest thing she said on the whole series.
Just to be clear, my comments have nothing to do with the actual candidate named in the show, and nothing to do with my own political views. If my twin brother was running and I greatly disagreed with his positions, I would not go around campaigning for him and would vote for the candidate I thought to be the best.
But this was the lesser plot and overall, this episode had some really good serious points about finding things in common with your kids, plus lots of funny lines. So it gets a 9 from me.
Mike is quite willing, but he and his middle daughter just don't have much in common. They go shopping together, resulting in Mandy being delighted at re-making her father, while Mike enters the house in a crazy leather jacket and an otherwise ridiculous look. They try again, going back to ping-pong days of Mandy's youth. This time, she can tell her dad is letting her win and insists he try. After losing three straight points, she flings her paddle to the bushes and storms off saying she hates this game. The reason Mike let her win years ago was because she is a horrible loser.
The two wind up bonding about how neither of them are quitters. Mandy was still working out issues involving her summer internship in New York where she got dismissed from the program weeks early. The high point in this main plot was how Mandy, after first acting like she didn't care, later entered and said she was racking her brain to come up with something they had in common-the ping pong games. It showed that she did care.
The other plot involved Vanessa wanting Eve to favor Hillary Clinton for president (the following year) and how Vanessa couldn't seem to get Eve to understand the women's lib issues of years earlier. Eve expressed her huge disagreements with Mrs. Clinton on policies and that those issues were more important. They did have a nice discussion, including a wonderful scene where Vanessa got Larabee to come over to, she hoped, talk about how excited he was on election night in 2008 because a black man was elected. Larabee made a point of saying that he was only excited that night because he thought the better candidate won. He said it would be ridiculous to support someone just because they had something-like race-in common if you didn't also believe them to be the better candidate.
This hit on the one thing about this episode that truly bothered me. Vanessa actually said, that she'd support any woman candidate no matter what their positions were on the issues, just because it was time for a woman to be president. I guess it was to set up the Larabee scene where he made clear how dumb that position would be. Vanessa is normally portrayed as an intelligent woman. But what she said about not caring about a candidate's position, only what sex the candidate was, had to be the dumbest thing she said on the whole series.
Just to be clear, my comments have nothing to do with the actual candidate named in the show, and nothing to do with my own political views. If my twin brother was running and I greatly disagreed with his positions, I would not go around campaigning for him and would vote for the candidate I thought to be the best.
But this was the lesser plot and overall, this episode had some really good serious points about finding things in common with your kids, plus lots of funny lines. So it gets a 9 from me.
