Season 3, Episode 7 - Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Original Airdate - October 29th, 2003

Content Warning - suicidal ideation

Something kind of interesting is happening with the show this season. There have always been seasonal arcs, but it feels like they’re really committing to that as a primary storytelling motif this season. It means that certain characters get a ton of focus while others are more backgrounded, but it also means that things get to build in a very satisfying way.

This episode touches on two of them, as the A story brings Craig and Ashley into Manny’s world. Our artsy couple has been going strong, but in our first real story with them, we see there’s trouble in paradise. Craig is ready to take things to the next level, and reaches to undo Ashley’s pants, but Ashley stops him. She’s feeling it too, but wants to talk. She tells him she loves him and he— makes a joke.

The mood is killed. Ashley is clearly a little upset. And now Craig has two problems. He’s horny AND his girlfriend is mad at him.

He turns to his friends for help. Marco helpfully tells him he needs to find a way to express his feelings to Ashley. Spinner unhelpfully makes jokes and reveals that he and Paige have not had sex. Why anyone would turn to Spinner for any kind of emotional help is beyond me, but I guess he still somehow has a girlfriend despite being a raging homophobe.

Fate smiles on Craig because Liberty and Kendra are working on a student council fundraiser. They’re selling roses that horny teens can send to their paramours. Craig sends a dozen. That’ll do it!

Spinner grabs Ashley before homeroom to check in on the plan for Paige’s surprise party. Ashley is hosting to help throw Paige off. It’s nice that Paige and Ashley are friends again after everything that went down last year. The flowers arrive, and at first, Ashley loves it. Then she reads the note. “Ashley, You Rock. Xo, Craig.” Not exactly romantic. She shares her disappointment with Paige and Craig feels defeated.

Manny isn’t having a great time either. She’s making a point to say hi to Craig, engagement he largely avoids because he can see how much hotter she’s gotten and it’s giving him penis feelings. Plus her boyfriend, Sully, didn’t even send her a flower, and bails on going to Paige’s party with her. Also, Terri briefly shows up which I mention only because it’s the first time all season.

Ashley invites Craig over while she does some party prep. Craig can tell it’s not good. Ash feels like she’s more invested in the relationship than him. Craig says it’s hard for him to express himself. And Ashley, acting with a lot of maturity, says that’s a good reason for them to take a break.

Peppering in a little commentary, this, to me is the best outcome. Ashley is acting with wisdom beyond her years. Maybe Craig loves her back and maybe he doesn’t (I have opinions), but the fact that he can’t say it to her is a mismatch in and of itself. Craig does not have the same access to his emotions Ashley does. She’s right to take a step back.

Craig is bummed. He goes to band practice and tells everyone they suck, which they do. Jimmy and Spinner give him a moment to cool off, and Craig tells Marco what happened. Marco says he saw this coming. Craig needs to genuinely express himself, not make gestures. Craig says its hard for him to say it, but has a new idea.

The next day at school, he summons Ashley to the gym. He wrote her a song expressing his feelings and she loves it. Manny, who walks in with Paige while Craig is singing, also loves it, but in a much more covetous way. Ashley is fully back in after Craig’s song and invites him to stay over after the party. It’s clear she means they will have sex.

Surprise, Paige! Happy Birthday! The party starts off great, unless you’re Manny, sulking in the corner. Craig tells Spinner he and Ashley are going to have sex. Ashley sees them high five, which turns her off, and then Spinner makes a boner joke with a balloon. Ashley is pissed.

She takes Craig outside. How dare he brag to his friends about something private to him? She’s hurt and angry. She feels like she was conned. She thinks Craig is just doing whatever he can to get in her pants, and she doubts the sincerity of his feelings. If he really loved her, it wouldn’t be so hard for him to say it.

Sidebar, again, but I think she’s right! It’s a pretty intense reaction, but it is weird that Craig went and bragged to Spinner of all people before they even had their night together. It’s one thing to share what’s up with your friends. It’s another to give high fives. Maybe the problem is that Spinner is the one Craig told, but that shows a lack of judgment all on its own.

There’s nothing for Craig to say so he grabs his stuff and heads out of the party. Manny sees him and goes after him. He doesn’t want to engage with her at first, but she fluffs his ego and says that his song was perfect.

Craig takes her back to Joey’s garage, and Manny all but confesses her feelings. She says she would never criticize someone who wrote her a song like that and tries to kiss him. Craig hesitates for just a moment and then goes all in. It’s heavily implied (and later confirmed) that they have sex.

The next Monday, Manny is buzzing. She tells Emma she had the perfect night, but won’t share details. Not yet. She sees Craig and tries to talk. We learn Craig has been dodging her messages. Craig is trying to find a way out of the conversation when Ashley grabs him to pull him aside.

She says she overreacted and asks for another chance. Craig, while Manny watches, accepts. When Ashley says she loves him, Craig says I love you too.

I return to my earlier commentary. I don’t think Craig is there yet, which is fine, but maybe I’m wrong and he does love her. But the fact that Craig cannot say this to heruntil after he has sex with Manny is all the information we need. This man is reckless with other people’s feelings, and he’s not in touch with his own. In absence of that care and introspection, he acts selfishly. I understand why Ashley, a teenaged girl in love, leaned back in. Unfortunately, I think both she and Manny can only be hurt by Craig at his current maturity level.

The B story tackles our other big season arc which is, unfortunately, about adult character Mr. Simpson. He’s moody, he’s not eating, and he’s really being a dick to Christine when she tries to help. Joey shows up and demands they go bowling. Simpson refuses until Christine yells at him to get his ass up and go have a good time. He’s not dead yet.

Joey surprises him at bowling with another old friend, Wheels. He enters the story as though I’m supposed to know who he is or why Joey would be hesitant to see him, which is dumb. Let me summarize what I can intuit from the episode. Simpson and Wheels were good friends, maybe in a band together. At the end of the original series, Wheels drove drunk and killed a kid. Their friendship fractured after that.

But Wheels is here to tell Simpson that he gets it. And by it, I mean thinking that you just want to be dead. He encourages Simpson to keep himself focused on his reasons for continuing on, and Simpson admits he’s terrified he can’t do it. The evening cheers him up and he returns home singing that shitty song they won’t stop shoving down my throat.

Please, for the love of God, if you insist on giving an adult character in my teen soap opera a major storyline, keep it focused on the present day. I’m talking to a show that was made 20 years ago, but time isn’t linear so maybe they’ll listen.

That said, Simpson’s story certainly inspired some thoughts in me. Last year, my friend Evan died from cancer. It sucked very much. He was an infuriating and special person, and I miss him all the time.

The last year of his life was challenging. I’m not even top 25 on the list of people most challenged by it. Many of my friends here in LA stepped up into his core care team in a way that I admired more than I can ever express. They gave so much to him in an act of undeniable love. They are my heroes. I couldn’t.

Most of the reasons were practical. My work schedule did not allow me to transport Evan to appointments in the early days when the core care group was established. It got even worse later in his treatment.

But some of it, I have to admit to myself, was emotional. It was the particular alchemy of my friendship with Evan, and the way that treatment affected and made that alchemy difficult.

Evan is the most frustrating friend I’ve ever had. He was so smart, but loved nothing more than using his intelligence to do elaborate schemes. Some of these schemes were very public - complicated theater projects or a week long live Survivor game. Some of these schemes were more personal. He loved lying, but in a fun way. Mostly.

One of the things we had most in common was that we’re both opinionated, and very freely share our opinions. What I liked most about Evan was that he shared my genuine openness to hearing differing perspectives. We loved disagreeing, and arguing about our disagreements. But that could get heated. Fun for us, tricky for other people.

And with his scheming, sometimes he would pretend to have an opinion just to get a rise out of me. I could usually tell, but even then I struggled to not take the bait. It was very annoying to go back and forward with him for a while and then discover he didn’t actually care at all.

It was one of many ways that things could get a little contentious. His scheme would interact with my ego in a bad way. This happened just before he was diagnosed. At that elaborate Survivor game, Evan set up a challenge where the remaining players had to sit silently in a room at a Survivor viewing party while the rest of the party guests watched the finale.

I was one of those players and I was so pissed. It felt like he was toying with me. And instead of inviting me into an experience around our shared affection for Survivor, he was using that affection to create a situation of suffering for me. I don’t think that’s how he meant it, I think he was just weaving his magic, but it hit me very poorly.

I struggled a while to bounce back from that. And then he got sick. And suddenly there was a new factor getting in the way of talking it out and finding the right balance between our energies. Treatment

One of the hardest things about watching my friend die was knowing that his mind was not in the place to clear the air with me. He was exhausted. He was in pain. He maintained a laugh and a smile when he could and that wasn’t always. But the last thing I could bring myself to do was burden him with a difficult conversation. Especially a sensitive one that may not go how I wanted it to.

It’s stereotypical in a way to point this out, but you really don’t get cancer until someone close to you goes through it. The constant difficult treatments. The relentless pace. The question marks every time there’s a new scan or new test. Those were absolutely brutal, and that was my experience.

It wasn’t my body, my mortality, or my side effects. No wonder people get depressed and want to give up. Of course, patients become irritable and difficult. Banish the vision of the perfect cancer patient from your mind as soon as possible, because that’s insane pressure to put on the actual cancer patient you will inevitably encounter.

Watching someone go through it and trying to be there for them is a constant dance between understanding and difficulty dealing with the barbs and moods and lack of care they’re able to give in return. Of course they can’t! Doesn’t mean you don’t want it.

And it’s harder still when someone passes. Unfortunately, these are my last memories of him. Distance. Difficulty. Exhaustion. My own uncertainty of how to show up for him knowing there was tension we couldn’t possibly clear. Grief was hard enough without engaging with that shadow. It’s been a rough time.

I don’t really have a point. Cancer sucks so much. I hate that we talk about it like a battle and I hate that we glorify it in the stupid ways we glorify war. It’s appropriate I guess. Much like war, we’re just trying to help people’s attitudes as they engage with a brutal and ugly thing. And by the miracles of medicine it works sometimes. And by the cruelty of fate, other times it doesn’t.

I love my complicated friend. I miss him. I’d sign up for him in a terrible mood and awkwardly avoiding discussing our conflicts if it meant he was still here. It’d be the easiest choice in the world.

No new post tomorrow. Will be back Wednesday, and then Friday-Tuesday as normal.