Tonight’s episode of Army Wives, titled “Loyalties,” dealt with – you guessed it! – loyalties. Trevor proved that his loyalty to his wife is rock solid. Roland showed that he can be loyal to his students in keeping their secrets when they come to him for help, even at the cost of his job and reputation. And Denise’s loyalty to her husband? Well that’s questionable at this point.
Roland pulled Denise aside when he bumped into her on the street to talk to her about Getti. He saw the way she was looking at him at the reopening of Betty’s bar. He recognized the look after having dabbled in adultery himself. Denise explains that Getti makes her feel like the person she could be. I guess being married to an Army man has caused her to sacrifice part of herself. Roland admits that it can feel good to have someone new lavish her with attention but she needs to nip this in the bud before it goes too far. Initially, Denise takes his advice and tells Getti she needs to end whatever’s happening with him before it goes any further. He agrees to bow out gracefully but after a suicide patient dies on the table, Denise goes to console him and they end up kissing. He actually kisses her but after a brief pause on her part, she gives in and kisses him back. Then she awkwardly walks out of the room.
I was excited to see the resolution of the Carla/Steve story that was introduced last week. Pamela was growing suspicious of her husband’s friend Steve and his wife Carla’s wealth. She inquired about how they could afford their beautiful home, which resulted in Steve telling Chase that he doesn’t want Pamela hanging around Carla anymore. Well as it turns out, Pamela was right to be suspicious. In tonight’s episode, Chase gets arrested by the Army police but no one will tell Pamela why. Steve was also arrested. Pamela goes to talk to Carla, whose house has been torn apart by the police. Carla assumes that because Chase was arrested, he must have been involved in it too. She goes on to explain that Steve’s been war profiteering. Pamela has no doubts about Chase’s innocence but when she goes to visit him in jail, he refuses to say a word about it. Granted, they’re surrounded by Army guys during this conversation but Pamela is tearfully begging him to give her any bit of information he can but he’s keeping his “Delta Code of Silence.” She has no idea how long he’s going to be held or what to tell the boys.
Chase isn’t held in jail for long and when he returns home, he explains to Pamela that he was helping the Army investigate Steve’s crimes and that they only arrested him to keep Steve’s organization from knowing his involvement in the bust. Pamela’s happy he’s home but not happy that he kept this from her.
Speaking of keeping things from people, Roland put his job and reputation on the line to protect one of his student’s secrets. A female student at the school, Jessica, has been coming to Roland for advice about her relationship issues. She’s a lesbian and just got into West Point. Her girlfriend is concerned that their relationship will be affected by Jessica being in the Army. The Army has the whole don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy on homosexual relationships. Roland assures her that she needs to just keep her relationship quiet and wait and see if things change with the Army’s policy.
Roland is spotted hugging Jessica and then later two teachers see them together touching hands at Betty’s bar. The school principal fires Roland over this, not wanting a scandal to ruin Jessica’s future. Roland refuses to explain why he was counseling Jessica and leaves quietly. When Jessica finds out, she offers to confess to the principal but Roland tells her not to. She does anyway, despite the fact that because it’s an Army school, her outing herself could kill her chances of going to West Point (or joining the Army at all). She says she wouldn’t be a good officer if she were the kind of person to let him take a bullet for her.
The principal gives Roland his job back but tells him that he’ll have to report what Jessica told him about being gay. Roland gives a brief but emotional speech about how Jessica’s sexuality doesn’t change the person that she is. The principal appears to take all of this in and I’m guessing he agreed to forget what Jessica told him because Roland later came out of the building and told Jessica something, and she responded by smiling and hugging him.
Roxie’s keeping busy at the bar and she even managed to hire a waitress. Sandy, played by Ugly Betty’s Ana Ortiz, seems friendly enough at first but quickly begins to flirt with Trevor. Trevor expresses concern about this to Roxie but she blows it off. Then Sandy blatantly hits on Trevor and after he rejects her, Roxie, who witnessed the scene, threatens to dump a jar of mayonnaise on Sandy’s head and then fires her. Sandy tries to sue Roxie for wrongful termination but, on Claudia Joy’s legal counsel, Roxie looks into Sandy’s past. Turns out she has a history of filing wrongful termination suits and is nothing more than scammer. Roxie confronts Sandy about this and Sandy realizes she has no chance at getting any money from her so she backs off.
Finally, Claudia Joy goes to the doctor because she thinks she might be pregnant. It turns out to be a false alarm but the doctor suggests that a pregnancy might be a good thing for her and Michael, after losing Amanda. Claudia Joy says she’s raised her family and she’s not planning on having any more kids. Michael is more open to the idea though, which upsets Claudia Joy. The two talk it out though and they’re ok with the family they have.
After Claudia Joy brought some childrens books to Joan so that she can share the joy they brought to her kids with her daughter, whom Joan has decided to name Enid, Joan and Roland agree to ask Michael and Claudia Joy to be godparents to their child. So in a way, Michael and Claudia Joy will get to experience the joys of looking after the wellbeing of a child, even if it’s not their own.
Overall, this was a good episode. I liked how the Steve/Carla thing was resolved, though it seems like Pamela and Chase are always having problems. I’m disappointed that Denise kissed Getti back. If things are bad with her husband, that’s one thing but the path she’s headed down will probably only create problems for her down the line. The only majorly unresolved issue that was barely touched on tonight was Trevor’s recuperation. He wants his arm to heal so he can go back to his troop but he’s clearly relying on the painkillers to get by. It’ll be interesting to see if that gets addressed next week.
