Tonight’s episode of Army Wives had its usual ups and downs . Roland’s going out of his way to prepare for the baby, while Roxy fills her hours trying to get the hump bar back up and running, and attempting to figure out a way to connect with Trevor, who has been distant since he got home. Meanwhile, Pamela finally got her own little slice of the episode as opposed to just filling up background space or voice-overing bits of wisdom, which is pretty much all we’ve gotten from her this season up until tonight.
The episode starts out with Emmalin getting busted by security because her friend Sarah shoplifted some booze. Claudia Joy talks to Sarah’s mom, who is having parenting issues as she’s about to be deployed. With her husband already overseas, she doesn’t know what to do about her daughter. Sarah’s shoplifting is all part of her acting out. Claudia Joy goes onto Pamela’s radio show to discuss how hard it can be on kids when both parents are deployed at the same time but the show is cut short on the orders of Joan’s replacement, Evan. While Pamela deals with getting censored, Claudia Joy helps Sarah’s mom get her deployment deferment pushed through, giving the woman more time to make arrangements for her daughter’s care.
Pamela gets offered a radio show at an Atlanta-based radio station. She tells the man offering her the job that she likes what she does, getting to reach out to other Army wives. After the incident with the deployment conversation, she’s told by Evan that free speech doesn’t apply to her, especially if she’s going to use it to trash Army policies, so she quits. Joan tries to explain to Evan that “Have At It” is a good outlet for Army Wives to air their grievances but his attitude is that it’s just a little radio show for housewives and he doesn’t think it’s worth having around if it’s going to cause problems on post. Some lame guy takes over the radio show and a flood of listeners call in to complain about Pamela’s absence. This gets Michael’s attention and he addresses it with Joan and Evan.
Michael’s feelings on the matter are similar to Joan’s and he orders Evan to contact Pamela, get her back, apologize and in the future, run any decisions like that by Joan before he follows through on them. This was definitely a win for Joan, who is surely feeling threatened by Evan’s eagerness to rise to the top of the ranks. Meanwhile, Pamela’s all set to take the Atlanta job (especially because it offers a huge starting salary) but when she learns that she’d be asked to discuss things like celebrity gossip rather than things that matter to her, she declines once again. When Evan comes to her to apologize, she agrees to take her old job back.
In other Army Wives news, word gets out that Denise was cruising on the back of Getti’s motorcycle and the gossip is flying. She avoids being alone with Getti after that but eventually he confronts her. She explains to him what the issue is and he assures her that he just wants to be friends (yeah, right.). She says they can just be “professionals.” Later, Frank calls and tries to apologize for telling her to sell the bike. He makes the mistake of saying he “let” her be a nurse so he should let her ride a motorcycle. Naturally, this upsets Denise. Frank doesn’t seem to realize that he totally came off as a controlling husband and tries to explain but she doesn’t want to talk about it and gets off the phone with him. At the end of the episode, Denise finds Getti at a restaurant and goes in to sit with him, saying she wanted to have breakfast with a “friend.” In other words, she’s going to do what she wants to do, despite how it looks or what Frank might think. I noted that the table Getti was sitting at was right in the front window, which will surely fuel the gossip that’s already flying around the post.
Roxy’s trying to manage getting the hump bar up and running. This means dealing with contracts and money, neither of which she seems to know much about but she’s determined to figure it out. She pours over the contract and sees that the contractor is overcharging her on lumber. She fires the guy and the guy’s younger employee asks to take over the job. Roxy seems to think he appears honest looking enough (and he does) so she hires him.
While Roxy’s showing Betty the progress at the bar, Betty explains to her that the chemo isn’t working and she needs stronger treatment. She goes on to say that she’ll be too weak to deal with the bar and that she’s signed half the ownership to Roxy. Betty will serve as a silent partner from now on. Later, Betty tells Roxy that she’s cruising off to California in her brand new Warrior in Pink Edition Mustang and is planning to stay there for the duration of her treatment. Roxy’s totally on her own with the hump bar now.
Meanwhile, Trevor’s doing the media circuit, being interviewed on his heroism. He is polite but continues to deny being hero and is crediting his training for what happened in the Middle East. When sharing a beer with Betty, he admits that he just can’t celebrate the fact that he killed a man. Roxy’s disappointed that Trevor hasn’t really opened up to her since he’s been home. Things finally come to a head for Trevor when an interviewer questions him about how he might resent having to serve in this war. He tells the interviewer that he’s proud of what he does and wants to return to his unit as soon as they let him. He then walks out of the interview. Roxy tries to talk to him about it but he says he can’t talk to her because she’s not a soldier. He leaves her standing there probably feeling hurt and a little bit useless. It seems like this is new ground for both of them. Trevor’s trying to deal with all of the emotions that come with what he did and the aftermath of it all, while Roxy’s trying to be there for him as a wife and a friend. Hopefully they’ll be able to resolve this before Trevor goes back to his unit (which seems inevitable).
Finally, Roland is doing everything he can to prepare for his baby. He’s reading up on baby books and even spending time with the babies at the hospital just so that he can get a feel for the whole fatherhood thing. Something tells me Roland’s not going to have a lot of trouble bonding with his son or daughter when the little bundle of joy finally arrives.
I’m interested to see how Roxy manages everything on her plate right now. She’s got a husband that’s hurting and won’t open up to her, a bar to manage and get up and running and let’s not forget her kids. Hopefully her friends will be there for her because I’m thinking she’s going to need some support pretty soon.
