The TV Chick

This week’s episode of Life Unexpected was amazing. I realize I say that virtually every week, but “Homecoming Crashed” delved deep into Lux’s past which is something I have wanted to see more of since the beginning. Of course it’s all in the setting of a homecoming dance which makes sense because a dance is the setting of any Life Unexpected disaster (see: Cate and Baze, Winter Formal). In this episode, we find out Lux has a neurological disorder. She is going to get her an MRI, but the analyst thinks her decline in school is related to some sort of trauma. Lux suffered a stroke when she was younger. First of all, oh my goodness. This is so sad and heartbreaking. Apparently the stroke and her heart defect might be related. If she had some sort of trauma to the chest, the clot could have spread to the brain. Lux says she doesn’t remember anything happening but there’s clearly something else going on that she’s not saying. Hot teacher promises to throw her a homecoming to make up for all the testing.

Baze finds Emma’s son in her office. Baze wants Emma to go to this super rich person’s cocktail party to try and land a client. She reluctantly agrees to go. I really like this relationship a lot. I think Emma is good for Baze and vice versa. Cate prods Lux for information and then talks to Tasha about the stroke. She won’t say anything but gives Cate an address. Baze brings Sam to go with Lux to homecoming. Oh boy! Clearly neither of them want this. And this means Lux has to miss her hot teacher private homecoming. At the dance, Lux cancels on hot teacher and Sam starts to smoke weed. Of course, Lux gets caught in a compromising position — holding the weed — and gets in trouble.

Baze and Emma at the rich person (Candy)’s party. Baze plays some ridiculously amazing songs on the piano. Kris Polaha is awesome! Can I tell you how much I love this cast? They are so wonderful. Meanwhile, Cate shows up to Lux’s former foster parent’s house. The foster mom Valerie tells Cate that Tasha was living with her and her and Lux graffiti-ed her house. She said her and her husband wanted Lux, that she was like a daughter to them. Valerie tells Cate there was a violent incident but Lux was the one who was violent. She shows Cate cards calling the foster mom “mom.” According to Valerie, Lux hit her husband and hurt him badly. Cate gets called by the school, and when she shows up, she calls Lux on her lies. Lux claims Valerie was lying. Cate doesn’t know what to believe. This part was so heart-wrenching. Lux does screw up and lie a good amount, but she’s a teenager. It’s normal. But she has this sordid past that no one knows about (maybe Tasha does a little) and there’s reason behind her screw ups. I want to see her happy. I believed Lux all along.

Back at the party, Candy kisses Baze on the cheek and promises to come by the office on Monday. Emma is mad at Baze for doing business this way (flirting etc). Baze goes a little too far lecturing Emma on parenting. Whew boy. Baze, your kid had a stroke and you know nothing about it…so maybe don’t go lecturing about parenting. Even though I think you are a kick-ass dad.

At the dance, Lux gets in Cate’s car with Sam and Tasha (all mad and storming) and drives to Valerie’s house. Let me point out, Lux does not have a license. She confronts Valerie about her lies. Lux may have hit Valerie’s husband but he pushed her down stairs and punched her in the chest. OMG. Then the husband comes out and he grabs her by the hair and drags her down the stairs. Tasha hits him with a shovel. OMG AGAIN. They get in the car and drive away. MIND BLOWN! I felt so bad for Lux and way to go Tasha for doing what she had to do. Of course, this will come out sooner or later but Tasha did nothing wrong. And neither did Lux, and I want her to stop blaming herself for her past. She clearly had a less than normal childhood and she deserves her real parents who would never lay a finger on her. Of course, Lux drives away in a frenzy and gets into a car accident. Lux calls Ryan for help. Such a wonderful surprise. Lux makes Tasha promise that no one can know. Cate confronts Lux about the entire incident, and Sam claims he stole the car. Aw, he’s a nice kid after all.

Cate talks to Ryan about how she needs him and so does Lux. Ryan holds her hand and says they’ll figure it out. Part of me really wants Cate to choose Baze and for them to be a happy family with Lux but I understand the Cate/Ryan relationship a lot more. I see where they both are coming from and how in their own weird messed up ways they really love and need each other.

Baze patches things up with Emma and tells her he was way out of line. He didn’t know his own kid and overreacted. Aw, Baze! And in other news, apparently Sam transferred to Westmonte. And the whole shovel incident made it online to a newspaper. Of course, Sam figures out Lux is dating hot teacher from a call she got at the dance where her caller ID read “Minnesota” and hot teacher tells Sam he’s from that same state. I wonder how much black mail is going to happen here.

Life Unexpected continues to be consistently fantastic week after week. I don’t understand the audience it’s getting (or really not getting), and honestly I don’t think people know (except for the ones that follow TV super closely) that it’s ending after this 13 episode run. My week will feel so empty without Life Unexpected, and I wish there was a real way to save the show. But keep watching, keep loving the show because it deserves a bigger audience and recognition. I can’t wait to see how the rest of the season unfolds.

Life Unexpected airs Tuesdays at 9 pm on the CW.