The sadness streak continues for the Salingers given that the only happy one is Julia. Bailey and Charlie (as his guardian) go to his date for probation. There, the woman tells him that living at home is good, and that if he moves out, he has to get a job. She also assigns his first hours of community service. Then, Bailey realizes in an interview that he can't get any job because he has a criminal record, so he can't afford a new place. He tells Charlie that he doesn't want to be stuck in line on his late 20s, so his brother answers "hey". Bailey doesn't mean to offend him, but he thinks that he has to get a new place. In the meantime, Claudia doesn't support him when he has to give a speech at Grant highschool for community service. First she tells him he should give the speech in other schools, but then the woman in charge denies his petition, saying this is a punishment and he has no choice. So Claudia pretends to be sick, and misses the moment when he gives the speech at Grant. Later, he sees her catching the bus for the possum practice, so he confronts her when she returns. She says that now her social image matters and she doesn't want to be punished for his crime. In the meantime, Sarah loses most of her savings (which she gained on birthday presents, and babysitting jobs) when she's conned trying to get a place to live. She gave a man a thousand dollars without signing a contract (literally). Thanks to Claudia, who tried to apologize, Bailey finds a solution in moving with Sarah to work as apartment managers, while Sarah signs the application, considering he can't. She doubts because earlier he said that living together would be weird, but he says that they have no choice, they'd be living together out of desperation. Sarah can't live on the Salingers sofa, and she has no time to get a job, while Bailey also wants a new place, and can't get a job, so for these reasons, she accepts his idea. This part of the episode was good, and sad for Bailey, but I think this might tie him to the restaurant in the future. Anyway, moving out the house wasn't a good idea considering the future of the season for Charlie, Claudia and Owen. Also, Claudia's attitude towards Bailey for not supporting him in the speech was rare coming from her. On the other hand, Griffin starts having trouble in the bike Shop and gets a loan from a dirty man named Howie. For this, he asks Julia to not spend too much money in dresses for her work, although he doesn't tell why.
As for Charlie, he is lonely, depressed and sad. He tries dating but there's no woman for him: one reunited with her old boyfriend, other doesn't want to know anything with "his kids" and another one has her own kids. That covers pretty much all women in SF. In the process, Claudia tries to help him. The first woman was a fix up by Joe and Franny, but Charlie wasn't really interested, he didn't even remembered where he put her adress, and then, she called to cancel. He didn't want to try again, but Claudia pushed him to, so he doesn't give up. And so the second one was a niece of the meat guy at Salinger's, a blonde actress who ran away when he mentioned his parents died, his "four kids", and that the older is on probation. After this, Claudia asked him to change his strategy, mention the other good interests he has (the designing, reopening Salinger's after his parents death, helping the homeless), and then tell the truth about the kids (honestly, that wasn't a good idea). So the third one, was a former dancer, known by Jack the bartender. In the date, Charlie tried the new strategy, but seemingly she did the same because after dinner she revealed that she has twins at home. When he returns to the house, he tells Claudia that her idea didn't work, it went bad, so he finally gives up. About this part, I want to highlight two things. First, the two women shown were blonde, so seemingly Charlie has kind of a type (this also tells why what happened in 2nd part of season 3 was unbelievable). Second, the workers at Salinger's obviously know for the daily talk if Charlie is single or not. And that's why two of them wanted to fix him up. Anyway, back to the story: to make things worse, Julia and Griffin fool around in the house when they are supposed to babysitt Owen or do laundry. Charlie yells at her (he's right) for not having any consideration of what's going on in the house, and asks "if they can show something else" besides the making out (which he says they can do in their own place), but she defends herself and Griffin saying they aren't doing nothing wrong. He even says that there are children in the house, but she knows that given his record, he can't argue that part (if she thinks about certain woman of 2nd half of season 3, she's right, but if she includes his lost wife, Charlie should win the argument). She and Griffin leave, and at their apartment, she says that her older brother is a jerk. Later, Claudia jokingly tells him that she had a nightmare when he killed her for kissing her boyfriend in the house. He thinks the case is different, so she tells that everyone noticed his anger towards Julia, including Ross, Owen. At the end, he visits his sister in the loft with pizza, and somehow apologizes telling the truth: he's alone, not in love, a little jealous and also misses her. He remembers how they used to hang in the swing chair (3x04 for example), or have breakfast together, so he misses all that. So she finally reconciles with her brother, and accepts sharing dinner with him. Julia had an important role in home in the past and she chose the worst moment to move out. One season ago she gave him the needed support to take care of his now lost wife in sickness and in sorrow, and usually was there to help him with chores and the kids, but after she left, he has been basically alone running the house and raising Claudia and Owen (Bailey's help counts, but he was recovering himself from alcoholism and spending time with Sarah). And like he said in season 3 finale, he knows that she and Griffin made a big mistake by getting married, so he feels really bad. Considering all what he has been through with the love of his life, he can't deal with the fact that Julia and Griffin got married without thinking. They are like many couples in the world who get married without knowing how hard is real life, without being able to sacrifice everything in their lives for love. He did it, he showed what means a real marriage, and he knows that people like Julia and Griffin doesn't know it, they don't take marriage seriously. For me, Charlie is showing his suffering, he lost the love of his life (and the perfect mother for Owen-Claudia), there's nothing now that can heal that deep wound he has inside and Julia and Bailey moving out just makes everything worse. And probably his tumor is already growing inside.
0 out of 0 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
