Bunheads

Bunheads

Episode 8: Blank Up, It's Time

By: Carlos Uribe

Bunheads is about a dancer who moves to a sleepy coastal town and becomes a ballet teacher.

Spoilers Ahoy!

Let's start with the good news first: Fanny returns in this episode and it provides for some pretty fabulous bantering between her and Michelle. It also gives Fanny a new old love interest. It's new in that this is the first time that viewers are meeting him. It's old in that he's had an on-off relationship with Fanny for decades. The two had never made their relationship permanent but Michelle influences Fanny to try and attempt it. This show is always entertaining and I love the character almost as much as I love Michelle. The problem is that I'm starting to think that she needs to go. This is largely because her return led to something that doesn't help this show: it sets up a divide between the show that Michelle is on and the show that the rest of the series regulars are on. If the show can find a way to keep the shows together without getting rid of Fanny then I would be a very happy men. The sad news is that so far there is no evidence that would support that the series can. It seems like either Fanny is interacting with the girls or our protagonist is. Fanny's return is therefore a cautious welcome one. Here's hoping that the next episode sets out to prove me wrong.

It's not just a coincidence that Fanny's return causes Michelle to be separate from the other characters. With Fanny in the classroom, this removes Michelle's opportunity to teach and be a mentor to Fanny's students. Fanny is a demanding character which means that Michelle's plot is overtaken by Fanny's whims. This means that Michelle spends the episode not only having an awkward introduction to Fanny's love interest but going to a play with Fanny. This does lead to Michelle and the director sleeping but it does lead to a surprising development. Michelle cries right after the sex. It wasn't bad but she realizes that this is the first man she's been with since Hubbel's death. This brings his passing away to the front of her mind and she seems to finally be grieving rather than in shock or being too busy to process the information. It is important that the character comes to terms with Hubbel's death but there's no reason that she couldn't have had this growth with the girls. It certainly would have bonded them more.

So what are the girls up to? When Sasha shows up tanned to one of Fanny's class, she's replaced in a dance that she has been involved with for some years now. She knows the dance so well that she can perform it without any practice. She's completely kicked off the class after she shows up late. Sasha is a character that is in desperate need of a good role model and she's not getting one from her parents. She clearly wants someone to care about her and getting expelled from her ballet school is a desperate cry for attention. The only character who should be able to get through to her is Michelle, but the question is if Michelle is ready for the task. If any other character becomes a role model for Sasha, then that wouldn't make much sense. Michelle has been slowly set up as someone that the characters look up to and it's clear that only Michelle is the character that should become Sasha's role model. The problem is that Michelle is so separated from the action that it's going to have to take some good writing to have her become a mother figure.

Boo, meanwhile, gets a new dance partner and takes over Sasha's spot on that dance. This dance partner is too short for the dance routine that Sasha and her old partner had done, but he makes up for his lack of talent with enthusiasm. He's a lot like a male Boo and it's clear that he likes her. Boo is slowly coming around to liking him and almost even seemed to accept an invitation to his house. Boo's friends intervened as they didn't realize that Boo's feelings for the boy are slowly changing. While it's nice to see some things go right in Boo's life, it would have been nicer if the episode had spent more time fleshing out Melanie. From what I gather, all that she has going on is a brother that drives her around places.

Bunheads is a mixed bag for me. On one hand, the actual episode is pretty good. It's funny, well-written, and has Fanny's return. On the other hand, this is exactly the kind of episode that Bunheads needed to avoid for a while. The series had finally been setting up Michelle's stand with the girls and this episode is a disruption. This might not make complete sense, but while I loved the actual episode I would have preferred if it did what it should be doing. It should do that or just spin-off a separate show for Fanny and Michelle. Actually now that I think about it, I would love for that spin-off to happen. They could call it “The In-Law” or something. I'm not sure. Whatever the case: good episode, bad timing.