Party of Five 6.12, Bad Behavior: Teach Your Children Well. Or Not at All. Whatever

March 21, 2015

Party of Five 6.12, Bad Behavior: Teach Your Children Well. Or Not at All. Whatever

Julia’s new boyfriend. Maybe this one won’t be a big mess

Summary: Bailey comes home after a night out and pretends he got up early to go to the gym. Owen notices that he’s wearing the same clothes he wore the day before. Will and Victor know that Bailey’s been hooking up all week; they approve. Will mentions that he’s in a new relationship with a woman named Deborah, and things are going slowly. They’re about to go even slower since Deborah’s sister is coming to visit. Bailey offers to entertain the sister so Will and Deborah can be alone.

Daphne accidentally interrupts Charlie’s work presentation, then saves it by making a sale. Julia has trouble with a class assignment that doesn’t give her any specifications. One of her classmates gets right to work while Julia faces writer’s block. Victor tries to clarify arrangements for a sleepover Owen’s having with a friend, but the friend’s father changes the plans to keep his kid from going to the Salingers’. Julia’s surprised to see that her classmate wrote something good in a short amount of time. She asks him for tips to overcome writer’s block.

At a concert, Claudia runs a guy named Todd, who she used to compete against in strings competitions. He’s stuck with music and is surprised that she gave it up. He invites her to sit with him. Charlie tells Kirsten that Daphne’s a surprisingly good salesperson. Kirsten falls asleep, but I don’t think it’s personal. Deborah’s sister Megan wants to go to a club after their double date with Will and Bailey; Deborah objects, but Bailey agrees to go. After he leaves, Deborah tells Will that she doesn’t like Bailey.

Claudia hangs out with Todd, who plays violin on hip-hop tracks for a living. He asks her to a party, and she balks until he assures her that he just wants her to meet some of his friends. Julia tracks down her classmate, Adam, who works on a historical ship. She’s thinking about using him as her character in the writing assignment she’s struggling with. She reveals that she’s figured out that he doesn’t really go to her school.

Victor tells Bailey that he thinks Owen’s friend’s father had a problem with his son spending the night under the guardianship of a gay man. Bailey decides that he doesn’t want his brother hanging out with homophobes. Victor advises him to explain things to Owen so he gets what’s going on. Charlie goes to a work party with Kirsten, who encourages him to leave early to help Daphne get some furniture ready for a convention.

Todd praises Claudia after a jam session, telling her she may already have a job offer in the works. He tells her that this job involves really listening to the music and trusting your instincts. He kisses her, but she runs off. Adam tells Julia about his dead father and runaway mother, who left him with no money. She thinks he should apply for financial aid. Adam’s worried that he’ll get busted for auditing classes; he doesn’t want to take the risk.

Bailey’s late to the restaurant, and Will accuses him of hanging out with Megan. Apparently Bailey slept with her the previous night, and she was a virgin before that. Now Megan’s upset that Bailey didn’t call her. Bailey tells Will that Megan basically begged him for sex, and if he hadn’t slept with her, someone else would have. Will still thinks Bailey’s a bad guy for…sleeping with a virgin, I guess. I don’t know.

Kirsten’s late getting to the convention, which Daphne has jazzed up with naked women (might as well put pretty women in a bed to sell the bed, right?). Julia finds Claudia practicing her violin in the shed, apparently trying to hide that she’s playing again. She tells Julia about Todd and how stable and adult he is. She wanted to kiss him back, but after the situation with Derek, she’s not sure she can trust her instincts.

Owen tries to avoid Victor, eventually calling him an extremely offensive word he learned from his friend. Victor calmly asks him not to use it again. Owen doesn’t know what the word means, but he knows it’s bad. His friend said Victor would turn him gay. Victor’s annoyed that Bailey didn’t explain things to Owen. Victor tries to use people’s likes and dislikes to explain that everyone is different, and it doesn’t make anyone good or bad.

Kirsten arrives at the end of the convention, and she and Charlie bicker about how they’ve been unable to be there for each other at work functions. He points out that he was able to make time to go to Kirsten’s work party. One of them will need to make a concession. “Are you volunteering?” Kirsten sasses. Adam blasts Julia for using him for her assignment, because a professor figured things out and he’s been banned from campus.

Victor confronts Bailey for not talking to Owen, who now has that new vocabulary word. Bailey claims that he just got Owen out of the house because he didn’t know how to explain things with him. Victor reminds Bailey that he’s not Owen’s parent. He’s considering leaving so Bailey will have to take care of his brother instead of passing him off to someone else.

Julia tells Adam that she talked to someone on the school’s board (uh-huh, sure), and if he applies, he might get a spot. Adam admits that he never finished high school. His mom left and he had to work to support himself. Julia encourages him to finish and then apply to college. Adam doesn’t want her help. Bailey finally pretends to be a responsible adult, telling Owen that he’ll always be there for him.

Claudia asks Todd to meet her for a talk, which he commandeers by admitting that he’s still the same geek he always was. His sister has been helping him seem cooler, but he realized he couldn’t keep up the charade forever. Claudia asks him to help her get the job he thought she might get offered. Julia bugs Adam again, advising him to let her help him study for the GED. She accuses him of being afraid of having his work judged along with everyone else’s. He accuses her of being afraid to try new things. When she agrees to work on that, he makes her create a character on the spot.

Charlie calls Kirsten at work so they can discuss staying connected while they’re both so busy. Their conversation veers toward phone sex, so…I guess that’s their solution. While cleaning up the kitchen at the house, Bailey casually grabs a beer from the fridge and takes a few sips. Dun dun!

Thoughts: Adam is played by Sean Maher (Firefly). Todd is played by one of my childhood crushes, Thomas Ian Nicholas (Rookie of the Year, the American Pie movies).

As a writer, Julia would know to NEVER read someone’s writing without asking. Adam was right to try to avoid her.

Victor: “You know how some people like D.C. Comics and some like Marvel?” Owen: “Right. I like both.” You heard it here first, folks: Owen is bi.

Ugh, I hated this he’s-not-really-a-student plot on Dawson’s Creek, too. At least that one had Roger Howarth as an entertainment factor.

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