Put Yourself Out There - Recap

Amber got a 2250 on her SAT, and the family is overjoyed.

Kristina is on the phone with a friend when Max destroys all the eggs in
the interest of getting egg cartons. Adam walks in just as all the eggs
hit the floor, but nobody wigs out. Kristina asks him about the call she
just took. One of Max' best friends, Emily, is having a birthday party.
He's not invited and doesn't know why. Max says that Emily just doesn't
seem to like him that much anymore.

A new woman (Carly) joins the team, and apparently she and Gordon have a
history. When she asks, Adam tells Sarah they're old college buddies.
Sarah brought donuts to celebrate Amber's amazing score.

Millie gets home from art class. Her new substitute teacher will be the
man she had an affair with when she and Zeek were on the rocks. She
tells him immediately so there will be no secrets. Zeek is
uncomfortable, but this means everything to Camille. It's life drawing,
and that's something she's been struggling with for a long time. Zeek
begrudgingly agrees, and she thanks him.

Jabbar and his friend appear to be auditioning. Crosby is approached by
Principal Taylor. He tells Crosby that he has nothing against Joel, but
he directed last year's play. That was the longest 47 minutes of his
life. He asks Crosby to assist, since he is a creative type, and Crosby
agrees. Joel walks over, he realizes the play needs a lot of work.
Taylor tells him that Crosby will be his assistant director, even as
Crosby is sending mad, non-verbal cues but he doesn't want to do this.
Joel thinks it's great.

Alex comes in and finds Haddie adjusting all the cans so their labels
face front. He tells her she has way too much time on her hands. She
tells him no, what she is doing make sense. Alex says sure: and
whenever she is ready to talk about OCD, he will be there for her. She
asks if Alex has any big plans this week and he says yes; he has a hot
date at the library. He plays Scrabble online with a gentleman from
Romania. She laughs and tells him not to make fun of her, she's not the
weird one here. She invites him to join her at a party some kid from
school is having, and Alex politely declines. Alex rearranges a few of
the canned goods before leaving, just so Haddie will have something to do.

Zeek tried, but he can't deal with the fact that Camille is going to
take a class from the man she had an affair with. He wants her to drop
out. Their marriage counselor asks him to tell her how the situation
makes him feel, and he says he's hurt, angry and jealous. Camille tells
him she understands how he feels, and she will think about doing as he asks.

Kristina and Adam are pillow-talking about Max not being invited to
Emily's party. They get along really well, they're very comfortable. She
doesn't understand why Emily's mom would single him out like that. Adam
thinks maybe it was an oversight. She thinks maybe it just got lost in
the mail, so she's going to give Andi a call.

Sarah asks if she can come in and tell her how proud she is of her.
Amber says no, and Sarah thanks her and walks in. This time last year
they didn't even know she'd be taking the test, and now look at her.
Sarah then changes the subject to the woman who showed up at work today,
Carly. Apparently, Gordon's going to talk to her, see if she can meet
with the Amber. If they hit it off, Carly could put in a good word for
her. Sarah tells amber it's a connection, connections are good when
it's time for college. Amber refuses, it feels very uncomfortable.
They squabble, but Amber has the last word: it's "NO".

Joel and Crosby are working on the play, but it is not going well.
Crosby thought maybe he could write a musical, like Broadway. Joel
thinks it's a great idea, time permitting. The kids are all in favor,
so Crosby is going to go ahead with it.

Kristina confronts Emily's mom, Andi. She says Emily specified three
kids in the class that she did not want at her birthday party. All
three were excluded, not just Max. She said it wasn't meant to be
cruel, but Kristina points out that it was. Andi disagrees. As long as
the invitations weren't handed out in the classroom, Emily can invite
whoever she wishes. Kristina fights for the spirit of inclusion that
the school represents. Both women wind up fighting back tears as they
stand for their child. Kristina understands that this is just one day
out of the year, and it's Emily's day.

Zeek tries to be lighthearted with Camille, but she sees through it and
scoffs before responding. He tells her he has a question, and asks if
she's going to be leaving that class taught by her "flame", or what?
She refuses to dignify that with a response. Zeek admits that he got off
to a bad start. When he asks again, it is simple and straightforward.
Camille answers with a question of her own. "Do you trust me?" He
answers yes, and Camille says good. Because this is about trust. We
have to start trusting each other again. There is absolutely nothing
between Camille and Matthew, and she feels this is something that Zeek
needs to get past. They both need to get past it. Zeek says "Yeah. You
got it." and walks away.

Haddie calls Alex to ask if she's working tomorrow. He says he'll
check, and counts to five. He tells her she is working tomorrow. She's
lucky, because there's a big pile of compost out back with her name on
it. He knows how much she likes to get dirty. Recognizing the double
entendre, he's very embarrassed and tries to correct. It's obvious she
just wanted to hear his voice, and just as obvious that Alex was happy
to hear hers.

Amber tells Sarah it was a stupid party. Sarah says she's sorry it was
stupid, but she's glad that Amber got to spend some time with her
cousin. Adam arrives, allegedly to pick up a book. When Sarah excuses
herself to get it, he starts the SAT discussion with Amber. She calls
him on ambushing her and he won't own it, but she knows. He finally
pushes the right button, and she bursts into tears. Every time something
big like this happens, she messes it up. She's tired of messing it up.
Adam steps into the dad shoes and tells her that "life will knock you
down more times than you can possibly imagine. Don't knock yourself
down. Don't avoid feeling embarrassed because you're afraid something's
not going to go well. So what if it doesn't go well. So what." He gives
her some more positive reinforcement, and ends by telling her to give
herself a chance.

Joel is resentful about how Crosby is being so cavalier. He thinks it's
a lot harder to put something like this together than Crosby seems to
realize. Crosby on the other hand, is talking to Jasmine. He intends
to rock this musical. That will probably be the first elementary school
musical to win a Tony. Jasmine is rightfully apprehensive about how
Joel is taking this, but Crosby doesn't get it. He just asks where his
box of harmonicas is.

Kristina touches base with Emily. She wants to know if Max was mean to
her. Emily answered by saying he won't lose. As she describes what
happens, Kristina understands. When Max loses, he makes Emily play
again and again and again, until she won't play anymore. Then he gets
mad again. She won't do that anymore. It's completely logical to Emily;
Max can't come to the party, because they're going to play games.

It's time for Amber's meeting with Carly. When they rehearse the
handshake, Amber thinks Sarah overreacted at the strength of her
handshake. However, Gordon has the same reaction. Before they leave,
Sarah asks if there's anything about Carly that Amber could use in the
meeting. Gordon mentions that she loves The Stones. Amber doesn't see
how she can work that into a college interview.

In the interview, Amber is very nervous. Carly winds up telling her
that she bombed her first college interview. She was so nervous and
apprehensive that she tried to act above it all, but instead came off as
an arrogant brat. Amber asks how she found out. Carly tells her that
when he excused himself to go to the facility, she looked at his
notebook and it had one big word on it. "Annoying." Since Carly didn't
know how to go about switching gears, she just continued being annoying
for the rest of the interview, and blew it. Now that they broke the
ice, Carly and Amber are ready to move forward.

Crosby and Joel are in rehearsals. Every kid in the group has a
noisemaker of some kind. Crosby is the only one actually making music.

Zeek needs Matthew outside of Camille's class. Matthew doesn't know who
Zeek is, and extends his hand in greeting. When Zeek accepts it he
introduces himself by his full name, Camille's husband. He tells
Matthew he wants him to stay away from Camille. Matthew understands and
agrees.

Kristina confronts Emily's mom again. This time, she thinks it would be
a good idea if Max and Emily had a play date so they could work on the
"Max is a poor loser" aspect of things. If that went well, he could go
to the party. Andi has had enough. She's sick of this whole 'it takes a
village' attitude. Kristina beseeches her to go with her on this one.
She's just being an advocate for Max, and she's sure Andi has made a
fool of herself on Emily's behalf at least once.

Matthew flat-out ignores Camille, even when she calls his name to ask
for help. He finally comes over and tells her he thinks it's better if
they don't talk. Zeek was very clear about that. She asks when he talked
to Zeek, but all Matthew will say is that he seriously doesn't want to
be in the middle of anything. She should wait for feedback on her work
until Marcy returns to class. She looks at him with a face full of pain,
and he turns and walks away.

Alex makes all the labels face front, then calls Haddie. When she
answers, he asks her what she's doing right now.

Sarah swings through and thanks Gordon for facilitating the meeting
between Amber and Carly. He tells her Amber is a really cool kid, and
that's because Sarah is a really cool mom. Sexy, too. Does she have
plans for the evening? When the answer is no, they make plans for dinner.

Haddie and Alex play Scrabble. He makes up words, but she calls him on it.

Camille confronts Zeek. He tries to play dumb, but then he tells the
truth. Camille says it was so humiliating. Zeek finds that wildly
ironic, since this is incredibly humiliating for him. Camille asked,
and asks, and asks him to be honest with his feelings, and when he
finally was, when he finally told her the situation makes him feel like
crap, she said "So what." So he told her little Portuguese pound cake to
stay away from what is his. Camille resents being objectified. Zeek
mutters that she knows what he meant. Yeah, she knew exactly what he
meant. All this time in therapy, and he has not changed a bit.

Sarah comes home bearing leftovers, and finds Amber reading in the
garden in the dark. Amber makes Sarah promise not to cry. She tells her
she enjoyed the meeting, and came to the realization that maybe she
could do this. Maybe she could become a success. She notices that
despite her promise, Sarah is awash in happy tears.

Max and Emily are gaming with his counselor's help. It seems to be
going well. Andi and Kristina are having a wonderful conversation about
their kids. They are really hitting it off well.

Crosby and the kids are singing together, but the kids really don't seem
to know the words. Joel has everybody take a break so he can confront
Crosby. He thinks this is all been a big waste of time, and he wants to
get the kids back to rehearsing the play. Crosby tells him that this
was Principal Taylor's idea. Joel is stunned. He's very hurt, and
turns the entire play over to Crosby.

Haddie confides in Camille. She really likes Alex. Camille is happy for
her. They're both so happy, they're tearful.

Share this article with your friends