‘The Secret Life of the American Teenager’ contemplates Bologna, Italy

Source: Zap2it.com Recaps

For people who have learned all about teen pregnancy, there’s still an awful lot of sex and sex talk on “The Secret Life of the American Teenager.” Left and right, everyone seems to be doing it, have done it, want to do it, and/or learn all about how to do it in Bologna. In my high school there was certainly no talk of Bologna, I’ll tell you that much.

Is it just me or does Leo seem terribly different this season? I don’t know whether it’s the addition of Betty to his life or a real character change for him, but there’s something different. I know that Betty is apparently a hooker, but I don’t think it’s possible that Leo is suffering from syphilis, there has to be something else at play with the changes in him. For instance, I really didn’t see Leo telling Ben to take a break from Amy coming. Sure, that’s not exactly what he said, but it was strongly implied.

For her part, Amy should definitely not be heading to Bologna without John, and how is she going to go there for an extended period and leave her job? Surely she hasn’t amassed several weeks of vacation time already.

Poor Ben, making that phone call to Adrian tonight. I thought that after last week that girl was done with her über-sexual ways. Apparently not. She was right though when she made it pretty clear to Ben that if he went to Bologna and left Ricky and Amy alone for the summer, things could happen between the two (even if Ricky and Adrian made some sort of promise to each other).

I understand why Ben wanted Adrian’s opinion – she is “worldly” (and perhaps has been to Bologna), but couldn’t he have predicted that Adrian would tell someone about the conversation and that someone would tell Amy? Adrian cut out the middleman telling Amy herself, but Ben definitely should have foreseen that possibility before talking to Adrian.

Grace was back in the saddle today, heading off to her first day of school following her father’s death. Why, I beg of you, did her mom try to stop her from going back to school? Grace took the death horribly, far worse than either her mother or her brother, and there she was finally ready to get out of bed, put on her usual 12 pounds of makeup, and go back to school. Why would her mom want to stop that from happening? “Gee, honey, I’ve begged you for a week to do something more than stay in bed suggesting that you killed your father, but do you really want to do something so… appropriate?”

Lastly, let me continue my quest to put Anne and George back together. How right was George when he pointed out to Anne that she was overwhelmed with Amy, John, and her own pregnancy? How right was George when he pointed out that David should have been there to help Anne? George knows Anne, he knows what she needs, and even though – as he pointed out – he set the bar pretty low initially, he seems to have improved. I’m not saying he should be forgiven, only Anne can make that judgment, but I’m still pulling for those crazy kids. Plus, and let’s not forget this, George didn’t have that little snip-snip operation. He just may be the father of Anne’s child. Woo-hoo!

Odds and ends:

• George – good guy, how about that conversation with Grace. I think he’s a smart guy who just acts like a fool most of the time.
• David – that chat with Anne at the end of the episode – best proposal ever. You can’t tell me you’d rather see him with Anne than George, can you?
• Call me kooky, but I like Jack and Grace. However, I don’t think that his drinking storyline is done yet.
• Really, Bologna? I had no idea.
• Betty – what are we thinking there? Did the relationship with Leo start out as a professional one and turn into more or did Leo not know? If he didn’t know and doesn’t still, would it make a difference to him? If Ben knew about Betty’s work, would he try and hire her?