“Bunheads” 1.12 ‘Channing Tatum is a Fine Actor’ – Recap and chit-chat!

Stars Hollow must be getting awfully quiet since almost everyone except the two Gilmore girls are bringing the laughs to Bunheads’ Paradise.

No ‘previously on Bunheads’ this week, so keep up at the back.

Tappa tappa tappa! Miss Fanny appears to be having a week off so Michelle’s leading the grown-ups’ evening tap class with Rose Abdoo (Gilmore Girls’ mechanic Gypsy) stealing the show, very much dancing to her own tune. Michelle sees the class off and turns the lights out however they don’t stay out. Sasha’s stolen in and Michelle, after last week’s emotional reunion, lends some kindly and motherly advice.

Michelle: I’m proud of you, I hope you know that… I hope you know that if you ever need someone to talk to or just a place to hang… I’m here.
Sasha: … Thanks
Michelle: So is he outside or still on his way?

Michelle’s wily enough to know that Sasha’s boyfriend Roman is sneaking around outside, calls him in and dismisses him before inviting a contented Sasha in for food.

Next morning, Michelle is drilling the ‘shorties’ ballet class – ooh, Liza Weil in the credits! – and calls it a day when they’re at the point of teetering over. Talia, Michelle’s best friend, calls from Vegas and has set up a blind date for Michelle, a guy called Marion. From the fuzzy picture and loose description, nobody’s getting their hopes up.

While Melanie is disappointed to learn that there’s no whale in The Great Gatsby, Boo is stressing about the premature arrival of her boyfriend and one-time dance partner, Carl. He’s catching an early train home from summer camp to be with her and turns up even earlier, before she’s had a chance to make herself feel pretty – of course she looks great anyway and Carl (Casey Adler channelling Scott Baio) is fast becoming very likeable. He’s a good guy and reminds her about having Thursday night dinner with his folks. He gives her a bow and arrow that he made at camp and she runs off to be mistaken for Katniss Everdeen.

Truly, the local dressmaker and nutjob, turns up outside Michelle’s shack holding her fall collection. Truly’s landlady has locked her out because she hasn’t been paying the rent on Sparkles, her shop / apartment since it rocketed up $1200. Michelle says she can keep the clothes in her closet.

Our quartet of ballerinas – Boo, Ginny, Melanie and Sasha – arrive at school when hark, the sound of newcomers. A brother and sister arrive on a continental scooter, very glamorous with the added dazzle of course, that they’re new.

Truly shows up early at Michelle’s place to preview her fall clothes to a prospective buyer, Jill. Michelle, in brief briefs, acquiesces and fetches coffee.

Back at school, Melanie wanders the school corridors reading two books at a time while listening to a third and the two newcomers are creating a storm of intrigue and envy. Cossette, the girl, has been heard speaking French, Japanese and Spanish while Frankie plays classical piano and violin and the two of them appear to magically change outfits as the day progresses.

Boo still waitresses at the Oyster Bar, where we next find her asking Michelle for advice on dinner with Carl’s parents. Michelle tells her not to be herself and instead to be what she thinks the parents want to be.  More importantly, at all costs, she should get out after 90 minutes since in her experience that’s when something embarrassing goes down. She even lends Boo her watch because nobody under 20 years old wears watches any more.

Carl’s overbearing mum ‘Sweetie’ (Gilmore Girls’ lucky talisman Alex Borstein – Drella the harpist and Miss Celine the dresser) is ordering the whole menu at the Chinese restaurant while his Dad half-heartedly tries to stop her. Boo is taking Michelle’s advice a little too literally and at 90 minutes, stands up and hides round the corner under the pretence of visiting the restroom. While there she hears Carl tell his parents that they should get used to the idea of having Boo around because ‘I could marry this girl’.

Michelle arrives back at her bungalow to what seems be a party inside. In one of many laugh out loud moments, Roman slinks out of the bushes again. Of course it’s Truly in the house, this time giving an open evening to a bunch of her customers. Michelle is a little happier about it when she sells one of her lamps for fifty bucks and says she’ll go with Truly to talk with her landlady about the unreasonable hike in rent.

Another day at school, our quartet are pondering how Cossette has already permeated the upper echelons of the school social ladder and volunteer Ginny to go talk to the new boy, Frankie.

Frankie tells Ginny that he and his sister are nomads from Bavaria (seriously?)  With typical candour, Ginny gushes that she’s always wanted to see Mad Ludvig’s castle in Bavaria – and he not only knows Ginny’s name but he’s been sketching the four girls, picking her out in particular. Schwing!

Returning the favour, Carl is now dining with Boo’s parents at their house. Her dad is a fireman and her mum is putting her own spin on paella. Eating Bananas Foster whipped up by Carl, they watch a bizarre little cowboy dance sequence by I assume, one of Boo’s brothers, to Wylie’s Yodelling Cowhand. Carl then suggests they help clean up and gives Boo a sweet kiss on the forehead. “OK I’ll marry you” she blurts, then talks for a minute planning their lives together. Carl, the cool cucumber, lets her rave then defuses the situation perfectly, explaining that his mum Sweetie sometimes only listens to the over-dramatic. Boo’s OK with this and gives him a winning kiss.

Millie, Truly’s landlady, arrives to meet Michelle and Truly at the Oyster Bar.  Truly has a nervous jackrabbit leg.

Truly: My niece isn’t even allowed to sit on my lap any more, not since I catapulted her into a wall.

She’s very business-like and very probably on the autistic spectrum but then what would you expect – it’s not only Truly’s sister but the ever-awesome Liza Weil (Gilmore Girls’ Paris Geller) who bears more than a chip on her shoulder.

Millie confides to Michelle that she hasn’t forgiven Truly for seducing her serious boyfriend away.  Worse still, it was Hubbell – the man that fell in love with Michelle and married her and died and brought Michelle to Paradise in the first place. Michelle confesses the same and, with any chance of a deal blown out of the water, Michelle tells Truly she can use her place until they figure something out.

The quartet (in woolly Ugg-like boots) are surprised to find Cossette in their dance school, performing to Benjamin Britten’s Cuckoo! (performed by the Downside School Choir and featured recently in the brilliant Moonrise Kingdom). Frankie throws a paper airplane down from the balcony to land in Ginny’s lap. It’s a drawing he’s done of Mad Ludvig’s castle with a note ‘Destroy this’. I get the feeling she won’t.

Night-time in the dance studio and as Michelle walks in, Sasha rolls her eyes and texts Roman: ‘ABORT!!!. Michelle is back early from a failed date with Marion and lends more parental advice.

Michelle: Oh Sasha you don’t know the first thing about dating. As soon as you meet a boy you dump your friends. That’s what boys are for!

There’s someone outside – and it’s not Roman. It’s Sasha’s mum and Michelle leaves them to talk. Sasha’s mum says that Sasha’s dad is leaving, for good, to San Jose to be with his partner and that Sasha must choose between going with him or going with her back to L.A.

“I’m not leaving”, says Sasha. “I’m not leaving.”

Discussion points, for your delectation:

Gilmore Girls’ Guest Spots, come and get ‘em! We got ‘em coming out our ears!!  We got Gypsy. We got Drella and Miss Celine. We got Daniel Palladino writing and directing and (drum roll)… ladies and gentlemen, please. We got Paris Geller.  A wealth of riches and all on top form.  Like last week’s episode, there were surprises on top of surprises and writing shiny enough to justify the talent.  Alex Borstein played an unsympathetic part that had me rolling around (“Ignore him, he’s having a stroke”) and does anyone know who her husband was?  He only had like three lines and he killed them all.  Liza Weil plays to her abundant strengths and rattles off her lines with practiced Gilmore delivery, to wit. the “lube” line followed by “A glittery toilet seat with Barry Gibb’s face on it does not constitute an improvement”, then the dynamite reveal of Hubbell’s involvement.  Masterful stuff.  And an honourable mention to Stacey Oristano, who is just stand-out brilliant and a whimsical delight and needs to be retconned into Stars Hollow.

Other nods to Gilmore Girls : Boo with her ‘which dress to wear’ quandry, in desperate need of Lorelai’s super power; Sasha wanting to stay in Paradise for the school more than the boy akin to Rory wanting to stay at Stars Hollow High, for the boy more than the school.

Michelle seems to be falling over herself now in dispensing advice to her brood, albeit with very differing outcomes.  Her advice to Sasha seems to be that of a loving and forgiving mother, reflecting from her own experiences.  Whereas with Boo it comes out more like a well-meaning sister.  I think Michelle sees a lot of herself in Sasha and this can only deepen when Sasha’s parent’s leave her.  But poor Boo!

The wandering nomad twins, Ginny and Frankie look to stir up troubles.  Jeanine Mason ably plays Cossette, the sister and I’m warmly intrigued by the initial tingles between Frankie (the smokey Niko Pepaj) and Ginny.  He’s aloof in a way I don’t think we’ve seen before in the Gilmore world and Bailey Buntain transmits every emotion like electricity.

Lastly, nice to see Boo’s Dad in person.  A seemingly solid guy and no longer an invisible Mr. Kim (Lane Kim’s ever absent Dad).  But in gaining one dad, we lose both of Sasha’s parents.  I guess we’ll see how that goes…

Photos c/o ABC Family