I guess that’s what Sasha meant by going rogue. Throwing down with the National committee, organizing Rock-only invitationals, and playing on Chinese National pride. And if you look at his argument with the National committee member from the Chinese side … would China really be afraid of angering the United States, or might that relationship in actuality be reversed? Can you imagine what power the phrase “I’m calling in your loans” holds over a nation in debt? One point for Sasha.
And the shockwaves of a Rock-only event — being forced to be insulated, and financing things themselves, holds the potential for an expansion in the show’s Rock focus, like with the handful of new girls seen running the mountain alongside our three (awesome to not have Lauren to deal with!). Unfortunately I think Sasha’s plan involves intersecting with the National team sooner rather than later, so as soon as he can get Emily and Kaylie recognized by the committee this renegade style will end. But I’m enjoying where Make It or Break It is taking us for now.
Beyond it being right chronologically for the China meet, I was confused by the “one month later” jump in this episode. I know it also moved Payson along, particularly if her surgery was just going to be a success so there’d be no need for drama, but the fact that Kaylie’s parents had been apart for a month? Or Not-Razor blowing in and only first discussing things with Emily one month after-the-fact? It was a weird vibe.
But I suppose the month of hardship gave Kaylie’s brother Leo (Marcus Coloma) reason to return, and boy drama #3 reignited for Emily. I’m not making any aesthetic judgments here, but why is she the one with all the boy angst? She doesn’t necessarily handle one well, so why give her three? So that we can watch Not-Razor act like Razor did when confronted with Not-Razor and Emily’s relationship? I’ll pass. Plus Leo seems a lot more like an older brother than someone with romantic potential.
I like just about everything that comes with this China Invitational. I think it will be fun to see how the meet will affect not only the National committee, but also Lauren, who I assume would not be invited to compete for The Rock. I also wonder what long-term affects this situation will have on the girls not rocketed onto the National team top six following all of this, ala what Kim said at the meeting. I’m not looking forward to the actual gymnastics of this affair (sorry Ryan!), but I love the politics of it.
I never fully understood the rule about not having a job, because I think it assumes that the gymnasts at The Rock are irresponsible and incapable of managing anything beyond training. But that’s just my opinion, and the rules are the rules. So how can Chloe be so blind to her daughter’s safety and best interests by bringing The Rock to the pizza shack? It’s almost as if the writers forgot and then quickly recovered by instructing Emily to duck and Leo to throw his jacket over Emily’s head. But it’s the little things like that which keep me from buying into the notion that Emily’s crazy and being unbearably judgmental of her mother. Big things speak for themselves, but a lack of awareness could destroy her entire dream. How could a mother be so clueless, or worse still so minimize her daughter’s concerns? Particularly when the job is meant to help support the family!?!
I’m not sure what there is to say about Payson’s surgery and potential return. I’m happy for her, although part of me doesn’t believe that this was intended by the writers from the beginning (I think her path might have been high school and it just wasn’t working), and right now she’s just in that place where time is her greatest tool. I think she’s being stupid by not having someone in the gym with her just in case (for safety reasons and for reassurance), and I do believe that she needs to talk to someone about her fears or she’ll never be able to overcome them, but this is Payson, or any star athlete, on her road to return. It’s going to be slow, it’s going to be bumpy, she’s going to be scared, but eventually she’ll overcome it. I just hope the show doesn’t push this very natural process. Or turn “Save the Keelers’ house” into a rallying cry. Payson’s spent her entire career feeling somewhat inferior to people like Kaylie and Lauren, which is fine, but we don’t need another Emily on the show.
Speaking of, anyone else notice the highly distasteful Kia Sorento commercial with Emily and Chloe? My wife wondered if their car was product placement a few weeks back. I guess The Rock’s taking it to a whole new level — then again, they need that other $10,000, right?
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Feb 23, 2010 @ 10:00 EST5EDT
I think Rock kids aren’t supposed to do anything but gymnastics, period. No boys, no regular school, and no jobs come in with that. I find it pretty unreasonable to think that all the Rock kids working at the Pizza Shack can get away with it, to be honest. Wouldn’t real life retail shift jobs can them on day 2 when they got scheduled to work during practice hours even after the kid requested not to be booked then? (Or so I hear from people that that’s what happens.) Though realistically, if Emily, Carter, etc. don’t work they probably still can’t afford to be at the Rock on some level or other.
I liked this episode. Yay for getting back to the gym plots, and seeing how Sasha’s going to “go rogue.” I hate to say it, but Payson at high school was turning the show into really bad soap opera. I watch this for the gymnastics, not for that. I disagree with you that they intended to leave Payson there, though. After a few months, there’d be no reason to keep the character on the show any longer if she didn’t have the ability to come back to the gym. They wanted to explore “normal life” for a bit and then stopped it.
Man, I enjoyed no Lauren in this episode.
*POST AUTHOR*
You’re right, it’s unrealistic that they could just work when they pleased. Although the manager is a meth-head or something, right? So it could be that as long as he/she isn’t bothered, they don’t care. Who knows.
My thought with Payson was that they wanted us to see what happens to someone whose dream gets cut short, just as much as they’d want to show us someone who realized their dreams, and someone still struggling to do so. Payson was never going to fully cut herself off from The Rock, and especially after she “accepted” a coaching gig, I thought it was a really interesting avenue to take, to have her no longer an athlete, struggling to become “normal” again, and at the same time using her vast gymnastics knowledge to help others. I just think they got tripped up in the high school stuff (the coaching was never mentioned again after that initial time), and then realized they had to abort.
My favorite part was, obviously, Kaylie and Emily whining about having to do another lap of their hillside run, followed by an out-of-shape Payson barely touching base with Sasha before going off on another run of her own accord.
Leo seems way too calm and level-headed to get mixed up with Emily, even if he’s been eyeing her since his first appearance. I did not enjoy underestimating just how big of a tool Damon could be to other boys, either.
Payson said in this episode that all three of them (Kaylie, Emily, and herself) would go to the 2012 Olympics. Just when I was wondering why she omitted Lauren, Kaylie chimes in to say Lauren would get another shot at beating the Chinese when they came to The Rock, so I’d say she’ll definitely be competing.
Don’t be silly; there are no other Rock girls. It took us this long just to learn the names of numbers 4 & 5. Wasn’t Becca ranked 18th in the gym as well?
I don’t think the rule has anything to do with responsibility and time management. The idea is that The Rock is one of the elite gyms in the world, and only those gymnasts who are willing to totally dedicate their waking hours (save mandated education) to improving themselves need apply. Those who want to have other pursuits as well should just go train elsewhere and come back when they’re serious about being the best.
As for Chloe, remember when her motormouth spilled Emily’s gymnastics career to the pizza boy-of-the-week in the first place? It’s hard to believe the woman has two brain cells to rub together (which is a shame, because I always remembered Susan Ward for playing sharp, cool women).
Yes, Payson was completely being stupid for not having a spotter, but we can understand that she was too terrified to even begin to train again unless she was completely alone. She’ll have to learn to let that go and rely on her family and friends to regain her strength and confidence, not try to do it all by herself.
Apparently the fund raiser at the Pizza Shack was an exclusive, invitation-only affair, so they could all be in on the fix. It’s not like they couldn’t have used the extra contributions from walk-ins to offset the remaining $10,000 shortage. Yet it was so heartwarming that it’s one of the few times I’ll give that kind of stupidity, illogic, or contrivance a pass.
*POST AUTHOR*
I heard that line about Lauren too, but conceptually it doesn’t make sense. How is Sasha proving that Kaylie and Emily belong if it takes Lauren joining them to beat China? One could argue that without Lauren buffering their scores it would never have happened, or something along those lines. It would make more sense for Sasha to keep the two groups completely separate in order to prove his point, but we’ll see.
I guess you’re right about the rules, but it still seems absurd. I mean, I do get the dating thing, because you can become emotionally invested in that, which could affect your training. But a shift at a crappy job? But like I said, the rules are the rules; that’s just my opinion on them.
I suppose that will just be part of Payson’s road back, learning to share her fears, etc. Honestly, I was more intrigued by the notion of her coaching alongside Sasha. Now that I’d love to see.
My thought on the fund-raiser was: why lose 50% of the proceeds to the grand prize? Sure the way they did it was nice, but in general people would have been happy to win $1,000, and The Rock would have been right there with their funding needs.
The Committee is painting the Beijing 6 as the elite, and everyone else as second-string. Obviously, some of The Rock girls aren’t even on the National Team. Even at full strength, Lauren couldn’t pull their numbers up enough to beat the scores of the entire first-string, expecially as she admitted she choked and might have been the worst performer at Beijing.
Their shifts at a crappy job take 6-12 (I’ve seen Emily pull a double) hours out of the day when they could be training, and when some competitor for their spot, who doesn’t have to work, is training and possibly passing them in skill level. Beyond that, it’s one more distraction to what is supposed to be an elite-level athlete.
Yes, a 5-10% prize would have made more sense, but then how could that have made any substantive dent in the Keelers’ medical bills? Where’s your priorities, man?
*POST AUTHOR*
But I think then the argument there should be, “Let someone surpass them in skill and replace them.” Meaning, I’m not sure how you can ban them from doing something that might distract them, instead of seeing if it distracts them. The romantic involvement ban I get, because there you’re involving emotions. But the job is a time commitment only … what if one of the gymnasts was addicted to video games and liked staying up late playing them? How is spending your time waiting tables instead worse for your ability to perform the next morning? I know it’s probably a real rule for athletes in a lot of training facilities, it just doesn’t make much sense.
I think because it’s a waste of an extremely limited and desirable slot, as well as the gym’s and the coach’s time. It’s an easy snap decision to make, and applies to all athletes equally, to weed out those who are less than committed at the beginning.
Most kids play a few video games, but not many are addicted enough to play long enough to equal an entire job shift, and I believe The Rock would throw out anyone jonesing that bad too. Additionally, a job mandates them to do that multiple times per week, which is not true for hobbies. I assume outside organized sports and club activities would also be out of the question for these elite gymnasts, just as jobs are.
Obviously at this point Sasha can choose to overlook these infractions rather than tossing Emily out on her ear (and we know he’ll do so because she’s a series regular, not a day player).
Of course, in the season finale, wasn’t Sasha in the Pizza Shack along with every other adult? How could he possibly not have heard Damon’s declaration of love and witnessed Emily scurrying out the door in a tizzy? Just more special treatment for a special girl, I suppose.
*POST AUTHOR*
I don’t disagree, I just feel as if it should be something taken on a case-by-case basis. I don’t think it was work that was adding to Emily’s struggles. Just saying. And you’re definitely right about Sasha; I just wonder who’s going to pay for Emily now.
Was he? I was looking for him, but I don’t think I saw him there. Not sure.
My guess is that if they let these elite gymnasts hold steady jobs while training, they would depend on the income and start saying “I have to work so I can’t practice.” When you’re that serious and pouring tons of money into an endeavor, it makes sense that you’d agree to make it top priority. However, simply saying “gymnastics needs to be your top priority or you’re out” would have a similar effect.
For Emily in particular, the scholarship would probably be awarded to her based on need, so they want honest information, or she may not be eligible (either because her family’s income exceeds their set need threshold or because her rule-breaking creates doubts about her devotion, and gymnastics orgs probably want the money going to only the most promising in need).