Oh, come on, Kelly Parker! Don’t you know that it’s better to have friends than to be number one? Especially if being number one means betraying a teammate because your bullying mom told you to?
We’ll see how Kelly handles finding Kaylie’s diary — the contents of which would out her eating disorder to the NGO — in Make It Or Break It’s two-hour season finale.
As Kelly Parker’s manager and head of “KPE” — Kelly Parker Enterprises — Sheila is merely annoying and pushy. But as for her mom? She’s plain awful. I never thought I’d feel badly for Kelly on this show, but I did this week, from the first time Sheila called her “dumb-dumb” to Sheila threatening Kelly that she had better sabotage Kaylie’s chances of competing in the Olympics or else she’ll drop her as her “client.” I’m glad that some time was spent revealing the verbal and emotional abuse Kelly harbors, because it made me detest her just a little bit less.
As far as Kaylie is concerned, I thought her tactical move, which I suppose was technically Austin’s strategy, was kind of foolish. She was taking advantage of Sasha once again because she probably knew he’d be in a tough spot unless he had a gymnast to excel at the vault. But to not even show him the other three apparatuses? That was ballsy. I guess that perhaps she could have argued that she was reserving her energy to train later on, when she had more time and wouldn’t have to overdo it. But I’m wondering why she did take Austin’s advice. That doesn’t seem like her. After all, she said last week that she was ready to fight. Why didn’t she train like that for the competition?
That makes me consider Kaylie’s role right now as someone in recovery. Why does she need a guy hanging around her for every new thing she does? First it was Damon, encouraging her to write and sing, which eventually led to her reclaiming her spot on the National team after she decided that she was ready. Now Austin is beside her during her training, which is nice of him and all, but it makes Kaylie look like she can’t get through this alone. I’m sure Kaylie wants to be independent, which may be why she kept pushing Austin away at first. But I’d really like to see Kaylie spend an episode working through her situation on her own, with no male influences at all. Even her therapist is a guy! And he was very supportive and stood up for her, but it just seems like every person Kaylie trusts is male. Sasha being another one. Her female friends are great to her — with the exception of Lauren during the Carter saga — but she seems to need to be accepted by the men in her life. Okay, I’ll get off my soapbox now.
The Payson/Max/Lauren thing is kind of boring to me. Especially the dog part! Maybe it’s because I don’t have a dog, but I was kind of snoozing during the parts where they were chasing the dog, playing with the dog, bemoaning the potential loss of the dog, and then — yay! — keeping the dog. It seems like a storyline in a little kids’ show.
What I did appreciate was the honesty going on between Max and Payson. At first I thought he wasn’t going to tell Payson that it was actually Lauren he was going to go on a date with. I was yelling at the screen, “Oh sure, you’re so honest! You’ll tell her you’re dating and you think that’s enough, but you won’t tell her who!” But then I told myself to shut up when he did tell her.
For me, this MIOBI episode was a little bit of a transitional one. It wasn’t terribly exciting. But I know it’s just the calm before the storm of next week’s two-hour season finale! To me, what was really important about “Dog Eat Dog” was learning a little bit more about Kelly Parker’s background and why she always acts out. I just hope she makes the right decision and keeps Kaylie’s personal information to herself. As she said herself, she really doesn’t have any friends, and I think she could stand to make some.
Clacked by Rachel Blum-Jose 
on May 17, 2011 @ 21:28 EST5EDT
