Story — Wyatt wants to try out all the equipment in the hospital. Whit comes into the room as a doctor or nurse leaves. We hear a crash outside the room to the left (in stereo).
Come to think of it, it is reasonable that they are concerned about a high schooler with a bad reputation hanging around a ten year old. We find out that Bridget almost drowned and Whit and Carla are concerned about her. Whit gives her a counsellor’s contact information but Bridget only visits the counsellor once, claiming that she’s fine. Interesting how under Marshall Younger’s writing, mental and emotional help when a person is struggling but says they are fine the help is encouraged, but under Phil Lollar’s writing in The Rydell Revelations and Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off such help seems to be discouraged for Emily even though she seems to be aware that she needs help.
Whit then goes and hears Wyatt telling the story of Bridget bellyflopping off of a rope swing into the lake. Wyatt pulled her out of the lake and Cooper Calhoun runs up and performs chest compulsions on her, saving her life. Whit goes to talk to Cooper. Cooper tells him that their family had just parked and, when he heard Jay crying for help and ran up, Wyatt had already pulled her onto the land.
Whit goes back to Wyatt’s room and tells him about David and has him read a sentence from a Psalm. Whit has Wyatt retell the story, this time including a part where Wyatt couldn’t remember CPR and Jay yelling at him for not doing anything. He then tells about something Jay said after:
“Son of a war hero? Pfffft. You are nothing like your dad!”
Jay
In order to try and help Wyatt, Bridget decides to stage a drowning with Jay to show Wyatt that he is able to save her when Jay is not. The demonstration goes wrong, however, when Bridget begins to drown for real. Wyatt’s protection instinct helps him to jump in the pool and save her for a second time. Whit tells Wyatt that he has an instinct to protect. Bridget adds that it makes him a lot like his dad.
Outro — Chris gives a list of Biblical heroes including Moses, David, and Paul. She also warns listeners not to jump in and try to save someone from drowning because a heavier adult could pull the child down resulting in an unnecessary extra death if lifesaving equipment and/or a lifeguard are present.
Expectations V.S. Reality — My expectations were pretty accurate for the first half or so of the epiosde; I even knew most of one of the scenes from reading the page of the script released on Face Book a while back. I’ll list a couple of things that stood out to me in this category below:
- I already knew that Wyatt jumped off a shed and that he was hanging out with Jay when going into the episode.
- The whole part about Bridget drowning, in contrast, was quite a surprise to me.
Recap of My Expectations — Expectations previously posted in Album 70 Expectations on December 15th, 2020 are placed below for convenience.
Jumping Off, Jumping In
Wyatt starts taking silly risks, like eating hot chips, leaping from sheds, and venturing into the lair of a ravenous beast. Is Jay putting him up to it … or is it tied to something that happened to his sister?
source: aiowiki.com
Page eight of the script was released some time ago, so this episode has been anticipated longer than most on this album.
The episode features Jay, Wyatt, Bridget, Mrs. Perkins, and Cooper. We know this because pictures and a video from the recording of the episode were released. It will be the second episode (after Always Home) to feature the Perkins without any Parkers, probably due to the fact that the Parkers are being phased off of the show. I’ve been looking forward to this episode ever since page eight of the script was released earlier this year (I think it was around April or May).
Thoughts — In this episode, under a different writer, Whit is sensitive about people’s traumatic experiences and doesn’t just say that everything is okay as long as the intentions were gooood. Because the contrast of the two writers is so great I will stress again the way Bridget and Wyatt’s mental health was handled by Marshall Younger was very different from the way Phil Lollar treated near-death-experience trauma in The Rydell Revelations Part 3.
Adventures in Opinions 