Friday, November 21, 2008

Hope and heartbreak



While Marc and Betty battled it out for a prestigious training program, it was the C plot of Justin and Randy that I cared most about. Photo by ABC.com

Last night, the 8 p.m. hour on CBS and ABC was the strongest of the season as "Survivor" and "Ugly Betty" both aired the best shows of their respective seasons.

I've already blogged about "Surivor" (Randy YES!!!) and now it's time to talk about Justin.

The A-plot had Betty and Marc trying to fight to get a position for a training program for young editors. (Kudos for the writer for finally fleshing Marc out as a person with ambition and kudos for them for humanizing Wilhemena and boo on who ever is dressing Betty!)

The B- plot was how Willie is after Connor and finally deciding to give up.

But it was the C-plot which was the attention grabber for me.

A few weeks ago, Justin tried out for a play on Broadway and learned that a bully from school secretly loved to dance and wanted to be on Broadway too. They've been hanging out and it was clear that Justin was having feelings for this boy and it was also clear that the boy kinda liked Justin too.

But then, our friend peer pressure stepped in: Randy was spotted with Justin by his jock friends and they secretly mocked the two. And of course what happened? Randy dissed Justin and went back to the friends.

I sat on my couch and had my heart break because I KNOW that moment! I'm going to change names to protect the innocent, but years ago when I was in school, there was a guy who broke my heart in the same way.

He too was a jock and we discovered that we shared a love for comic books after I spotted him in the comic book store one day. Soon, it became our ritual to meet up at the front gate of my school and walk to the comic book store together. We discovered we shared a love of the same music, movies and more. He was my McDreamy back then.

Then one day, we were coming out of the comic book store and he was spotted by his team. The next week, I waited for 30 minutes and he didn't show. At school he avoided me. Finally one day, he tried to bully me in the school cafeteria and of course, NO one messes with TheRemote and so a fight ensued.

Needless to say, I got some punches in and so did he, but he looked worse than I (I don't advocate fighting BTW) and we never spoke again. Over the years, I never forgot him and although this may sound cheezy, I have a feeling he was watching and somewhere out there, we connected again.

I hope that ABC has the courage to not end the Justin/Randy thing because let's face it, kids are coming out younger and younger and while this show hasn't openly addressed it, it's clear that the whole family knows about Justin and doesn't care. I loved that Hilda told Justin not to EVER change and always be himself.

It's a lesson we all need to be reminded of from time to time.