January 29, 2001 - The 100th Episode of Seventh Heaven

CD: The 100th episode was kind of a non-event. It's the Rev.'s birthday, and everyone's planning a big surprise party for him. Surprise, because the Rev. forgets it's his birthday. Must be nice to be that old.

Mom is busy planning the party and dad is busy - well, I'll get to what he's up to - so the kids help out doing errands, and along the way, they find out What it Means to be Rev. Camden.

Examples: Matt and Simon drive a crazy old lady to the hospital. They nose into her business to find out what's wrong with her, wait with her for some test results, and mouth off to her doctor when he demonstrates less than Camden-worthy bedside manner.

Lucy intervenes in her sort-of boyfriend's life and brings a mother and her child closer together. This is Mike, the guy Lucy's been hanging around with who once tried to commit suicide. If you remember, his mom is severely depressed and sits completely motionless in front of the TV all day. It took me until this long to figure out where the writers at Seventh got this idea: they're ripping off American Beauty. Lucy's pal Mike is supposed to be like Wes Bentley's character: a troubled teen who spent time in an institution and came out confident and bizarrely self-possessed. His mom is the same as the mom played by Allison Janney, except Janney has talent. Anyway: Lucy has to help Mike by staying with his mom while he runs some errands.

While Mike's gone, the mom talks for the first time in who knows how long, telling Lucy that she thinks she's ruining her son's life. Lucy tells all this to Mike. Mike has an actually legitimately touching moment with his mom where he tells her that neither of them are to blame for dad being gone, and they've got to move on, and he still loves her. For a second-rate teen actor he was pulling out all the stops, which is actually more rewarding than seeing a really good actor pull off a scene like this.

Lucy spends the scene crying.

There's another good monologue from a peripheral character later on. Ruthie is wandering around the house, looking for trouble, when she goes to the front door and finds - a baby. Somebody left a baby on the porch. It turns out that Robbie - who has become the all-purpose font of reason and information in the Camden house - recognizes the baby: it's Mercy, who's Frankie and Johnny's daughter.

You remember Frankie and Johnny, the trailer trash couple that got Mary into drinking and smoking dope. Mary tracks down Johnny, who tells her that Frankie ran off with the pot dealer and left him with the kid. He's still having trouble with his anger management, and the kid's screaming, and there's no beer in the fridge, and dammit Frankie didn't even do the dishes before she took off, and it was all too much. Again, no great acting, but it's still a pretty interesting monologue: when this guy tells you his life is a mess, you believe it. Mom Camden tells him that she already intervened and called Johnny's folks, and they're willing to help him out. I think she starts crying.

So where's the Rev. been while all these people needed meddling? He's been tipped off that Jessica Biel has left Buffalo and is planning to come back home to California. He intercepts her at the airport, thinking she's there to mess around with Robbie, and finds out that she actually came home to wish him a happy birthday. She's doing better now, and wants to start patching stuff up. However, her plane was late, so she didn't have time to stick around.

This is another brief cameo by the Bielster - I guess they're not ready to have her mingle with the rest of the cast and crew too much. But Stephen Collins is a good enough actor to make like he misses her and is glad to see her. I think he cries.

When the Rev. gets home, the surprise party starts. Every sadsack in town who's ever been helped by the Rev. is there to wish him a happy birthday. They've also got a band of aging-hippies who do a half-assed cover of the "Seventh Heaven" theme song while the Rev. works the room, thanking his well-wishers.

A hundred episodes. Has it really been that long?

By the way, later in the episode we find out where Lucy got into school. You remember a few weeks ago she got an early admission letter from some unidentified college: it turns out she's going to the seminary. She makes a big point of telling her dad about it. "I'm going to be a reverend, just like you!" Do the Protestants even let women be reverends? Or is that the Catholics? I've gotta look that up on the web later.