Make It or Break It S1xE Run Emily Run

[babydraco]

The real gymnasts tumble in the background as Emily asks if Kaylie has seen Sasha. Kaylie shows her Carter necklace off to Lauren. Sasha is in his office, talking to a tall, thin, black woman with an English accent who is apparently some sort of sports agent. He introduces her to the girls as Ms. Martin, or “MJ” who is there to shoot “sizzle pieces” as previews for the sports networks. When Sasha moves away to yell at Emily, MJ gives the other three her business card and tells them they need someone looking out for their best interests.
Because Emily caused problems at the meet, Sasha throws her out of the gym.

Theme song.

Emily is angrily punching dough at the Shack. She tells Damon about being kicked out, and how expensive it will be to train somewhere else so she can prove to Sasha that she belongs. It’s very interesting that Emily gets kicked out for flubbing a move Sasha told her not to do, and doing it in front of the Denver club, but Lauren hasn’t gotten in trouble once for anything she does. Damon hints that he’d be willing to help Emily break into the gym at night.

The other three show up (awed and curious about what it's like to have an actual job) and Kaylie muses that if she worked in a pizza place, she’d be “as big as a house”.

While they are chatting about pizza and getting Emily back into the gym (and in Lauren’s case, how dirty and gross the Shack is) Payson’s dad comes out of the back room hauling a cart of beer cases, and wearing a uniform with his name on it.

“DAD?” Payson squeaks. At home, the Keelers fight about how Mr. Keeler lost his job months ago and gave up on looking for work in his field, but never told his family he was delivering beer now. The sisters listen behind Payson’s bedroom door, and Becca blames Payson for the problems their parents are having, since they did move to Boulder for Payson’s career. I also want to note how homespun Payson’s room looks. She has a lot of cheerful quilts. In the next two shots, we’ll see Lauren and Kaylie’s rooms again.

They’re talking on the phone about how Kaylie can’t find Carter’s necklace. Kaylie’s room has a pink and black color scheme, and the theme is that neo Marie Antoinette look, with all the French style furnishings painted over in eye searing blues and hot pinks, and black and white curtains with royal looking curly designs all over them. Kind of like a preteen girl in the 80s is trying to go goth. So it’s sort of princessy but in an oddly Hobby Lobby sort of way.

Lauren claims she hasn’t seen the necklace, and you just know she stole it. Her room is all purple, with white sheer curtains that have sequins on them. Both girls have at least one visible animal print accessory in their rooms. When Lauren hangs up, yep, as predicted, she goes to the mirror and admires her stolen necklace. Summer knocks on the door and barely waits for Lauren’s answer to barge in. She’s carrying a silver tray with “Salmon, broccoli and beets” and suggests they could eat at the table together.

Oh, Summer. Summer. My family doesn’t even do that and we’re more functional than the Tanners. Lauren finds her playing house while Steve is out of town “creepy”. Summer creepily admires Lauren’s new necklace. She’s pretty astute and probably suspects Lauren stole it, but may not know from whom or why.

Damon picks the lock on the gym and sneaks Emily in. He explains that his dad is the one who taught him how to do it. And as I said before, don’t care about Damon so we’ll skip the budding romance scene again.
In the morning, MJ tries to get Sasha to tell her which girl he thinks will win. He says Kaylie is a great performing but she lacks fire. Lauren is all fire and no focus. Payson is the strongest physically.

“What about the girl you tossed out?”

Emily, Sasha says, has the most raw talent of all the girls, but she’s been taking care of herself so long that he doesn’t know if she knows how to listen to anyone else.

“You’re up to something, “ MJ t eases, and Sasha walks away with a little smile.

Chloe tries to make Emily come to the salon with her. When Emmily refuses to relax, Chloe decides to seduce Sasha. It doesn’t go well, with Chloe in a sexy red outfit, practically sititng in his lap and making him unbearably uncomfortable.

Payson, Lauren and Kaylie are searching Kaylie’s car for the necklace. Kaylie admits she lied to Carter about losing it, and Lauren says, I kid you not, “I wish I could lie like that.” They also discuss MJ, who apparently just signed Kelly Parker. This is a continuity error, but one that won’t be important for another season.

Payson wants to be represented by MJ, but it would mean giving up her amateur status. She wants to help her family out financially, and lies that they gave her permission to get an agent.

Kaylie is crying in her car when Summer pulls up. She asks Kaylie what’s wrong, and Kaylie tells her about the necklace and describes it. A light bulb goes off, of course, and Summer promises to keep an eye out for it.

At the Keeler house, Mr. Keeler announces that he can get his old job in Minnesota back. Becca is thrilled, Payson is not, she doesn’t want her dad “commuting”. Look, there’s an easy way to solve this, although it might be painful to admit. Payson is sixteen, and a normally functioning one at that. She only has two years left before she’s no longer a minor, and like most kids her age, is beginning that separation from her parents by taking on more and more adult choices and responsibilities. For example, she can be left alone in a house for sometimes, two, three whole hours. She could be someone else’s mother right now if she’d made much worse life choices or lived a hundred years ago. Emily, who is the same age, works for a living.

Payson is home schooled and spends almost all day in the same building where her mother now works. Becca and their dad want to go back to the Midwest. Why don’t Becca and their dad just move back, and Payson stay in the Rockies with their mom? Becca and the dad can visit any time and with the internet and cell phones, regular communication over large distances is almost like still having that person in the same room. It's not a divorce, it's not forever, it's no different than what would happen if Payson got into college like her parents want her to, only at least half the family would still be with her.

Payson’s parents shoot down her idea to get a sports agent. They want her to get into college, or they're at least afraid that she won't get into the Olympics or some injury will destroy her gymnastics career. And if she takes sponsorship money now, she'll be officially professional and ineligible to recieve a sports scholarship to college. The fact that this rule is in place because, if she had a sponsorship, she might not need a scholarship too is something they haven't yet brought up. Nor is the possibility that if she ends up in a position where she's unable to compete in gymnastics, she probably won't get a sports scholarship anyway and will have to apply for needs based financial aid or a scholarship in some other field, but most of the good schools, if you get in, they will do everything they can to help you pay. This is something they do not tell you when you're in high school and planning your future, unless you have good teachers who are extremely invested in making sure you get into a good college. If you go to a poor or mediocre high school, the good universities don't even come to your college fair. One of my younger cousins had school officials refuse to sign off one of her applications because they insisted she couldn't afford the tuition to that specific college. Of course she couldn't,but the college would've helped if she got in. They have huge funds set aside for just such an issue. If that's all dried up by other applicants, they'll help you take out a loan, or they'll find you a part time job on campus, whatever it takes.

I have another relative who was an actual gymnast. Not an Elite, she just trained at a small, unremarkable local place and started way too late for any sort of Olympic hopes. And she recieved a career ending ankle injury. Her gym instantly offered her a coaching job, and she's had it ever since. It doesn't pay much, but any respectable gym would certainly throw considerably more money at a gymnast who trained with an Olympic medaler at one of the top gyms, was a national champion and nearly made the Olympics herself.

What I'm saying is, Payson's parents don't have to worry about her financial future.

Lots of sixteen/seventeen year olds have no choice about earning money to help their families. Not only do their parents take the damn money being offered, but they make it clear from the get go that the kid will need a job as soon as possible. And in some families, the parents insist that “school is your job” and they try to take care of everything so their kids can get good grades and go to college and earn a lot of money.

But Payson’s job is gymnastics, and right now, that job is bleeding her family dry without putting anything back because she’s not earning. If the purpose of college is to get a good job where you earn lots of money, then if you have an opportunity to get to that same place without college, and sooner than your peers, you better take it because holding out for college seems a little pointless and wasteful. If you wanted to go to college to learn things for the sake of learning them, you have your whole life to go back to school and do that. You only have a certain amount of time to become a conventional success and to make the most of that amazing energy and drive that only someone under the age of twenty five can have. You’re a powder keg of potential during the time between sixteen and twenty five, but it’s also the time to make all your stupid mistakes and take all your risks.

While Sasha is yelling at Lauren during practice, Emily strides in and starts chalking up. Sasha gives her a silent, warning shake of the head as MJ fires up the camcorder. Emily executes a perfect bar routine, with the whole gym watching. She demands that Sasha let her come back, but he is just…he’s just horrible to her. And I know what he’s doing here, but it’s horrible to watch.

Emily runs out of the room. The next shot is of her in jogging clothes, running with headphones on. The soundtrack is playing one of those West Coast surfer emo bands that is either Christian rock or just sounds suspiciously like it. Emily runs to a playground and pours out all her anger in an aggressive series of gymnastic moves.

There’s a poster for the Boulder Jazz Fest on one of the fence posts.
Summer shows up at the gym wearing both Lauren’s Olympic Rings necklace and Kaylie’s necklace from Carter that Lauren stole.

“What? You and your friends share jewelry all the time, right?”

She tells Lauren that you have to earn things, you can’t just take them from other people because you think you want it more. This is a lesson people are supposed to learn when they’re five, but not everyone does.

Emily runs back to the playground, where her mother finds her and they argue about how Emily is tired of fighting for things and just wants to quit. Chloe says sure, okay, they can move to Vegas, she has a friend there who can give her a job, and after Emily finishes high school, she can come be a beautician too. Emily says yeah, that sounds good, and walks away. The camera cuts to Sasha’s trailer, and Emily is knocking on his door in the pouring rain to make a rousing speech about how gymnastics is all she’s ever wanted and he can’t take that away from her.

She tells him she’ll do anything he wants if he lets her back in the Rock. And in light of Season Three’s most recent revelation about two characters that I’m now thinking of as the Emily and Sasha of some sort of twisted dark mirror world, I’m just glad Sasha is Sasha and not that other guy.

Sasha unlocks the gym so he can see where she’s at with her training. He wants her to do trust falls and she won’t. She rants that she is the only person she can trust, and she doesn’t give up control because if she’s not in control, everything in her life goes to hell. And while I can definitely see that, for example, her mother couldn’t be trusted to pay the phone bill, but Emily is actually quite out of control. She’s a raging pile of raging chaos. Anyway, Emily blurts out that everyone leaves her, “My dad, Brian’s dad, Marty, you!”

Just to shove home the point about how much of a loser Chloe is, she has *two* children whose fathers ran off.

Sasha insists he’s not leaving. When they do the trust fall for real, Emily lets him catch her. She stays in his arms a little longer than some people might be comfortable with, and probably a thousand shippers dashed to their keyboards. But I think we’re supposed to see it as more of a Father/Daughter thing, because of the next scene . Payson is crying in her room. Mr. Keeler comes in and explains that although he knows she’s known her purpose in life since the age of five, it took him a little longer. But he knows his purpose in life is to take care of his family, and he needs her to trust him and forgive him for needing to move away to do that.

So this episode was about trust between fathers and daughters? I guess? Mr. Keeler is leaving that very night, so they all say goodbye and weep copiously.

The next day, Kim Keeler calls MJ into her office and reads her the riot act about soliciting business from the underage gymnasts without their parents present. She’s ready to take her role as gym manager seriously, to step in as a real leader and own it. Because she is on her own now.
Lauren returns Kaylie’s necklace, but claims she found it under a mat.
MJ finds Emily and asks to get started on Emily’s video profile for Nationals. Emily demurs, saying she isn’t going to Nationals.

“Coach Belov seems to think otherwise,” MJ says with a smile and a glance toward Sasha, who almost smiles back.



If you tried what Sasha just tried on a student in real life, they would probably leave and never come back. Which is why that sort of strategy is more than a little iffy.