Make It or Break It S1xE9 "Where's Kaylie?"

[babydraco]

A clock strikes 6:00 a.m. Emily wakes up, and her mother sits up suddenly on the other side of the bed. She had a nightmare that they’d overslept and “Sasha kicked you out of the gym again”. Emily and Chloe are sharing a bed because Joe is staying at their house “just for a couple of nights”.

Joe has cooked and done grocery shopping, but it doesn’t impress Emily. She grabs her bag and storms out.

At the gym, Kaylie bemoans the fact that she’s banned from communicating with Carter. All Luaren can think about is whether or not she’s seen him since the party. For obvious reasons.

“But at least I can still see him, “Kaylie says, “if he’d get here already.”

Sasha summons Carter to his trailer and informs him that “it has come to my attention that you’ve had a relationship with one of my gymnasts. “
After the theme song, we cut to Sasha lecturing the girls on the incident. He tells them that the “no dating rule has been broken by two of the girls” and that the boy involved, Carter, has been suspended. Hey, Sasha warned him. That being said, he posts the women’s team rankings, and Payson is first on all the events except beam. Which you know is unacceptable for her.

Sasha is in the office discussing the no dating rule with Kim Keeler, who wonders why, if they trust the girls as professional athletes, they don’t trust them as women, when Payson interrupts to demand an explanation for the rankings. He tells her that Nationals isn’t just about individual medals, but about helping your teammates medal too.

Summer arrives at the Parent’s Box and Steve excitedly relates that Lauren has been ranked first on the beam. Lauren waves and smiles at Summer. Steve expresses surprise, and Summer tells him that Lauren seems to have come around. Summer presses him on the issue of Lauren’s mother. Steve is forced to confess that Lauren’s mother is not in Darfur, she’s a junkie and no one knows where she is.

Castle Cruz. Ronnie is relaying messages between Carter and Kaylie and arranging meetings for them.

At the Kmetko Hovel, Joe is buddying up to Brian by playing video games with him.

Brian says that he isn’t bothered by Joe because he doesn’t expect anything. But Emily refuses to allow Joe to pay Brian’s ticket to Nationals, because eshe doesn’t want Joe to suck them all back in and break Chloe’s heart. Hmm, is that the worst thing he’s done? They seemed to imply that he was abusive ( the fact that he was watching her with Sasha, and “we moved to Fresno to get away from him”).

Steve visits Lauren in her bedroom. She’s under the covers and cuddling a sock monkey. He tries to comfort her by reminding her that if they let Lauren’s mother back into their lives, she might disappoint them again. But Summer seems to think Lauren is old enough to decide for herself, so Steve gives her the contact info Summer found for him online. After he leaves, Lauren picks up her pink sparkly phone and calls her mother. It was a nice, touching scene, showing that Steve and Lauren do have real pain after all, and that is a big part of their relationship.

Lauren runs up to tell her gym friends that her mother is coming into Denver tomorrow. She hasn’t seen Lauren compete since Lauren was eight. Ronnie Cruz gives Kaylie a subtle nod, and Kaylie joyfully slips out of the gym to meet Carter. But once they’re alone, she shoves him and demands to know why he let Sasha kick him out. She won’t go to Nationals without him and insists that she doesn’t care about gymnastics. Carter is the only person who understands her.

He doesn’t want her to ruin her career over him, so he confesses that he had sex with a girl at the kegger. Kaylie flips the hell out, and runs away in tears.

Emily comes home early and finds her mother in a bathrobe, not at work. Chloe has begun sleeping with Joe again. Emily tells them both off, and when she’s gone, Chloe has the strength to throw Joe out for good.
Lauren, looking very well put together, waits and waits at the station for her mother, who is clearly not on the bus. She’s devastated.
Lauren turns up at Payson’s house instead and lies that her mother got sent back to Darfur. Emily is there already. I guess Kim Keeler is the mom they all go running to, because she’s the perfect fantasy mom for girls with rotten mothers. Mrs. Keeler reminds them that it’s their job as teammates to make sure Kaylie gets to Nationals (although Payson thinks Kaylie is “selfish”). By analyzing the noises in the background on the voicemail Kaylie left, they determine that she’s hiding out at their old gymnastics camp.

They all pile in the car and drive out to camp. The three find Kaylie sitting morosely on a log. She tells them Carter had sex with someone else. She goes on to say that Carter told her he slept with another girl after they fought at the kegger.

“It was probably some slut,” Kaylie opines. “Lauren, you said you saw Carter, did you see-“ Lauren nods almost imperceptibly. There is an awkward silence before Kaylie gasps “Oh my god. It was you!” Lauren looks miserable. “The guy at the party you lost your virginity to, it was Carter?”

“I’m so sorry, I was drinking, it was my birthday, I was really upset-“
“You’re supposed to be my best friend!” Kaylie cries.

“I AM your best friend, “Lauren argues.

“No, you’re a two faced slut!” Kaylie sneers. “I can’t even look at you.” And she tries to walk off. She is definitely her father’s daughter here, sporting unrealistically high expectations of fidelity and trust, and then turning into an emotional tornado when normal people fail to live up to them. Payson takes her car keys though, and says no more running. She doesn’t want them to ruin their careers over a boy.
“Like it or not, “Emily says, “you are not going to screw me out of the only team I’ve ever been a part of.” And she throws Kaylie’s and Lauren’s keys several feet away into the long grass. They agree to work as a team to find the keys but Kaylie tells Lauren “we can stay here all night but I will never forgive you.”

Lauren stands there miserably as the others search the grass.
The mothers meet at the Keeler house and discuss Sasha kicking Carter out. Kim corrects them that he was only “suspended”. They wonder how Sasha even found out, and Summer confesses it was her, although she didn’t tell him who the girl was.

“It was my daughter’s business,” Ronnie argues.

“Your daughter wasn’t the only one Carter was involved with, “ Summer responds and a collective look of “ohhh…I get it now” passes around the room.

The girls have made a bonfire. They’re hungry and Lauren offers an energy bar to share. Kaylie sneers “I don’t want anything that came from your skanky bag.”

“Right, my bag’s a whore,” Lauren responds tiredly. HA!

Lauren argues that it’s Kaylie’s fault she slept with Carter, because Kaylie knew how much of a crush Lauren had on the guy and that’s the real reason she hid their relationship. Kaylie does not, in fact, deny this, which causes Payson to give her a scandalized look. Kaylie blames Lauren for Marty leaving, but from the way Lauren talks, it’s clear she had no idea her father blackmailed him (she must have just thought his arguments were effectively forceful or something). Payson knew Marty would never leave on his own. This prompts Kaylie to confess that her mother was sleeping with him.

The same sorts of revelations are unfolding at the mother’s wine drinking meeting. Ronnie doesn’t know if anyone else can forgive her, because she can’t forgive herself.

“You can do what I do,”Summer says softly. “Ask God to help you.” Well…that seems a little heavy handed and on the nose, and brings up yet again the issue of this show’s difficulty in figuring out whether it’s a Christian show or not.

Back at the camp, Kaylie confesses to being ashamed of her mother. Emily and Lauren look like they completely understand.

“If it’s any consolation,” Lauren says after a moment. “My mother’s a drug addict.”

Lauren’s confession prompts Payson to admit that she is taking cortisone illegally.

They all confess and cry and make up and rededicate themselves to being a team. And I like this scene a lot, because it’s rare that women are shown as being capable of teamwork, of putting their feelings aside for the good of a team and deciding on their own that dating and family drama don’t necessarily have to get in the way of their goals.

They find a stump that Lauren, Payson and Kaylie once carved their initials in along with the year 2012, for the 2012 Olympics they hope to compete at. Payson asks if anyone has a knife, because she wants to add Emily to it. Emily pulls Kaylie’s keys out of her pocket. She threw her own house keys into the woods. Lauren then confesses that her car has a spare key in a hideakey under the bumper.

But all is not totally rosy. Kaylie tells Lauren that she’ll be her teammate but they will never be friends again.