I feel like I gave the Barbara Jean thing the short shrift yesterday, so let's talk more about what happened there, in the B plot.
Tracing Barbara Jean's day. We first hear mention of her out of Reba's mouth. When mentioned that Barbara Jean has to be somewhere today, Reba says something like: "What, is she going to back to the circus?" This says a lot about Reba and Barbara Jean's relationship. It's probably sarcastic but cordial. That relationship was probably developed over the past four years. I'm sad that I will never see the two of them interact.
The first we hear Barbara Jean's voice is off-screen, when she yells out to her husband that she's outside waiting for him. She yells something that makes the laugh track go off, but I missed it today (the birds were chirping too loudly outside my window—I'll go with headphones again tomorrow). Her husband leaves to drive her to jury duty.
When she and hubby first arrive, hubby tries to give her advice on how to get out of jury duty (wasn't there a 30 Rock episode about this? I probably half-slept through that episode while me and Pam watched the first three or four seasons). But Barbara Jean tries to explain that she doesn't want to be dismissed, that she wants to serve, etc.
Hubby also yells loudly that he doesn't want anyone "touching his woman" (I think those were the exact words), and BJ says that his jealousy turns her on, basically. It turns her on so much that now she's thinking about how horny she'd be if her husband assaulted someone with a chair, and she was chosen to be on the jury on his trial. While I don't think that the legal system would allow the defendant's wife to sit on the jury, I can appreciate a good role play scenario.
Hubby is also a little confused, because BJ wants to serve on the jury, but the defendant apparently is on trial for stealing a garden gnome. Imagine being a cop, arresting a man for stealing a garden gnome. ACAB, but that'll have to be another day, we're talking about Barbara Jean right now.
Okay, so Barbara Jean is assigned a number, and Judge Stephen Tobolowsky is reading off numbers to sit in the juror's box. Barbara Jean says that she wore her lucky bra today, but doesn't trust the bra, and ends up switching numbers with the lady she is sitting next to when that lady's number is called. Apparently, this is okay with everyone, including the lady whom she calls a "loser" (the lady doesn't respond, I assume, because it would cost Reba more money to pay an actress with a speaking role).
Also, that other lady ends up in the jury anyway? So all Barbara Jean had to do was be patient? And also also, I'm pretty sure this isn't how jury selections are done anyway? I've never been to jury duty, actually, but it's my understanding that you get interviewed first, and then they choose the jury based on that? It's not just fucking random?
So anyway, the final Barbara Jean scene start with her telling Judge Stephen Tobolowsky about her childhood, and the judge, like BJ's husband, assumes that she is being this way because she wants to be dismissed. He doesn't understand that this is just how Barbara Jean is. This is her personality. She requests a sidebar when the judge tries talking to "literally any other juror," but then doesn't have anything to say in the sidebar ("I just always wanted to be in a sidebar"). Judge Stephen Tobolowsky dismisses her for being "annoying," despite the fact that he just said that she cannot be dismissed for being annoying.
Judge Stephen Tobolowsky has an excellent line reading when he calls out for "Bailiff Ron" to escort BJ out of the courtroom. Bailiff Ron and some other pig grab BJ and forcibly remove her, all while she's foaming from the mouth and yelling about a "mistrial" and what have you. This is the last we see of Barbara Jean.
Like the bonkers flash-forward ending (which I won't say much about today), the whole Barbara Jean thing definitely seems like a distraction from the main show. It doesn't help that she only interacts with one other main character for the whole episode. I'm sure there are episodes in which Barbara Jean shows her worth, shows that she's smarter than appearances would imply, but this isn't the episode. She's just a silly woman in a silly situation. She's the reason that the episode could make it to the 21-minute finish line.
I did catch her husband's name this time, though—it's Brock. It's said multiple times, I don't know how I missed it yesterday. There are definitely a few other things I missed that I should clear up now.
The other big thing is that the little kid—shit, did I catch his name? is it Matt? will check in tomorrow about this—is Reba's son, not her grandson. I guess that wouldn't have made sense anyway. I'm assuming that the start of the series was Cheyenne and Van getting married. If it was a shotgun wedding, and this was Season 5, then the kid would be four years old. This kid is at least ten, I'd wager. The timeline wouldn't add up.
I was all ready to say that "there is a big age gap between big sister Cheyenne and little brother [Matt?]" but I noticed today in the opening credits (which happen a quarter of the way into the episode, mind you) that there is ANOTHER CHARACTER who we DO NOT SEE AT ALL. She goes by in a flash, but I did see her. I have no idea what her name is, and possibly will never know, but she appeared to be at an age that we can reasonably assume that she is the middle child in the H. family.
I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to look that type of information up or not. Do I want to know about middle child? Yes. Should I learn about middle child? Or will that affect my understanding of "Grannies Gone Wild"? And what about Reba's last name? It's almost definitely never said what the H stands for throughout this episode. Should I look that up?
Sooner or later, I'm going to go through IMDB, so most likely it'll be revealed to me then whether I want it to be or not. And I don't think that's going to be a problem. Let's put it this way—I will eventually learn about these things by doing cursory research, but I also want to allow Reba to keep its cards to its chest for as long as necessary in order to build some sense of mystery throughout my summer project. Maybe sometime in June we can do a deep dive into middle child. It's a long summer, and I'm going to need other things to write about.
(A final note: this is the second day in a row I've awoken early to watch and to write. There is no way I can keep this up for another 100 days. I will spend a lot of days this summer watching the episode during random AM or PM hours, and thus the resulting blog posts are going to be a lot shorter than this, and most likely written on my phone and hastily moved over to Blogspot. I'm still just setting appropriate expectations for you at this point.)
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