Does Army Wives have a political agenda?

We spend so much time watching the wives of Army Wives hang out that it sometimes gets confusing trying to remember which of their husbands even know one another, let alone have relationships. We all know about Frank and Michael — who are awesome together — but that’s about it. For instance, Chase getting so upset about Jeremy’s death was surprising … did he know him beyond their chat about Delta?

And watching as Michael and Trevor spoke briefly about the mission that Jeremy died on was interesting. I wonder if it’s awkward for either of them that their wives are friends. But I was impressed with Trevor that he told Michael his thoughts on the Afghan army’s preparedness; it was obvious that Michael agreed, but of course he couldn’t say as much to Trevor.

What was surprising was the idea that he’d say as much to anyone, save for maybe Claudia Joy. I was left wondering about Michael’s conversation with State Department official Maxwell Abrams (Andrew Sensenig) … on the one hand it was very un-Michael to be that frank with someone. On the other, his frankness has officially dead-ended Michael’s army career at two stars. With Claudia Joy’s law degree and the offer Michael got last season from the defense industry lady, could we be about to see Michael retire and the Holdens move off base? Right now that’s still a leap, but it’s definitely something to think about.

Intellectually I know that Denise isn’t acting differently than anyone who lost a child, but that doesn’t mean that I’m finding her story to be watchable. We all deal with grief in our own way, but I guess that I expected — or wanted — something different from her. Maybe what’s bothering me are her feelings of guilt, which in this case is a rather weak plot point considering everything else that she has going on. Plus she’s shutting Frank out, which, while an interesting twist, is upsetting. Frank was no peach back when the series started, but since then she’s put him through a lot. Now, when he’s finally emoting, she disappears on him. Nice.

Roland’s boring. I saw his guilt over Jeremy’s death coming a mile away, as well as his starting to not trust his ability to rehabilitate the emotionally affected soldiers under his care. It was so easy to predict that it’s just blah. When are we going to see him do something other than play third or fourth fiddle in everyone else’s story?

Roxy’s business opportunity is kind of interesting. I think she neglected to perform even the most basic of due diligence on the truck stop before agreeing to go in as a partner, but Trevor has succeeded in doing what I would have thought impossible: he’s made me more interested in Roxy than in him. I don’t know what his problem is, but it started well before Jeremy died, so you can’t blame it on that. I think Roxy still doesn’t remotely comprehend what it means to be in the army and a part of that family, but Trevor is completely out-of-line.

I’m glad that Chase is coming back. With him stepping back from Delta missions he should actually be around often with him and Pamela remarried. But I can’t help but feel like the show screwed up and is scrambling to fix things now. Pamela and Chase have always had problems, and they could have been heading for divorce regardless. However, I think the creators jumped the gun on the spin off idea, deciding to sever Pamela and Chase’s tie to make it easier for her to move to Atlanta. Then, when the spin off didn’t get picked up, they realized that Pamela being around and involved in this tale of Army spouses was a stretch, so Chase and Pamela needed to reunite. Like I said, I’m happy about the result … I just think it looks very sloppy.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Apr 04, 2011 @ 15:00 EST5EDT