Bunheads - Season 1 Episode 3 - Recap - Inherit the Wind

Roots are a peculiar thing. Sometimes we clearly issue from our parents. The similarities are plain as day, whether we're sharing a laugh over the dead-footed smell of diet Mac n' Cheese or whether we're sitting silently in a car, neither one engaging the other in conversation, far too self-absorbed to notice the other person. Roots can inform both who we are and also who we might be, but they can also represent our place in the world: the place we call home and the people who populate it. Tonight's episode, “Inherit the Wind,” seemed interested with the figurative connotations of roots, if not, occasionally, the literal.

Following last week's revelation that Hubbell left the house and all its attendant properties to Michelle (Sutton Foster) in a last minute change of his will, Fanny (Kelly Bishop) becomes convinced that Michelle intends to sell the house and throw her out onto the street. Michelle, for her part, shows tremendous patience with her mother-in-law, given how little faith Fanny appears to have in her, even after all the progress they'd seemingly made. That said, it's certainly easy to see why Fanny would be so concerned, given Michelle's status as a newcomer and relative stranger. By her own admission, Fanny has never really owned anything before, having her life provided for her first by a husband and then by her son. These concerns take her relationship with Michelle back to square one, with Fanny accusing her of being “an interloper” who doesn't belong in Paradise. It's a strange reversal from last week's episode which saw the bond between the two women coalesce into something more substantial than the adversarial relationship they'd shared previously.

Of course, for any adversarial relationship to have such a quick turnover would strain credulity, so it's fitting that Fanny becomes convinced of Michelle's intention to sell the property, particularly after she finds out that Michelle has inadvertently met with a prodding, persistent real estate agent named Claire (who is also the mother of one of our bunheads, Ginny). Claire does her best to scare Michelle into selling the massive seven acres of land she's inherited from Hubbell, which includes a lake and two scummy ponds, a septic system that will require constant maintenance, and a thicket of gnarled, dying trees given over to an infestation of squirrels. It appears, for a few moments, that Michelle is considering selling. Despite her eight years in Vegas, Michelle has been rudderless and without roots. She needs her freedom, but more than that, she needs the option of freedom, the ability to drop everything at a moment's notice if she should find herself offered that big part, or if she should meet that perfect man who wants her to run away with him right this moment.

That freedom is somewhat constricted as Michelle finds herself accidentally trespassing on private property, and is about to be arrested for jockeying with the arresting officer if not for Fanny's connections. When she meets the man who owns the property upon which she's trespassed, we're presented with the possibility of a new relationship for Michelle. Sure, there's no overt flirting going on, but the chemistry between Michelle and Grant, the older gentleman who seems nearly as detached from the rest of Paradise as Michelle, is palpable. The scene between them is brief, but there's wonderful interplay between that makes it hard to imagine this won't be a possible romantic avenue for Michelle in the future.

Meanwhile, the "bunheads" themselves have their own issues. It's your standard bit of teen angst, but it works due to the universality of the problems: Boo has a crush on Melanie's older brother, but is too shy and embarrassed about her figure to approach him, while Sasha is lashing out at her friends due to her own trouble at home, namely a mother who seems not to notice or care much about her. All of this is set over the course of an “Ugliest Feet” competition between the dance studios in the area, a gross bit of business in which the studio whose dancers have the ugliest feet win...well, bragging rights, I guess – the idea being that the uglier the feet, the better the dance studio. All of these developments help to better orient us in the world of these teen girls, since the show so far has been very much focused upon the quarrels of the town's adults and less upon the titular “bunheads.” But it's heartening to see how Boo's adorable relationship with her mother informs the kind of person she is in the studio, in the same way that it's unsettling to see how Sasha's distant relationship with her mother informs her queen-bee attitude with her friends. That's to say nothing of how easy it is to see the similarities between Ginny and her real estate agent mother, Claire (whom Grant calls “an idiot” that Michelle shouldn't listen to), and the way Melanie has power over her older brother that she lacks in the group dynamic with her friends.

This is to say nothing of the roots upon which this show is founded: Michelle finally makes the decision to live in the guest house and allow Fanny to keep the main house, since the former is a gorgeous little hovel that's more her style, while the latter has “Fanny” written all over it. As Michelle pours wine to get her and Fanny rip-roaringly drunk, we can see the extent to which Michelle has made her decision, to set her roots down in Paradise. It's the closest thing to home she has right now, and Fanny the closest thing to a mother, or even just a friend. We might not be able to choose our own genetic roots, but we can choose the roots we set down ourselves: a place, a home, and the people we keep close. The richness of these elements makes “Inherit the Wind” the strongest of the three episodes so far, in a series that is acquitting itself exceptionally well in the summer downtime.