The CW Source

The show started out with Baze and Cate each getting a copy of Lux's file from social services. They were sifting through it, falling in love with tiny hand prints and school projects when they both started gushing over a letter to Santa she wrote when she was eight. Instead of toys, she was saying all she wanted for Christmas was a set of nice parents all her own. Awwww.

Baze immediately started realizing he wasn't at all like the ideal father 8-year-old Lux described. Meanwhile, Cate was feeling pretty good, feeling like she fit the profile pretty well. But don't worry. This is only the beginning of the episode. By the end, Cate was feeling terribly inadequate again.

Meanwhile, we find out the girls at high school had no idea random locker searches might turn up the bong lamp. This gets Lux suspended for five days for selling drug paraphernalia. Lux and Baze are nonchalant about it, but Cate has a mini-freak-out. She tells Lux if this gets on her permanent record it will ruin her life. We had to wonder if Cate is forgetting her daughter has been in high school for at least one year already and was undoubtedly a less-than-stellar student (if the expert ditching we saw in the first few episodes is anything to go by) before moving in with her mom, so we felt like the reaction was a bit over the top.

Since Cate has to fix everything, she rushed off to visit the principal and convince her to give Lux another chance. Her ammunition? Yep, the social services file, cute Christmas letter and all. MeanGirl #2 manages to get her hands on it and spread it around the school, revealing all Lux's lies in one fell swoop. Ouch. Well, we didn't want Lux to be one of the MeanGirls anyway.

Unfortunately, Lux blames her mom and overreacts by moving in with Baze. Baze is happy to let her hang out and not talk about what's going wrong, being the cool parent who never says no. Cate's fiance Ryan finds an opportunity to point this out to Baze, that if he wants to be respected as a father he has to act like one. Ouch. Fortunately, he soon mans up and tells Lux she needs to work things out with her mom.

And when Cate tried to talk things through with Lux there was a big dust-up with accusations about lies, secrets and hypocrisy. It ended with Lux rushing up on stage at a radio station event and outing Cate and Ryan to their adoring public. Sorry ladies and gents, they're engaged... to each other. Ouch.

We have to admit that the ending felt a little bit repetitive - haven't we heard that same speech about how much the foster care system sucks? (maybe several times) and haven't we heard Cate give the same speech about how she's not the perfect mom but she's doing her best? (maybe several times)

Maybe they're trying to give a quick recap to people who haven't been watching from the premiere, but we were a bit puzzled. Maybe moms and teenagers have the same fights over and over again and we're just remembering our own personal teenage phase(s) fondly.

What do you think? Realistic mother/daughter stuff?