Season 5, Episode 5: Let Me Make My Own Mistakes

Hey everyone….it’s been a minute.

Last I posted, I was living in Guelph, Ontario, but in late August my husband and I relocated to the Belfast area of Prince Edward Island. It is about 30 minutes by car to Charlottetown. We went from living in a pretty busy city to rural life, and it’s definitely been an adjustment.

The biggest incident that happened was being struck by Hurricane Fiona. The Atlantic Canada provinces got hit very hard, with PEI being very badly affected. We lost our power for 10 days which was a lot to deal with, and lots of trees down on the property as well as all over the island. To be honest, it’s been a rough couple months with all the changes and then this happening. I finally feel like we are getting established into “normal” life now, which is welcoming after all the chaos.

Anyway, I have missed writing in here, and I am sorry it’s been so long since the last post. I know that’s normal for me, but the other times I was mostly just busy/kinda lazy, but this time it was crazy circumstances I wouldn’t wish on most people.

Well that’s my life update, time to review some Ready or Not. All I know about this episode is Amanda and Phyllis have yet another fight…yay. Here we go.

The episode opens with Amanda’s acting teacher reading off the script to Romeo and Juliet, so I’m assuming her acting company is going to be performing that play. After the teacher dismisses the class, Amanda comes up to her and tells her how romantic she thinks the play is, with the teacher being like uh…everyone dies. But I can only assume Amanda saw the 1996 Romeo and Juliet movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, because I was allll about that movie when I was a teen and would’ve totally thought the play was romantic as well.

We find out Amanda is playing the nurse and Carla is playing Juliet. Carla is like omg how does Juliet have so many lines?? The play has her name in the title, clearly she’s going to be talking a lot, dum dum. The boy with the Italian city for a name, Milan, whispers in Amanda’s ear that she would’ve made a damn fine Juliet, and of course Amanda is smitten.

Amanda gets home and you can already tell Phyllis is not happy with her daughter. It’s Stephen’s birthday, and Amanda missed the dinner and they were waiting to cut the cake. Phyllis tries to say how Stephen is disappointed that Amanda missed the dinner and didn’t call, but you can tell he doesn’t care and it’s Phyllis who is pissed. Amanda apologizes, and then starts gushing about being in the play. You can tell Phyllis isn’t impressed, and when Amanda asks for some coffee, Phyllis kinda mocks her. It’s really weird, and you can tell there’s been a layer of tension building between these two. This is one thing that this show is strong for, it builds these relationships and the changes within them over the course of the whole show. But I digress. Point is, Phyllis don’t like Amanda.

The next day at school Amanda, Monkey Ears and Busy are hanging out and they hvae their report cards. You can tell by Amanda’s face it is not good. Move over Chrissy, Amanda is now the new flunky.

At home, Phyllis comes up to Amanda and tells her that her teacher called her and let her know that Amanda is doing shitty at school. She asks her if anything is going on, and Amanda says no, but it’s implied that her grades are suffering cuz of this acting stuff. I don’t get how she’s doing this bad now when they haven’t even started play rehearsals yet. She’s definitely basically going to fail her grade if she can’t even handle school/play stuff now, as it seems all they do based on the previous episode is pretended to sleep.

Later on Amanda is chit chatting with Milan on the phone. Phyllis comes in and tells her they need to talk about her declining grade point average at some point. Amanda says she’s busy phone sexing and can they please do it later? Phyllis says fine, and they set a date for after school the next day. “They” meaning Phyllis, because Amanda barely acknowledges her mom in this scene.

The next day at school Busy’s playing hacky sack with some randos. Offtopic, but has hacky sack come back? I feel like it was an extremely 90’s hobby, and considering the 90’s are a thing now, I’m surprised more of the youth aren’t partaking. Maybe they are playing with devil sticks? My old ass has no clue. Busy asks Amanda why she wasn’t in math class, and Amanda says she never finished the assignment so she decided to skip. Oh and also she dyed a strip of her hair blue for some reason. Busy asks her where her mom is taking her on her celebratory good report card dinner, and Amanda says they aren’t going anywhere cuz her report card was balls. She then starts bitching to Busy about how her mom expects her to be perfect, and Busy is just like “mmmhmmm”. I feel like she probably hears this daily from Amanda. Amanda then peaces out as she’s having her first day of rehearsal for the play.

A short scene after shows Amanda and Milan meeting up for rehearsal.

We go back to Busy playing hacky sack with the other kids and Phyllis has now arrived, as she and Amanda had that coffee date set up. Busy kinda rats Amanda out saying she is not here and at rehearsal. Phyllis has the look of death in her eyes and goes off to find her wayward daughter.

The next scene is at the rehearsal, with Amanda and Milan going over some lines. We see Phyllis inching up behind them like Michael Myers (it’s spooky season, I gotta compare her to something Halloween!). Milan notices and gestures to Amanda, who is mortified her mother is here embarrassing her in front of her theatre posse. Phyllis tells Amanda to get her goddamn ass home as soon as this is done. So yeaaaah, the boiling point between these two is getting closer and closer by the second.

The next scene Amanda comes home and her and Phyllis start getting into a VERY teenage girl vs. her mother argument. Honestly, the writers wrote this scene pretty perfectly, because they were both acting exactly how a mother and daughter feud would be at this age. Amanda’s definitely in her “I hate my mom phase” of teenagedom, telling Phyllis basically that she doesn’t care what she thinks, she can’t control her and generally being a snotty little biotch. Phyllis is also really playing the overbearing mom role well, trying to know every little aspect of Amanda’s life and trying to find out if she’s been getting busy with Milan. The fight ends with Phyllis telling her she’s out of the play because her grades are crap and Amanda throwing out the classic “I hate you” line.

The next day Busy and Amanda are walking and discussing this whole stupid situation. Busy tells Amanda she should just apologize, and of course Amanda says no. Busy says she’s an actress so just act like you’re sorry (which is a good strategy). Amanda calls Phyllis as she’s required to check in, and asks if it’s ok to study and have dinner at Busy’s. But little does Phyllis know that Amanda is actually still going to her rehearsal’s… so yeah, this is definitely going to end up well.

And it basically ends up shit. Amanda’s at rehearsal chatting with Carla, when the director tells her that her mom called and said she’s not allowed in the play or the acting company anymore, with Amanda looking crushed. Honestly, this really could’ve been dealt with if Amanda had just went and had the stupid coffee with her mom. I do feel bad for Amanda in this scene though, even though she’s brought most of this on herself.

After the rehearsal is over, Amanda’s outside writing in her diary in front of Milan’s car (weird place to write in a diary, but whatever). She tells him she wanted to say goodbye, and he asks if she wants to go for a drive. Amanda says yes, as long as they avoid the hell hole that is her home.

They end up at a cute little outdoor cafe. Amanda’s telling Milan if she had a kid who wanted to do something she wouldn’t stop them. Milan basically says he agrees, but only if it wasn’t hurting the kid. Then she starts complaining about her mom not giving her the chance, and Milan is like Jesus Christ shut up, aka he playful flicks water at her with his straw. I can’t even imagine how sick these people are of hearing stories about Amanda’s mom, especially poor Busy. She’s probably thanking her lucky stars Milan came around. The waiter pretty much gives them that look that everyone who has worked in food service or retail knows, aka “get the fuck out we are closing now.” Amanda asks if they can drive around more as she still isn’t ready to go back.

Anyway, they finally end up back at Amanda’s at God knows what time. Milan tells her he won’t leave until he knows she’s safely inside (what a gent), and then they kiss. I mean I guess they were building up to it, but I wasn’t as excited as the Frankie kiss. She tells Milan she will never see him again (she’s so dramatic, how can her mother NOT let her be an actress?) and he’s like umm yes you will, you aren’t going to war. But yeah she kinda is, as the Royal Rumble is about to happen.

Amanda goes inside the loft’s main entrance, but decides she’s still not ready to face Phyllis. She ends up falling asleep on a little couch in the lobby. She eventually gets woken up by a police officer who tells her that her parents were getting ready to put her face on a milk carton because no one had any clue where the heck she was.

So Amanda goes into the house and first thing Phyllis does is hug her as she’s relived her daughter isn’t lying dead in a ditch. Amanda apologizes for making her worry as she didn’t mean to do that, and Phyllis is like well what the f did you mean to do. Phyllis tells Amanda Stephen’s been out all night driving around, and that she woke up the Ramone house calling to see where she was. This pisses off Amanda even more which makes Phyllis even madder, saying things are going to change around the house.

Phyllis tells her she better straighten her shit up and start behaving like an adult. Stephen comes home and is just relieved Amanda is safe/he can finally go to bed. Amanda goes to her room, but Phyllis isn’t done with the fight. Their neighbours must love living next to this family.

Amanda then basically bursts into tears, saying her mom must hate her for punishing her so much. Ok I got misty eyed here, because 1. Laura Bertram is incredible at crying! Like she should’ve been on a major drama show, because she’s so good at it and 2. I could relate to this scene so much. I had massive blow outs with my mom growing up that often ended in tears/hugging like this. I think this scene is very relatable to most of us who were once teenage girls. P.S. I had one of these types of fights with my mom this summer, so it still happens even near 40!

Phyllis then also cries and says she’d never hate Amanda. Basically she was worried about her, and how things have been going with her. Amanda says Phyllis needs to “let me make my own mistakes” like nice nod to the title, and she won’t be exactly who Phyllis wants her to be. I never thought Phyllis was ever trying to make Amanda be something she’s not. She just wanted her to not fail in school, and not be a little snotty brat. I guess now that I’m in the Phyllis age range, I see it more from her point of view.

Anyway, they make amends, and the episode ends with Phyllis recalling when she almost lost Amanda as a child.

Geez this episode was dramatic, and not in a good way. I am so so happy to say this is the LAST Amanda and Phyllis fight episode of the series. I think we’ve all had our fill of this story line.

Next episode – Busy has an encounter with a fuck boy.