"The Fastidious Wife" is the title of a book Corabeth is pushing at the store. She gives a copy to Cindy who pays no attention to Mary Ellen's laughing reactions to the ridiculous advice the book gives about how wives should take interest in their husband's work and always be attentive to their every needs.
Cindy starts going so overboard drawing a bath for Ben and filing papers for him in the mill and working extra hard to be pretty for him that she endangers her own health, and her unborn baby, by not getting enough sleep and nourishment.
This leads to a physical breakdown that causes her to finally realize she was trying to do too much. I guess I won't spoil anything by revealing that she recovered and the baby was fine.
SPOILER ALERT for minor plot. There's no other way to write about it.
The subplot dealt with Jeffrey finding a cat he named Harold and even though he was told that first day that the cat is about to have kittens, he kept the name of Harold. He was told he can keep the cat as long as he gives away all the kittens. But when the time comes, he can only give away 3 of the 4 kittens.
Fearful of the fate of the other one, he winds up hiding him with its mother. The next morning, he finds his Uncle John not so insistent on getting rid of the last kitten after he held it up and saw it close up.
There is a rather amusing scene where Jeffrey tricks Ike and Corabeth into taking a kitten to get rid of mice. Jeffrey helped them to see the possibility by releasing a mouse into the store while they weren't looking. Like so many people, even hard-hearted Corabeth wilted when she got a good look, close-up, at one of the little kittens.
Actually, many of the scenes involving Cindy's attempts to serve Ben's every need were rather humorous as well. There was a montage of silent scenes, such as one where he's reading the paper and gets up for some more coffee. Thirty seconds later he returns to the table with the coffee pot to find she has cleared away his cup and his newspaper.
I thought this one of the best so far in Season 8 as it had lots of humor AND followed it up with the realistic drama of worrying about the health of the expectant mother. The serious portion came about through someone acting in a believable way--trying to please her husband, and the consequences were also realistic. They would have lost me if Ben and Cindy had a huge fight resulting in Ben moving away for a while, or if Cindy was doing hard physical things like re-shingling a roof. But nothing like that happened.
It was also one of the best episodes dealing with Jeffrey and Serena.
I personally can relate to winding up keeping a kitten or two because I simply could not find anyone else to take them.
Cindy starts going so overboard drawing a bath for Ben and filing papers for him in the mill and working extra hard to be pretty for him that she endangers her own health, and her unborn baby, by not getting enough sleep and nourishment.
This leads to a physical breakdown that causes her to finally realize she was trying to do too much. I guess I won't spoil anything by revealing that she recovered and the baby was fine.
SPOILER ALERT for minor plot. There's no other way to write about it.
The subplot dealt with Jeffrey finding a cat he named Harold and even though he was told that first day that the cat is about to have kittens, he kept the name of Harold. He was told he can keep the cat as long as he gives away all the kittens. But when the time comes, he can only give away 3 of the 4 kittens.
Fearful of the fate of the other one, he winds up hiding him with its mother. The next morning, he finds his Uncle John not so insistent on getting rid of the last kitten after he held it up and saw it close up.
There is a rather amusing scene where Jeffrey tricks Ike and Corabeth into taking a kitten to get rid of mice. Jeffrey helped them to see the possibility by releasing a mouse into the store while they weren't looking. Like so many people, even hard-hearted Corabeth wilted when she got a good look, close-up, at one of the little kittens.
Actually, many of the scenes involving Cindy's attempts to serve Ben's every need were rather humorous as well. There was a montage of silent scenes, such as one where he's reading the paper and gets up for some more coffee. Thirty seconds later he returns to the table with the coffee pot to find she has cleared away his cup and his newspaper.
I thought this one of the best so far in Season 8 as it had lots of humor AND followed it up with the realistic drama of worrying about the health of the expectant mother. The serious portion came about through someone acting in a believable way--trying to please her husband, and the consequences were also realistic. They would have lost me if Ben and Cindy had a huge fight resulting in Ben moving away for a while, or if Cindy was doing hard physical things like re-shingling a roof. But nothing like that happened.
It was also one of the best episodes dealing with Jeffrey and Serena.
I personally can relate to winding up keeping a kitten or two because I simply could not find anyone else to take them.
