ATWT: Wanna Dance?

Summary and analysis for November 29.

We open with Noah helping Luke with his leg exercises. Noah cracks a joke but Luke doesn’t respond. As Noah asks what’s bugging him, Luke flashes back to he and Holden’s conversation about Noah not using the phrase “I love you” from Monday. Noah tells him Luke can say anything to him without scaring him off. Noah then says the exercises aren’t challenging enough and maybe they should take things public.

We cut to Luke and Noah visiting Old Town and Luke remarks he hasn’t been there since he fell out of his chair; but Halloween is a much nicer way to refer to it. Noah’s friends from Halloween, Ben and Gabe, walk up and invite Luke and Noah to a “fake ID” party at Yo’s. Noah introduces Luke to Ben and Gabe as his “friend,” much to Luke’s disappointment and annoyance. Luke is surprised that Noah apparently did not want to go along and notes that Noah has trouble saying the word “boyfriend” in public. This fact is proven when two strangers walk in front of them and he barely says it out of a whisper. Luke asks him if his friends at school know if he’s gay and Noah replies that he does not know, but he’s not trying to hide them.

Back at the farm, Noah tells Luke that he doesn’t want to take back saying that he loved him at the police station. Noah leaves as Holden comes in the room. Holden advises that Luke still should be a bit more patient when it comes to Noah.

Apparently Noah decided to go to the party after all. A girl named Stacy wants to ask Noah to dance, and he blurts out “I’m gay.” Stacy introduces herself and doesn’t care that Noah’s gay, she just wants to have a little dance. Noah then runs into Dusty at the counter and he’s glad Noah’s not drinking. Later on Noah sees Dusty and Lily together and as he leaves, at the door he’s approached by Luke and Holden. Stacy comes out and Noah is ready to leave. As she leaves, cut to Luke with a big old question mark on his face. But don’t worry for long; in about 15 seconds everything is cleared up. Luke and Noah have a good chuckle after Noah says he outed himself to Stacy immediately. But still, why does Noah not want to go back inside? And then Luke is informed that Lily is in there with Dusty, and they kissed. Now Luke knows the reason why he didn’t want to go back in there. Thankfully NOT because he wants to hide their relationship. Lily and Dusty are now outside with everyone else and Luke wants to know what’s up. Lily doesn’t want to talk about it because he already knows what’s going on. Back at the farm Luke says that he’s mad that this whole thing is destroying the family, and he’s also upset that she wasn’t honest with him about why she left on Thanksgiving.

I have to say I was really rather impressed with what went on today. Of course, I’m always happy to see Luke and Noah happy. This is a drama, which means that it won’t last for very long. It’s also nice to see that Noah’s becoming more acceptable of his sexuality; it seems evident it’s getting easier and easier after his hysterical “I’m gay” declaration to one-time character Stacy. And I was glad to see Luke and Noah have the talk they did about him being out at school and the discussion of the word “boyfriend.” And I was glad to see Luke confront Lily and be involved in a little bit of family drama, even for a while. The episode ITSELF I give an A. But herein lies the problem… this is AGAIN a direct 180 from two days ago. Noah obviously had problems with saying words like “boyfriend”, and being open about the fact that he’s in a relationship. But today is a different story. I’m more than happy to see happier scenes and even humor between the two of them, and I love the idea that Noah's being more courageous and proud of himself. But the lack of continuity and bi-polar writing is very annoying. There’s no reason for next week to come and Noah to be back in his shell again. That would make no sense at all; just like it didn’t make sense on Monday after what went down at the police station. I also didn't care for the fact that Noah apparently leaves after the final party scene with no goodbye.

The reason why Holden as a husband gets on my nerves constantly is because for months he’s been treating her like complete garbage and pulling the “moral majority” card. At some points it seemed like Lily couldn’t win with this man. If she were honest about something, in some cases she’d undeservedly get the third degree. If she weren’t, she’d get the same thing. It truly, truly angered me when he had the gall to blame Lily for Luke’s being hurt even though he knows that she wasn’t responsible. And then him blaming her for not saying anything about Carly HERSELF manipulating Jack and them almost marrying. I honestly feel that if she did tell, he’d probably go off and tell her to mind her own damn business. Then he finally dumps her and has divorce papers drawn up and still wants to play the moral card when she’s with Dusty. He dumped HER. If he didn’t want her to go off and be with someone else, he should have never pushed her away to start with and said it was over. Now if Holden's upset about the fact that Lily lied to the kids, then I can actually understand that. But I don't get how someone can push her away like he did and then have the audacity to get huffy when it turns out that she's now with someone else.

Luke on the other hand, as well as the other kids in all this are completely innocent; they don’t deserve to be lied to by Lily. It seems to me that Lily wants Holden back but she also thinks that he doesn't want her anymore. To me honestly though the kids have it worse. Luke, Faith, Natalie and Ethan haven’t done anything to make her leave. Of course it’s their business that Lily is with Dusty. Everyone except Ethan is old enough to understand and process this information. Kids aren't stupid. They know what it means when it's said that Lily's going to be off with Dusty. This is impacting her family as a whole. And someone’s deluding themselves if they say that actions like this are fair on the kids. Don't send your kids false hope if you know that even for the time being it's not likely that you and your husband/wife aren't getting back together.