This actually reinforces your point but those were faux minks not real ones (at least Lily said hers was).

As much I liked how subtle the April Fools jokes were (e.g. the sudden kiss between Mitch and Cam without the usual angst), I wish along with the return of the old opening they used "Love And Marriage" for the music instead of the normal "Hey! Hey!" theme.

No. I just like her (and Ariel, for that matter) as a person.

She's my favorite character on the show (I like her smart and sarcastic attitude) and I just don't want to see her get hurt. I don't mind if there's drama for her but I hate just how many bad things the writers have done to her this season (sleep deprivation, rebound dates with bad boys, that hideous makeover from…

They came way too close for comfort from that happening last night - if Haley wasn't able to stop Alex from going in the van with Weasel…

I hope you're right, but honestly I wouldn't put it past them to give Alex a serious drinking problem (given the crap they've put her through this year), even if the show in general is lighthearted.
Alex is the one character they seem willing to take seriously on any sort of consistent basis - that's not a bad thing…

I hope last night was a one-off and that she's not going turn to alcohol as a coping mechanism, especially given she's already shown some mental/emotional issues. It was disturbing that 1) she specifically asked if there was vodka in the drink (does she know something about vodka - why not just ask if there was…

I've come up with another theory for where Alex was: She invented a time machine (if anyone can do it, she can), and went back to the 1950s and started dating Chuck Cunningham.

FWIW there's a Beth Israel hospital in Boston as well (technically it's now known as Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center).

Alex might not get expelled (i.e. conduct issues), but it's not out of the realm of possibility she could struggle to handle the course workloads of college, especially at the more advanced levels of the colleges she's hoping to attend. Heck, even though she's still getting straight A's clearly her junior and senior…

If it's an either/or I'd rather see it be Alex's graduation, simply because they can still work on the Haley/Andy story next season, but Alex's high school graduation story pretty much ends in May, unless they come up with some absurd reason to keep her in high school next year. And I'm not sure they can/will do much…

I disagree about Alex not craving independence - when they were visiting CalTech she did tell her mother she didn't want to go there because she felt she needed to get away from her family for a while (though she did back off a bit after meeting Jason). And she's still sending applications to and interviewing for…

Couldn't they have at least said where Alex was? (My theory is she was off on another college interview.) Especially where all the other kids had definitive roles in this episode (Haley with Andy, Luke and Manny helping kill off the drone, Lily and her talent show, even little Joe and his "binkies"), it almost felt…

At least Haley Bailey wouldn't be as bad a married name as Marcy D'Arcy…

I wasn't totally wrong about not looking forward to this episode, but in spite of the gimmick overwhelming the episode at times, the story more than made up for it (even if the ending with Haley was predictable, and I wish they had let the video montage of her as a kid run a little longer - maybe it should have been…

She's doing multiple essays (last year she was working on one for Harvard, tonight it was Yale) and not doing a "one size fits all" strategy.

It's debatable - on one hand he's the kicker (and got benched at that), but he did first catch Cam's coaching eye as a blocker (last year at that school fair when he helped Gloria get his cake to the judges on time by shoving everyone out of the way).

Their continuity record with the regular cast (especially the kids) isn't stellar, either.

They've had 5 1/2 seasons and STILL have no idea what to do with Alex - what makes you think they'll fare any better with Luke (other than maybe they give a darn about him - it sure doesn't look like they do about Alex)?

I am not looking forward to next week's episode - it smacks of a desperate sweeps period stunt.