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Son of a Critch

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Pilot

  • Mark's jubilant mood about humiliating Fox barely lasts an hour before they both get called into the Vice-Principal's office. Much to Mark's horror, Chafe just assumes that Fox started it and thus lets him off while delivering a beating to Fox, declaring that he might as well start on her early so that she doesn't end up like her brothers.

Lordy, Lordy, Look Who's Dead

  • Mark's first romance ends abruptly and he has no idea why Tina dumped him.

Cello, I Must Be Going

  • It turns out that in her youth, Principal Sister Rose was in love with Pat Critch. When she finds out that he's still around, she considers giving up her vows to be with him again, but after so many years as a nun, she can't bring herself to go through with it.
  • In order to save Mark from getting in trouble when her brothers steal a school cello, Fox reluctantly brings him to her dad's house, where Mark discovers that Mr. Fox is an abusive drunk who nearly beats Fox when he finds that she brought a boy to his place. Afterwards. Mark tries to apologize profusely for putting her in danger like that, to which she angrily tells him that she doesn't want his pity.

Cucumber Slumber

Father Critch

  • The show is not at all subtle in its implication that Pop was molested by a priest when he was a child. When the Critches invite Father Moore over for dinner to butter him up after Mark expresses a desire to become a priest, Pop spends the dinner glaring at him and needling him with insinuations.
  • When the news of the Mount Cashel Orphanage scandal breaks and Father Moore is removed from his position over it, Mark's parents have to explain the whole thing to Mark, who is left deeply shaken when he realizes what he almost signed up for.

Royal Visit

  • A gift from Dick Dunphy, Mike Sr.'s rival, sets off a rough patch between Mike and Mary, causing them to argue more than usual. Mark starts to fear that they might get divorced.

Merry Critch-Mas

Particip-Action

Circus

  • Fox goes way too far in her attempts to convince Mark that their date is not a date, and pulls him onto the Ferris wheel, not realizing that he's terrified of heights. When the operator misreads the situation and decides to stop the wheel at the top to "help" Fox, Mark goes into a full-blown panic attack and Fox frantically pleads with him to just calm down and breathe normally. When this fails to calm him, she resorts to kissing him, pushing their relationship in a direction that she really hadn't intended yet.

Save the Last Dance for Me

  • Mark is heartbroken when he thinks that Fox is secretly dating Ritchie.

Growing Apart

  • Without Mark and Ritchie around all summer, Fox has ended up with a controlling, older boyfriend who really doesn't like the idea of her being around any other boys, even her own brothers. Fortunately, she's smart enough to realize that he's an ass and dumps him before he makes good on his threats, but he comes very close to isolating her from everyone she knows.

Beer Necessities

  • Thanks to the beer strikes causing St. John's to run out of Canadian beer, Fox gets one day where she gets to hang out with her dad and he's not drunk and abusive. They clean up his house and watch some TV, and make plans to take his empty beer cans and bottles to the recycling plant so they can get some money together for a proper meal... and then the TV announces that the strike has ended and people can buy Canadian beer again. Greg swears that he's just going off to get some things, but Fox knows that's a lie, and the episode ends with her sitting on the couch alone and just staring sadly at the TV.

Family Tree

  • Uncle Brendan dies off-screen, and the family is rocked by it. Mike Jr. takes it particularly hard, as he idolized the man, as does Pop, who grimly notes that many of the men in the Critch family have died young and he'd hoped that his own sons would not follow suit.
  • Mark sets off on an ill-advised quest to meet his still-living grandmother. He finally tracks her down, despite his mother's attempts to keep the information from him, and learns that she's horrible and has no desire to meet him.

European Vacation

  • Mark realizes that Fox is hiding her ability to speak French and confronts her over it. She tells him that every time she's ever done well in school, teachers have just assumed that she was cheating and punished her on the assumption that she's like her brothers, and thus she's learned that it's just easier to pretend to be stupid.

Old Friends, New Friends

  • When Patrick starts hanging out at a retirement home to mooch free grub, he finds Millicent, the attractive widow of an old dear friend, lives there. He soon learns, after she fails to recognize him the next day and asks about her husband, believing him to be alive and on his way to pick her up, that Millie has severe dementia. After that he forgets about his plan to woo her, and comes to the home each day to just sit with her and talk. It's very touching to see old Pat patiently answer all her questions and genuinely try to be her friend, even if she won't remember his name or a word of their conversation twenty-four hours later.

Details Are Scanty

Halley's Comet

  • Seeking to head off Greg's attempts to take all their kids with him to Cape Broyle, Suzanne demands that the kids decide who among them is staying with her and who will go with him. All the boys agree to stay with her, but Fox is angry about being made to decide immediately, and can't stomach the thought of her dad being packed off to another city alone (and is painfully aware of what he's likely to do if there isn't someone there keeping an eye on him), and thus reluctantly agrees to go with him. Suzanne looks stricken, and Fox immediately regrets it, but Greg looks so happy that she sticks to her guns, even though she doesn't want to leave her friends.

Bonfire Night

  • Fox spent the whole episode going on a quest to retrieve drugs for her older brother so that he wouldn't be caught out on Bonfire Night, as the police had told him that if he was caught, he'd be sent to jail. Against all odds, she and Mark manage to retrieve his package and get it back to him without being caught... and it turns out that the dealer cheated them and gave them oregano. Pissed off at Fox, Silver leaves to go retrieve the actual drugs and gets arrested. The real kicker is that their mom Suzanne has no idea what happened, and blames herself because she had too much to drink and fell asleep.

My Funny Valentine

  • Mark accidentally invites Cara to a Valentine's dinner and tries to conceal this from Fox while also giving her a valentine, only to learn that Fox is a waitress at the same restaurant where he took Cara. Fox is pissed at him because she thinks the valentine was given out of pity, while Cara is pissed off at him because she thinks he led her on. For once, Pop has no advice to offer Mark on how to fix this mess, as even he's never tried to juggle two girls at once.

Go Into the Light

  • Mark suffers a near-death experience and has what he considers to be a vision of the afterlife... and it's just nothing. When Sister Rose insists that there is an afterlife and any belief otherwise is a heresy, he's left wondering if everything he's ever believed is a lie.
  • Fox is horrified with herself for nearly drowning Mark and wonders if there's something wrong with her, not helped by the fact that she experiences her first period soon afterwards.

Thanksgiving

  • Mark's ego gets the better of him and he alienates his friends, leaving him forced to perform on his own in the theatre competition, which naturally causes him to be disqualified because part of the judging is based on how well you work in a team. When Mark lamely tries to insist that he was only trying to help the team win, Fox tells him that nobody else in their group cared about that, they joined because they wanted to help him.
  • Many years ago, Pop and his brother Leo set off for America to help build the skyscrapers in New York City. After making a fair bit of money, they planned to start a business together, but then Pop learned that he was going to be a father and returned home to Newfoundland. Embittered by his brother's abandonment, Leo stayed in the US, married a local woman, and focused on his business, thinking that once he was established, he'd make his own family... but then his Jenny died. Now he's learned that he has cancer, and all he wants is to make peace with his brother before he passes. Thankfully, at least, Pop readily accepts his apology.

The Ghost of Christmas Presents

How to Succeed in Business

Airing Out

Cabaret

Forever Young

  • Middle forgets to check the back of his final math exam, effectively leaving the exam half-finished and coming perilously close to failing out of school. Luckily for him, Sister Rose is impressed enough with his clear progress that she gives him a D-minus, the lowest possible passing grade.
  • Mike, Jr.'s romance with Linda ends abruptly, as the father of her child, Jeff, suddenly resurfaces and she decides to go back to him.

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