Medium Review: The Boy Next Door
Brett (”I’m a big hairy boy“) Love’s review of The Boy Next Door (MED-052) is up at TVSquad.
EXCERPT – I really liked the interaction of Izzy (Zoe Kazan) and Allison. It served to show how after all of these years, Allison DuBois is still dealing with many of the same things that Allison Rowland faced so long ago. When Izzy said, “No, people will think you’re nuts.” I had a flash back to that first meeting with Push in the pilot where he, more or less, thought she was nuts. Full review
I was a little slow on the uptake on this one. It took me a couple of commercials to realize the show was from young Allison’s perspective, and the things we saw in the “now” were figments of her dreams.
Peri Gilpin was excellent as Allison’s mom. She was so unlikeable with the pill-popping (how very 80’s) and not listening to her daughter when she claimed her dreams were real. Frankly, I’d think Allison was a nutter, too, but couldn’t she at least listen to her obviously distraught daughter? The scheming with the cookies for the single dad next door was a nice touch, except that didn’t turn out so well for Allison, did it?
Not being a Veronica Mars viewer, I had no idea who Kyle Gallner was (the young Stephen Campbell.) He was so awkward and damaged yet endearing, while still managing to be monumentally creepy.
The Boy Next Door has turned out to be one of my favorite episodes. The change-up of timeline and dream viewpoint tweaked my brain while insight into Allison’s history made me realize, hey, I want more of that. Where is her mom now? What did Joe look like as a teenager? What sort of visions did Allison have as a teenager that made her crawl into a bottle of booze for several years?
Two snaps up, my friends! (Or whatever the latest cool “I liked it” phrase is these days. How about “Good on ya, mate!”)
But more importantly, what did you think?
Tags: med-052, medium, medium nbc, open mic night, the boy next door
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POSTED IN: Medium Episodes
16 opinions for Medium Review: The Boy Next Door
Brett
Mar 8, 2007 at 10:29 am
I thought it was a very good episode as well. I’m still saying Blood Relations is my favorite for the season, but this one is up there.
Betty
Mar 8, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Good episode - good for the writers changing the approach every once and a while. Patricia had a little bit of a break as well not being in every single scene.
Although we didn’t get any boxer action or bare chest action this week, we did get a little more of Scanlon than some of the eps.
With a mother like that, it’s amazing that Allison hasn’t had to join Scanlon in those NA meetings followed by AA meetings! Here honey have a pill and wash it down with some booze - Yum! NOT.
Dawn
Mar 8, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Great review, Sheila. And as I said on another topic, it took me a while to figure out that this ep was being told from young Allison’s point of view, but once I got that, it was a good episode for me. It just didn’t feel right at first, but then I realized it was because we weren’t seeing the adult Allison (I love Patricia Arquette) and her family (I love Jake Weber too), thus it didn’t feel like the same show to me. But once I got my head around the whole timeline thing, I enjoyed it.
Jessy Schram was great as young Allison (Did you see the Behind the Scenes clip at NBC.com with her?) and Peri Gilpin was great as her mother. What a *itch! I wanted to reach through the screen and slap her when she kept shoving pills down Allison’s throat. It’s a wonder Allison didn’t turn out as screwed up as her mother. That woman was definitely NOT a candidate for Mother-of-the-year.
My favorite line from this episode came from Izzy though:
“Oh,my God, you found a funny cigarette in your Mom’s purse again, didn’t you?”
Although I would have loved to have seen young Joe. That would have been great. Oh, and didn’t you love Joe’s reaction when Allison ran into Steven in the grocery store? That was hilarious.
All in all, another excellent episode from the writers and cast.
Meg
Mar 8, 2007 at 3:24 pm
It took me a while to figure out what was happening in the episode the boy next door. It was a great episode yet it also seem unfinished. Like what the finale out come of her apparently changing the future would be…
1 was it only the dream of did the neighbor boy Steven really kill himself?
2 The end of the episode was it pre or post when Nancy was suppose to have been killed or the morning of that day
3 Have Alison past choices affected her daughter Ariel’s life because of the age.. is Ariel now a target of someone such as the old neighbor who has the same history if he has died….
Holly
Mar 8, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Okay, last night I was took a little cat nap before the show…and didn’t wake up until 3 in the morning. I’m so glad I always tape them, though! So I just watched it and rather enjoyed it. I really like getting backstory, and if they had let us see young Joe, it would have been perfect. When they went to the science fair I was really expecting to see him! This episode didn’t really seem like your typical Medium episode, so it kinda threw me for a loop. It was cool seeing them in the supermarket together–I love it when they have them do normal stuff like that! It was also interesting that she prevented it all from happening, and we saw the girl who would have died at the end with Ariel. Excellent episode, though probably not my favorite the season (there have been so many awesome ones).
Jenn Bo
Mar 8, 2007 at 3:49 pm
What I found interesting is that Allison had a dream of her future that included events that convinced her the dream was real. Like introducing a neighbor who didn’t exist until after the dream and the details of the moment where young Stephen commits suicide. By doing so, young Allison became convinced of the validity and was able to modify her decisions slightly to prevent the future crimes (she hesitated at the door just long enough). If this were a real life gift, I cannot imagine the odds of not being completely messed up.
I got the sense that current Allison probably didn’t remember the dreams. The future Allison events of running into the neighbor at the grocery store and then identifying him as a suspect never actually happened because young Allison changed the future (but not too much - good thing she didn’t meet Joe at that science fair).
Anyway, I think that is why the story didn’t become neatly tied up by having current Allison rekindle the relationship with Izzy.
Did anyone else go “wha?” when the future Stephen said that he moved around a lot because of his field (marketing)? I certainly didn’t buy into the idea that marketing is a career that requires moving from city to city.
nansee
Mar 8, 2007 at 9:43 pm
I loved this episode (nansee survived!), although I admit that the time element threw me off enough so that I didn’t completely get what was going on until the second time I watched it. I thought it was well-written and a nice change from the usual format.
I don’t watch _Veronica Mars_, but the actor who played the young Stephen Campbell was adorable (wacked, but adorable). Peri Gilpin was great, too. The character wasn’t your typical all good or all bad TV parent. I also wondered if Allison ever had a prescription drug addiction problem because of her mom. The funny-cigarette line had me wondering if Allison’s mom did other drugs as well.
I liked Izzy; I wonder if she ever did go to Harvard. (Would that have changed? OK, now I’ve hurt my brain.) Older Stephen … he totally irritated me when he sat in the interrogation room and blamed the girl he raped for being raped. I guess that means I thought the actor was good, but IMO he didn’t look a freaking thing like his younger version.
I would have liked to have seen young Joe as well. I hope they’ll consider showing the little rocket scientist in a future ep. Young Scanlon, too! Oooh and a little district attorney.
My only nitpick is the thing about present-day Allison having forgotten all of those dreams. I know her mom gave her a sleeping pill and told her to forget, but still. She didn’t remember the dreams, and only had that vague sense of remember Nancy. I mean, how could you completely forget Scanlon?!? Sorry, I had to say it. (Or am I missing something … was there another time sort of factor involved with present-day Allison not remembering?)
nansee
Mar 8, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Oh, and Brett, I love your reviews!
Betty
Mar 9, 2007 at 3:02 pm
It’s easy to lose track of people you went to high school with. Once you go away to separate colleges, get jobs, start families, priorities shift, other things are on the top of your mind, especially kids and what’s going on with them take front and center. The bigger the town and school makes it all the more difficult. In my high school, I was one of over 600 graduating - my neice was one of over 1000.
Where I live now, the graduating class is between 55 and 70 usually - much easier to track people down in a small town.
A lot of the kids from here go to Texas A & M - a college of about 40,000! Those A & M people stick together. I know a doctor and his wife who went to A & M and they have season tickets to all the football games and even fly to the ones out of state! They have what they call an Aggie Muster every year and alumni from all over come back to that. It’s far easier to get into A & M if you are the descendant of an alumni.
I don’t know the population of Phoenix, but I imagine it’s pretty good sized. I imagine the high schools are fairly large, too.
I can’t remember a dream I had last week, much less years ago!
I used to keep in touch with a couple of friends from high school. One of them used to send those annoying yearly “how great we are” letters out. Things change - marriages, jobs, kids growing up, moving, it’s just so easy to lose track. We live in a very mobile society, people moving all over the place. Today, with so many people who only have a cell phone and no home phone, it’s difficult to find someone you haven’t seen in years. Women typically change their last name to their husbands which makes it even more difficult.
At the time, it seems like you and your best friend will always be that way, but as time goes on, lives change. I have a good friend I’ve known for about 28 years - we used to live on the same street - we’ve been through divorces, marriages, deaths of parents(mine, hers), death of a spouse, my children’s 8 major surgeries, children’s marriages, moves, job changes, etc. We’re both members of the First Wives Club, but now she is on her 4th marriage, and we just don’t talk as much as we used to. Once she started going with this guy who became husband #4 and started going to this church that monopolizes a lot of their time, our communication with each other is far less frequent.
On the other hand, my other friend of about the same time - she was my La Leche League leader when I was breastfeeding - moved to another state years ago, but we still keep in touch at least a couple of times a month.
For the last 30 something years, this guy I dated before I got married sends me a Christmas card every year. He married someone else as well, but being older, he and his wife chose not to have children. I can count on the most beautitful card ever to come from him on Christmas Eve. I used to send him pics of my kids when they were growing up. I keep meaning to write him a letter one day and tell him how much I appreciate the fact he still remembers me at Christmas each year and apologize for being such a bad friend in recent years when I haven’t even managed to send Christmas cards. It’s so easy to lose touch.
Sorry, Betty. De-spammed!
Betty
Mar 9, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Oops, must be in the spam filter again!
Sheila
Mar 9, 2007 at 8:24 pm
JennBo: I thought that too about the marketing job! Travel, perhaps. Move a lot. um, why?
nansee
Mar 9, 2007 at 9:20 pm
I wonder if the marketing job might have been a complete lie for Allison’s benefit (and he was really just moving around because of his crimes). A bad lie, though. I did think the choice of marketing was odd, because I worked in marketing for a few years and spent most of my time screaming on speaker phone or at awful parties where I had to smile a lot. Although it makes more sense if you consider sales to be marketing b/c most big companies have different divisions around the country.
Dreamwise, I just don’t see how Allison could forget the dreams that led up to a neighbor killing himself.
Betty
Mar 12, 2007 at 11:37 am
Someone who travels for their job is a different situation than someone who just pulls up stakes and moves lock, stock, and barrel. I would certainly be suspect of someone who moved that often. As soon as older Stephen said that, I saw a red flag go up.
Even people in the military don’t move that frequently once their tech schools and stuff are out of the way.
Chad
Mar 18, 2007 at 5:00 pm
I loved the epidsode, and it is without a doubt one of my favorites. But I am trying to figure out the name of the song that was playing in the beginning when Ariel was making fun of how her parents met at “Fat Bobby’s Sports Bar and Grill”.
Dawn
Mar 18, 2007 at 8:50 pm
That song was “Sewn” by the Feeling. I loved it too. It was great, wasn’t it? Perfect for this ep.
I love the way they use music on this show. It’s always fresh and interesting.
Darius
Apr 2, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Does anyone know the artist/song that ended the episode as young Allison falls asleep and the victim is shown saved by her actions? Thanks!!
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