TV Recap: Army Wives - Leaving The Tribe

At the start of tonight’s episode of Army Wives I thought this installment was going to be a total downer. As was hinted in last week’s previews, Trevor got shot. Meanwhile, Michael looked miserable and Joan was puking all over the place, and snapping at Roland. Strangely enough though, this episode turned out to be surprisingly uplifting.

We’ll start with Joan. So as I said, things didn’t start out so well for her tonight. She goes to talk to Michael about something work related and ends up puking into his garbage pail. I’m thinking that it was only thanks to her military-trained reflexes that she was actually able to make it to the pail in time. Michael asks if this means she’s decided to keep the baby, to which she says yes. He requests/suggests that she tell her soldiers. Joan doesn’t seem thrilled about this idea and takes out her frustration on Roland when she sees him counseling Emmalin on the basketball court. She gives him a lecture on how Emmalin’s the daughter of her boss and blah-blah-blah. Roland realizes that it’s the hormones talking though and brushes it off.

Later Roland talks to Joan about her feelings and he’s beyond understanding about how she’s been acting. He goes on to motivate her to work hard and set a good example when working out with the other pregnant soldiers. The way Roland was with Joan pretty much makes him the perfect husband. He completely ignored how she treated him, recognizing that she’s just feeling nauseous and miserable and says everything she needs to hear to feel more secure. Joan’s the kind of woman who needs to feel in control and as she said tonight, she’s feeling anything but in control these days. She takes Roland and Michael’s advice though, telling her troop that she’s pregnant to which they respond by applauding her and clearly, no respect is lost. And then she goes to work out and do her pushups non-girly-style. Rock on, Joan!

Meanwhile, Roland decides he likes what he’s doing with counseling the kids. He tells Joan that he feels like he can help kids better because they’re less scarred by the world than his adult patients. So he goes to the school and applies for a job. Unfortunately both positions for school psychologists are filled but he gets a job teaching English (and nighttime GED classes).

Roxie and Betty are talking about rebuilding the hump bar. Betty rehires Roxy, saving her from her stinky-shrimp job and giving her work she can be excited about. Seeing as Betty is doing chemo right now, she’ll need all the help she can get if she wants to bring the bar back to life. Not everyone on post is happy about the return of the bar though. Pamela invites a woman to talk on her radio show about why the bar shouldn’t be re-built. The woman argues that the bar should be completely torn down and a memorial put up in its place. She says the bar will just remind people of the horrible thing that happened there. Roxy is infuriated by this and storms to the radio station to tell the woman off. She bursts in while they’re still on the air and gives a speech about how Betty’s father ran that bar and how it was the first integrated bar on the post. She talks about the history of the place and how the people who lost people want it to be rebuilt. The woman admits that she lost her brother in the explosion. Her brother was the maniac who blew the place up. An awkward silence follows.

This brings me to what was going on with Michael. He seems down at the beginning of the episode but we don’t know why. Well, I suppose the reason why should’ve been obvious but I think our focus has been on Claudia Joy’s grief over the last few weeks, so it’d be easy to overlook Michael. Apparently, he blames himself for what happened at the hump bar. Michael thinks if he had locked the post down after the explosives went missing, the deaths (including his daughter’s) could’ve been prevented. Claudia Joy talks to him about it after the sister of the guy shows up to try and talk to him. Michael’s been talking about retirement and now Claudia Joy understands why. He thinks he let everyone down and maybe it’s time to step down from his position and head off to Hilton Head. Claudia Joy reminds him of what a great man he is and that no one could do his job better. Her support is just what he needs and he goes off to talk to the sister, telling her that he forgives her brother.

While all of this is going on, Denise is riding her new motorcycle. She meets a guy in the garage with his own bike and he encourages her to take her motorcycle out, despite the fact that she doesn’t have her motorcycle license yet. After an exhilarating drive, she talks to Frank via webcam. He’s not happy about her riding the bike because of safety concerns as well as how it could affect her (and his) image. She tells him she’ll get rid of it if he wants but he just gets annoyed and tells her to do what she wants. Roland later explains that when men are away, they don’t like to know that things are changing back home. Denise takes the bike out again and when she pulls back into the garage she meets the guy (did I mention he was pretty good looking and kind of flirty?) again. He turns out to be a doctor and introduces himself as Getty (that’s what it sounded like anyway). Based on the previews, it looks like he’s going to be around for a bit. And speaking of previews, it also looks like this motorcycle issue with Denise and Frank isn’t over. Drama!

Finally, yes, Trevor got shot. He was in Iraq walking through the streets when he spotted a man with a gun. He had time to warn everyone to get down but shots were fired and he took a bullet in the shoulder. He’s ok though and was flown to Germany for medical treatment. The good news is, he’s coming home! Roxy and her boys celebrated this news over the phone with him at the end of the episode.

I really liked this episode. While there’s still plenty of aftermath from the hump bar incident, it feels like everyone is really moving forward with their lives. What did you think? Do you think something’s going to happen between Denise and this Getty guy? Will Roxy be able to handle the bulk of the responsibility of getting the hump bar back up and running?

Kelly West
Assistant Managing Editor

Kelly joined CinemaBlend as a freelance TV news writer in 2006 and went on to serve as the site’s TV Editor before moving over to other roles on the site. At present, she’s an Assistant Managing Editor who spends much of her time brainstorming and editing feature content on the site. She an expert in all things Harry Potter, books from a variety of genres (sci-fi, mystery, horror, YA, drama, romance -- anything with a great story and interesting characters.), watching Big Brother, frequently rewatching The Office, listening to Taylor Swift, and playing The Sims.