Secret Life: Hole in the Wall Recap
In the July 11th Secret Life episode, “Hole in the Wall,” the emotional mess that is Ben Boykewich blows up in a major way. We know a lot of people are hating on Ben for wanting to leave Adrian but hello — he doesn’t love her. Actually, it’s a lot worse than that.
But first we open up to a typical Ramy squabble. Ricky wants to move John and his toys into the bedroom and move Amy into the living room with him, where they can sleep together. All they need is something they can both sleep on together. Amy heard Adrian wants to go to cosmetology school but Amy thinks it’s a crock. She wants to know if Adrian called Ricky. He admits Adrian called him, but says he didn’t listen to the call.
Adrian decides to walk off her donut binges. After her first daily constitutional, Ben finds her sitting in the nursery. She tells him it’s comforting to her now because she’s learning to accept that Mercy was just not meant to be there for reasons they will never know.
At school, Amy finds out from Grace that the cosmetology school thing is a crock, but not for the reasons Amy thinks. Adrian calls her right then to tell her she called Ricky and to also ask for help in dismantling Mercy’s nursery. Amy suggests giving everything to the church. Adrian says that’s fine and she knows Ben will be okay with it too.
The school counselor, Katelyn, accosts Ben outside to give him unwanted advice. Ben tells her in no uncertain times to mind her own business. She reveals that she also lost a baby two years ago, and admits that she may be getting too personal. Not that Ben asked, she tells him the baby died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and how after 18 months, her husband took to drinking and left her. Unsympathetic Ben doesn’t find anything to relate to and says he dealt with his baby’s death sober. She says he’s not being supportive of Adrian telling her to go away to cosmetology school. Adrian could finish high school and go to law school if her husband doesn’t take away her strength, courage and determination. Ben says he didn’t take those things away from Adrian. Losing the baby did. He walks away disgusted, only to encounter another buttinsky inside.
At the butcher shop, Ben doesn’t want to go to dinner with his dad, Leo, and hear another lecture on how he has to stay with Adrian. He finds out from Ricky that Adrian is cleaning the nursery out. He runs out.
Daniel helps Grace clear out the nursery stuff, and Adrian fills Grace in on her plan to have another baby. After everything is gone, Ben bursts in and demands to know how she could do this without telling him. Adrian can’t believe he is so upset. “She was my daughter, too,” he explodes.
Then he really lights into her as she stands there in shock. “Where’s Mr. Bear?” he yells. He almost starts crying, “My mother gave that bear to me. It’s the only thing I have left from her. Where’s my bear?” Adrian says she guesses it’s at the church nursery with the other stuff. “You are so selfish, do you know that?” Ben says and then he crushes her: “I never even wanted to marry you, I never even wanted to have sex with you in the first place. Every single bit of pain that both of us have had has been because of you.” He says he can’t take it anymore and doesn’t care if he’s not supposed to cry. What they did was a bad thing and they deserved to lose that baby, at least he did. “Amy loved me and I threw it all away for one night with you,” is his parting shot, adding that he will always feel guilty about it. After he leaves, Adrian punches a hole in the wall.
The next time we see her, there are a lot of holes in the wall and she is just sitting in the middle of the empty room with a bandaged hand.
Ben gets his bear back from Amy, who figured it got in there by mistake. Ben tries the old tired “Ricky’s not good enough for you,” and “Ricky will hurt you” lines. With what he’s been through, you’d think he’d be smart enough to figure out that Amy is just as sick of hearing that as he is of hearing stay with Adrian!
So Ben ends up alone in the park with Mr. Bear and enough beer to get blotto. He says he wishes he hadn’t said those awful things to Adrian. He shows up drunk as a skunk at the restaurant where Leo is waiting and promptly passes out on the floor. “He’s in mourning,” Leo says.
Other Notes:
Ricky’s mom, Nora, fills in as Leo’s secretary and was really making a good impression on Leo, highlighting all the meat-related articles in the Wall Street Journal and asking how sausage is made. Then Leo catches her telling Ben how easy he is to handle!
Daniel wants to make sure Grace isn’t planning a surprise bundle of joy for him, like her friends, Amy and Adrian. He also wants her to tell her mom that he is in college, and to find out how deep her feelings are for him.
Jack comes in as they are kissing goodbye. After Daniel leaves, he informs Grace that he broke up with Madison because he’s still in love with her. Grace yells at him that she’s in love with Daniel, and Daniel opens the door and says “now that’s more like it.” After he leaves, Grace slaps her own head.
And oh, yeah, the couch. Amy got her dad to cough up a sleeper sofa. Ricky was upset about it at first but comes around after a while. He also was lying about deleting the message from Adrian. He promises not to have anything to do with Adrian and then promptly listens to the message!
Besides giving couches away, George is sizing up his chances of getting back together with Anne, who is thinking of putting her mother, Mimsy, in a nursing home because her Alzheimer’s is getting worse.
