Before getting into the episode, I made a note that made me realize that I need to clarify something about myself. It might help you understand the lens I just see the world through, even when I don’t necessarily want to. I’m biracial, half black and half white. A lot of my experiences seem fairly “white,” because I was raised by my white family, but I’m still very much a black person and my parents did a very good job of making sure I embraced that about myself. It does mean, however, I sometimes see racism where others don’t. You’ll see when I get there. I’m also thinking that after I finish all five seasons of the original series, I just kind of make a post where I will point out things I think The Brady Bunch did well in this regard, and what may have flown because it was 1969-1974, but then also mention the things that should have just never been said. I just want to wait because the writer of this episode wrote two more, and then there’s “Kelly’s Kids” in season 5. So, if you disagree with the comments I make in this review I apologize, but I can't change the fact that I was offended. Even if that wasn’t the intention, and I honestly don't believe it was intended, it doesn’t change what actually happened; however, I will give credit where credit is due eventually. I would not like The Brady Bunch if I thought it was inherently racist.

With that out of the way, let’s go ahead and get into the episode.

Who needs a mom when you have an Alice?

We start with Bobby running into the house, calling for Alice. He fell off his bike after running over a banana and has a banged up knee. While Alice starts preparing to patch up Bobby’s knee, Carol enters to investigate all the noise she heard. After hearing what happened, Carol offers to patch Bobby up, but he says Alice can do it. Carol is hurt, and Alice tries to get Bobby to go with Carol. Bobby doesn’t want to, though, because he likes how Alice does it. Carol is glad that Bobby is okay and puts on a brave face before walking away. Alice calls Bobby out on the fact that he passed up on a good opportunity, but Bobby doesn’t catch on. Alice tells Bobby that she’s actually too busy right now and he needs to go upstairs and have Carol take care of it.

The way Jan is looking at Bobby's knee, she may be a vampire.

In the kids’ shared bathroom, Carol patches up Bobby’s knee while Jan and Cindy watch. Y’all, this is not an operation theatre. This feels like a HIPAA violation. Alice, while doing Alice work upstairs, stops by the bathroom to check on Bobby and moves on after seeing he’s in good hands.

Mike Brady is useless at looking for people.

Later, Mike is holding a shirt in the kitchen and calling for Alice, barely looking for her. Alice appears from her little Alice nook, so it’s cool Mike hasn’t learned to knock on doors or anything instead of just screaming. Mike asks Alice to fix a button on his shirt. Alice starts to comply, but then says she’s behind schedule and sends him to ask his wife. Mike leaves, immediately screaming “Carol!” Goddammit, Mike, you look with your eyes.

The Brady boys were clearly raised by an untamed individual.

Later, in the backyard, Greg and Peter are arguing over a baseball glove. Alice comes into the yard to see what’s going on. Greg screams the situation at Alice. What the fuck, Greg? I get you’re upset with Peter, that doesn’t mean you can scream at Alice, you little animal. Then Peter also screams at Alice. Oh my god, these kids suck. Alice won’t put herself into the argument and tells the boys to talk to their mother. This one might not have been about building up Carol, and honestly, good for Alice. You don’t deserve to be screamed at for any reason.

Things get resolved so much easier when you use an inside voice.

Carol goes into the boy’s room with Peter and Greg so Peter can show where he left his glove. Carol thought baseball season was over and had put the glove away. Carol returns Peter’s glove to him, and asks him if he thinks he owes Greg an apology. Peter Brady then in that moment invents the non-apology and it’s hilarious. “Greg, I owe you an apology.” Greg’s eyes give away his dissatisfaction with that response, and honestly I feel like the Brady kids never get enough credit for being good child actors. Carol calls out the non-apology and Peter apologizes for real. Carol leaves and Greg seems impressed with Carol’s parenting.

Carol briefly forgot she's been a mother for over a decade.

Mike sees Alice in the kitchen and asks if Carol is upstairs. After Alice confirms, I swear that Mike takes literally one step away from Alice and bellows for Carol. Oh my fucking God, Mike. Carol rushes down and tells Mike how happy she is that the boys are coming to her for their problems. Carol says she’s starting to feel like a mother and a wife. What the fuck, Carol? You have three daughters. This is your second marriage. What did you feel like before? Anyway, Alice overhears how happy Carol is and seems pretty proud of herself.

Alice single-handedly saved this family.

Greg has to explain wanting to spend time with his mother to Alice.

Later, in the living room, Greg comes home and asks Alice where Carol is. He wants her to help with his math homework. Alice offers to help, but Greg says his mom is a real whiz at that stuff and she’s helped him two other times that week. Greg goes upstairs and does not scream for Carol, so he somehow raised himself to be better than his dad and brothers. Alice is very disappointed that Greg doesn’t need her help with homework, though.

Alice is excited when the mailman delivers his package.

Later, still in the living room, the mailman comes to deliver a big package to the Brady residence. Alice thinks it’s a telescope she helped the boys send out for. Alice bellows for the boys. Ok. I see. Everyone is an animal. The boys rush down and immediately want to show the telescope to Carol. Alice is very upset, since she was very excited to share this with the boys.

The Brady girls have a parenting intervention.

Now we see Cindy and Jan in the girls’ room. Marcia brings Carol into the room. They tell Carol something is happening that they don’t understand. The girls explain that Carol has been spending so much time with the boys that they think Carol thinks the boys are more important than they are. I commend the Brady girls for having the emotional intelligence to bring this to Carol’s attention and clarify things. It’s very healthy. It’s also an understandable concern since this is literally the first time we’ve seen Marcia all episode. Carol apologizes for making the girls feel so low and explains that the boys haven’t had a mother in awhile and she wants them to know that she loves them as much as she loves the girls. All’s forgiven and they fall into a giggly dogpile of hugs.

Alice could benefit from some improv classes.

Alice, however, is still upset and she does not address things in the emotionally healthy way. She meets with Mike and Carol after dinner to quit, claiming she has a sick aunt in Seattle that she needs to take care of. Mike asks Alice not to quit outright, taking a few weeks to assess the situation because she’s been with the family for a long time. Alice acknowledges it has been 7 years, 4 months, 13 days, and 9 and a half hours. That’s since Bobby was a baby, wow. Alice is a terrible liar, though, and keeps changing details of her story. She keeps getting caught, too, but it’s not like the Bradys can do anything. She’s quitting, not embezzling funds.

The girls want to talk about their feelings. The boys are not here for it.

That night, in the boys’ room, the boys are upset that Alice is leaving. The girls come in because they want to talk about Alice, but Greg shuts them down. Rude. Marcia seems to understand why Greg is shutting them out, though, and ushers her sisters out of the room. Marcia is honestly the VIP of this episode. I wish everyone had the emotional intelligence Marcia has in this episode.

In Carol and Mike’s room, they talk about Alice leaving. Carol is upset and Mike says, “We can’t make her stay. Abraham Lincoln put a stop to that.” Wow. What the fuck. This broke me so far out of the episode it made me remember Robert Reed’s role in Roots. I do not blame Robert Reed for the line at all, it’s just that bad of a line. So I immediately looked up the writer of this episode, Paul West, to see how racist he was. He wrote for Amos ‘n’ Andy, so pretty damn. I get that 1969 was a different time, but how was ever joking about slavery cool? Anyway, back into the episode. The Brady parents want Alice to stay and are confused by how suddenly she decided to quit. Carol wants to find out the truth and Mike jokingly asks if Carol wants to try different torture techniques on Alice and I’m very concerned about who Paul West was as a human. Mike realizes Alice’s workload doubled after the wedding and he never even offered her more money. He says he needs to give Alice a raise even if it hurts a little. If Mike Brady was an employer right now in The Great Resignation, he’d be one of the businesses that do not have staffing issues for sure.

The next day, Alice turns down the raise, insisting that money wasn’t the problem. She sticks with her sick aunt story, but relocates her from Seattle to Sacramento. This does not go unnoticed by Mike. Alice is a terrible liar. She's old enough she should know that about herself - why did she not make up another plan?

How does four kids begging Alice to stay not make her feel wanted?

Later, the boys and Cindy watch Alice pack. Cindy says she and her sisters were starting to love Alice. Alice seems moved by this statement and admits that she’ll miss all of the kids. Bobby asks Alice that if she’ll miss them, why she’s leaving them and Alice sticks to her terrible, not at all thought out story.

It's awful convenient that all of the backdoors are open.

In the other room, the phone rings, and it’s for Alice. Marcia and Jan ride up on their bikes just in time to overhear that Alice has no plans, she just didn’t feel needed anymore. Marcia immediately pulls Carol aside into the parents’ room to tell her about the conversation she accidentally overheard. Carol immediately calls Mike at work to tell him about it. Mike tells Carol to tell Alice they need her, but Carol says that they have to show her. Show, don’t tell is a common phrase in writing and I’m really glad they found a way to tell us about it in this episode.

Then one day the family had a scam, and they knew it was much more than a hunch...

Carol and Mike pull the kids into the parents’ room and devise a plan. Everyone says they know their parts. In the next scene, Carol runs into Alice organizing the kitchen, and Carol tells her to stop and relax. Then Carol says that she and Mr. Brady have a formal thing later but Carol will make dinner before they go. Then Marcia comes in to say she has to go to a club meeting. Carol agrees to take Marcia, but then Alice asks about dinner and Carol says she’ll make it when she gets back and that Alice should relax. Alice reminds Carol and Marcia they forgot the cake and gets it for Marcia. Then Mike needs help looking for his tux, which Alice helps with. Then Peter comes in to say that Tiger’s run away. Like four episodes ago. We have not seen the dog since the wedding. I do know Tiger is in next week’s episode, which was produced before this one, but even that was two episodes before this one and I don’t know that Tiger was in any other episodes before this one was produced. Anyway, Bobby and Cindy get into a fight in the kitchen. Then suddenly Greg and Marcia both need rides home. Dinner still needs to happen. Then Peter and Bobby cover Mike in mud.

Alice hasn't left yet and it appears all will be lost without her.

At that moment, Alice decides to stay. Alice does call out Mr. and Mrs. Brady for acting by telling them that since they have to leave the house anyway to keep it up, they should go out and have fun. Alice is so sweet. Alice tells them all the reasons why she caught on, but she figures that if the Bradys went to so much work to show her how needed she was, then they must mean it. However, you would think someone who can catch even the most thought out lie so easily would be so much better at lying so I'm still kind of disappointed.

There's a fine line between being needed and being used.

In the tag, Carol and Mike have like 97 requests for Alice, but Alice sets healthy boundaries. So proud of her.

Slavery joke aside, I do really like this episode. Everyone is still going through adjustments and sometimes overcompensating leaves people hurt. Alice wasn’t the only one hurt in this episode, she just was the only one who decided to run away instead of talking about it. When the girls were hurt, they talked about it and had a very easy resolution. Considering that in “Dear Libby” Alice was the one who said talking about it is what fixes problems, it seems odd that she wouldn’t follow her own advice. But it is otherwise a very enjoyable episode. I decided at this moment that after the season is done, I’ll rank the episodes in the order I like them in, since I know it will be different than the IMDB ratings.

What are your thoughts about this episode? Do you disagree with me about anything?  Let me know! Next week, we will be diving into the episode “Katchoo.”