7th Heaven: Season 5 - Episode 6: Broke

 

Eric (Stephen Collins) and Annie (Catherine Hicks) discuss Mary.

The Camden's are eating dinner (sans Mary). Annie asks Lucy to take the twins upstairs and get them ready for bed. Simon quickly volunteers to help Lucy, and Ruthie volunteers to help Simon. Once they are gone, Eric and Annie argue over Mary. Lucy comes down, and her mother tells her to babysit because she and her father are going out...separately. 

The opening credits come up and the theme song plays. 

The phone rings and it's a woman from the credit card collection woman (Mary Donnelly). Lucy answers and says she's Mary's sister but the woman thinks she is lying and is really Mary. 

Sargeant Michaels (Christopher Michael) is talking to other officers about setting up DUI roadblocks. The police officer who let Mary go a few weeks ago (Christopher Daniel Barnes) ("Losers" episode) tells Sargeant Michaels that he had let Mary go and that she had been drinking. 

John (Chaz Lamar Shepherd) is pacing in the apartment and annoying Matt who can't study. John finally tells him that Mary tried to borrow a lot of money from him. He says he also saw her at the promenade with some kids who smoke and drink. Matt tells him that was probably Frankie and Johnny, who their dad had to bail out of jail not too long ago for "possession". 

Erik is at Glen Oak Hospital and runs into Hank (Ed Bagley, Jr). He tells Hank he got a good diagnosis and has a busy day. (I am assuming based on based episodes that Eric was there for a heart check-up). 

Mary is at the ATM trying to get money to come out when an annoyed man (Lawrence Lowe) offers her five dollars to just "walk away." She accepts it and leaves.

Annie is at the grocery store and runs into Mark Johnson (Kim Robillard) the man from their church from  Johnson Insurence Company who insured Mary's car. He tells Annie that Mary shouldn't be driving without car insurance, and Annie is surprised to learn Mary hasn't paid for her insurance and it's lapsed.

Mary returns home and Lucy tells her about the credit card collection's lady calling. Mary asks Lucy to lend her fifty dollars, but Lucy tells her she's not giving her the money. Then she asks Simon to loan her the money, but Simon also refuses. He reminds her that she's borrowed $30 already that she has not paid back. 

Mary: You're not being fair.
Simon: No, you're not being fair. You work, you get paid; you should have money. It's not my problem. 

Simon finds out the money is for a credit card, and tells her to get rid of the credit card. (Of course, she would still owe the money). 

The phone rings and Lucy hands it to Mary and tells her to "take care of it." Ruthie comes out of her room and calls Mary secretively. She offers to give her the $20 she got for her birthday. She asks Ruthie if she has any more and Ruthie tells her, "Twenty dollars is a lot." Mary tells Ruthie that she will use the twenty dollars to go pay the credit card, "right now."

The phone rings again. Simon answers and it's the credit card lady threatening to take legal action if Mary does not pay her credit card. Simon hangs up, and he, Lucy, and Ruthie discuss what to do because they don't want to tell their parents. Lucy calls someone.

In the next scene, Matt is at the house and they explain they don't want to tell their parents because all their parents do is fight over Mary. Ruthie tells her she loaned money to Mary to help. The phone rings again, and Lucy tells Matt if it's the credit card lady he has to talk to her. However, it's their mother looking for their father. Matt tells Lucy not to let their mom know he is at the house or she will know something is wrong. (This makes no sense to me, Matt is always at the house to do laundry, or get food, or watch TV, etc. so they could have just said he was doing any of that). Annie asks if Mary is home, and Lucy says she is but left again, possibly to look for a job. 

After she hangs up, Matt questions Mary about not having a job. Lucy explains she was "let go." Matt asks if she was fired, and hopes she is truly out looking for a job. 

Mary is at the movie theatre where she buys tickets for the double feature because she has all day to watch movies. She pays with the $20 Ruthie loaned her.

Annie is at the pool hall where she learns that she was fired even though Mary had told them that she quit. 

At the house, the phone rings again, and Lucy refuses to answer it. Simon answers and it's their dad. He wants to know why it took them so long to answer, and where Mary is. Simon says everything is okay, and Mary is looking for a job.  Eric tells Simon to let Annie know he called if she gets back before him.

Sargeant Michaels comes over to Eric and tells her about the possible DUI incident. 

Mary is laughing at the movies. (I love how everyone in the entire show is stressed out about Mary, but Mary is out having a wonderful time). 

The collections lady calls again. Lucy gives the phone to Matt who pretends to be Bernie the lawyer. (Barry Watson cracked me up doing Bernie the Lawyer). The kids are trying to figure out how they can come up with fifty dollars to keep Mary out of more legal problems. Ruthie informs them that Sam and David have a lot of money. 

Sargeant Michaels and Eric are at Pete's Pizza. Sargeant Michaels leaves and Pete (James Keane) comes over and explains why he let Mary go.  He explains that he knows Johnny and Frankie hang out after and steal beers, and Mary was hanging out with them. He can't fire them because Johnny is his nephew. He tells him that even though Johnny is family, he is no good. Eric says that he forbade Mary to hang out with Frankie and Johnny, but Pete informs him she was there just a couple of days ago with the two of them.  He says that she gave her word to stay away from Frankie and Johnny and they gave their word to stay away from Mary.

Pete: Well, they lied.

Annie calls the car dealer to find out how much Mary owes. He tells her that she needs to pay $300 in the next 72 hours or the car will be repossessed. 

Matt, Lucy, Simon, and Ruthie are in Simon and David's room with the twins. They are having second thoughts about stealing the money from Simon and David. The kids have $500 each in their banks. They try to believe that Mary will find a job and pay the money back. 

Mary comes out of the theater and looks at her last five dollars from the money Ruthie gave her. She looks up at the Dairy Shack and walks over to it.

She comes home eating ice cream, and Matt tells her she hopes he's looking for a job. Matt is angry that she acts like she hasn't a care in the world. The phone rings again. Simon hands the phone to Matt and says "She wants to talk to Bernie." Matt (as Bernie) tells the collections lady that Mary changed her mind against his advice and is going to pay her bill. He hangs up the phone and Mary is angry until she learns they broke into Simon and David's bank and she is going to pay back everything she owes and she needs to get a job before their parents find out about the missing money. 

Mary: You can count on me.

Annie is at the hospital looking for Eric and runs into Hank. He asks her if something is wrong and she says there's a lot of things wrong, and he brings her into his office so they can talk.

The phone rings at the house and Ruthie answers. It's her dad calling from Julie's house, looking for Annie, and then Mary. Ruthie says Annie's not there, Mary was but left.

Eric: And if Mary comes home...keep her there, okay? Even if you have to have Lucy and Simon lock her in a closet.

Ruthie: Okay.

Ruthie hangs up the phone.

Lucy: Well?

Ruthie: He said to lock Mary in a closet.

Eric tells Julie (Deborah Raffin) and Annie tells Hank what's been going on with Mary.

The children are discussing Mary and their concern about the fact they gave her the twin's money. Ruthie is confident she will pay back the money. The other kids are not so sure about that. 

Mary goes to the credit card company and they tell her to increase the limit to reduce the amount she pays monthly so she does that. However, her interest rates will go up. Mary owes $30 today instead of $50 so she thinks she made $20. 

Simon and Ruthie are in the kitchen making popcorn. Simon pours the bag into a bowl and Ruthie asks him what if their parents shake the piggy banks and don't hear the money in it. Simon yells, "Lucy!"

Lucy runs down and tells him not to yell because he'll wake up the babies. (They are like two now, or close to it, if they can't sleep with yelling in that house by now, there's something wrong).  He asks her the same questions about the piggy banks. Lucy asks Ruthie when their mother puts the money in the bank.

Ruthie: The fourteenth of every month.

Lucy: So, Mary has a week to replace the money, no problem.

At the car dealership, the car dealer tells her they can "extend the terms of the loan." Mary asks how much it will save her a month and he says $75, so she says, "Sign me up." 

Annie calls Julie's house to see if Eric is there. Julie hands the phone to Eric. Eric and Annie apologize to each other for the fighting. They agree to meet back at home. Julie apologized for not telling Eric about the incident with Mary when she babysat Erica (in the "Blind" episode before this episode) sooner, but she thought it was an isolated incident. 

Mary pays her insurance and asks if that can be spread out more, but the woman (Cyd Strittmatter) tells her that can't be done so Mary leaves. She sees a help wanted sign at a bookstore and applies. The owner (David Wells) hired her right away. His wife tells her to call Mary and tell her she can't have the job because she doesn't want "another pretty high school girl who knows nothing about books." 

Annie comes home and instantly suspects the children are up to something, and start questioning them about Mary. Eric comes home, and he and Annie hug and relay the information they got from the various people regarding Mary today. Eric says they need to confront Mary. 

John comes to the hospital with Matt's bag of books for school. Matt thanks him and explains he couldn't get home fast enough to get his books before work because he was at his parents' house pretending to be Mary's attorney Bernie. John asks if Mary will be okay.

Matt: You know, honestly, at this point, I don't know. 

Mary comes in and Lucy tells her on the stairs that she had one last paycheck. Mary tells her parents the same thing, and that it covers all her bills. She says she has a brand new job and  is a "brand new Mary." They decide she is lying about the paycheck and the job, but they need a battle plan before they do anything. 

Annie: This is war?

Eric: I think it is.

Mary goes up to her and Lucy's room. Lucy asks her if she paid her bills and she confirms she did. She also tells Lucy about her new job, and being a new Mary. Lucy tells her she's heard all of this before. 

Mary: Honesty is my new policy.

The phone rings and Mary answers. It's the bookstore owner. He lets Mary know that she can't have the job afterall.

Lucy: Who was that?

Mary: Oh, uh, wrong number. 

The closing credits come up. 

(This was a good episode. Clearly, they are working on getting rid of Jessica Biel as a full-time regular cast member. I like that they aren't just doing the one she died, or just randomly having her disappear with no explanation. I loved Matt's Bernie the Lawyer, that was perhaps my favorite part of this episode).