Edge Of Slapenteen

Given that Connie's into Hector -- which, since I haven't said it lately: gross -- we probably all guessed that she had daddy issues of some kind or another, meaning no one needed a whole episode about her to confirm it, and yet here we are, focusing on this boringly angsty teenager while ROSIE COULD BE GETTING UP TO JUST ABOUT ANYTHING AND WE DON'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT IT. Me to the producers of this show:

In this third consecutive episode in which the focus falls on a character no one gives Shit One about, where does everyone fall on the slapworthy list? Let's count them down from least to most asking for it.

8. The Judge

For the first time, Team Slap and Team Slapped face each other in judges' chambers, where said judge bitches at both lawyers for not having settled this -- "Is anyone here doing their job?" -- but, thank god, does not throw the case out, ensuring that there will be a trial. If not for this great lady, I would have to stop watching this show. ...Okay, that would never happen. I'd be mad, though.

Slapworthiest Line: "Was it a tap? Was it a full-on walloping?"

7. Tony

This is the episode where we learn that Connie has a stepfather, named Tony, and that he's played by Pastor Groovyhair from The Americans, minus the groovy hair for which he is named. We don't find out much about him except that he mostly hates Connie, which means we could hang out.

Slapworthiest Line: "I don't know where she got that mouth from, Vivian. I know it wasn't you."

6. Ritchie

Connie's little photographer friend -- remember, Hector promised him "a penny a pic" to shoot his party in the pilot -- is excited to have been asked to a real teenager party for what is apparently the very first time in his whole high school career, anxious about keeping Connie away from Hector, and in possession of photos that show (a) Hector and Connie canoodling, and (b) "the dreaded slap." She tells him to delete the party photos, which he apparently doesn't, since the episode ends with him looking at them and confirming that, as Rosie claimed in front of the judge, Hugo HAD dropped the bat by the time Harry got to him. Ritchie seems like a good friend, if kind of a doormat. And when Connie gets wasted at the party because Hector's rejected her (of which more anon) and tries coming on to Ritchie, his panicked rejection of her handsiness makes it pretty clear that he has some coming out to do.

Slapworthiest Line: "Too late to change now: people are either farmers -- hardworking, diligent members of society who play by the rules -- or they're pirates, who want to pillage and plunder and cause chaos and make art." Connie asks, "What are we?" "We watch and make snide comments. Speaking of which [pointing at a girl twerking], check out Miley Cyrus over there."

5. Vivian

This is the episode where we learn that Connie has a mother and she's kind of a bitch. She and Tony decide to start caring about what Connie does when she stays at the Wechslers' for four hours after babysitting, missing a visit from the cops in the process, and leading Vivian to get all freaked out about whether Connie was doing drugs with Rosie and Tony...and let's be real, would any of us rule out the possibility that Rosie is so inattentive to Hugo because she's baked? Anyway: Connie blames Vivian for spiriting her away from her father in the dead of night, after which Connie never saw him again, and then he died. Vivian also tells us she was around Connie's age now when Connie was born, making Vivian thirty-six now.

No.

Slapworthiest Line: From a woman trying to hide the extremely obvious fact that she's in the middle of getting divorced: "I don't want to see my family destroyed by secrets. Connie? Never again."

4. Connie

This is the episode where we learn that Connie is the kind of shithead brat who calls her mother by her first name, and apparently goes through the Shoebox Of Meaningful Dead Dad Totems on a nightly basis despite the fact that he died more than ten years ago. (The narrator informs us that Connie was sure if he were alive, he would be the one to understand her, as if she's that goddamn complicated and not just your standard-issue TV teen badly flirting with a married guy when she's not heedlessly leaving her bike in front of the elevator.) She ignores Ritchie's advice and goes to Gary's art opening because she knows Hector's going to be there, and then embarrasses herself hitting on him and embarrasses herself further when she goes to the teen party and SMOKES, something the show films in concern-trolling slow-mo as if she's shooting heroin.

The episode ends with Tony being a stand-up guy by giving her a letter from Malcolm, her dead dad's old boyfriend, which is when she gets Ritchie to drive her to his house upstate so she can collect all her dead dad's old things and learn that she's been wrong about the reason for her parents' breakup all along: she thought Vivian dumped this dude because she belatedly discovered he was bi (plus he was a drug addict, apparently), but in fact, her dead dad left MALCOLM to be with Vivian, and then changed his mind back or whatever. Can this be a series wrap on Connie's Private Pain?

Slapworthiest Line: "We should be pirates, not farmers or watchers or judges."

3. Hector

It doesn't matter that you're a standup guy ending this nascent affair with a teenager if you started a nascent affair with a teenager, Hector, you dumb piece of shit. I also don't for a second believe things are really over just because he tells Connie he doesn't love her. I mean, I believe he doesn't -- I just think he still wants to hit it.

Slapworthiest Line: "Manhattan's the new outer borough."

2. Gary

Makes Connie and Ritchie watch Bride Of Frankenstein; lets Hugo stay up to watch Bride Of Frankenstein; makes his friends come to his art opening and then apparently isn't even there; paints many portraits of Hugo that others then have to say are evidence that Gary's work is "focused" and "intense" as opposed to "about whatever's at hand."

Slapworthiest Line: "I know the great god Hugo controls us all in every aspect of our existence, but I don't think I've ever had to fight him for survival." BECAUSE YOU'RE CHECKED OUT AS HIS DAD, DUMBASS.

1. Rosie

Is an adult woman; shows up to chambers looking like this.

Slapworthiest Line: "Am I a bad mother, Connie? All I'm trying to do is protect my child! Why is that so wrong?!"