American Housewife - American Idol - Review: "Dreamcrushers!"

Taylor tries to reach her dreams this week. That is, if Katie and Greg don't knock her down first!

On the heels of her Little Shop of Horrors performance (which the Westport Gazette called "maybe worth seeing!"), Taylor's decided she's going to put college on the back-burner and use that money to move to Hollywood and become a singer. Katie and Greg, understandably, aren't big fans of this plan. They both tell Taylor that she needs to go to college to have a back-up plan in case music doesn't work out. That night, Taylor dreams she's on American Idol, and everything's going great, that is, until her parents show up. Suddenly the adoring judges have been replaced with Katie and Greg, who aren't fans of any songs that aren't "Going Away to College."

The next day, Katie consults Doris and Angela about the best way to knock Taylor into reality. Angela tells Katie to be careful about not supporting her dreams. She had a cousin who wanted to be a dancer, and when her parents didn't support her, she ran to Little Rock to become a stripper (A "Rock-ette!) Doris, however, has a different idea and offers to lone Katie her kid's music teacher Ms. Bell, who's a "real throwback to the golden age of truly abusive educators!")

While dealing with Taylor, Katie also gets tasks with planning the Westport Businesswomen's Awards. Katie's excited to finally be planning something other than a snobby housewife's pointless party. She's in for a bit of surprise though when she arrives to meet with them to plan the awards. The "businesswomen" are those snobby housewives and their idea of business includes things like imaginary jewelry companies, repackaging store bought peppermint bark as homemade, and oh yeah - Ponzi schemes! Suddenly, Katie's back to planning another snobby party where the main attraction is a fountain and a lot of champagne.

Between Taylor's dreams and Katie's newest party plan, Greg also finds himself in a bit of a situation. One of the historical guild members died and he needs to recruit new, younger members. So what does he do to win over the younger generation? He makes 50 scrolls advertising the guild to hang around town! Oliver and Anna-Kat are left with the task of breaking it to him that ancient looking scrolls pasted on light-poles aren't going to attract the youngsters. They suggest he make a video advertising the guild. So he does - only it's 90 minutes long. Realizing the situation is truly hopeless, Oliver and Anna-Kat tell Greg they'll just make the video themselves. They come up with the perfect advertisement - a quick clip of Luther dressed as a colonial soldier. Although Greg doesn't completely understand the appeal, they assure him that anyone who sees a video of a dog dressed in a costume will want to learn more. The video does end up getting a lot of hits, but it still doesn't make people any more interested in the Westport Historical Guild. So, Anna-Kat and Oliver do something special for their dad, they sign up as new members themselves. ("You guys are not going to regret this. We're having a mutton truck on Thursday. It's just fried chicken, but we're pretending!")

Taylor goes to join Doris's kids for their music lesson. Doris definitely wasn't kidding about Ms. Bell "sucking all the fun out of music." She won't even let Taylor get past the first word of "Row Row Row Your Boat" before telling her she's doing it wrong. When Taylor gets home, Katie's happy to realize that her plan to scare Taylor out of pursuing music full-time seems to be working, until she finds Taylor putting away the framed newspaper articles about her performances. Taylor says that she really thought singing was going to be her dream job, just like history is Greg's and event planning is Katie's. Katie reassures her that there are plenty of things she's good at...she just can't think of any!

That night, Taylor has another dream that she's on American Idol. Only this time, she's able to sing the whole song uninterrupted and the judges love her! When she wakes up, she resigns herself to the fact that her American Idol dream will only ever be just that - a dream. The next day, she goes back to music lessons at Doris's. And instead of putting up with the soul-crushing Ms. Belle not letting her get past one note, she launches into a full-blown version of "Row Row Row Your Boat." Doris's kids are so inspired by Taylor's defiance that they join in on their own instruments. And - it works! Ms. Belle admits they were "pretty good." Unfortunately for her, Doris was watching from the two-way mirror, and now that Ms. Belle has a made the slightest move to let music classes involve any joy, she's fired!

At the Westport Business Women's Awards, Katie gets a call from Doris. She's not happy that Taylor "broke" Ms. Belle with "her passion and her dreams!" ("You owe me three demoralized children!") This makes Katie realize that she's been going about it all wrong and that she should be supporting Taylor's dreams. She pushes Tara Summers off the stage and tells the "businesswomen" something similar - that they should actually be making their dreams come true and not just sitting around giving themselves awards for things they only talk about doing. In the midst of this, she comes to the conclusion that planning pointless parties for snobby housewives isn't her dream either, and even though she's going to have to keep the job for now ("I quit in my mind"), she wants to start exploring what her passion might really be.

At home, Katie tells Taylor, much to Greg's alarm, that if she doesn't want to go to college and pursue music instead, they'll be fine with that. But Taylor's had a change of plans. She realizes she does want to go to college - for music! Ms. Belle even told her "about all these great music programs. And there's this one at this school that's named after a honeydew..." (Carnegie-Mellon!)

Random Thoughts:
-The balloon archway was hilarious!

-Westport women really have a thing for fountains - face serum fountains, kombucha fountains, what's next?

-Best lines go to Taylor in her American Idol dream ("I wish Lionel, Katy, and Luke were my parents!") and Katie, when she tells Tara Summers how she really feels about her at the business awards ("And Tara, I think you'd be amazing...at jumping off a bridge and hitting as many things as possible on the way down.")

Do you think Katie will end up changing jobs? Has Taylor finally found her path after-all? Let me know below!