Airs: Sundays at 10:00 PM
Network: Lifetime
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Review - "Army Wives"
Reviewer: Cori Vella
Rating:
My reason for starting on the Army Wives bandwagon was admittedly quite shallow. His name is Drew Fuller, and he is hot.
But that's not the reason to tune in (although it is a pretty dang good one, if I do say so myself). Army Wives is melodramatic, over-the-top, and so emotional that a box of Kleenex is a required viewing companion. Even so, it works.
The series follows the lives of a small group of army wives (and one army husband) at Fort Marshall and the difficulties and challenges they face because of their spouses' occupations. Season one was an adventure, where we were introduced to the couples and grew to love them in their challenges. Each episode mounted in situational drama, from giving birth on a pool table to being held captive by a soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, it was difficult to predict what would come next. The finale of the first season was definitely unexpected, and difficult to top — a suicide bomber enters the bar where the wives hang out.
So did season two top it?
Season two was just as much an emotional rollercoaster as the first, giving viewers even more of a reason to cling to that box of tissues. An addiction to painkillers threatened to end Roxy (Sally Pressman) and Trevor's (Drew Fuller) marriage, an unexpected pregnancy brought Roland (Sterling K. Brown) and Joan (Wendy Davis) closer together, and Denise (Catherine Bell) and Frank (Terry Serpico) spent some much-needed time apart. The tension mounted when Pamela (Brigid Brannagh) found herself prey to a stalker and Claudia Joy (Kim Delaney) was nearly raped by someone she trusted. Near the end, we lost Betty (Patricia French) to breast cancer.
In the season finale, Claudia Joy gathers together the wives to tell them that her husband Michael (Brian McNamara) has been offered a job overseas, and as a result, the Holdens will be moving to Brussels. Emmalin (Katelyn Pippy) hates the news, as she is just starting to develop her relationship with Logan (Paul Wesley) and doesn't want to move. Roxy has her hands full with Betty's nephew, Collin Richards (Ivan Sergei), who claims that he has partial ownership of the bar now that Betty is gone — it doesn't help that Trevor wants to have a baby with her, and won't leave the issue alone. Pamela's radio show is cancelled, Joan gets the news she is to be deployed, Frank becomes a hypocrite when he gets hot and heavy with a soldier who is not his wife, and when the Holdens get set to leave, Emmalin is nowhere to be found.
It's a lot to be packed into one episode. Even so, it leaves a much more tolerable cliff-hanger than last season ("So wait a minute, who died? OH, MY GOSH, I CAN'T WAIT THAT LONG, TELL ME NOW!"). One thing that Army Wives is known for is cramming a lot of drama into a very short time, and it lived up to that expectation. My only thought is how long the writers can continue to come up with new scenarios that still feel fresh.
Can't wait for season 3 in June — and no, not just because of Drew Fuller... shirtless... but because Army Wives is fresh and quirky, and does its best to flesh out its characters to a level rarely seen in television. Tune in January 18th, 2009, to view the encore presentation of Army Wives on Lifetime.
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