Darkness and rain surround the whole episode and the bad things keep happening. Bailey spent the last 2 episodes with Callie, staged by the writers, so now he commits one of his biggest sins in the series. Sarah wants for them to dress as Snow White and Prince Charming for the Halloween charity party of highschool (see the kind of girl she is), but he doesn't want to know anything about it. He ponders going as Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, and Sarah tells she supported him in a Three Stooges event, he says that's culture (well done Bailey). He still refuses to take the Charming costume, so she feels sad. In the night, when he returns the dorm with groceries, his things fall in the floor and mix up with Callie's stuff. There, Callie finds out that he has been celibate since Jill, when he tells that he and Sarah are not having sex in the dorm. A few hours later, partially seduced in a blackout, he sleeps with Callie. Sarah visits the dorm next morning but doesn't realize what happened. Feeling guilty, Bailey looks everywhere for the costumes Snow White and Prince Charming, and when he shows them to Sarah, she tells it's ok considering she's in highschool and he in college, so she won't force him to go to the party. He says he wants to, secretly to make ammends for the big crime he committed, which Sarah doesn't know yet. But in the party, he feels embarrassed, eager for someone to spike the punch and drink, so he leaves, also because Julia and Callie previously laughed at his costume. Sarah the princess is left alone and sad while everybody dances, including Julia, Justin and his new girlfriend. It's truth that Callie is not a good woman and that she seduced Bailey, but his mistake was moving there with her, it's like he wanted this to happen. Anyway, that's not the only problem, since he started college and met Callie, he can't stop drinking and at the end, alone and upset in the dorm after seeing her leave with a guy, he keeps drinking beers as he did in the last episode. Bad things still happens to him, but this time, he did it to himself.
As for Julia-Justin-Robin story, his attitude still annoys me in this season. I know that Julia had a thing with Cooper, but she proved that she still has a heart damaged and admitted it was a mistake. Begins with them in a chemistry class, and Julia sees Justin delivering a note from classmate to classmate, like in 1x17 (what a wonderful times those), but now it's not for her, it's for a girl named Robin. Later, while preparing pumpkins for the charity party, Justin, as an insensitive guy, talks to Julia about his new girl like nothing happened without realizing she's hurt. She shows him the pumpkin with a bad face. Then, Julia has a short talk with Robin in the coffee house, and the next day in class, she sees her fighting with Justin, burning his note. When Julia talks to him, he makes her feel guilty telling her she's not important in his life. She thinks she did something wrong by meddling in his relationship with Robin, but turns out that she did nothing, Justin made a mistake himself. Being totally selfless, Julia helps Robin to reconciliate with Justin, and finally she dances with a random good guy in the party, while Justin dances with his girlfriend. Lately, Julia is behaving much better, but he's being selfish and seems that he doesn't remember the miscarriage.
Meanwhile, Charlie and Claudia struggle with the house, roof repair, hexes and some persons. First, while Claudia is watching TV (saying that Halloween approaches), he tries to fix the roof lamp because they have no warranty to pay for it. She's watching an Advertising of a hex, Dr Blalock, who supposedly can cure bad luck streaks in families. He asks her help with tools, and she tells that maybe that's their problem, there's a curse on them. Outside is raining a lot, and Claudia tells that now without Kirsten, the house feels empty and they feel alone. Charlie doesn't want to talk about it, and refuses to believe the jinxes and hexes, it's not real. Anyway, he falls from the stairs and gets hurt in his toe, so Claudia is even more convinced. Then, at Salinger's, in a phone call with Meg, Charlie wants to talk to Kirsten, and she asks if her parents told him what's happening, some information about her, but he says they didn't. Meg says that her sister is not available, so he asks her to tell Kirsten to give her a message, that he loves her, but she hangs up. He's frustrated and almost throws the phone to a wall. Sadly, seems that his "wife" won't receive the message, although she knows how much he loves her. The idea of Charlie talking to Meg was excellent, she never appeared again in person after 1x13 (who knows why they producers didn't bring Leslie Hope as a guest again), and she was needed, Kirsten's sister is not a minor character, even though was treated like that by the writers. And this call still proves how much Charlie would want to be there, next to his wife in the recovering process. He'd have given anything to be with her, like the last episodes showed, but he can't move to Chicago because his siblings, the restaurant depends on him. He has no choice. Alone working in the restaurant, with a cast on his toe, he lost faith in life and refuses to help anyone. A social worker named Grace visits asking food for homeless people, but he angrily refuses, saying "forget it", he's not interested, it would take time and money for him and his staff, and after she insists, he kicks her out. She leaves saying she won't be in the same planet when karma hits him (karma???, for Charlie???, get outta here woman). Then, he meets Earl, a past worker for his father, who didn't know about Nick's death. Charlie offers him coffee and refuses to give him any handy job, so he just asks to use the bathroom. Earl starts to work anyway when Charlie's not near, so when he finds him, he's forced to pay him. Earl gives him some entertaining stories of his past as a kid, knowing that Diana played the fiddle, and that his dad chased his son through the restaurant when he was little. Charlie's finally quiet about this, and offers him more handy jobs for the restaurant. But Earl is unemployed and, while fixing the file cabinet, uses Nick's bank account for himself, saddening Charlie when he and Claudia sees him arrested by the police. Later, while searching old pictures of Earl in the restaurant, he explains Claudia that it's hard enough to let people in their lives, and now he feels like he has nothing. He loves Kirsten so much, he did a lot for her, and now she's gone, he has nothing. At the end, with Julia's advice of giving hope to people, he decides to give food to homeless through Grace, saying he just need to do a good act for people. Here nothing rare happened, but I know the future of this season, this woman will be a bad experience for the Salingers, especially for Claudia and Owen. If he's not with his beloved wife, I'll always prefer the depressed and lonely Charlie. As for Claudia, she enumerates all the bad stuff that happened and hires the TV "hex", Blalock, to "cure" the house. She shows him the parental bedroom, where Charlie first called off the wedding; Bailey's room as something bad always happens to him; Julia's room, miscarriage; and the basement, where she once found Kirsten crying thinking no one could hear her (I hope she comforted her "adoptive mother" when Charlie wasn't in the house). Claudia also says that she still feels guilty about her absence and now she wants to help Charlie somehow. Blalock asks her some items from the siblings and then proceeds to do the purification of the house. This was the best story of the episode, was funny, obviously didn't work but gave her hope and a roof warranty of repair. Charlie tried to warn her of not believing in that stuff of jinxes, but she chose to trust, and happily went with Owen to ask for trick or treat. Charlie was right, life problems are not fixed by throwing salt around the corner but was good to give Claudia some happiness, she's just a child, like Julia said. To finish, I felt too Charlie and Claudia's loneliness. This episode has an nostalgic effect, made me miss the moments when Kirsten was around. It's sad, though she was depressed, she was there, in the bed, in the house, at home. She'll always be Charlie's wife, and the adoptive mother for Claudia and Owen, no matter where she is.
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