IMHO: "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" (2.10) "Knocked up, Who's There"

Griffin is back this week, and despite irritating me when he's playing his role of Ashley's GBF, he somehow manages to earn the show its first up arrow since they added a gay teenager. How did Rumer Willis help him do it?

Heather (Rumer Willis) is playing yet another pregnant teen, and tries picking up Ben by basically telling him that if he’s into pregnant girls, she’ll put out. Hey, I’ve fallen for worse pickup lines.

Grace wants to “witness” about having sex to their church teen abstinence group while Jack is against it. To make him more uncomfortable, she asks about his groin injury from last week. He says it’s fine and that everything is in working condition. She then chastises him for having tested the equipment. Does abstinence seriously mean teenage boys can’t…?

Abstinence means doing nothing!?!? Not even … you know.

We have a Griffin sighting! He does the bodyguard thing with Ashley’s love interest, Mark. They get into a pretty harsh exchange about Griffin butting out of their business, and then about Griffin letting the whole school know he’s gay. Mark’s actually playing the “why-do-you-have-to-flaunt-it” card, but Griffin’s not having it, and snaps back.

Griffin doesn't take crap from anybody - but we still don't know why.

I start to think we might have the gay boy kick the straight kid’s bee-hind, but he gets distracted by Ashley’s Gone With The Wind reference, which straight boy doesn’t get, having evidently never heard of the movie. Griffin chooses to educate the boy instead of beatin’ him down.

Poor thing was obviously raised by wolves.

There’s a general plot about Ricky and Adrian “going out” – as opposed to staying home and having sex. Ashley plans a double date, then they all get hijacked into the Teen Abstinence Group at the church by Grace. Some hot date that is. It does lead to the best line of the night, as Madison joins a conversation already in progress saying, “I’ve always thought you should never have sex at church, ever!”

Ashley asks permission to go out, and her dad George says “You can go out with your number one gay anytime.”

He's not going to stay #1 if he keeps acting like this.

Her #1 Gay barges into George and Ashley’s house, greets her father, and dismisses him, telling him that Mark is “a no-goodnick” and he'll deal with Ashley.  He then talks to Ashley as if he’s her father, and she’s five-years-old. Next we have some witty repartee about double-dating with “two sluts” (Ricky and Adrian) and some preachy stuff about abstinence groups just being sex groups, which is probably true.

This is what Ricky and Adrian do before a Teen Abstinence Group, so "slut" may be right.

Griffin ends up at the abstinence meeting seated next to Ashley’s abandoned date. Ashley is a no-show seeing as her Gay Best Friend grounded her, and her father backed him up. Grace welcomes all the new faces, especially Griffin. To which he responds “Why especially me? I’m not the only gay guy here.”

Ashley’s date blushes, until Grace then singles him out, which confuses the poor dumb cute thing, and Griffin explains everyone thinks they’re together.

“Embrace the challenge dude”

Grace then apologizes to Jesus for having sex, via limerick. That is not a typo. She’s then booed off the stage by horny teenagers (literally, one guy covers his lap with a jacket).

This is why abstinence can't mean doing nothing for boys.

At this point, you’re probably wondering why I went up arrow when at this point, we just have our Griffin being the wisecracking gay best friend. As with all serious conversations on this show, the good stuff all happens in the car, in this case when Mark’s mom drives Griffin and Mark home from the church. They stop by Ashley’s, where Mark pleads for a kiss from her on the doorstep so his mom doesn’t think he’s gay.

He actually says some homo-insensitive things, making the next part less preachy.

Meanwhile, in the car, Mark’s mom tells Griffin he has a really healthy attitude, and wants to know where he got it. This is where we get some background on Griffin, It’s sweet and touching, and it was written by someone with a really twisted sense of humor – in other words, my kind of person.

Griffin: “Well, I got the crap beat out of me 57 times in elementary school for having a crush on Al Gore. It’s true – I think he’s really cute. I don’t agree with his politics, but that smile, I don’t know. So my dad put me in the ring, made me take boxing. So we paid for people to beat the crap out of me, but I got a little self confidence out of it.”

Mark’s mom: “Well, I think you’ve got more than a little self confidence. You’ve got self-esteem, self respect.”

Griffin: “Well, that’s good. What I want is a boyfriend.” (Mom gets visibly uncomfortable, I get a tear in my eye) “No, not Mark. Mark’s in love with Ashley, and he’s not gay. He’s not.” (Mom gets smile of relief) “You’re supposed to say ‘It’s OK if he is. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t define what kind of person you are, your attraction to the same sex, or the opposite sex. That’s just who you are.”

Embarrassed Mark’s mom: “Is that what your parents said to you?”

Griffin:  “Yep. And my older brother. And my brother older than that. By the time I realized I was gay too, it was really OK with the entire family.”

So … the show comes around and slaps a blogger in the face about why Griffin can be so confident and open about being gay in high school. Two gay older brothers. Yep – that may do it. Color me corrected.

But really - Al Gore? Cute, but bad politics? The show is filmed in Canada...Strange couple.

The main character, Amy (who has become so unlikeable) has a little knowledge dropped on her by the following people:  Ben, George, Ashley, Madison, Lauren. Basically everybody except her mom, who's too pregnant to be honest. Amy goes and befriends Heather at Ben's urging, and we think she may be likable again. She even offers to go with her to give birth.

This is how they make Amy likeable again - they give her someone to relate to. Smart.

We also added a cast member – after such a convincing death scene on The Young and The Restless, Zapato has moved to primetime, debuting as Moose.

He flunked out of guide dog school because he likes dialing 9-1-1.

So while the whole thing went a little "After School Special" on us, they explained Griffin, they humanized Amy again, they made Grace admit that she’s not feeling guilty she had sex, but is guilty she enjoyed it.

Basically, they fixed all my complaints, and they still have one episode to go before mid-season break. What’s the cliffhanger going to be? Does Griffin get his wish for a boyfriend, now that Ashley's going to date?