'Privileged': Nothing says romance like a bunch of really sharp knives

To celebrate the great English poets, I wrote today's Privileged recap entirely in iambic pentameter.

No, no I didn't. But that would have been totally awesome, right?

"I didn't do it." Such is the very first thing Lily says to Megan when Megan comes to visit her in jail, after the two sisters haven't spoken in months. Not 'Nice to see you, Megan,' or 'We have a lot of catching up to do,' or 'Let me tell you about my wedding,' or even 'Does this blue jumpsuit make me look fat?' Lily isn't much for pleasantries. She just quickly explains what happened - she was found with a backpack full of drugs in her hotel room, while new husband Sammy vanished without a trace, leaving Lily to take responsibility - and insists that Megan needs to get her $25,000 bail, believing that Megan now lives in a world where people can just snap their fingers and make $25,000 magically appear.

Megan takes the news back to her parents, with Will driving her. Megan starts to put together a plan of how the family could raise $25,000 without having to mooch off their wealthy associates, but while Will steps in and immediately offers to pay the bail himself, Megan's dad Arthur stops him and says that nobody is going to pay the bail. Arthur thinks that Lily needs a little dose of Scared Straight to get her act together, and could use a little time in jail. Arthur's an AA veteran, and knows that sometimes you need to hit rock bottom before you're willing to pull yourself back up. This decision thus made, Megan, for reasons that would only make sense to Megan, decides that she will be the one to tell Lily the news.

But first, Will and Lily talk about the decision, with Will saying that he totally disagrees with the call and he thinks Megan does too, only Megan wouldn't stand up to her dad. Megan defends her dad, who's trying to do something strong and parental for once - and Megan notes that it's a bit of a relief not to be shouldering all this burden herself, as she's used to. After being the one who had to look after Lily for so long, Megan is grateful to pass the buck this time around. Will thinks it's a cop-out.

In more innocent, less prison-y developments, Sage and Luis have managed to successfully not argue and break up since the last episode, which may be an upset given their tempestuousness. Luis wants to take Sage out on a real date, and of course Sage just laughs at him ... wait ... no, she doesn't do that at all. Instead, Sage is super-nice, and is completely charmed and flattered and says she'd love to go on a real date with Luis. Hmmm. So being smitten has indeed turned her into a puddle of Sage-goo, when I had thought that she would still be the same feisty Sage as always. Instead, humorously, it's Marco who steps into Sage's usual snarky role. Bitter over his breakup with Keith, Marco takes delight in offering catty comments about the young lovers for the duration of the episode.

But Marco can't detract Sage from her suddenly chipper mood, and neither can vaunted frenemy Jordana when the girls go to school. Sage starts tossing out completely unsolicited compliments, and Jordana is thoroughly confused. It's Rose's new boyfriend Zach who ultimately explains that Sage is dating the Bakers' new chef, which excites Jordana, eager to spread the news that Sage is dating "a domestic." Jordana immediately fires off the news to Gossip Girl, or whatever the Palm Beach equivalent is. And Sage still is unassailably happy. Sage knew that people might make fun of her, and she just doesn't care. "He's rich. I'm poor. Gasp," she deadpans.

Rose, who considers herself the chief architect of the Sage-Luis pairing, decides to continue coaching Sage. If being nice to everyone wasn't a tipoff of Sage going soft, then this definitely is. Sage isn't supposed to be getting instructions from Rose; it's always the other way around. But this is Bizarro Sage, and she's grateful for Rose's advice. Rose suggests that they should buy Luis a gift, in order to demonstrate how excited Sage is about the upcoming date.

Sage calls Charlie up to ask what Luis might like, and it's the first that Charlie has heard about Sage and Luis dating one another. Poor Charlie; he's so totally disconnected from the rest of the show. Charlie confronts Luis to ask what he's thinking, possibly ruining his career over some girl. Charlie gives the whole coming-from-two-different-worlds argument. You'd think he'd know better by now, given how that argument has failed to keep Megan and Will apart.

Sage later presents her gift to Luis. It's ... a bunch of knives. Nothing says romance like really sharp knives. Luis is just uncomfortable. Sage is despondent, retreating in shame to consult with Rose. Megan walks in to see the two sisters huddled together, which sends Megan off crying as she ponders her broken relationship with her own sister. "She keeps getting weirder and weirder," Sage observes of Megan in a brief lapse of going back to the old Sage.

Returning to the kitchen, Sage apologizes for her bad gift. But it wasn't a bad gift. It was too good a gift. Luis had been saving up to buy these very knives for himself, before Sage and her money swooped in. The whole rich-girl-poor-boy thing is rearing its ugly head, despite Sage's efforts to insist that it doesn't matter. You can try to ignore the issue all you want, but it's always there. Sage tries to deflect the issue by joking about how it doesn't matter. "Now you're all upset, because I ruined your knife dream," she jokes. But that just makes Luis more upset, thinking that Sage is belittling his dreams.

Meanwhile, when Rose and Sage were plotting on getting a gift for Luis, Zach overheard and thought he was required to get a gift for Rose to show how much he likes her. He responds by presenting Rose with a poem. "Someone is trying way too hard," Sage scoffs. The old Sage is still kicking around in there somewhere; she's only making rarer appearances. Unfortunately, Rose can't understand any of the poem, since it's all Olde English. She eventually runs it by Marco, who recognizes the poem as John Donne. Zach passed off a four-hundred-year-old dead guy's work as his own. Rose confronts him, and Zach sheepishly admits that he actually did write his own poem, only it was embarrassing and lame, so he downloaded a better one off the internet. He shows the other poem to Rose, who accepts his apology and declares this poem much better, given that it actually rhymes, not like that John Donne crap.

Megan checks in with Sage. Not only is Sage taking advice from Rose, but she's actually willing to take advice from Megan. Where have you gone, Sage that I know? Sage happily takes the advice - which is basically just another variant of declaring that the two-different-worlds thing doesn't matter - and it's all very uncomfortable seeing Megan and Sage so chummy. Sage apologizes to Luis for getting in the way of his dream, with the help of a 5,000 piece puzzle and her "dirty kittens." Not a euphemism. And young love is thus successfully restored.

Back in the main plot, Megan has broken the news to Lily about how the family is not going to bail her out, but the key revelation here is actually that we learn that Lily had no idea her mother was in town, since Shelby had not gotten in contact with her at all. Lily is pissed off at everyone, and Megan goes home to cry.

Shelby covertly sets up a meeting with Will. She says that she's seen Lily in the interim, and wants to help get Lily out. Shelby wants to be the one who helps put her family back together, after being the one who broke them apart so long ago. But she'll need to take Will up on his offer to bail Lily out.

So the next day, Megan is stunned to see Lily out and about in town. Megan's annoyed that someone went out and played the hero and bailed Lily out after Megan had to be the one who told Lily she wasn't going to be bailed out, forever cementing Megan's status as being horrible and nasty in Lily's eyes. Will admits that it was his doing, that he gave Shelby the bail money, and Megan becomes even angrier. She basically accuses Will of thinking that he can take his money and go around deciding how the Smiths should solve their problems, because they aren't capable of handling their problems themselves. No matter how much you try to ignore that money issue, it's always lingering.

Megan finds Lily, only to be stunned by Lily's explanation that nobody bailed her out. The cops found Sammy, and the charges against her were dropped. Megan asks about Shelby, and Lily says that Shelby never contacted her. Which means, of course, that Shelby totally played Will for the $25,000. Megan runs to her dad's house, only to find that her mom has skipped town.

The Worst Mother Ever ... Until Whatever Show's On Next
So to recap, Shelby went through a big charade about wanting to reconnect with Megan and the rest of the family, but never bothered to meet with Lily, and instead used the occasion of Lily's arrest to bilk her daughter's boyfriend out of $25,000 and then flee without telling anyone. This is about the time when I should be officially declaring Shelby the worst mother ever. But then, this is TV, and TV is not exactly a place teeming with examples of good parenting. In fact, if you watch enough TV over the next week, Shelby's actions might not even put her in the top five examples of bad parents. There are far more Angela and Arthur Petrellis than there are Eric and Tami Taylors across the television landscape. For instance, immediately after Privileged I flipped over to TNT's Leverage, and this week's episode featured a mother who used the occasion of her daughter's wedding to try to put a hit out on her husband. So Shelby might have been eclipsed in horribleness by the very next mother I saw on another show. In short, TV writers have serious, serious mommy-and-daddy issues.

Michael Cassidy and ... Michael Cassidy
You know the one thing that really stinks for Michael Cassidy about his character getting written off this show? It's happening too late for him to be able to take a role that you'd think he'd be born for. This week's premiere episode of Kyle XY introduced a key new character by the name of ... Michael Cassidy. It's downright awkward to have a character on a TV show possessing the same name as an actor who's not actually playing the character. I remember another example last year, when Heroes introduced a character named Victoria Pratt, and wouldn't let her be played by Victoria Pratt. It's fun to just daydream how such a situation goes. "Sorry, but you're just not Michael Cassidy enough to play Michael Cassidy on our show." Does anyone know of any other recent examples of this phenomenon?

I will feel very much like you're taking a knife to my back if you don't comment. So: on the relative scale of Horrible TV Parents, where does Shelby rate? Do you welcome the kinder, gentler Sage, or are you annoyed that the writers have de-fanged the character? Did Will make the right decision in trying to do the right thing for Megan's family, or does throwing his money around make him the bad guy?