'The Secret Life of the American Teenager' debates Ben and Amy's relationship

How exactly did Ben and Amy go from getting married to being less than friendly over the course of something like five episodes on The Secret Life of the American Teenager? At the start of tonight's episode they were quite broken up, brokenhearted about it, but broken up (or perhaps just on a break).

Lauren and Madison, or as I like to think of them, the dynamic dunces, were doing their best to be on Amy's side tonight. They weren't on the same side as each other for reasons too frivolous and obscure and Lauren's brother-related to name, but they were both on Amy's side. In their mind Ben was entirely at fault, in Henry and Alice's mind it was totally Amy's fault. Bet you didn't see that coming, did you? You probably didn't also see coming the fact that both Amy and Ben wanted to get back together.

Oh wait, no, both those were pretty obvious, what was less obvious was why exactly Amy would listen to Lauren and Madison's advice on her not getting back together with Ben. Alice and Henry were giving Ben the exact same bad advice, making me wonder when exactly teens stopped betting on love. Seriously, if any of you out there are teens, please explain this phenomenon. Shouldn't you guys still be taking part in Romeo and Juliet-like antics?

Now, Ben and Amy may have gotten back together tonight if Ricky hadn't been around. He made her cry talking to her about giving up the baby and then gave her a hug to apologize. At that very instant Grace, Adrian, and Ben came into the hall, thereby messing up everyone. Ricky made it clear later that he definitely has designs on Amy and is no longer interested in anyone else. We'll see how long that lasts.

Amy finally broke down at the end of the episode in front of Leon and Donovan (that possible adoption scenario seems to be moving forward). They took her over to Ben's place but the two crazy kids didn't get a chance to talk as Mr. Boykewich said Ben needed some time to think about the relationship. D'oh.

Perhaps the best thing tonight was Kathleen and Marshall Bowman's little plot. It all started with Kathleen suggesting that she was getting drunk and cheating on Marshall with herself during the afternoons. Okay, it didn't start there, it started with Marshall telling her that he was distressed that they hadn't had much sex lately (and here I thought they were married and that he would have known to expect as much). Marshall was upset about her lying about how her relationship with George ended. I figured it was going to be a big fight. Turns out, not so much. She apologized and he picked her up and started to fireman carry her upstairs so as to end their drought. But, as this is an ABC Family show it turned out that Tom was upstairs and so Marshall just went back to work. We didn't see it, but I'll give you one guess what Kathleen did next (she still had the wine bottle out). She was still apparently in the mood however when hubby got home, because when we next saw them they were in the afterglow.

Kathleen came downstairs to find Tammy and Tom in their bathrobes. She was in her bathrobe too, so we all know what she instantly thought Tom and Tammy were doing. They weren't, they were just in the hot tub together earlier (and they announced that their nuptials would be occurring down the line).

While I'm discussing odd things, apparently Shawna, Jack's hook-up from last week, doesn't have a boyfriend. She lied because she was having trouble with the fact Jack was younger than her, but their going out now anyway. Duncan didn't approve of it this evening, something about statutory rape, but it's happening anyway.

Far less odd was the fact that Adrian and Grace threw down in the middle of the school tonight, that battle was a long time coming. Adrian taunted Grace into calling her a "bitch" instead of just the "'B' word," and the hair-pulling commenced. It didn't progress past that as it was all about Ricky and Adrian was already onto the idea of sleeping with her brother, so the two broke out into the giggles and went to get a cup of coffee (that was when they walked in on the Ricky/Amy hug).

I think the question of the week this week is pretty clear -- who are you rooting for, Ben or Ricky? I'm pulling for Ben all the way.

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