Summary
“The McEntire Truth” has Betty contemplate murder, while Violet and David are forced into their worst nightmare — physical activity.
Nobody likes a bullshitter, especially not when their bullshit is more dramatic than yours, which is exactly the problem Betty and Crystalynn run into in “The McEntire Truth”. Those two have a long-standing rivalry over who can spin the best sob story whenever an acquaintance dies, but on this occasion, Marjune steals the show from both of them with a tale of underage prostitution ripped straight from a famous song. Something must be done about this, so Betty and Crystalynn team up to expose her.
In the B-plot of “The McEntire Truth”, Violet and David are instructed by a stand-in gym teacher that they need to train for the presidential physical fitness test despite an agreement with the previous teacher that they can just do their own thing. This is making a pretty overt mockery of hyper-sensitive young liberals — Violet and David immediately cry harassment when they’re shouted at for disrupting a game and call the new teacher a Nazi when he politely asks them to train for the test. Violet spins the story so dramatically that Jenny and Wayne go into school to speak to him, at which point they learn he has a husband and that any emotional terrorism that has been occurring has been directed towards him.
Both of these plots are ridiculous and only get more so as the episode goes on. Wayne and Jenny begin training Violet and David for the test, and Betty and Crystalynn figure that Marjune is planning to kill them. There’s something to be said for the former plot, during which Violet confesses that putting on an air of superiority is just a defense mechanism. There’s probably an element of truth to that, and it’s worth unpacking, but it gives way to a funny but shallower training montage in which Jenny and Wayne use various esoterica to “Mr. Miyagi” the pair into working out. They both pass with the bare minimum of effort, and secretly they’re pretty proud of doing so.
Betty and Crystalynn, having decided to kill Marjune before she can kill them, quickly realize she was being more truthful than they thought and are spared from that drastic decision at the last minute. This leads them both to decide that honesty is probably the best policy, though it’s a bit late to be telling their family that almost everything they’ve ever said is a fabrication. A lesson is learned for the future, though — either of them abiding by it seems pretty unlikely to me.
Thanks for reading our recap of Bless the Harts season 2, episode 6, “The McEntire Truth”. For more recaps, reviews, and original features covering the world of entertainment, why not follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page?
