When she gets back to her office, it's Amy who's waiting for her, looking very, very glum. "Hey, what a surprise," Kate says gamely. Amy, wearing a very weird-looking goldenrod suit with much-too-chunky pearls, annoyedly says that Michael cancelled on her for Thanksgiving. Kate tries to look surprised. "Did he give a reason?" she asks. Amy says that he told her he has to stay in town and see his elderly aunt. LAME! Kate says she didn't even know Michael had relatives in town, and Amy complains some more about how disappointing this is. She says that all she wanted was "one weekend with [her] parents thinking that everything was exactly right in [her] life." Wow, that's a good reason to take a guy home with you. If he got that vibe, I can't imagine why he might have felt uncomfortable. She says that now, she'll have to sit through an excruciating conversation with her parents about why he's not coming and so forth. "I can't believe he didn't think this through before he committed to you," Kate says, accurately but disingenuously. "I know -- would you tell him that?" Amy says. Kate is forced now to backpedal, saying that this is really between the two of them, and she doesn't want to be in it. I'm not sure what Amy is hoping it would accomplish to have Kate run interference, since once the guy backs out on you, guilting him into coming with you anyway isn't exactly going to make you happier in the long run, but Amy persists in this request that Kate jump in and intervene on her behalf. Kate continues to resist, and throws back in Amy's face the fact that she seemed to want Kate out of the picture not too long ago. Amy cries the lonely wail of the serial apologizer, saying that she doesn't understand how Kate can say that after she already said she was sorry. Amy argues that she's "a friend in need," and Kate sticks to her story that Amy will have to talk to Michael herself. "I wish there was more I could do," Kate says. "Sure you do," Amy snots. She certainly does have trouble making up her mind on the issue of whether she can run her life herself, doesn't she?

This is my problem with this show, I think -- I never understand where Kate is coming from. I mean, I don't mind that it's fluff, but I should still be able to follow the basic outlines of the main character's emotional responses. It's like those movies where everyone has to be dumb for it to work. Why doesn't she just date Michael? He obviously likes her, she likes him, they're both single, they're attracted to each other...what's her problem? Why does she flog herself by continuing to set him up with other women? Why doesn't she have any sense of what's appropriate, and why does she come off as indignant toward Amy and not even a little bit sorry for not telling her that she already knew Michael was going to break it off? I just can't quite lock on to Kate's feelings, so I can't entirely relate, and that's why the show's not working on me, despite the fact that I like romantic comedy, and I like Alicia Silverstone, and I like David Conrad. It should work, and it doesn't work, and I guess it's just one of those things.