Fred's Folly....Elly's Awareness Deficit.

[dreadedcandiru2]

Of course, the most irritating thing about this "Meet the girlfriend's no-class idiot hick family" arc is not that Mike comes to the stupid conclusion that the MacRaes are unlike him and his own family. The most irritating thing is that Elly appears to have not understood what happened in the first place. She gives off the appearance of being so out of touch with reality that she probably thinks that Mike having to meet Rhetta's parents is the first time one of her kids had been asked to present himself for inspection. If I'm reading her reaction to Mike's complaining about Martha's relatives right, it almost looks as if she thought he was on an overly-chaperoned date with That Girl.

This is because Elly probably never got to the stage of having to be introduced to a boyfriend's folks because I'm convinced that Jim got in the way of her having them. Since Elly never quite managed to anticipate something she didn't herself experience, it probably had to be explained to her that the correct thing to do is have a sit-down with someone's mom and dad in order for them to get to know you. My guess is that John and Marian had to back one another up in getting her to see the light.