Phil's hand-over.

To get back to where I was the other day, it seems that the Pattersons aren't the only people who have a sort of hand-over effect now that the Middle Years are upon us. Phil also gets to transition from one state to the next. Before this arc, he was sort of a foil for Elly in that he called into question her need to get married before she had the least idea who she actually was. The need to fix his life seems, at least to me, to be a foreshadowing of how she'd later try to steer the children to careers she wanted herself to have in order to prove to herself that she hadn't totally screwed her life up by marrying the first man who'd dated her more than twice.

He's still sort of a foil for her in that he's really starting to resent how she's hijacking decisions he and Georgia should be allowed to make on their own. My guess is that if someone with a ponytail had not reassured Georgia that Phil's concerns were all just noise because he never knew what was good for him, Phil wouldn't have made that noise about going down in flames and making a huge mistake. Every decision he made until he left town was colored by his fear that somehow, Elly would take over because, despite what their parents might think, she thinks that she gets to boss him around forever because she won't let go of the past and she won't blame her mother for the way things rolled out.