On there being too many parents.

[dreadedcandiru2]

The interesting thing about the current arc is that just after Connie leaves, we find ourselves dealing with the fact that it takes until pretty much till early February for Jim and Marian to leave. We never have an explanation as to why it is that the two of them are there because it's not as if John and Elly are going on one of their kid-free vacations in the sun but what we do get is the same thing that happens whenever Elly's parents show up: Marian takes over the parenting while Jim staves off boredom by looking around the house for things to fix.

The odd thing about that is that at least Jim is aware that what he's doing constitutes something of a problem. As I've said before, Marian seems to be less willing than he is to let go of the being a parent thing than Jim is and it shows. The end result is that we're dealing with a situation in which when they return to Vancouver, Jim is at least aware that Elly will have a lot of work to do undoing the damage they did while Marian doesn't even understand that a problem existed.