Speechless – B-O-N–BONFIRE

By starrymag | October 8, 2016

By: Taylor Gates

 

Maya (Minnie Driver) and Jimmy (John Ross Bowie) wake all the kids up at three in the morning to help pack—all of their stuff needs to be out of their old house in four hours. Ray (Mason Cook) is disgusted and embarrassed by all the junk the family has, but Maya tells him that they have challenges other families don’t. Jimmy also loves collecting other peoples’ mishmashed trash and JJ (Micah Fowler) is having fun plowing through the mess in his wheelchair.

 

Kenneth (Cedric Yarbrough) spies Dylan (Kyla Kenedy) about to go for a jog and makes a philosophical comment about how she pushes herself to run for JJ since JJ can’t walk. This blows Dylan’s mind and she starts to ponder more deep questions, like what she is running from.

 

The DiMeos eat licorice around the breakfast table because they’re the DiMeos and that’s how they roll. JJ tells everyone about the popular new friends he has made and the fact they’re pranking a rival school for homecoming week. Jimmy and Maya are thrilled that JJ is one of the cool kids. At lunch, JJ’s friends tell him about the epic homecoming bonfire where the young, chill teachers chaperone and let everybody drink. Unfortunately, the bonfire is at Dragon’s Cove, a hard to get to location. This means JJ won’t be able to go.

 

Ray walks home with his crush, Jillian (Lukita Maxwell), who asks to see some of his astronomy equipment. Jimmy yells for Ray to help him move a giant soda bottle sculpture he found on the street. Ray gets embarrassed and asks Jillian to meet him downtown instead, but she declines.

 

Maya has made JJ a new, cooler communication board with phrases like “sup,” “hey girl,” and “Kanye.” She accidentally forgot “bathroom” so she figures “hell yeah, bitch” can mean restroom as well. JJ shows her the flier for the bonfire and she asks if he’s okay with missing out. He shrugs, clearly disappointed, before going off to his room. Maya frustrated crumples and throws the paper.

 

Dr. Miller (Marin Hinkle) announces over the intercom that the bonfire has been cancelled because it would exclude an anonymous student. Surprise, surprise—it turns out Maya is the one who cancelled it since JJ seemed so sad everyone could go but him. JJ isn’t happy with Maya’s actions, which confuses her. Back at his special education school, all the moms took turns canceling events and everyone was equal and happy. Regardless, she promises to fix it.

 

Dylan’s track teammates are concerned about her—she hasn’t trash talked any of them all practice. Dylan admits that her world collapsed when she found out the real reason she runs. Her teammates then reflect and find out there might be reasons they run beyond just fun, too.

 

Jimmy shows Ray what he has been working on all day; he has thrown a lot of their clutter out and made their house nice and clean with some matching furniture. Ray is ecstatic about the change.

 

The bonfire has been moved the gym so that everyone can attend and it’s the epitome of lame. The fire is fake, the chaperones are overbearing and nobody is having fun. Maya tells Dr. Miller that she better figure out a way to get the teenage hormones flying, suggesting alcohol should do the trick.

 

Ray texts Jillian that she’s welcome at his house any time. He tells Jimmy that he’s so happy—this is a new chapter in their lives. Jimmy; however, can’t resist when he spots a pile of amazing-looking garbage on the side of the road. There is even a set of lamps, which is too tempting for him to pass up.

 

Dr. Miller and Mr. Powers (Jonathon Slavin) lead a powwow where the student body explains their feelings about the bonfire event. Everyone is frustrated that the best activity of the year got ruined. Zach (Jeromy Ramos) says it’s actually disrespectful to not be mad at JJ, as they would be angry at any able-bodied student that ruined the bonfire. Dr. Miller is thrilled that they’re all expressing their resentful feelings so articulately, but Kenneth is irritated that they all betrayed JJ.

 

Jimmy and Ray finish loading up their van, but they hear a scream while driving away. It turns out they didn’t steal trash. Instead, they accidentally took everything a girl was packing for college. Ray demands that Jimmy quickly drive away, asking how he remains so calm when their family does crazy stuff like this. Jimmy explains that other people’s opinions mean nothing when a doctor gives you a long list of everything your kid is never going to be able to do. However, JJ is smart, funny and cool so he’s ready to take on whatever life throws at him. Although normal might seem cool, bulletproof is better. Inspired, Ray grabs the trash bag and marches back to the house to return it.

 

When Kenneth and JJ get home, Kenneth admits to Maya that the night only got worse from the time she left. Maya blames it on the school—they put on the worst alternative bonfire of all time. Kenneth trepidatiously tells Maya that even though the way she fights for JJ is beautiful, the fact that he is at a normal high school now means his mom can’t go trying to solve all of his problems all the time. When Kenneth leaves, Maya apologizes for accidentally making life harder for JJ. He lets her in on a secret—he actually wanted her help as he doesn’t know how to do this whole normal high school thing either.

 

Ray returns the stuff he and Jimmy took. It turns out the things belong to the older sister of a girl in his grade and all of her friends (including Jillian) are over at the house. Everyone crowds around the door to watch him deliver the items and Jimmy pulls him away before he digs himself into a deeper hole by explaining why he thought the stuff was garbage.

 

Maya has a brilliant plan to get JJ’s friends back. She ties his wheelchair to a touchdown pole below a sign that reads “Eastlake is #1. Lafayette is RUBBISH!” She then places the key to the rope in front of the wheelchair and hides behind a football pad to watch everything go down. JJ’s friends on the football team totally fall for it, believing Eastlake pranked them by tying up JJ. One of his stupider friends; however, chucks the rope key across the field much to Maya’s horror.

 

They all get revenge for JJ by playing rough at the game that night, even though Maya set the poor kids up.