Handling rejection can be incredibly difficult, particularly if the person being rejected was an alien disguised as a human. That came up a lot on 3rd Rock From the Sun as each alien had their affections spurned on more than one occasion. But none of them dealt with it worse than Sally, who took things to another level when she quite literally kicked a man’s door in and utterly destroyed him for not calling her back.
When the aliens known as the Solomons came to Earth and took human form, each one of them was given an assignment. As an alien, Tommy was a wise, grizzled veteran of dozens of missions. But he was assigned to be a student afflicted with puberty. Dick was the leader and had a position of authority as the head of the family, not that any of them really respected him. And Harry was the radio. That’s literally it. His entire job was being communications equipment.
Sally Solomon, on the other hand, was in a much different position. She was assigned the task of learning about being a human woman. And it wasn’t something she really wanted to do at first. She complained bitterly about being a woman and having to deal with a lot of issues her male counterparts didn’t. But after a while, Sally realized she was extremely happy as a woman. Well, except for the dating part of the equation.
Getting into a groove dealing with romantic relationships with men was difficult for Sally. The alien was placed in the body of a full-grown adult woman but she had less than zero experience in this area. Fortunately, other characters like Mary Albright, Nina Campbell and Mamie Dubcek were there to help guide her, though they really didn’t understand why she needed so much help. They just learned to accept the situation as Sally being Sally.
She certainly began to carve her own path as a woman in Season 1, Episode 4. After what Sally thought was a successful date with a man, she sat by the phone waiting for him to call. He said he was going to, so she expected him to. Mary and Nina knew right away that he wasn’t calling Sally back. And, of course, he didn’t. This left Sally a distraught mess, one that Mary and Nina had to help clean up. Then, Sally’s military training kicked in.
Sally went to the man’s apartment, kicked the door in, and beat the crap out of him. That was the most Sally response to the situation possible. She later returned to apologize, revealing the extent of his injuries. But this whole scenario actually turned out to be important to her as she took control of her own sexuality and her relationships with men. It wasn’t the best way possible to do that, though it was effective.
Taking this guy down was a defining moment for Sally. After this point, she was much more empowered around men and took control of situations involving them. She still had a lot to learn about dating and interpersonal relationships, but Sally seemed to be much more confident in her own skin after this incident. While that was important for her, it’s still kind of weird that she didn’t get arrested for assault.
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