At the Harwood house, Tina is cutting vegetables when Casey enters and demands five minutes of her time. Tina informs Casey that she will not apologize for her actions. Casey asks about the incident in Sarajevo, and Tina explains that she collided with another skater who got hurt, and she was suspended. By the time she was reinstated, she was 26 and too old to compete. Tina admits that she deeply regrets the incident.

Casey asks Tina to coach her for sectionals, since she doesn't have a coach and Tina doesn't have a skater. Tina tells Casey she doesn't have what it takes, but Casey replies that she gave up Harvard for this. Tina tells Casey to meet her at the Harwood Skating Club the following morning.

Back home, Casey argues with her mom about letting Tina back her life. Joan accuses Casey of simply wanting to be "glamorous," but eventually admits that some people will always hate the prom queen. Casey pleads with her mom to come see her skate. Joan refuses and storms out of the house.

When Teddy remarked in the previous chapter that Casey was not going to win without some help, one might have assumed he was referring to her devoted friends such friends as Ann, Gen, or himself. As Casey comes crawling back to Tina, however, it becomes chillingly apparent that Teddy (with his 3 tons of romance) was nothing more than an emissary for his ill-intentioned mother. Setting aside the question of how Teddy could be so spectacularly insensitive as to suggest that Casey invest her dream in Tina after such a betrayal (a suggestion that notably occurs off-screen), it is worth noting that Tina is waiting for Casey with a sharp kitchen knife in her hand, perhaps ready to engage in mortal combat with the hussy who bewitched her daughter into quitting ice skating.

Again, however, Tina underestimates Casey as a worthy adversary, and instead of asking for the requisite apology, Casey goes in for the kill by demanding two things far more painful:

1. A personal recount of the most painful experience of Tina's life
2. A commitment to spend countless hours in the same room as Casey

While it is once again remarkable that Casey lacks the wherewithal to hit the school library and Google the words "Tina Harwood Sarajevo," it is a valuable piece of character development to see Tina express genuine regret that her actions in Sarajevo have cost her so dearly. This lament strongly indicates that Tina has learned some kind of lesson in the intervening decades, and her enduring lack of remorse for throwing Casey under the bus can only lead to speculation that maybe Casey deserved it after all.

Nevertheless, Tina comes away with a second chance to support Casey's dream by acting as her coach; similarly, we observe that Joan has been given a second chance to support Casey's dream by acting as a good mom. Unfortunately, while the audience can certainly sympathize with Joan's disbelief that Casey "would even consider letting that woman back into [her] head," her startling bitterness when it comes to ice skating suggests that she, in fact, was the skater injured by Tina in Sarajevo back in 1984. (In such case, it seems reasonable to assume that Joan was competing under the name "Yancy Merrigan.")

But if the Carlyles have a special talent for bringing out the worst in Tina Harwood, it is worth noting that Joan displays the worst of herself at all times, especially when it comes to manipulating her daughter in cruel and petty ways (seen earlier at the dinner table ). Joan's wry admission, "I guess no matter how old we get, the rest of us will still always hate the prom queen" -- a defense which is, frankly, pathetic on top of inadequate -- lulls Casey into believing that her mother accepts some responsibility for the divide between them. As though luring Casey into the middle of a tightrope before cutting the wire, however, Joan waits for Casey's reassurance that she loves her no matter what before screaming at Casey that she, in fact, does not love her back no matter what.

While it could easily be argued that Joan's behavior is even more diabolical than Tina's strategy of buying Casey new skates just to watch her fall, the fact remains that Casey totally blew her chance to move away from these horrible people and study at the best university in the country. Thus, the film's strategy of forcing the viewer to like Casey by comparison ultimately backfires; at this point, Tina could take Casey to sectionals and shoot at her from a helicopter in the middle of her triple axel and it would still be Casey's own damn fault.