Unfortunately for her, the two end up falling asleep, so the next morning, Lolly freaks out about the possibility of Becca finding out about them. However, she decides that since she and Becca have a lot of insular friend things, she should accept Jamie’s offer to pair with him for the bar’s annual costume contest. It’s something that she and Becca always do together, but Lolly wants to legitimize her relationship with Jamie, given that the two haven’t exactly been painting the town red since getting together. Having never been together in public like that, she thinks this is the perfect opportunity to debut as a couple and get used to what it feels like spending time together away from the bedroom. Once Lolly and Jamie start making out again, though, Becca comes into the room and inadvertently interrupts them. She storms out toward the exit, grabbing her keys along the way, upset about the deception committed by Lolly and the fact she just saw her brother’s penis for the first time since they were children. Lolly manages to catch her, but instead of begging for forgiveness, she tries to ball up Becca’s anger by telling her that she accidentally shrank her black cardigan.
Becca ends up going on three job interviews while being unable to get the vision of her brother’s penis out of her head: a law firm, where she fixes the chair of her interviewer; a photography studio, where she impresses the assistant with her knowledge of digital film; and an insurance company, where she tries to teach her interviewer about Windows 95. Exhausted, she goes to lunch, only to find Andy and Melanie trying to steal some time together in the middle of their day. Melanie, of course, gets the same superficially-sympathetic-but-subtly-antagonistic tone while telling Becca Simon said that she would be asking for the job back and deliberately forgetting the name of Hot Todd, who Lois told her hooked up with Becca following their girl’s night. The topic turns to the costume party that Becca is going to and she ends up inviting both Andy and Melanie, much to her chagrin. When she gets home, Lolly assures her that Melanie’s hostility might be from insecurity, that she might feel threatened from the relationship Becca has with Andy, but Becca is still frustrated at having to interact with someone who blatantly dislikes her.
She gets some good news, though, when she checks her messages and learns that she’s offered all three jobs. That’s tempered a bit when the fourth message is Melanie confirming her impending presence at the party, but things are still looking up, even if only a bit. While telling Lolly about her feelings on the party and Melanie, Becca learns that Lolly had decided to go to the costume contest with Jamie instead of her. As an olive branch to her friend, Becca then reveals the reason (or one of the reasons) that she’s so concerned about Lolly and Jamie – following their initial break-up, she received a worrying call from him that caused her to go to his apartment to check on him. Once she got there, he was in need of medical assistance, so she got him to the hospital where he had to have his stomach pumped. Despite this, she doesn’t want Lolly breaking up with her brother; she just wants her to be careful with him right now. But Becca doesn’t stop there, as she goes over to Jamie’s apartment to try and give him the same message. Whereas Lolly is receptive to Becca’s feelings, Jamie just pacifies her until he can throw her out of his place.
At the bar, Becca informs Lolly that she’s decided against going to the law firm and having to use its 32 flights of stairs on a daily basis. While the photographer is brilliant, he’s a bit creepy and the insurance job has the stability, normal hours, and benefits that she’s looking for. Lolly tries to get it across that this isn’t why Becca came back in time, not for a stable, boring office job. When she suggests working at the bar, though, Becca recoils and winds up offending both Paige and Grumpy Rick with her comments about how dead end that type of career is. After smoothing things over with Paige, who also has someone new in her life, Lolly comes at Becca for answers about who wins the costume contest, which she and Sean dressed as gladiators for the first time. But Becca remembers that she was pulled away by a beep from Simon and didn’t even make it to the party; now that Melanie is working for him, she’s the one who’s not going to be at the party, so Becca has a chance at getting to talk to Andy without any interference.
Lolly and Jamie hit the costume shop looking for ideas for their duo costume and try out a farmer/pig motif before getting into Pulp Fiction garb. Once there, Lolly tries to extend an invitation for him to talk to her whenever he needs an ear and a shoulder, but when he questions her seriousness, she recovers and keeps him from being too weirded out. Over at Melanie’s, she and Andy show each other their costumes – Alice and the White Rabbit – with Andy hating his for being a giant white rabbit suit and nothing else. For her part, Melanie gets the page that Becca did all those years ago and finds herself forced out of the party to deal with an overflowing bathtub. After fielding a call from Melanie and telling her to get in touch with the plumber, Becca puts the finishing touches on her own Alice costume, gets reassurance from Lolly that she doesn’t owe Melanie anything, and heads over to Andy’s. She impresses him with her costume and when he goes into his room to alter his, Becca catches a glimpse of his body and likes what she sees. Elsewhere, Lolly calls Jamie from the costume contest where she’s already in her Beavis costume; Jamie being Jamie, he was too busy getting high and playing video games with his friends to remember the contest, but when he sees what time it is, he flees to the bar as fast as he can.
On the way to the bar, Becca and Andy trade apologies over the awkwardness between them and she straightens his bow tie like she always did in their present day relationship. Staving off one of “those” moments, Andy asks her about the job search, only to indirectly insult Melanie while building Becca up and forcing himself to self-deprecate to cover that up. Jamie arrives at the bar without his costume and with a lame plan to make up for that, but Lolly isn’t exactly amused, nor is she convinced that Jamie can make it to his place, get his costume, and make it back to the bar before the results are handed out. He’s damn sure going to try, though. Just then, Sean walks into the bar in his Axl Rose costume and kisses Paige – he’s the guy that she mentioned starting something up with recently.
As expected, Becca has a meltdown facing Sean for the first time since he came back, which was likely compounded by him moving on so quickly. Lolly manages to talk her down and remind her that she’s here to have fun with Andy, that Sean is allowed to kiss other girls, and that this reaction would’ve happened if it was Paige or some random, but when Becca makes it out of the bathroom, she finds Sean and Andy conversing for the first time ever. The two were simply making small talk (how was Aruba, etc.) and when Andy steps aside for a while, Becca tries to do the same with Sean to much less successful results. Sean makes a crack about her costume, she brings up the relationship with Paige, he gets defensive and angry before walking away. Across the bar, Lolly tells Paige about Becca’s history with Sean, something Paige didn’t know about, before Jamie comes back into the room, this time in his Butt-Head costume. What joy Lolly feels is short-lived, though, when Jamie gets swallowed up by his group of friends and carried away to do God knows what.
Becca gets approached by Hot Todd in a Gordie Howe jersey, only she’s not exactly in the mood to A) talk and B) talk to her one night stand. Luckily, Todd leaves when Andy comes back and the latter asks her whether she’s okay with Sean. She tells him about how she wants to be with someone who makes her feel like she’s won the lottery, a feeling that Andy might not have with Melanie; however, Andy likes being with his girlfriend and that she accepts him for who he is, which he’s not always felt from people in his life. Lolly and Jamie end up winning the contest, but the real action happens after their crowning when Melanie catches Becca intimately adjusting Andy’s tie again. She makes a scene, saying that she should have confronted her when she found out about the kiss, and Sean punches Andy, thinking that said kiss had something to do with his break-up with Becca. Sean subsequently gets thrown out of the bar by Rick and rejected by Paige when he offers her to take her home and bang her to show that he doesn’t care about Becca anymore.
Inside, Becca ices Andy’s lip and apologizes for bringing him out. He returns the apology, his for telling Melanie about the kiss, and tells Becca that Melanie accused him of having feelings for her. And she wasn’t wrong. Too overwhelmed to make any sense of that right now, Becca hands Andy his hat and tells him he better be heading home. Back outside, Jamie wants to get in the cab and go celebrate his win with his friends; Lolly, however, isn’t into it, not on the night she thought would be her first real date with him. Instead of partying, she tells him that they’ll talk tomorrow and frustrated that she won’t take the trophy, he throws it on the ground and destroys it while the cab pulls away. Later, Becca and Lolly hang out on the roof, with the latter lamenting that she can’t stop thinking about the future and that she let those fears plague her present with Jamie. Becca commiserates regarding her indecision in her personal and professional lives. But Becca gets some primo advice this time, as Lolly tells her that she’s been too scared to make decisions ever since she’s been back. Quitting her job and leaving Sean at the altar were easy because she knew how those ended; figuring out what comes after that requires taking a leap and leaving herself vulnerable, though Lolly assures her that the universe has her back. If it doesn’t, Becca’s just like the rest of us.
Becca decides to reject the law office, the insurance agent, and the photographer, opting for the universe to take care of her decision for her. It just so happens that Mary, the insurance agent, calls her back and tells her that her cousin Chester is starting up a magazine and is looking for an intern. When Becca meets with him, the two bond over computers and she finds out her job – checking out bands and clubs and prognosticating what’s on the verge of becoming cool.
Additional thoughts and observations:
-“Don’t worry. You wee brilliant before you time traveled and then you frickin’ time traveled.”
-“Oh, is that a clown horn in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”
-“You are the worst time traveler ever!”
-“And Lolly’s not a goldfish.”
-“I’ll be right back. I need to tell the bus boy he’s wasting his life.”
-“He seems so much happier since you started working here.”
-“Doogie Howser?” “Virgin?”
-“Ew, Beavis and Butt-Head don’t kiss.” “Since when?”
-Non-Exhaustive List of 90s Songs Included on Hindsight: James “Laid”; Bryan Adams “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?”; TLC “Creep”; Collective Soul “The World I Know”; Mazzy Star “Fade Into You”; The La’s “There She Goes”. The show also included a 1983 Violent Femmes song (“Blister in the Sun”) and “Nothin’ But a Good Time” from Poison, the latter of which coming out in 1988.
-The Collective Soul song was made a single in November 1995, outside of this show’s current timeline, but the album it was released on came out in March of that year, so I’ll allow it.
-If you like the music on Hindsight, VH1 has you covered – the show has a Spotify playlist.
-Be sure to note that Hindsight will be changing time slots beginning next week. As opposed to airing at 10:00 every Wednesday, the show will now be coming on at 9:00, with Mob Wives shifting to 8:00. Is this a good thing? I think so, since VH1 is not shy about letting you know how it feels about a show through its scheduling. Just recently, Suave Says was moved out of primetime for its final run of episodes, while controversial Sorority Sisters had its final episodes burned off on a Friday, so Hindsight getting moved to a higher viewed time period is a win. Here’s hoping that the show gets the ratings bump it needs to move into renewal contention.
-Lolly’s British accent reminded me of Minnie Driver, for some reason. Also, I adored the cat shirt.
-I appreciate that Jamie’s initial entrance was very Sam Anders from Clarissa Explains It All. Y’know, if Sam wore freaky clown masks. That would have been a very special episode of Clarissa, I think.
-The next time somebody gets mad at you, do what Lolly did and throw out other reasons for them to be mad at you. Let them get all their anger out at once and let me know how it goes. Because frankly, it seems like a brilliant strategy, as long as you lead with the biggest thing first.
-I liked that this episode was all about confirming information. We have Melanie knowing about the kiss (she didn’t see it, but I wholly buy that Andy would’ve told her) and Becca telling Lolly the reason for her trepidation about a relationship with Jamie (though I don’t believe that’s everything), both important movement for the show to make without this episode feel like Exposition City.
-We also had some baby steps toward character development for Paige (she’s not a great actress! and she likes hot dudes from down under!) and Becca taking a job that allows her to explore her interests while paying the rent, so good outing, Hindsight. You slowly give depth to your recurring characters and close a financial plot hole that could have grown bigger by the episode.
-We’ve not had any Xavier for a couple of episodes. Any bets on when he pops up next? And under what context will Becca see him again?
-When Paige mentioned being with a new guy, I swear I thought it would turn out to be Xavier. He’s a regular at the bar anyway and the angel Halloween costume seemed like an in-joke about Xavier maybe being Becca’s guardian angel (or non-union equivalent). But Hindsight snatched away that football, so I’m curious what they do with a character like this. Is he too other worldly to pop up on a regular basis?
-The Friends spoilers were the best thing. That’s what I like about this show – it always does something with the pop culture references it makes. It’s not content to rattle off a list of recognizable touchstones from the 1990s and it’s quite capable at weaving these moments in pop culture into the fabric of the characters it’s created.
-It’s interesting that Becca is so wrapped up in keeping Lolly and Jamie apart that she’s not doing much to steer Jamie away from the life she knows he led after the break-up. I understand why she wants to keep him and Lolly apart, but you’d think that if the future was so bleak for him, she would be trying to exert a positive influence on him now vs. playing God with his love life.
-The dressing up montage of Lolly and Jamie in the costume shop was super cute. It took a staple of 90s pop culture (the montage) and tweaked it with the song choice (The Violent Femmes), making it more distinct and less dependent on the recognizability of that particular type of scene.
-It seems like Becca will be freaked out by the progress she and Andy made this episode. Although she (rightfully) wants to stick it to Melanie, things got very real very fast with the bow tie and the fight and I don’t think Becca, who just had a pep talk about taking risks and not falling back into old habits, would want to get back with him or even pursue anything this quickly into her new journey.
-I love that this episode had Lolly talking Becca down immediately after her breakdown started. Other shows would’ve played Becca’s panic longer or had Lolly co-sign her friend’s feelings, but Hindsight acknowledges said feelings before dissecting and, eventually, invalidating them without coming down too hard on Becca. It might be understandable, at least on some level, why Becca panicked, yet it still says more about her than it does Sean or Paige.
-That rooftop conversation resonated with me more than I expected. I’m a pretty conservative (not ideologically), indecisive person by nature and I often kick myself for not taking more chances or putting myself out there, so hearing Lolly nudging Becca to take more risks was genuinely inspiring. Like anything in life, risk-taking is something best done in moderation – you just have to know when to pull back and when to go for it. The trick to being happy is figuring that out and being able to implement that knowledge into your everyday life.
-Next week on Hindsight: Becca’s first work assignment leads to a road trip with Lolly and Paige, while Jamie tries to broker peace between Andy and Sean and Lolly encounters an old friend.
