While Becca and Lolly plan their time at Brady residence for Thanksgiving, with Lolly’s favorite Brady aunt Libby set to make an appearance, Sean goes to the bar to apologize to Paige. He didn’t call her about not going to the play and once he inadvertently manages to remind Paige of her loneliness during the holiday, he goes in for the kill by mentioning that he and Becca have gotten back together. Tellingly, Paige doesn’t know if this is something she should congratulate. At the Brady’s, boisterous free spirit Libby arrives while Lincoln is busy ripping into Jamie for falling into academic probation. Having failed two classes, Jamie must now stay in school for another semester and pay for everything himself, a result of his penchant for messing up and putting his father in difficult positions. If that wasn’t enough, on the way back to his room, Jamie runs into Lolly and has an expectedly awkward encounter with his ex, as neither of them know what to say to the other.
Libby tries to get Lolly’s mind off of her boy troubles by pointing her toward the bar, all the while Sean and Becca come barreling toward the Brady residence in their cab. However, things are decidedly distant between the two, with Becca not knowing why Sean has seemed to distracted around her since they got back together. Once the two make the trek up the 10 flights of stairs to the apartment, they run right into Andy and Melanie, both of whom were invited by Becca’s mom due to the Brady friendship with the Kellys. Becca tries to overcompensate for the inherent awkwardness between them by being extra bubbly, except that makes the tension between the four that much more apparent. While Libby tries to give Lolly relationship advice over a drink, telling her would-be protégé that men are nothing to get attached to for longer than six weeks, Sean and Andy head to the living room to watch football with Lincoln. Sean tries to get himself into the conversation using the football knowledge he got from Paige and that confidence causes Andy to wager $50 that the Vikings would beat the Lions and their precious Barry Sanders.
In the kitchen, Melanie gets stuck stringing cranberries, but once Georgie heads out of the room, she lays down the law to Becca. She didn’t come here for her, nor can she stand the sight of her right now, so the best thing for the two to do is keep their distance until this whole ordeal is over. Once Andy’s parents arrive, Lincoln is dragged away from the television to say hello, leaving Sean and Andy to talk amongst themselves. Andy congratulates Sean for getting back together with Becca and assures him that as long as she’s happy, he’s got no problems with their relationship. Elsewhere, Jamie calls Stanton before sneaking into Lincoln’s study, climbing to retrieve a box from a high shelf, and stealing some money. He thinks about stealing some prescription pads, as well, yet Georgie interrupts him before he can do anything. He does manage to what he did hidden from her, though, and quickly leaves the apartment, citing a need to take a smoke break.
While checking on the turkey, Becca burns her hand (much to Melanie’s delight) and rushes to the bathroom to take care of it. Georgie then sends Sean in with some aloe and following some flirting, he kisses her wound and the two have sex. This, of course, is exactly what Becca wanted to happen, both because of her attraction to Sean and because she believes things are back on course now. Everything that just happened also happened in her past, so the life path that she was previously on looks to still be viable. Except Lolly wonders whether Becca is falling in love with the man she only got back together with as some sort of cosmic reset. Out in the living room, Detroit wins the game in the closing minutes and with it, Sean gets $50 richer. However, the victory is tainted when Andy tells him to take Becca somewhere nice with the money.
While Jamie heads to the bar and orders a Snakebite from Paige, who promises to not tell Becca about where he is, Melanie comes to Andy, upset that she has to still be at the Bradys. She feels invisible and really, she just doesn’t want to be around Becca, but she promises to suck it up just for him. Dinner gets delayed for a bit when Georgie realizes Jamie is missing, yet things have to go on as they were planned when he doesn’t answer. His location? The bar bathroom, snorting coke acquired by Stanton. The two talk about going to the Dominican Republic with Stanton’s dad’s private plan, possibly to procure drugs to sell, before Jamie takes the rest of the coke and heads out. At the Brady dinner, Frank offers a heartfelt toast thanking those in attendance for rallying around his son, with the latter also offering a toast, albeit of a different variety. Andy says that while dealing with the fallout from his accident, he had a vision of his life 20 years in the future that saw Melanie as his wife, as beautiful and kind as the day they first met; he then proposes to her and she excitedly accepts.
Becca then retreats to the bathroom, stunned at the news considering that this never happened in her past. Andy and Melanie never got engaged, so things are veering off course again and she’s not dealing well with the possibility of not knowing how her story ends. Lolly tries to give her some perspective by pointing out that Becca got a second chance at life with somebody she loves, something that anybody out there would kill for. The two go back out into the kitchen where Libby gets up to make a toast of her own; while congratulating Andy and Melanie on this huge moment in their lives, she wonders aloud why Becca initially left Sean and why the two are back together now. Sean manages to defend her, saying that she took some time to figure out what she wanted and that he was happy she did so, before Jamie returns home, clearly still feeling the effects of the cocaine.
Becca and Lolly then head back to the bathroom to drink some wine and commiserate, only for Lolly to have to use the phone and Becca to be ran out of the bathroom by Melanie. But before Melanie lets her go, she corrects Becca for congratulating her on her engagement; Martha Stewart, she argues, proclaimed that you give your best wishes to brides and congratulate grooms. Things are better between Lolly and Melanie, though, as Lolly commends her on being smart and brave enough to embrace a committed relationship rather than running from it like a lot of people do. Later, Becca brings Sean some cheesecake and finds him looking through pictures of them from their past. Although he agrees that they weren’t ready to go down the aisle, that doesn’t change the fact that her leaving him nearly destroyed him. He’s wondering why he would ever put himself through something like that again and since he’s come to realize that he’s only chasing what they had, he ends things with Becca, telling her that the encounter in the bathroom was only sex. Nothing more.
Before Lolly can comfort Becca, the two see Courtney and Phoebe arriving together, particularly surprising considering they didn’t know about the coffee shop encounter the morning following their girls’ night. As Phoebe recounts what happened to lead to their meeting, Libby (her mother) makes it clear that she’s had too much to drink and singles Lolly out as the one she wants to put her in a cab. With the night winding down, Becca goes to Jamie’s room and finds that he’s packing for the Dominican Republic. No matter what she does to try and convince him, he’s determined to get out of New York for a while and put some distance between himself and his father; what he doesn’t know, though, is that this trip isn’t going to simply be a weekend getaway.
After hearing that she’s a cuter version of Libby from Libby herself, Lolly is weirded out at the idea of becoming someone so blatantly lonely. Once Becca unloads about Jamie, saying that he was away for a year the last time he traveled with Stanton, she reassures Lolly that she’ll never turn into Libby. Libby ends up alone and Lolly will never be alone, not when she has Becca. That positive attitude from Becca was helped by seeing Phoebe and Courtney together, proof that the universe has some sort of plan. As Andy and Melanie play video games, Sean brings some take out to Paige, and Jamie takes the pad he stole on the plan with Stanton, Lolly and Becca get ready to have a low-key movie night. Except that gets blown to bits when Kevin shows up at the door.
Additional thoughts and observations:
-“My dear, poor, dead Noxema girl…”
-“I’m moving forward. Like a shark.”
-“You know I always go all out for the Solstice.”
-“More importantly, he held my hand.”
-“Didn’t I tell you? I’m also a psychic.”
-“Oh, God, honey, that is such an achievable goal.”
-“Is Aunt Libby the ghost of my Thanksgiving future?”
-“It’s probably hiding in my room. Or causing trouble at the Plaza.”
-Most important question: What’s your favorite song by The Cranberries? I’m partial to “Dreams,” personally.
-So, that look from Becca upon seeing Kevin tells me that he’s not exactly going to be good for her friendship with Lolly. I’m guessing that he plays some type of significant role in the breakdown of Becca’s friendship with Lolly and she doesn’t want to go down that road now that the universe has begun correcting itself again.
-Any theories as to what Kevin could’ve possibly done, assuming that’s why Becca was so freaked out at his presence? My guess is that he came on to her or did something physically inappropriate to her (a grope, a kiss, etc.) and Lolly chose to believe his version of events over hers.
-I kind of like this show’s flexible timeline and philosophy on time travel itself. It’d be too easy if Becca had too much control over her future, while it’d get frustrating if she had no control over the events of her life, so this selective evolution going on in Becca’s life is pretty interesting. Some things are going to happen regardless (e.g. Jamie’s spiral, Phoebe’s relationship with Courtney), but some things are within her realm of influence, an ideology that fits the show much better than the cynicism that’s popped up a time or two thus far.
-Daphne Zuniga sighting! I’m surprised we didn’t get a Melrose Place joke, considering that the show has made a few already, but I’ll happily take a Rebecca Gayheart/90210 reference any day.
-Also, I love how the show continues playing with time. Libby being a Ghost of Thanksgiving Future for Lolly and pushing her to reach out to Kevin struck the right balance between poignant and funny, something that the show has been hitting pretty consistently thus far in its existence. Could this be the event that pushes Lolly to accept that she’s an adult and become the woman that intimidates the hell out of her?
-I know the break up with Sean is likely going to frustrate some folks, but it worked quite well for me. Aside from the strong performances from Laura Ramsey and Craig Horner, the scene as a whole was a nice way of reflecting Becca’s concerns back to her and showing that while she’s on this crazy journey essentially alone, other people are feeling similar emotions to the ones she’s grappling with. Ever since she’s been back in 1995, Becca has had to be wary of not chasing the past, but hearing that the man she loves believes a relationship between them would be more about the past than the future had to have been incredibly disorienting.
-For those curious, the football game they were watching did happen. November 23rd, 1995, the Lions beat the Vikings 44-38. I love a show with a good eye for detail.
-Want to learn more about this show? Entertainment Weekly talked to creator/showrunner Emily Fox about which network Hindsight was previously developed for, how they went about setting the show’s soundtrack, and what the plan is for future seasons.
-Is it weird that I like how they made Andy an asshole here? (Between proposing to Melanie in front of Becca and making the shady comment about Sean taking Becca somewhere nice with his money, it was not a good week to be on Andy’s bad side.) It was a good way to keep him from becoming a Gary Stu and that edge that he showed makes his relationship with Melanie make more sense. Because previously, it seemed like he was a sweet guy attached to a pretty unpleasant partner, but he can kind of match Melanie’s WASP-y passive aggression, which is a surprise.
-That apartment, while very nice, is small enough to where Sean and Becca couldn’t have done it without being noticed. I mean, they’ve had a lot of practice and there wasn’t anybody around the bathroom anyway, but if it was mind blowing sex, wouldn’t she have made enough noise that at least someone would have heard? I ask the tough questions, people. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.
-Next week on Hindsight: Paige invites Sean to work with her at an art gallery, while Lolly struggles to tell Kevin how she feels about him.
