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There once was a girl named Lux who lived in a faraway land called Portland (a land that looked suspiciously like Vancouver). Lux had a hole in her heart in more ways than one. An intangible hole from being given up for adoption by her teen parents as well as a genetic one she developed at birth. This physical hole was so deep that it took three years for young Lux to become fully formed. By then nobody wanted her. And it wasn't the only way in which Lux wasn't like other girls. (Well… unless by "other girls" you mean Rory Gilmore and Juno. She's fairly similar to them in that precocious, snarky mold.) Hardened by a life that led her to a bumbling, apathetic foster parent with a pointedly ironic name and a leering ginger-haired son, Lux wanted more than anything to become emancipated.
To capture her freedom, Lux had to go on a mighty quest and retrieve the waxen seals of her birth parents. In the ancient days they called this a plot device. So Lux traveled all over the land or, you know, across town. There she met her biological father, a gallant Knight named Baze who had taken the glory he found from slaying the fiercest dragons the high school football field could offer to open his very own mead hall. After father and daughter forged their sacred bond over YouTube, Baze joined Lux on her quest. He took her to the highest point in the land, where signals transmitted the voice of an Ice Princess named Cate Cassidy. It turns out that Baze was the only knight who'd ever succeeded in melting Cate's cold heart, using a potion of Zima and hypnotic pop music a coven of aging witches had brewed for him. But those were days long ago. In the present, Cate is betrothed to a Prince Charming named Ryan, who transmits his voice along with hers from the land's peak. And Lux was astonished to learn that it was her mother's voice she had listened to and kept as a guiding compass all those years.
Having secured both her birth parents' seals, Lux took her request before the kingdom's judge. But, because of Lux's meager means and uncertain destiny, the judge denied the girl. Lux returned to her humble home to find her evil foster mother had disowned her. Overnight, Lux became a ragged peasant -- a peasant with stunningly silken hair, but a peasant nonetheless. All the while, the Ice Princess and the Knight were anxious about their child's fate, so they met and reminisced about ye olden days. One mead led to another, and they found themselves in a passionate embrace. The day, they parted ways again, never to see each other again. As Cate secreted away from Baze's abode, she found little rag girl Lux and took a solemn oath to welcome the girl into her castle. Everyone from the jesters to Prince Charming joined in the merriment, wearing motley attire and consuming flaming baked goods. Suddenly Lux was a girl that somebody wanted -- two somebodies, in fact! And they all lived happily ever after. At least until the Prince finds out his princess has been humpin' around…
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!We open on shots of Portland, Oregon, as a morning radio host, Cate, and her partner in crime, Ryan, play Sex-Marry-Kill. They've chosen the name Jessica, and predictable Jessica Simpson jokes ensue. While they talk about Cate's distaste for marriage, a teenage girl listens in her bathroom and smiles along. Cate moans about her cloyingly romantic boyfriend, and Ryan gives her the full snark about how she should have gone hurled a remote at him for being such a sap. As they banter, the youngster takes off her towel to check out her tittays. As you do. And then AAAAH! It's the ghost of Ron Weasley! No, just the girl's perv of a younger brother. The girl hurls her shampoo bottle at him (see what they're doing there with the parallel actions?) and stomps into the kitchen to complain to her mother. Make that foster mother, pointedly named Foster, who essentially says she's not getting paid enough to care about whiny little bitches. The precocious girl, Lux, takes her to task for being a lame parent and tells her that after her sixteenth birthday in two days, none of them will have this problem. Lux is going to get emancipated and blow this banana stand. Tough talk for a girl in a borrowed towel. The mum doesn't seem to down about it. She practically tells Lux not to let the door hit her on the way out.
As Lux wanders around town, we join a sleeping guy and his high-strung girlfriend. She searches for her running shoes and dresses him down a bit for being layabout bar owner. He says he's just following his dream to drink for free. Now that's a career path I can get behind. He finds her running shoe -- which he was sleeping on? -- and pulls her back into the bed for some more hanky panky. Ahhhh, morning breath make outs.
Lux continues her mysterious journey on the bus as Cate and Ryan take a call from a fan. The caller wants to find the right guy, settle down, and have a million babies. Obviously this is a fictive world in which no Duggars exist because Cate zeroes in on the fact that having a million babies is physically impossible. Ryan reads between the lines, calling Cate out for being such a baby hater at 32 years old. Crosscut between Cate explaining that the only person one can depend on is herself and Lux walking the streets alone like a spunky little ragamuffin. The show ends as Lux finds her destination -- a bar. Could it be? Yeah, it totally is. Cate and Ryan continue their quick-witted banter off air, revealing that the lobbed remote in question was aimed at Ryan's head. They're not just co-hosts. They're lovers! And she hates children, the enterprise of love, and any sort of commitment. Get it?
The layabout by day, bar owner by night makes his way into his humongous living room where one friend is blending smoothies and another is escorting out a booty call. She was the maid of honor at a bachelorette party. They're irresponsible, freewheeling bachelors. Get it? The door buzzes, and our man answers to find Lux. She needs a signature but heartily doubts that he should be the one she needs it from. Which totally means he is. The guys ask who's at the door, and he tries to wave her off, thinking she's a Girl Scout. The friends automatically start rattling off their cookie orders. Mmmmmm, Samoas... Lux starts to explain herself a little less bumblingly, saying she's looking for Nathaniel Bazile. That's our guy. She can't stop herself from chuckling since he's clearly not the guy she was expecting. He cluelessly continues on with this Girl Scout bit, so she lays it out there -- albeit in an overwrought way -- "I'm not a Girl Scout. I'm... comprised of half your gene pool." Just in case he's as dumb as he looks with his MILF shirt on, she spells it out. She's his daughter. He laughs incredulously. He's the only one laughing. She repeats herself for good measure, and the bros realize with a frown that they won't be getting their Samoas any time soon. Credits.
When we return, Lux has made her way into Baze's home and is breaking down what exactly happens when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much. Or, as is more likely in this case, what happens when two horny teenagers don't use proper protection. Baze isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, so Lux explains that she was rooting through her paperwork and found out her birth parents never signed a release of rights, so if he and her biomom sign this piece of people, she can be emancipated on her birthday. Conveniently, she was able to get a sneak peek at the paperwork, and his name and address just happened to be right on top.
Right after she gets to the rub, Baze's jogger bra of a girlfriend bounces into the house en route for a post-run wee and doesn't even bother to notice the teenage girl randomly in her boyfriend's apartment. He gets anxious and tries to shoo her out, but she won't take no for an answer. If he doesn't sign in the day and a half, she's got a two-year sentence in the foster care system with leering foster brothers and even more leering foster dads. As he signs, she tells him to "riffle through the memories of teenage girls you impregnated." He tells her nonchalantly that Cate Cassidy is her mom. Neither number one fan Lux nor the bros can believe it. Apparently Baze and Cate had a pretty hate-hate relationship in high school. One of them, weirdly named Math, even goes so far as to suggest Baze may have roofied her. Rest assured he did not, he just got his game on. Before he can outline the plays, the jogger bra returns to the room mid-conversation. Baze blatantly steps in front of Lux and the bros shuffle around in the background. JB doesn't fall for it for a second. We fade away as Baze stumbles to explain the 15-year-old in his living room.
Meanwhile, Cate and Ryan are moving things around in her house. Amidst the rubble Ryan has conveniencidentally found her high school yearbook and decides to play a round of Sex-Marry-Kill with it. And who she he flit his shifty eyes to as the third option but Nathaniel Bazile? Cate desperately tries to grab the yearbook from his hands, but he's too quick. Luckily, the scuffle distracts him, and he starts hazing her for her failed attempt at Mary Stuart Masterson hair. She returns to organizing her things and turns her back for a minute. He takes the opportunity to pull a box out of his pocket and get down on one knee. She turns around to see him assuming the position and acts dumbfounded. He pops open the box and begins his proposal, but she wallops him on the shoulder for "surprising" her. I'm pretty sure that's the standard way there, girly. Needless to say, the way this is going down would not rank amongst Ryan's best case scenarios.
Cut back to Baze's apartment, where he is trying to tell JB about Lux. Except he can't even remember her name. Harsh. He says he never even knew Cate went through with having the baby. As JB drinks it all in, Lux tries to make herself scarce. She asks for Cate's number and manages to get in a dig at Baze's thinning hair. Heh. JB interrupts to tell Baze he needs to make this right by calling Cate and telling her himself. The bros, who are full-on eating popcorn at this point, agree.
Back at Cate's, she debates Ryan whether they even know each other well enough to get married. They've been together for two years, but they've never lived together, which she considers a stumbling block. Ryan runs down a list of intricate details about Cate that are, frankly, pretty generic (she doesn't like the word "moist" -- who does?) and which climax by him calling her incredibly screwed up. But it seems to do the trick. She tells him to propose again. He gets shy all of a sudden, so she begs. He foregoes the knee stuff this time, and she gets all googly-eyed at the ring as she accepts. He puts it on her finger, and they kiss. Naturally, at that moment, the phone rings. The answering machine picks up, and they kiss as Baze's voice pipes around the room. Cate scrambles to the phone and only lets him get about five words in (including "and, um, we kind of did it that time...") before she hangs up and tells Ryan it was a wrong number.
That night, Lux is still at Baze's apartment. She paces around trying to figure out how to get hold of Cate while Baze and the bros chill. He tells her she ought to do the same, maybe hit up the FacePlace or watch the YouTubes. Lux begins a self-consciously quirky rant about how she hates YouTube, which somehow becomes a justification for her desire to become emancipated. Not the, you know, shitty parents and living conditions. Blame it all on YouTube! She finishes her Grownup-flavored Haterade, but Math has a rebuttal to her YouTubeism: Christian the Lion. Math gets emotional at the very thought of Christian's heart-tugging story. Baze slams him for a being a weeper. And yet! Moments later, he and Lux are both sitting in front of the screen teary-eyed. Baze votes they watch "Dramatic Look" , but Lux chips in that they should watch "Panda Sneeze" instead. Guess Portland's answer to Rory Gilmore is a little more YouTube savvy than she lets on... As she clicks away on the keyboard, Baze gives her one of those deep, meaningful "I just found out I'm your dad looks," which understandably freaks her out. He tries to tease out some of their physical similarities, but Lux doesn't go for it. They return to the screen, but not without a somewhat labored metaphor that Lux, just like the Christian the Lion, will have her reunion.
The morning, Ryan's still on the subject of high school as they jabber on air. They take a call, supposedly from Lux. But she freezes and hands the phone over to Baze. He announces that he went to high school with Cate, and Ryan is all over it. He rattles off all the possible clichés she could have succumb to during her formative years. Right around "knocked up on prom night," the pain is evident on Cate's face. Baze says it was more like Winter Formal. He tells her to come out to the parking lot to talk. She charges out and takes him to task for his tactics. She spits that he hasn't changed a bit -- except his hairline. Double heh. After she's gotten her full harpy on, he steps aside to show her Lux for the first time. They stare at each other in silence. Commercials.
When we return, Cate has regained the power of speech just enough to put her foot in her mouth by calling Lux big. By which she means proportional to amount of years they've been apart. Lux doesn't take any offense. Baze breaks up the stuttering reunion to tell Cate that Lux needs her to sign her emancipation request. Cate, under the impression that Lux was going to a family, doesn't understand why Lux would want to be emancipated. They don't get into it now, but Cate offers to give Lux a ride to Social Services to drop off the papers. She says her awkward goodbye to Ryan. He extends an open invitation over to his place to watch "Panda Sneeze" any time she wants. Also? Bright Eyes. Sigh.
Once they're in the car, Cate says she's actually pretty relieved that she had an excuse to abandon her show because it gives her some time until Ryan asks for his ring back. Lux gets all fangrrrl that her two favorite DJs are getting married. All these developments are so disorienting for Cate that she runs a red light and nearly kills them both in a collision with a huge truck. She swerves in time, and her Prius continues along its intended course. Cate dazedly returns to the small talk, repeating back to Lux that she listens to the show. Lux says she's listened to it religiously and practically asked for a foster care reassignment so she could get back in FM range. Well, that and her parents were drug dealers. Cate admits that she thought Lux was going to be adopted immediately after she was born. Lux explains that she was born with a congenital heart defect that couldn't be fully fixed until she was nearly three years old and by then she was too old for most adoptive parents.
They arrive at Social Services, and Lux is fine to go it alone again. Cate jumps out of the car to explain that she her giving up Lux wasn't anything personal. She was too young. Lux is far beyond caring about that minor technicality, so she just keeps going. Cate naïvely suggests Lux stick it out in the system in the hopes that some magical couple is holding out for the perfect, sarcastic 16-year-old with ringlets of gold. Lux reminds Cate how unlikely that is since people thought she was damaged goods at age three. Cate says perhaps there are some things that even a wise-beyond-her-years girl like Lux hasn't fully considered, like school, a job, etc. Lux pretty much tells her to back off. She wasn't a mom to her for 15 years, so why start now?
That night, Cate meets up with Ryan at a booze cruise they're hosting. He tries to take her aside to talk about what has gone down in the last 36 hours. She tries her damndest to avoid it, even giving him the out from their engagement. He just asks for honesty. She admits she doesn't trust people and is terrified of commitment, handing back the ring. He calls her out for pushing people away. She says she can't fix things with Lux because Lux walked out on her. Sounds like a chip off the old block. Ryan keeps the ring and says something really vague and unhelpful about doing more than she already is. Thanks, radio man. Real useful. And for, like, the fourth time in the show, a character is left standing alone and forlorn in the middle of the frame. There's gotta be a better way to head to commercial.
The morning, Lux has her court date. The stalwart judge is not impressed by Lux's record of moving around foster homes and case workers. Nor is she impressed with her plans to secure her GED and act all adult-y. She doubts any landlord will rent an apartment to a 16-year-old without someone to cosign, prompting both Baze and Cate to jump up. Cate screams that she'll cosign. They introduce themselves to the judge, who sizes them up, notes that Lux never got their signatures notarized, and releases Lux to their custody. Emancipation, out.
The Odd Trio tromp down the stairs, Lux fuming in exasperation on one side and Cate and Baze TMI-ing all over the place about the circumstances of their boot knockin'. They literally push Lux, the very subject of their argument, aside as Baze claims he's had Lux's back from day one while Cate counters that he is a bonehead. It stirs up a whole lot of pent-up frustrations with each other, including the fact that apparently Cate's feelings were deeper than she even let Baze know. Lux finally breaks it up to tell them to get the eff over it. She asks if Cate even considered keeping her. Shamefaced Cate admits she didn't. That's the last straw for Lux, who says she'll go back to foster care. She accuses them of being the one who need parents. Lux walks away. Cate shouts for her, but Lux shoots back, "Just let me go, okay? You did it once. It shouldn't be that hard to do it again." Oooooh, right in the gut.
Lux gets back to her foster home to find her suitcases (even her teddy bear!) packed and piled neatly in the front alcove. She clutches the bear and cries to herself.
Across town, Cate and Baze strategize how to get Lux back. Cate regrets admitting never thinking about keeping Lux. She also admits that the romp in Baze's mom's caravan was, in fact, her first. Thanks to Zima and The Spin Doctors. She jokes that they didn't even make it through "Two Princes." Well, if I had a vision of that man romping around gaily in my head, I might have to pull out, too. Just saying. Baze apologizes for how badly he handled the situation -- both the quickie sex and the whole baby thing. He admits he may have peaked in high school. Cate comforts him by saying Lux has his eyes -- and she always really liked his eyes. Cue "Two Princes" and lapse-in-judgment sex. Commercials.
The morning, panicky Cate wakes up in Baze's bed. He makes an ill-timed joke about her being on the pill. She starts furiously putting on her clothes as they both throw it in each other's faces that they are in relationships... sort of. JB won't return Baze's calls, and Cate gave Ryan back the ring. Still, she insists on preserving her dignity, shouting "This never happened!" as she stomps those painful first steps of the Walk of Shame. This endeavor is made all the more difficult when she heads towards a fake door and has to redirect herself to the real one, still in a huff.
She keeps a-stompin' all the way outside, where she trips over a homeless person. Oh no. That's just Lux! Everyone favorite little wayward scamp. Lux wastes no opportunity to ask Cate, "Don't you people learn?" Then she has a hearty breakfast of humble pie when she admits that her foster mom kicked her out for being especially sassy and insubordinate. She says her life is effectively going to Hell in a hand basket, then ironically thanks Cate for coming to her hearing. Cate apologizes for not being there for her all those years. Lux accentuates the positive saying that, even though she didn't know it, Cate was there all those years. Her radio show was the one bright spot in her day as she moved from one home to another. She thanks Cate for being the only who told the truth. Cate says she has some more truth to tell Lux, so tamp down the sarcasm for a bit, if you don't mind. She tells Lux not to worry, that everything's going to be okay, and she's going to have a family some day. Lux says Cate couldn't know that, and Cate says she does. Translation: Come stay with me, little girl! They smile at each other as they jump off the precipice into this new life.
Later, Cate rushes into the radio booth. Ryan remains aloof, reading his paper and noting that Cate's a bit overdressed this morning. She pushes the microphone and admits to all of the emotional issues he accused her of the night before. She rolls closer and says it's time for her to be an adult, worthy of him... and Lux. She says she's going to take care of Lux and wants him to be there to help her. He asks her to spell it out for him. Their producer starts announcing the start of the show as she asks him to marry her. He sits back, stunned as she rolls back to the mic, wiping away tears and starts the show. Ryan puts on his headphones and returns to form, landing a one-two punch by calling her both Juno and Jamie-Lynn. "You think you're pretty funny, don't you?" she snarks. "Yes," he replies. Then says it again, answering that earlier question. She breathes a sigh of relief, and they seal it with a kiss. Dead air! Dead air!
That night, Cate brings Lux and her things into the house. Baze and the bros jump out to wish her a surprise happy birthday. They even have hats, leis, balloons, and presents! She is amazed that, probably for the first time in her life, someone has remembered her birthday. As they commence the festivities, Ryan walks in. Cate introduces him to the gang. Lux wishes them earnest congratulations even after seeing Cate's WoS that morning. Baze is about as subtle as a sledgehammer with his smugness and "Boom, I got yo girlfriend!" manner. Ryan is too good of a guy to pick up on it, though. They return to the blazing cake. Lux blows out all the candles but one. Math warns her that she better blow it out or her wish won't come true. She looks up sweetly and says, "I think it already has." The end.
week: Lux weasels her way into everyone's hearts and teaches everyone a lesson. Just like my personal favorite YouTube sensation: STAINS. Except his lesson is: Cupcakes are delicious!