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Joss's new boss Olivier is already crazy hot because he is played by Mike Dopud, who is crazy hot, but then on top of it he doesn't buy any of her bullshit, which is like the sexiest thing in the world. While at first she thinks she will simply subdue him with sex, like her last boss, it turns out that what he really responds to in an employee is hard work, dedication, smart thinking and creativity. How weird, right?
To unload an unsellable monster mansion, Joss throws one of those big Hollywood parties where there's like Lamar Odom and Keith Richards, and also invites everybody except Savannah, who is at home figuring out that she is pregnant and accidentally using feminism to ruin Dominic's career. So he shows up to yell at her for being a woman, like happens to somebody in every scene of this show, and then April comes over to apologize to her for being so judgmental about Savi's recent one-night stand.
Savi doesn't have a lot to do this week besides feel weird about things and get into dumb fights with her dumb husband, but she more than makes up for it by having sex nightmares and being generally a joy to watch in every way, even as she's spreading her unnecessary misery onto everything she touches with aplomb. Also occasional bursting into tears, strange food aversions, mood swings, and boobs things, because she is pregnant with a baby and that's what it is like when you've been pregnant for ten whole minutes: Your body goes into a hormonal free-for-all.
Hot Dad Richard has been snubbing April ever since she flaked out on him twice in a row, and her explanation -- that a "person" showed up at her house bearing a "package" belonging to her dead husband, which caused her to "freak out" -- only makes her look like even more damaged goods than the truth would, and as he's adhering to a no-red-flags policy at the moment, they can't date until she gets her shit together. But April knows -- and I think somewhere in there, Richard also knows -- that there is zero chance of April getting her shit together, because she is a hot mess just like all of her friends.
After the Widow Grey visits Karen Kim to tell her that Sam is losing his shit and moving into the love den that Thomas apparently rented for the six weeks Karen was with him, Karen Kim makes the sensible -- and oh-so-Karen Kim -- decision of trespassing in there, crawling around on the floor like a crazy person, and leaving her shit everywhere. After another super weird conversation where she acts like today is her first day being a person, she brings hot coworker Jacob to Joss's party, but then Sam gets into a DUI accident and she immediately ditches Jacob to go care of it: Turns out Sam gave Karen's sunglasses to his mom, inadvertently alerting her to her husband's affair. Needless to say, Karen considers all of this very much her business. Needless to say, she is wrong.
Week: Sam kisses Karen, but she still hasn't figured out that they are in love -- that she is a pedophile and she is in love with a child -- so she once again rebuffs him, driving him into a crazy/adorable rage; Joss is maybe a lesbian but probably not yet; April finds out that Pete had seventeen other families all over the south, many of them ghosts; Savannah tries to figure out exactly what kind of a baby she is going to have.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
In addition to everyone else, Joss was sleeping with her boss, which came with perks like easy real estate sales and the chance to leave your underwear places. April was sabotaging her budding relationship with Hot Dad Richard in many ghost-related ways, the last of which was a mystery baby her dead husband had with his secret other family. Savannah pissed her off by admitting she cheated on her horrible husband, and then desperately tried to get the magic back by sleeping with her horrible husband. And Karen Kim, she was just doing Karen. Doing like how Karen do.
1 WK LATER
Savannah: "That was so funny how we had sex!"
Harry: "Please don't touch it for like one second. I must insist."
Savannah: "Boys and their penises! Hahaha!"
Harry: "Seriously, that is like broken glass, what you are doing. At this point in the refractory cycle it's about as sensitive as your eyeball. You're not being cute, you're being mean."
Savannah: "I just love you right now, at this one moment."
Harry: "I suppose that we love each other. Hey, remember when you had cornrows and an infected belly ring?"
Savannah: "Does that turn you on, baby?"
Harry: "Christ we are the worst."
Savannah: "You're like the Beeper King to my Liz Lemon. Our love is hypothermia."
Harry: "Don't you have a job?"
Savannah: "I am avoiding my job due to reasons."
Harry: "Maybe you should go to your job."
Savannah: "Or the opposite of that."
AM DROP-OFF
Lucy: "Who's this person Miranda who keeps calling you?"
April: "Um, my gynecologist."
Lucy: "You should not have your gyno programmed into your phone by first name."
April: "Aren't you precocious?"
Richard walks his daughter by, looking all Hot Dad Richardy, and fully ignores April when she screams his name. Like he looks right at her, his face a death mask of You Fucked Up. April -- alone, of all these women -- at least has the grace to be like, "Well, April Malloy, you made this bed. You decorated it with throw pillows. And now you must lie in it."
DR. KAREN KIM, REAL LIVE PSYCHIATRIST WITH A MEDICAL DEGREE
Dr. Jacob Lerner: "So what is with all these boxes everywhere in your office, hoarder? Just kidding, I know you like to alphabetize your hard files whenever you are freaking out or done freaking out."
Dr. Karen Kim: "Yes, that is a thing a person might do. Good thing all my problems are over and I can get back to destroying all records of my practice."
Then she fuckin' goes, "Putting the past on the Cloud, as the kids say nowadays." Ah, Karen Kim. Of all the Karen Kims in this show, you are the Karen Kimmiest. But the past does not stay on the Cloud, as the kids say nowadays: It comes walking into your office, like the rest of its family, whenever the fuck it feels like it. Hello, the Widow Grey. I assume you're here to talk about the way I'm subtly using your family to implode in on myself like a dying star?
JOSS @ WK
A little boy is captivated by his view up Joss's skirt in the elevator because he doesn't know about Free Spirits yet so he just thinks she's a broken beast with daddy issues. The mom is like, "Get a longer skirt!" and Joss snarks, "Get a taller child!" It's pretty rad. Joss is pretty rad a lot of the time, it's nice. Inside, everybody is losing their shit, crying and staring like Bobby Kennedy just got shot.
Joss: "What's wrong with Mona? They close the nearest Blouse Barn?"
Mona: "We're all getting fired. Or murdered!"
Gay: "No, just the boss man you were sleeping with. We've been bought out."
Mona: "Our heads will follow!"
Joss: "You'd think I'd get a courtesy text about this, considering the dude just tried to buy me an entire house a week or so ago. Also, why would we get bought out? We suck. We work at the kind of company where I am acceptable."
Gay: "There is a very sexy man in that office and he won't talk to us. I think he is dicking us around. He won't get off the phone."
Joss: "I'll get him off, folks."
Gay: "For sure, because you are a free spirit."
Joss: "Hello? Sexy French man?"
(They speak a bunch of languages at each other because they are polyglots.)
Joss: "So you're being a dick to everybody. Is that on purpose?"
Olivier: "It is my personality."
Joss: "I'll just go fuck myself, then?"
Olivier: "You do that. And try dressing like an adult instead of Sucker Punch."
Joss tries to twinkle on her way out, but mostly is just thrown. If she can't lead with her vagina, does she even exist at all? Survey says no. Maybe Olivier is into Japanese bondage ropes, maybe that's the ticket. Or maybe he -- like any employer -- is interested in things like profits, and not the unholy mess that Joss drags around with her everywhere she goes like a self-hating Grand Canyon burro.
KAREN & THE WIDOW GREY
The Widow Grey: "I suppose this is where you conducted your therapy with my late husband. Here, in your psychiatric office."
Karen: "Barring the occasional therapeutic field trip, yes. Have I ever told you the incredibly boring story of a baseball game?"
Widow Grey: "So listen, my family doesn't 'do' therapy because we're monstrous WASPs..."
Karen: " Not even Karen Kim is willing to offer therapy to the widow of the man she was fucking. Not even when she later conspired with said widow to kill said man. Everybody's got limits."
Widow Grey: "It's not me, it's our son, who is dangerously obsessed with you."
Karen: "Then do go on."
Widow Grey: "He has dropped out of Brown and is moving into Tom's secret love nest apartment that I seem to think is just a regular apartment, like a regular old faithful husband would have for totally normal reasons."
Karen: "But what if I left my shit there?"
Widow Grey: "Pardon?"
Karen: "I mean, what about Sam's mental health?"
SAVANNAH & DOMINIC (& THE SULLIVAN DIVORCE)
Savi: "Oh hey, coworkers. I'm finally back at work! Don't tell Dominic."
Dom: "Don't tell me what? Oh, also this divorce case we're working on just got moved up. I've been trying to tell you for a whole week."
Savi: "How inconvenient for my continued trainwreck behavior!"
Dom: "Listen, are you gonna man up and act like an adult, or..."
Savi: "The other one, whatever it is."
Dom: "Then pack your big-girl panties because we live here for the week."
Savi: "But I won't be able to stop thinking about having sex with you!"
Dom: "Really? Because I will be mostly thinking about work. Here at our job."
Savi: "How the tables have turned."
KAREN & SAVI (& THE GREYS & APRIL MALLOY & DOMINIC)
Savi: "Tell me all about your shitty choices, so I can feel better about myself."
Karen: "Is that why you keep me around?"
Savi: "That is part of why we keep you around. So fill me in, why is this a problem that a family you have no connection to is using real estate they own?"
Karen: "What if I left my shit there?"
Savi: "Like a camp towel with your name sewn into it? You don't even leave hair in your hairbrush, I doubt you'd do anything that dumb."
Karen: "Do you? Do you really? Okay, how about this, I've been seeing his son literally every other scene, including every time you've told me to stay away from his family. Sometimes I will go hang out with him, swing by so you can tell me not to hang out with him, and then head back directly from here to hang out with him some more. I am pretty sure I can get him to murder me by the end of the month."
Savi: "What? That's ludicrous behavior! Anyway, let's talk about me."
Karen: "No prob."
Karen: "Let me guess. You're upset about having to work in a workplace with a coworker that you fucked in your workplace?"
Savi: "In a nutshell."
Karen: "The important thing is that you understand it's okay to flirt with your coworkers and act incredibly inappropriate, as long as you lie about it. That's my medical opinion."
Savi: "How's April doing? I'm running out of throw pillows."
Karen: "My professional advice is, fuck it. She'll come back or she won't. You'll lose all your friends or you won't. She has a legitimate beef or she doesn't, and you could talk it out with her based on twenty years of friendship, but you absolutely must not. You need to let it fester and get weird and put a burden on all of your shared friends, okay?"
APRIL & JOSS (& OLIVIER & RICHARD & MIRANDA)
Joss: "His name is Olivier Dubois and he is amazing and I hate him because he will not acknowledge my worth with his penis. And he carries a man-purse."
April: "Oh, how European!"
Joss: "Right? Man, I miss the days when I could just fuck my boss instead of working."
April: "Jesus, you're a whore. Anyway, let's talk about me."
Joss: "No prob."
April: "Remember that guy Richard who I kept agreeing to go out on dates with and then cancelling the date as he was driving up? Get this, he doesn't want to date me."
Joss: "Why the nerve."
April: "What am I supposed to tell him? The truth?"
Joss: "The perfectly understandable truth? Why, what would Karen say?"
April: "She would say to get a Guy Fawkes mask and put it on whenever he is around, so I won't be tempted to tell him the simple and easily understandable truth."
Joss: "Good plan. Oh, I have to go meet Olivier at this hotel, to have sex probably."
April: "Or to get fired. Or to meet and greet your new boss in an informal and non-threatening environment after a sudden takeover. Or literally dozens of other reasons."
Joss: "Yeah, no. Pretty sure all I am is genitalia."
SULLIVAN DIVORCE
Savi: "Divorces! Ugh, so full of rancor."
Dom: "I picked up dinner so we can keep working."
Savi: "Stop trying to have sex with me!"
Dom: "What? I mean literally it is dinner. Here it is, the dinner."
Savi: "Spicy things make me want to throw up. Especially in the morning."
Dom: "I'm sure that doesn't mean anything."
Savi: "Roll your shirtsleeves down! I'm not going to have sex with you!"
Dom: "Seriously, this is getting ridiculous."
Savi: "Stop calling me ridiculous! It's turning me on!"
Dom: "I'm going to go work in the other room."
Savi: "THAT IS SO SEXY! STOP IT! HAVE YOU NO RESPECT?"
ST GERVAISE
Joss, looking amazing: "Oh, you've... Already begun to eat your dinner. Am I late, or...?"
Olivier: "No, I'm just fucking rude. Sit down and order a drink you won't have time to drink because I scheduled the entire office in four-minute blocks."
Joss: "Is this the part where I get fired?"
Olivier: "No, this is the part before that part."
Joss: "So this is about blowjobs, then."
Olivier: "No, this is about you are not very good at your job, and by looking at the way listings are distributed, it makes sense that you wouldn't be. You get all the easy ones because of fucking the boss."
Joss: "But I'm also great at this job! I sell everything!"
Olivier: "Except for the things you don't."
Joss: "Touché."
Olivier: "Anyway, sell some of those or you're fired. !"
Mona: "...Wait, so this isn't a date?"
Joss: "Give it a rest, Mona."
SAVI & DOM (& HARRY)
Savannah and Dominic, sittin' in a conference room, D-R-Y-D-O-C-K-I... Oh, it's a dream. You can tell by how Harry shows up and is aghast, and then Savi sits bolt upright from her sexy dream, and then lays back down because it was just a dream. A dirty, sexy, scary nightmare dream!
The morning, Savannah surprises Harry in the shower with a two-week vacation to the place where they met. She's gonna get cornrows and a belly ring and we're all just fucking going back to kindergarten.
Harry: "Um, how dare you schedule a vacation? Do you not understand that I am a small business owner in debt, and you are on the partner track?"
Savi: "I am just absolutely out of my mind, is how."
Harry: "God, I hate you."
Savi: "Let's not fight."
Harry: "I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just stating a fact."
Savi: "Well, but also we love each other."
Harry: "That's true. Even though you forced me into opening a restaurant, apparently."
Savi: "That's true, I did do that. Right before I deformed your sperms with my bad vibes."
Harry: "Will you ever stop disappointing me?"
Savi: "Lookin' less and less likely from here, my dear."
Harry: "I think of our marriage as a black hole from which no light escapes."
Savi: "Me too! Kind of romantic, if you think about it. If you look at it right."
Harry: "It's better than being alone with your self-respect, I guess."
LOVE NEST/FLASHBACK
So wait, he rented this apartment for six whole weeks while he was dying of cancer? Because this shit has been heavily decorated. I guess that's how it works in LA. You want a nice place full of Ikea crap for boning your therapist while you slowly die. Maybe with a set of encyclopedias to look things up, like if you needed to look something up.
Karen calls the landline -- he got a landline, he had a phone line installed, somebody is paying for that in this love nest -- to make sure Sam isn't (or is) there, and then comes inside. The first thing she does is look under a couch cushion, like just in case she left her social security card inside the couch like you do. Then she begins to just straight fuckin' hallucinate.
Karen: "What are you cooking?"
Thomas: "It is kind of a joke. You're such a shitty cook that I made crème brûlée, 'blowtorch ribs,' glazed ham..."
Karen: "That is not a funny joke."
Then he holds the blowtorch aloft and fucking says, out loud, without cracking up, "This little hazardous flame... it's my heart, and I had no idea what beauty it was capable of, until I pointed it in the right direction."
If somebody said that shit to me, I would say, "How about this direction?!" and then melt his face off with it. How dare you say that to me? Just how dare you? "This blowtorch is my heart, which I just realized is for glazing a ham." Kiss kiss. "The ham is you, Karen Kim."
Anyway, obviously Sam Grey comes home while she's having this moment with the memory of ham, and so because she is Karen Kim, her first instinct is to crawl into the cabinetry. So she does that, and then Sam takes a box back into a bedroom, so she escapes, making sure to leave her sunglasses right out in the middle of the room where just anybody can see them and pick them up and start an investigation of her ass.
SR PARTNER & SAVI (& THE DISGUSTING OAFISH MRS SULLIVAN)
Bossman's going through the wife's testimony prep when Savannah drops by to make hash of yet more things.
Bossman: "Bonnie Sullivan sure sweats a lot, for a woman."
Savi: "I hear she even does number twos."
Bossman: "Vile. The things we do for this job. Hey, speaking of the opposite of that, how's it been going not working?"
Savi: "You know, it's been great. Realizing that I was lying when I said I wanted a baby was just a gateway to realizing that I was also lying about everything else in my entire life, like wanting to become a partner at this law firm. So now I'm fucking that up too."
Bossman: "Go on."
Savi: "You know how this trial is randomly in super-fast turnaround? Well I was thinking, how about if I just jump ship? Dominic can handle twice the workload in a quarter of the time, right?"
Bossman: "You really are dedicated to sinking your career, huh? Good thing I'm going to do the opposite of that, vaguely because of affirmative action."
Savi: "Thanks, Obama."
APRIL & RICHARD (& MIRANDA)
Lucy and Jane, who is Richard's daughter, are practicing a dance routine with several other girls in April's living room when Richard arrives to get her.
April: "Oh crap. How come you're here?"
Richard: "Jane's mom was attacked by a Pilates machine. I will wait in your yard rather than even look at your stupid face."
April: "I feel like that's quite enough of that. Listen, I got a surprise 'package' the night of our date, having to do with my late husband..."
Richard: "Oh, he died? I just thought you were divorced for some reason."
April: "Yeah, you snubbed a widow. Deal with that. Anyway, it just made me act weird. Sorry."
Richard: "No problem."
April: "I just didn't want you to think I flaked for other, similarly valid reasons. So I made up a strange lie that makes me look five times as crazy as any part of the truth would."
Richard: "Seriously please don't worry about it. It only makes you look crazier, at this point."
April: "Then that is what I must do."
SAVI (& APRIL) & KAREN
Savi: "It's me, April. Calling you a millionth time to tell you no pressure."
Karen: "Savannah, get off the phone so I can freak out on you."
Savi: "Did you do something even more ridiculously stupid than the last time we talked, an hour ago?"
Karen: "I broke into Sam's apartment, crawled around on the floor, and left my shit everywhere."
Savi: "You're kind of being an asshole at this point. I mean, of course to this family, but also I feel like what is the point of you coming here and telling me this if not to pretty much totally imply that my opinion means nothing to you?"
Karen: "That's not very supportive."
Savi: "Think about it this way. If I show you two dresses and you say 'the blue one' and I choose the green one, okay, thanks for helping me decide. But if that happens eleven times, each day, for two full weeks, at some point you're gonna stop thinking it's about the dresses, and realize that I'm just being a bitch."
Actually, Karen's point -- now that she's figured out what her point is -- is pretty valid: This is her inability to let Tom go. That's all it ever was. She sees echoes of him in Sam's disturbingly sexy behavior, she hears him in Elizabeth's grief, she smells him in their love nest, in the home of their brief but very intense relationship. All true, but none of which really matters because ultimately Savi is right: There is no saving Tom, any piece of him that isn't already a memory because those are the only parts of him she's allowed to have. Here there is only self-injury and greed and spreading more misery everywhere. Savannah would know, after all.
JOSS & APRIL (& RICHARD & OLIVIER & PAUL)
Joss: "Don't look at me!"
April: "Uh, you look great. Like a grownup woman with a job."
Joss: "I know, it's disgusting! If a little kid were here he'd just be like, Nice turtleneck. It wouldn't sexually warp him in any way!"
April: "Seems like your new work situation is really making you feel anxiety and pressure. Let's talk about me, though."
Joss: "No prob."
April: "So nothing has really changed since the last time we talked about this."
Joss: "Cool, thanks for keeping me up to date."
April: "I mean, I did force the poor guy to acknowledge the weirdness between us, which doubled the overall awkwardness without actually resolving anything..."
Joss: "Sometimes I wonder if you're not actually the one who is Savannah's sister. Anyway, back to me. Can you decorate this entire weird house for me real quick? It was redesigned by a cokehead musician and looks utterly insane, down to the toilet in the middle of the open-plan living room. But if I can somehow stage it and sell it, it'll be the first time I ever succeed at work without using my body... which will prove something to my new boss, if not to myself."
Dr. Jacob: "You shouldn't just give your car keys to any old guy in a vest."
Karen: "How I do make it through a single motherfucking day? Why am I like this?"
Joss: "Are you rich? I am asking for two reasons."
Karen: "Don't do it, Lerner. She's a man-eater, Lerner."
Dr. Jacob: "Why would I want to live in this house?"
Joss: "Because of sex, of course! Why does anybody ever do anything? Why do we have jobs, go to school, wear clothes, eat food, drive cars, invent technology? It's all because of fucking! Fucking and fucking and fucking! Naked people doing it! And sex! I got the Black Snake Moan! It's coming you guys! Oh no! And here I am at work!"
(Joss passes out on the floor from thinking about all the sex that you can have in this world, one hand crammed down her trousers.)
Dr. Jacob: "Nice friends you got, Karen."
Karen: "She's a head case. I wish I knew some mental health professionals I could send her to."
Olivier: "I am here to judge everybody. This is my French model girlfriend or something."
Joss: "Hang on, I just regained consciousness. Give it to me, doc. Tell me how I fucked up."
Olivier: "On the one hand, this is a brilliant idea. On the other, you expensed it all I'm sure. So hopefully that pays off for you."
Joss: "The catering was done by the asshole whose kitchen I live in, for starters..."
Olivier: "Very amusing. When I fire you, you are going to feel it."
Harry: "Night's still young, buck up."
Joss: "Buck off."
Harry: "Funny dialogue exchange, considered on its own. In context, you're an asshole."
Richard: "April? Why are you at this party? Why won't you fucking leave me alone?"
April: "Richard! I was just about to say the exact same thing, only pathetic!"
Richard: "Do you think your friend would sell this house to Lamar Odom? He plays a sport probably."
April: "Are you a fan of that sport Lamar Odom plays?"
Richard: "I am a writer about sports, including that one. He might also be married to a Kardashian."
April: "What makes you say that?"
Richard: "Well, he is a person. The odds are in my favor."
(Nailed it! Double nailed it! Well done, Jacob.)
Meanwhile there is a guy there who looks like Keith Richards, which Jacob Lerner jokes about by saying all the Rolling Stones things he can think of, such as "sticky fingers" and "I fucked David Bowie" and "smoking crack with your dad in it." He goes off to get them more drinks and think up more hilarious Stones puns -- as if Karen Kim has ever even heard of the Rolling Stones, or music, or anything -- and of course Sam calls: He has been in a DUI accident, which is what happens when you drop out of Brown.
OUTSIDE
April: "Isn't LA so beautiful?"
Richard: "You know what's beautiful? You are. But I can't date you. And the reason for that is, you are a fucking mess."
April: "What? All I did was make up strange lies like something out of Bedknobs & Broomsticks instead of telling you a very interesting story about mysterious babies."
Richard: "I can't be an alcoholic and also date crazy bitches, April. Call me when you stop believing in ghosts and start telling truths."
April: "Well, that was a shame. Little does he know I am the only sane person on this show."
INSIDE
Joss: "Leaving so soon, Olivier? Just to let you know, I didn't get one offer..."
Olivier: "I expected as much. Get ready to get fired."
Joss: "...I got three! I expect to close tonight at a hundred grand above asking."
Olivier: "I'm so excited for you! As your boss and someone with a vested interest in our company's success, but also because I knew that you could act professional if somebody would just..."
Joss: "And fuck you, I'm wearing whatever the fuck I want to work."
Olivier: "Ah. So close."
Un. Necessary. Joss, it's like two steps forward and one step back all the time with you. Why are you like this? Why would anybody ever act like this?
SAVI & APRIL FINALLY
April: "Hot Dad won't date me."
Savi: "Come on inside and have some tea. Sorry I cheated on my husband."
April: "Sorry I acted like that had anything to do with me."
Savi falls down on the floor in tears and April dooms her: "The worst is over!" Lightning splits the sky and the ground shakes and animals start acting weird and the stars realign themselves in the cloudless night saying YOU ARE FUCKED NOW. TAKE A PREGNANCY TEST STUPID.
KAREN & SAM (& ELIZABETH)
Sam: "Please don't tell my mom! In some ways I'm pretty grown up but not any of the ways that count."
Karen: "As long as you understand that we can't ever see each other again, except for all the time."
Sam: "Did I mention I gave some strange sunglasses to my mom and now she knows my dad was having an affair in his affair-having apartment?"
Karen: "I wish you had gone to jail before you did that."
SAVI
Is pregnant. Obviously.
WEEK
Savi takes an actual proactive step, April goes to war, Karen continues messing with Sam's head and Joss continues her meteoric rise to mediocrity.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Killing, Pretty Little Liars, Mistresses, True Blood, and Defiance for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as a regular column for Tor.com, Geek Love. A new short story, "This Is Why We Jump," appeared in this month's Clarkesworld Magazine.