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It's a good thing Karen and Joss basically wrapped their shit up last week -- quitting and getting fired from their jobs, giving up the men and ladies in their lives -- because this week's finale is all-Savannah, all the time, with hints of April's bizarre choices and Karen's latest catastrophe filling out the hour.
April realizes she's forgotten what's appealing about Richard in the wake of her hookup with the dead husband last week, and stops by his house, where it seems like he's moving away. She's relieved, because it means she won't have to break up with him for Paul, but of course Richard's not going anywhere, so she ends up having to dump him anyway. Then a call from Miranda reminds her that in fact she has become the titular mistress in this relationship, and sends Paul packing too. I hope we never see him again, although I will never stop missing Richard. He was the best one.
Karen learns that the Widow Grey was once institutionalized -- despite her professed unfamiliarity with mental health measures -- and decides, when Grey shows up looking ten tons of crazy -- to invite her inside for some day-drinking. They spend the entire episode being creepy with each other, until eventually Elizabeth pulls out a gun and the rest of Tom's morphine and tries to make her commit suicide.
Just in time, Sam shows up and saves the day... Or does he? A three-way battle for the gun -- just after Elizabeth admits she straight-up murdered Tom for still talking about Karen even when he was about to die of his cancer -- ends with blood spattered all over Karen's cute white couch, and that's the end of that. Who got shot? Guess/hope we'll find out summer. You could make a case for either Grey surviving, but I think we all know where my head is at on this very important issue.
And then there's the Carver Girls. Savi gets a mysterious bouquet for her birthday, and spends the episode fretting over it -- with no idea that Harry has stolen her DNA results and is the only person who knows the paternity of the baby. The girls have bought her a resort vacation in beautiful Palm Springs, but nobody really makes it down there: A last-minute decision to return to LA for the results (and Joss keeping quiet about her inability to keep those results safe) ends in a horrific car accident that puts Savi in the hospital, and everybody else scattered around trying to get to her.
Harry reveals that Dominic is the father of the child, but eventually decides he wants to be with Savi anyway. Joss spends the episode in exquisitely acted misery, since all she cares about is her sister anyway, with Harry a distant second. Dom shows up once Savi's awake (she and the baby are both fine) and professes his love for her and their child, but she still doesn't seem convinced one way or the other. And so it is that everybody except Karen is close by when Savannah crashes, and the episode ends with her flatlining.
Is Savannah really dead? Did she really choose Harry, after all this? Did Karen possibly finish off the entire Grey family in one awkward move, and if not, who did get shot? Will Joss pull her ass together, ever? What will Karen and Joss do for jobs now? Did April really choose being alone over the perfection that is Richard? And most importantly, are Sam's face and body okay? Stay tuned. We'll have word on Season Two by the end of the month.
In the meantime, thanks for sticking around. I probably wouldn't have, if it weren't my job, and that would be a real sucky situation, because I love this show. It got great. When it rose above the frothy sudsy Muggle nonsense that presumably got it on the air, the show struck a balance and took a breath that -- much like each of the ladies at its heart -- transcended the sum of its parts: Witty, and wise, and often far-sighted beyond any reason it might have to be. Television made by people who care about television is a rarer thing than we might hope, but this one cared more than most.
While it might not have focused on the universally revered topics of, say, a Scandal or a Good Wife, what it did focus on -- family, love, sex, intimacy, the future we're all going to be sharing and shapes we'll be assuming in it -- are no less universal, nor vital. Not to say that it was flawless, just that while it never took itself too seriously, we can honestly say looking back that it never erred in the other direction: It always took itself seriously enough.
Even when things (Karen) got hilarious, that the clever and compassionate wisdom behind the stories never got lost. The people that seemed the most together (Savi) ripped off their masks to reveal themselves absolutely unraveling, while the seeming lightweights (April, Joss) put themselves through the most vigorous and inspiring interrogations and transformations I can think of in years' worth of primetime. Stories that seemed very serious (Karen) turned out ridiculous, and the most ridiculous things (Joss) turned out to be the most nutritive, and the rarest, and the most moving of all.
I mean God, what will become of us without Josslyn Carver? And who could have imagined such a question, months ago, ever being asked at all?
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
All of these people are crazy.
THIS AM
Karen Kim takes a shower. Maybe this is her plan for the day. Ellie Goulding's one hee-hee-hee song about how "anything can happen" certainly takes on a disorienting flavor when it's Karen Kim taking a shower during it, because literally anything could happen.
Boom! Your shower is a portal to a crystal dimension full of magical crystals for wishing crystal wishes and dreaming heart-fire dreams. Boom! You are murdered in this shower by somebody dressed like his mom. Well, to be fair, that's a fairly likely scenario, but remember: Anything can happen: Boom! You are going to get dressed and go to work as though you have not been fired and are still medically licensed. It is possible nobody will notice. It is possible that anything can happen!
It is possible that April is cuddled up with sleepy Lucy, confronted by the one framed photograph of her dead husband that the poltergeist has not shattered. (The poltergeist being April.) It is even possible that she feels tempted, mocked, weirded out by this photograph, because the last person she slept with was not the most perfect boyfriend in the world but in fact a phantom.
It is possible that Joss is scrambling the fuck around the poolhouse, looking for her sister's paternity results, wanting nothing less than to end up calling Harry, which she knows she has to do, because he has stolen them and probably knows the results! But what are they? We still don't know. Anything can happen.
...But probably the baby is Harry's, based on the big shades-of-yellow birthday bouquet that arrives outside Savannah's door while all this mess and showering and ghost-sex regret is going on. "Happy Birthday," says the card, and that's it. Perhaps it has been sent to her by Anonymous, and the secret why she's never at work is that her real work is the revolution all the time, and she uses her money to finance a certain kind of justice, which she considers her real job, an avocation of sorts. Anything can happen!
Whenever I hear that song I like to close my eyes and pretend to be Mindy Kaling pretending I have just gotten on an elevator with the man who might be The One and that song has just started playing in the romantic comedy of life. Hee hee hee hee-ee-ee hee.
MAISON
Ladies: "...And many mooore! Was that enough off-key that we don't have to pay for it?"
Savi: "Even moreso than necessary. Thanks for singing to me in that scary way like it's a party for witches! And thanks for my present this morning, whoever!"
Ladies: "We didn't get you anything this morning. Our birthday gift to you is really more of a gift to ourselves. Road trip to Palm Springs!"
Savi: "That is so, so sweet. Really. I can't wait to stop and pee every quarter-mile. But seriously, who got me the flowers?"
Karen: "You got flowers? From what florist? What kind of vehicle were they driving? A van? I bet it was a van. Were his registration and emissions tags up to date?"
Savi: "I have no idea about... any of that. Also, no idea who sent them."
Joss: "I bet they're from Dominic, that sneaky fucker."
Ladies: "Or maybe they're from Harry!"
Savi: "Why would they be from Harry?"
Joss: "LET'S NOT WORRY ABOUT IT!"
Karen: "Whom would you most like them to be from? (The sender, not the florist. I have made my peace with never knowing the answer to that one.)"
April, verbatim: "Come on, you must have had a wish or a ... flash of a feeling..."
Savi: "First of all, Malloy, you don't need to be lecturing me about picking between my dudes. Second of all, I have many flashes. Some are for Dominic and then I get Dominic and suddenly -- flash! -- I want Harry. I am flooded with flashes. Flash-flood warning!"
April: "How is that you are not trustworthy to make this call? You're Savi."
Savi: "Exactly! I am a LUNATIC."
(She really did say that. It was awesome.)
Savi: "Anyway, I kissed Dominic and then immediately pulled back because I like it when life is only semi-real. Like this halfway baby in me."
April: "It's cool, I made out with Paul. We got pretty intense. I made it weird afterwards, don't you worry."
Savi: "Hey, remember when he ruined your life?"
April: "Uh, this amazing life we are sitting in the middle of? I don't know. I get that Richard is perfect in every way, but it doesn't feel the same..."
Savi: "-- Like battered wife syndrome?"
Everybody: "WHOAAA. Hey-o, o-ay. Uncool, lady."
Savi: "Remember how I am a lunatic? I'm sorry I said that. Also he fucked up your daughter. And you. Do you not remember how I had to pay someone to prove to you that ghosts don't exist? Come on. I have a point."
Karen: "Meanwhile, you haven't spoken to Richard in days, so your heart can't be blamed for getting sudden boyfriend ADD. Like how I started going on dates with Tom's son before Tom was even cold."
Ladies: "She's actually right."
April: "Fuck every single one of you. Karen, you drove an entire family to death and madness. Joss, you destroyed a lesbian on your way up a corporate ladder you subsequently high-dived off of on a whim. Savannah, you're the most vicious fucking creep of all. How dare you tell me -- the one person here who has hurt zero of the people in my life -- what I am fucking allowed to do?"
DAMN. That's my girl.
Joss: "Yep. Nailed it. Let's go to Palm Springs early."
Savi: "I have to quote 'work.'"
April: "I have to something-something Lucy."
Karen: "I have to get murdered real quick by a crazy drunk lady."
Ladies: "None of us is going anywhere with just you, Josslyn, because we're not actually friends with you. See you tomorrow."
KAREN ... IN THERAPY?
Bull. Shit. Fuck off Karen's in therapy. I'm so sure. Where was this bitch when shit got emergent? "I am thinking of sleeping with my married insomnia patient," that's the first thing. "The fuck you are," lady would say. "Well, what if he were terminally ill?" Get the hell out of my office.
Lady: "Karen, I really wish you would come in more than once a year. Frankly I think you're a twice-a-weeker. But it's nice that you're here. Now, tell me how many things you have fucked up since last we spoke."
Karen: "His name was Tom Grey..."
Lady: "Holy shit."
Karen: "What? What was that, why did you make a face?"
Lady: "I did not. Go on with your stupid story."
Karen: "You go on. You and your crazy Miranda Richardson-in-The Crying Game bangs. You."
It is about to get so excellent.
Lady: "Okay, well. I know that family. And the reason that I know them is, the Widow Grey was institutionalized and he used to chill out right here in this mental hospital while they were fixing her. Well, 'fixing.' You do what you can."
Karen: "I knew she was crazy, but I meant it in terms of the social stigma of mental illness! I meant like, as a pejorative. Wait, she said she was a WASP and didn't believe in therapy. And then took a big ol' sip of bourbon."
Lady: "She saw about a hundred therapists. We had to hold her down! That lady was so rambunctious in her craziness. I remember her screaming, If anybody fucks both my husband and my son I will destroy them! and thinking, What are the odds? Who on Earth is so clueless they would get into a mess like that?"
MEANWHILE
Sam: "Mom, why are you drinking a full tumbler of scotch in my bedroom and going through my things and staring at that picture of Karen in my bedside table? And why is your hair so mussed? Why, it's fallen out of its bun! And your lipstick is migrating."
Liz: "It is because I am going fucking all the way around the bend. I look on the outside like I feel on the inside!"
She goes, "When did you have occasion to take candids of Dr. Kim?"
I have never been this happy in my whole lifetime of being alive.
Liz: "Was this during her affair or after she killed him?"
Sam: "Let's talk about this when you're sober. Like a week from now. Boom!"
She cracks him one across the face and then starts yelling about how he is a cowering coward just like his dead father.
Sam: "Yeah, I am just like him. Driven away by your REFRIGERATOR HEART!"
Liz: "She came to me, you know. Worried that you were in love with her, because she would be so bummed out by that, because you are a pathetic child."
Sam: "Then why did she fuck me?"
A tympani starts going on the soundtrack, or maybe in Elizabeth's brittle mind. Her lipstick migrates further outward, and one eye starts twitching like it's Ren & Stimpy, and she squeezes her bourbon glass until it shatters, and then she just licks her arm and sucks on the carpet, murmuring strange chants. Bites the heads off flower arrangements, yells at birds. Slaps a yard guy. Slaps him the fuck again.
LAW OFC
Savi: "Dominic, I told you no birthday flower arrangements!"
Dom: "No you didn't, because why would anybody say that or have to say that. But also, why would I do that? After twelve episodes I finally got the memo that I was being a creeper."
There's an awfully strange moment where that redhead assistant brings her a gift-basket from the partners, who have enrolled her in the Cheese of the Month, which is just insane I think, and Dom goes, "That is a big deal for your birthday" and Savi snorts, "No, that's a big wheel. OF CHEESE!" and honks at herself and the hilarious joke she just made and then tosses the cheese basket in the assistant's face and goes, "You can just go ahead and keep that behind your desk."
Like, Instead of in my giant office that twenty people could comfortably sleep in, you can just go ahead and cram it into your workspace. And if you eat even one tiny fucking Baby Belle, I'll know. So fucking strange. If this is Savannah when she's trying to be funny, no thank you. She's way funnier just being weird. That made me uncomfortable.
Anyway, Dom doesn't really have time for her standup act right now, so luckily Harry --who is at that exact same Farmer's Market, packing up what looks like the exact same bushel of prop vegetables -- calls to take her mind off the work she is not and never is doing.
Harry: "Um. First of all, happy birthday. Secondly, did you get the thing I left at the house?"
Savi: "Whoo! They were from you!"
Harry: "No idea what you're talking about. I was talking about some financials."
Savi: "Okay, whatever."
Harry: "The important thing is, I will pay for the ultrasound but after that, you can go fuck yourself. Handle your own medical shit. I ain't no socialist."
"Well, the bouquet wasn't from Harry, and even though I don't know he knows (probably) whose the baby is, he is making me pay my own medical bills, so that apparently tears it. Joss, gas up the Mustang and damn the consequences: We are going to Palm Springs a handful of hours early."
Three hours tops, and that's including the pee times. And also, every time they say "Palm Springs" I get a little shiver. Used to be that I would think of that book Generation X, which I love in that special way I reserve for Canadians telling me about America, because they are usually right but also affectionate about it. Palm Springs, the sleepy land of sunshine and bungalows and retrofetishist hipster impermanence. An eternal afternoon with the top down, kissing people at parties in an easygoing way and being friendly to strangers and speaking up when you have something to say, knowing you'll be heard.
Now, though, all it makes me think of is the time my friend Chad and I watched Less Than Zero, for the first time as adults so basically for the first time, and every time they would talk about Palm Springs or show a Nagel painting we would scream, "DON'T GO TO THE SPRAAAAANGS!" Because obviously: You go to the Springs, thing you know you're getting it in the ass so Spader can make a buck.
A wildly different -- but I feel probably no less accurate -- picture of Palm Springs. The Springs are many things to many people, and we get the Springs we need, not necessarily what we deserve. Of course, this is all according to old gay dudes who used to be young straight dudes. What is Palm Springs like today? Don't know yet. (Anything could happen!)
THE RESORT
They're met with bubbles on the road outside, it's that kind of thing: Giant crystal containers full of bonbons and a beefy guy named Brendan getting his shit worked by Joss, who tries to get him to switch the rooms around so they can adjoin April and Karen, and whatever. This is Brendan: "Such a beautiful creature deserves whatever she wants." That kind of crap. So Joss pays him off and Savi waddles around being pregnant and feeling old and flirted-with, and meanwhile Joss is terrifiedly on the phone with Harry's voicemail.
Joss: "I know you don't give a shit about Savi, but you and I are close, and she and I are close, so please get that envelope back in the guesthouse before my return. Or else, you dick."
RICHARD
Is moving out of town! Oh no! April, you asshole. I'm going to go ahead and blame you for this even though he's probably just desperately trying to reconcile with his ex-wife in Chicago, leading you to freak out, only to then realize what a hypocrite you're being. I have to admit, in the previews for last week when she looked in and saw the windows and gasped, I had a sharp pain in my stomach that said maybe Richard was moving away, but I chose to ignore that feeling. I chose to say to myself, "Just like that Ellie Goulding song says, Jacob, anything can happen."
RESORT
Some guy is trying to get his semi-cute kid to jump in the pool with him, and Savi watches because kids. Not to be rude, I'm just saying it's not the cutest kid I've ever seen in my life. Just kidding, it is totally the cutest kid. I was just playing it cool.
Savi's like, "Even that little kid has a gay dad to go swimming with. What's my bastard got? Nothing. Not even a bouquet of flowers. Just four women more helpless than toddlers, who will probably lose him or her in a poker game or brewery tour before he or she turns a year old." Then the kid finally jumps in his dad's arms, and Savi throws her hands up in the air, so proud of this kid she will never see again. It is a fairly awesome moment.
Then the mom shows up and Savi gets a little weird and looks at the mom, and her pride for the little boy -- finally jumping, finally living, being a person regardless of how scary that might be -- mixes with the nuclear family of it all and Savannah makes a decision! She slaps a sleepy, tanning Joss on the ass and says they have to go home again!
Which is fine because it is not that far from where they currently are!
Or maybe they are just in the good Palm Springs now: Everybody is polite, and cute, and friendly and a little gay -- that kid's dad, your sister, Brendan -- but if you leave, a trick door will flip open and when you return, when you make the grueling journey back from LA, you will find yourself in the other Palm Springs. The ass-to-ass one.
MAISON
April beats it back to the shoppe, where she calls... No, not Richard. Richard who was last seen in his usual place across the street, watching her have coffee with a ghost. Why call the actual person when you could call one of the other hapless fools running around this TV show?
April: "So I took your advice and decided to remind my ADD body that Richard is wonderful, and guess what? He has vanished and is gone forever! Why does this keep happening to me? Am I a magician? A sorcerer, that turns MEN into GHOSTS?"
Richard's Voice: "...Hey, April!"
(Hee hee hee hee-ee-ee hee)
April: "Where did you go? Where did you move?"
Richard: "I dropped my phone again, this time into a beer under a car. I didn't move, I was having it painted. The paint was peeling like fruit!"
April: "God, I have missed your turns of phrase. And your perfectly fitted sports-law button-downs. And your dreamy blue eyes. My goodness, my gracious, my ADD."
Richard: "Why would you think I would just disappear?"
April: "Quick review..."
Richard: "Honey, I am not Paul."
April: "That's so sweet. Also, that is the problem."
RESORT
Savi: "I was just being so weird about the flowers, you know, trying to figure it out when not even Karen could solve that mystery. But I realized when I was creeping on that family that I was asking the wrong question. I wanted to know who was going to guest-star with me in my dumb movie of a life I have spent thirty years constructing, but actually the romance is now in making a family for this baby. Like how we raised ourselves, you know? Like wolves?"
Joss: "What's the plan?"
Savi: "We go get the results..."
Joss: "Oh crap. Then what?"
Savi: "And then -- twist! -- I still don't open them. We drive them all the hellish way back here, and then I open them here. Where I won't have access to either person. It's a great plan!"
Joss: "It's a horrible plan, but also I don't know where they are... Got it. Okay, they should be in my nightstand..."
Savannah hands her some bullshit about how she didn't put them in a better safer place, like her "undies" drawer or a safe deposit box, but Joss (who I guess just has no intention of going with her either way) talks her out of it because God forbid a pregnant woman make the freakout hellride from LA to the Springs all by herself. So she seems to convince Savi to put off this (useless, not at all helpful) plan until the morning -- with the hope that Harry will have gotten them back to the guesthouse (unopened) and Savi will never know that Joss "messed up" and lost them.
Which is also kind of dumb in the specific way this show does, because it isn't Joss's fault -- and not in a plausible deniability, she's a flake kind of way: Like literally, Harry was the antagonist of her very good safeguarding of those results. She wasn't supposed to hide them from Harry, she was hiding them from Savannah. Whose fault, really, everything is.
AM
Karen: "I haven't started packing yet! You're early! What does California Fancy mean? What are clothes?"
April: "Honey, can we maybe drive separately?"
Karen: "Seriously, it'll take me ten minutes."
April: "No, Richard wants to have brunch, and I like the idea of settling this before we go out of town."
Karen: "You didn't need to drive here to ask me this. Clearly you need my very good help and advice. I need to say up front that I am no longer a licensed professional, although the quality of my advice shouldn't be hindered or changed in any way by that fact."
April: "You know how I gave you gals the business yesterday about making out with Paul?"
Karen: "Yeah, it was awesome!"
April: "I just... How could I harbor feelings or confusion about this? About him. Richard is great, Paul is the pits!"
Karen: "Feelings are feelings, you can't just take responsibility for them or control them like some kind of adult or robot. Let's take me, for one stellar example of decision-making. I knew Tom was married and a medical client of mine in a fragile state, nearing the end of his life, blah blah blah, there were a million logical reasons not to have an affair with him. But then you know what my feelings said? My feelings said, Fuck it. So I went for it! I ruined my life, and that of everyone involved. Is this helping?"
April: "[Hemming and hawing, as though there is a decision to be made here.]"
Karen: "Close your eyes."
April: "You can't hypnotize me, Karen. I am way too uptight."
First of all, I would like nothing more than for Karen to start hypnotizing people. I think that could really go some places. Secondly, April, I'm sorry to say this but you are the most suggestible person in the history of small business owners. You believe in ghosts, you believe in accessible health care for women and children, you let Miranda Nickleby hypnotize you at least four times, like friggin' Kaa. You had to go to Richard's house to figure out if you liked him because you couldn't remember.
Karen: "You are visualizing a happy life. Who is it with?"
April: "Boom, done."
She runs out the door, having just had the exact same epiphany as...
SAVANNAH
Who has left the resort by the time Joss wakes up. Oh no! Rocking down the highway with Joss calling her, unheeded over the intensely bad Lykke Li cover rocking the Mustang. Bets? I say we're about to combine "convenient miscarriage" with "texting while driving PSA" and then toss some "coma bedside reconciliation" on top. How about you, what do you think?
Harry's gonna be all, "Savi, I don't care whose baby it is, just come back to me because I realize what's important," and then right when Savi wakes up miraculously from her coma (shouting "Diamonds!") the doctors will appear and be like, "You lost the baby, but it had a detectable Australian accent," and then that's Season Two: Dealing with that, and a marriage in repair, and Harry having shitty crybaby drunkard meltdowns about their dead baby he hated so much that he wished it to death, and blaming her for texting while driving even though he doesn't want to hate her for that but he can't help it. That's my prediction.
MAISON
Why has April summoned Richard to her shoppe? Is it to fuck with him? Dump him? Yes. First a big kiss, and then a big apology. You dumb jerk, April. Nice one getting the smooch first, though. That is gold right there.
KAREN
Is shocked to see the Widow Grey -- hair fun and flippy, lipstick in acceptable parameters, pretty pulled together all things considered -- stalking outside her house, dry-weeping like a Real Housewife about how she wants to make it up to Karen and all kinds of red-flag danger zone bullshit that of course Karen doesn't recognize because she has never seen a TV show, or a person, or anything that ever has happened, so she's unprepared.
Never go to the second location. Especially with a Wine Country WASP bitch on pills. Double that if she's wearing a blousy white linen shirt and simple necklaces rather than her usual fashion-forward sharkwear. Even that one bright purple tunic looked like she could fight in it. (Although for what it's worth, I think it's the same chain necklace now that I'm thinking about it.) That is predatory camouflage intended to make her look nonthreatening, like a nature photographer. Don't fall for it! The only nature she's interested in is red in tooth and claw, Karen Kim.
SAVI
Is still driving down the highway, bopping along, and she answers the phone, and talks about how she shouldn't be talking on the phone on the I-16, which means her ass is dead. They have a long conversation about how she shouldn't hear bad news on the freeway, and how she should pull over, and then she pulls over, and then they discuss whether or not she has come to a complete stop. I mean, it's all very suspenseful exactly how hard she's going to get hit.
They have a fight about how Harry stole the results -- and yes, Savi does find a way to at least try and bitch at Joss about this -- and she yells at her sister because she's coming back to the Springs (DON'T DO IT!) and then she drives... Directly into the path of an oncoming SUV. It's hilarious. They spend the whole time having this safety dialogue and Joss is like, "Check your mirrors and remember to stay off the median and drive the speed limit" and then she just... Pushes the pedal with her little boot, right across every lane of the road, so that she is in the perfect position to get t-boned by the van driving directly toward her. Or should I say, directly toward her uterus.
MAISON
Richard: "Okay but then you freaked out yesterday about me moving..."
April: "I was! Heartbroken and sad. For like a minute. Then I was just relieved."
Richard: "You're awful. That is awful, and you are awful."
April: "No, I was relieved because you got to be the bad guy. Not me."
Richard: "Oh, so this is about Paul. That's cool. I got back with my ex a few times. I was deluded like you. Have fun wasting years of your life."
April: "People change, Richard..."
Richard: "But they don't change back."
Nice. That was solid, right there. Good one.
GREY GARDENS
Sam: "Mom. Mom? Are you drunk on this floor? I am going back to Brown, my college. The reason is that you are a monster."
Is she in the kitchen? No. Media room? No, she hates the remotes because she is always drunk and cannot make them function. Is she under the informal dining room table? Sometimes, some days, but not today. Is she in Dad's teak gun cabinet where he keeps his gun safe? No, but you know what is also not in there? A gun!
DUMBASS KAREN
Karen: "Can I get you some ice for your latest drink you're going to be drinking?"
Elizabeth: "I just love your home, Karen! Minimalist. Is this Ikea?"
Karen: "I'm glad you're enjoying sitting around on my couch you tried to take out from under my ass, along with the rest of my life. Can I wait on you hand and foot some more?"
Elizabeth: "Tom liked things clean like this. Clean lines. No clutter. No boobs..."
Karen: "What do you want, lady?"
Elizabeth: "I have no vitriol left, Karen. I am not here to bring him up, or say bitchy things about everything. This is just my natural setting."
Karen: "I seriously have to go to Palm Springs."
Elizabeth: "Being so angry has made me sick, frankly."
Karen: "In the head? Or elsewhere."
Elizabeth: "I need to get on with my life. I need to settle accounts."
Karen: "Great, how can I help you with that?"
Elizabeth: "The Springs, huh? Who knows you're coming? And also, I have questions. Why don't you sit your narrow ass down on that couch real quick."
SAVI
Harry's heart drops out of his butt when they call him that his wife is in the hospital. He runs and runs to his car, and tries to get Joss to stop yelling at him so he can notify her.
April's stuck in traffic -- the selfsame accident of Savi! She sees the bashed-up Mustang and figures it out. Everybody's onboard now.
EXCEPT KAREN
Who is being held hostage by nothing other than this bitch's lack of manners. She hasn't even gotten the gun out yet and Karen's acting like she's about to die.
Elizabeth: "I noticed you don't have any pictures around the place. That must be because you are all alone, because you are disgusting."
Karen: "I just remembered my phone is upstairs. I need it to call everybody I have ever met and tell them a crazy woman is being very rude to me."
Elizabeth: "Only a very stupid woman would be heading to Palm Springs without her cell phone. Are you a very stupid woman, Dr. Kim?"
Karen: "I don't really think the jury's out on that one, Elizabeth."
Her phone rings across the room, so she shrugs and goes to answer it, turning her back long enough for Elizabeth to pull the gun out from just ... nowhere. She just suddenly produces a gun from behind herself.
Elizabeth: "Don't answer it, Karen."
Karen: "How come?"
MEANWHILE
April is beating on a vending machine in the hospital, taking out her aggression and stress -- and one presumes, acting on behalf of the locked-away still-sane part of her mind still screaming about Richard -- but to no avail. You can't have everything you want.
April: "Paul, thanks for calling me back! My friend was in a car accident and since you're my new boyfriend now -- by the way -- I need your comfort and support."
Harry: "April, where is Savi?"
April: "Somewhere in this stupid hospital, I guess. I'm not family so they won't tell me."
Harry: "Tell them she's pregnant! I'm technically her husband, so."
Joss: "Where is Savi? Where is the baby? Where is my hug?"
Harry: "Here's your hug. Savi's in critical condition but the baby's fine."
Joss: "Thank God."
Harry: "Can you do me a favor and call Dominic?"
Joss: "That asshole? Why?"
LATER
Harry pops open a fresh pack of cigarettes, which of course he quit years ago, and it's a pretty nice moment. Joss starts crying like immediately once she thinks about how hard the last twelve episodes have been on everybody.
Joss: "Harry, this is all my fault. I should have fessed up..."
Harry: "Well actually I stole them, so."
Joss: "I am going to fall the fuck apart if she's not okay. You'll be fine, but me? I'm toast."
Harry: "That's what's important here. And you're right. I don't give a shit about any of this but she's still my wife and you're still my sister and... Hey, Dominic."
Dominic: "This is weird. Sorry, this is really awkward."
Harry: "Fourth floor. Asshole."
KAREN
Karen: "Okay like what do you even want?"
Liz: "An apology, silly!"
Karen: "Well, of course I am sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you at all..."
Liz: "You mean, when you stole my life from me?"
Karen: "That's an odd way to characterize it, but..."
Liz: "Answer me this! Did you see Tom's face when you were screwing my son?"
Karen: "We're kind of all over the map here."
Karen snags her phone, calls 911, and puts it in her liquor cabinet while searching out fresh scotch for momma.
Karen: "All I've got is vodka! How do you like it?"
Liz, verbatim: "In my HAND."
HOSPITAL
April: "Paul, what are you doing here?"
Paul: "Your overdramatic voicemails, I couldn't bear your voice being so distraught. I will never not be there for you again."
April: "I am amazed that I am buying this shit. Are you amazed by that?"
Paul: "A little bit."
Doctor: "Savannah Davis is awake! Her lung collapsed from being on the phone while driving. Only one person can come in at a time."
Savannah's in pretty rough shape when Joss comes in, and immediately busts into tears at how jacked up she looked. They are super sweet and awesome with each other, and then Savannah remembers that she is a soap opera.
Savi: "Is Harry here? And did he open the results?"
Joss, sadly: "Yes. And uh, yeah."
Savi: "I can't believe that jerk let me drive into traffic over this."
Joss: "Did I not make it very clear that he is not the father of your baby?"
Savi: "Did I not make it clear I am barely following this conversation?"
LATER
Harry: "Hey, Savannah."
Savi: "Hey, father of my child! I can't wait to work out an equitable and amicable co-parenting arrangement with you once I get out of this hospital."
Harry: "Right. Well, okay. Honey? I'm not the father of your child. I'm here for you, because you are my wife and my greatest love. And I realized what is important! I love you so much that I am going to steal that man's baby. I choose you. Always."
Savi: "Except for when you constantly don't. That's really sweet."
KAREN
Yeah, Karen's still being held at gunpoint. Like you care in the middle of the miracle of Savi's self-created problems going away like they never existed because they never did.
Karen: "Elizabeth, put down the GUN THAT YOU HAVE POINTED AT ME."
911 Lady: "911, what's your emergency?"
Karen: "AHEM. I just sometimes cough like that so it sounds like a 911 lady. Elizabeth, if you shoot a gun in THIS ZIP CODE people will hear it. We live very quietly in MY PARTICULAR VOTING PRECINCT."
Elizabeth: "Oh my God, shut up. Momma's drinking vodka. Hey, you want some vodka?"
911 Lady: "Ma'am, can you hear me talking really loud? How about your attacker?"
The Widow Grey hangs up on 911, which is not how that works, and then tries to rush her upstairs: A bottle of vodka and a LETHAL DOSE OF MORPHINE!, at gunpoint, should do the trick. Oh man, Grey. You are one sick puppy. She's like, "Considering it's where you fucked my son [which it isn't], nobody will think it's weird that you done for yourself up there." But then somebody bangs on the door. It's Sam!
HOSPITAL
Harry and Dominic look at each other. Joss looks at Savi. Everybody is pregnant with pauses, and regrets, and biracial babies. Why is Paul still getting calls from Miranda? Oh, could it be because he is the worst? Probably. April excuses herself to visit the restroom, but I like to pretend "restroom" is code for "Richard's inexhaustible good graces."
Dominic: "Am I allowed to..."
Savi: "Get in here."
Dom: "Hey, okay. Well..."
Savi: "First of all, I know you know. Now go ahead."
Dom: "I was freaking out the whole time, worrying about you. And you're okay."
Savi: "More importantly, the baby is okay."
Dom: "You realize I am totally in love with you, and have been for a long time?"
Savi: "Why would I care about that now? Just because we have a baby together?"
Dom: "Good point. Later."
April: "Karen, is that you? Why are you calling me from Miranda's phone?"
Miranda: "Honey, no. It's me. I know this is super weird, but I'm really scared. Have you heard from Paul? He was supposed to be back like two days ago."
Scottie: "Is that Daddy?"
Miranda, crying: "No, honey. It's not. I don't know where Daddy is..."
Oooh, and now the Mistress circle is complete. April's like, "I have become the destroyer of worlds. I hope they have throw pillows in Hell."
Miranda: "Can you at least have him call his son? His lonely sad son?"
April: "Whatever, bitch. Of course I will."
Miranda: "Thanks."
April: "Go fuck yourself. I am sending you five hundred dollars. Please kiss Scott for me, and punch yourself in the eye."
Joss: "It was our mother that sent the mystery flowers that wrecked my car, via you."
Savi: "Isn't that something. Nice of her to send me into a total fucking tailspin for my birthday."
April: "Hey guys."
Joss: "Paul's here, huh? That's weird. And nice?"
April: "No, I sent him back to Florida."
Savi: "Okay, so Richard..."
April: "Dumped him, too."
Savi: "How long was I in a coma?"
April: "I work fast."
Savi: "Were you not like, just talking about having a family?"
April: "That was mostly you, but yeah. I have one. You guys. Mostly Savi and Karen."
KAREN
Elizabeth: "I'm sure Sam is bored by now. Get upstairs."
Karen: "I don't feel like it!"
Sam smashes through the back patio window like Body Heat, just as Savi is going aphasic and then crashes! Joss goes running for help! The doctors cram in!
Sam: "Mom, you can't go around killing people. Now all we have is each other."
Elizabeth: "You're in love with her! Just like Tom!"
Sam: "I'm not sold that he loved her. Maybe she was just a mistake. For us both."
Elizabeth: "Is that why he begged for her when I was killing him? He made me feel like a Mistress! His last words were Karen, I want Karen!"
"BEFORE I DECIDED TO KILL HIM!"
Oh shit. Everybody goes nuts. Sam rushes at her clown-lined eyes and smudged lipstick, with a mighty roar. Karen wobbles in the air, vindicated but still processing that shit.
Harry yells at Savannah to not die, and April cries, and Sam and his mom fight over the gun, and somebody gets shot and blood goes everywhere, and they start in on Savi with the paddles -- Joss is just completely losing it, as expected -- and then ... um, that's the end of the season.
Savannah is flatlining, April is a singleton, one to three of the Karen people are dead, and Joss is presumably already careening out of control. Certainly one way to end a season. Maybe the best possible way: As art imitates life, so too this show was a car accident about a car accident. But it was also art, and on occasion it really went to some fantastic places. I try to be open-minded and judge on a week-by-week basis, and the reason for that I think this show perfectly illustrates. You don't ever want to cut yourself off from pleasure for no reason.
And you know how I feel about these ladies. I really missed them when they were gone for only a couple weeks! The cast's options are extended to the 30th, which means we'll find out by the end of this month about Season Two. But it's a strong show and a great cast, and pretty much the only summer show I've been hearing about -- I mean, apart from work stuff -- so that's a good thing. I think it's a no-brainer. I cannot imagine what start-of-summer Jacob would say about that. I honestly didn't think I'd have to cover more than a couple weeks, when it started: Either we, or the network, would drop it. I'm very glad nobody did, and I hope to see you summer!
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Good Wife, Homeland, Hostages, Ravenswood, and Masters Of Sex for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as a regular column for Tor.com, Geek Love.