As the show opens, we see Lily and her brood bustling out the front door, going over the contingency plan for after-school rides. Lily's on her way to an interview and is pretty nervous at the prospect. Zoe wants to know what's going to happen to her and Grace if Lily gets a job and works all the time. Lily points out that they're quite capable of fending for their own dinner, and besides, it's not like anyone's "exactly jumping up and down to give her a job." Phil comes sauntering out the front door making grand gestures and reciting a line from Shakespeare's King Lear: "Blow wind and crack your cheeks!" It's the beginning of Lear's raging speech to Nature, after he's been put out into the storm by both his rotten daughters, but somehow when Phil says it, all I can think of is passing gas. He follows this line with part of another famous line from the opening scene, when Lear is deciding how to divide his kingdom: "How [now] Cordelia! Mend your speech a little." Phil then begs to hear a line from Grace but she refuses. Beg, beg, beg. No, no, no. Finally, though, Grace relents and, in a painfully mechanical recitation, gives him Cordelia's response to Lear, sort of: "Good my lord, you have begot me, bred me, loved me. I return those duties blah blah something something." I tell myself her lines sound terrible because she's just humoring Grandpa and that she hasn't given it an honest effort. Phil insists he's not going home without hearing her say her lines on stage. So we can all breathe a sigh of relief -- Phil hasn't flipped his cookie, he's just excited because Gracie's in a school play. She jokes that she'll faint onstage when she forgets her lines, and Grandpa says not to worry -- he'll be there to shout them out to her. She says that's what she's afraid of.
From this warm and fuzzy family moment, we shift to Lily and Phil sitting in a diner, where Lily is anxiously gesturing for the bill. Phil checks his watch and points out she's still got an hour to get to the interview. Lily sniffs her armpit. Who knew beautiful people get b.o.? I never even suspected they have sweat glands. I'm compelled to rewind and watch it again, I find it so reassuring. Lily complains she's sent out four resumes and hasn't had any interest. Wow, four huh? And you haven't been offered your dream job yet? What the hell is the hold-up? Phil launches into a lecture on self-worth pointing out that she's beautiful, educated, smart. I know it's a lookist, shallow world we live in, but really, being beautiful isn't generally considered a qualification unless you're applying to be a spokesmodel or Baywatch chick. I'm not saying the editors I've worked with aren't attractive people, I'm just saying.
Black-and-white Lily sums up the nature of her relationship with Dad in a nutshell. She says that when she was a kid, Phil loved helping her with her school projects. The only problem was, he never knew when to stop.
Black-and-white Phil, all defensive but smiling, says "What? A man can't help his daughter? Isn't that what it means to be a father?"
So to review, Phil likes to take control. He's overbearing and overprotective of his kids and grandkids, but only because he has their best interests at heart. Now let's move on, shall we?
We see Lily sitting in an office with funky lighting and hip, retro touches. A YOUNG woman sits across the desk from her. You can tell she's a hip young thing because she's sporting a Friends haircut (not that there's anything wrong with that), she's dressed all in black, and she has a big latte sitting on the desk in front of her. She's reading over Lily's resume and pauses to gush over the bookstore, it's such a valuable service Lily's providing. People "need to remember what books are!" Who's forgotten? She may be young, but I'd wager her Dr. Seuss came bound between two covers. She then twists the knife by letting Lily know that she buys all her books on-line. After glancing at Lily's resume again, the unnamed interviewer -- let's just call her Idiot, yes? -- looks up and blurts that Lily's "sooo pretty!" It appears Idiot has taken her acting cues from Clueless (not to besmirch that fine film). She tops this wholly inappropriate remark by asking Lily where she gets her hair cut. Now, I get it that the "modern workplace" is changing, especially in creative industries, but I don't think things have changed so much that this obvious bubblehead would be put in a position not only to hire and fire, but to make editorial decisions.
So how is Lily reacting to her grueling interview? Not surprisingly, she's sitting in her seat looking absolutely stunned. She pats her hair self-consciously before trying to stammer out an answer. She stumbles and laughs and can't remember the name of her salon right away and basically looks like she'll fit right into this workplace. Of course, she's nervous, so she has an excuse.
Idiot continues reading the resume and notices that Lily graduated in Seventy-nine. Somehow, she manages to do the math in her head and figures out that this would make Lily about forty. She says the number like it's a disease. Lily crosses her arms defensively but Idiot's not on the attack. She is simply astonished Lily could be that old: "Omigod! Most people [she] knows who are forty-one are, like, yerg." The last bit is the sound she makes while pulling her face down to simulate the ravages of time. Then she giggles. Sensitive gal. I HATE her. And no, I'm not over thirty. Idiot then goes on to ask if Lily has any kids and "are they really CUTE?" This girl doesn't just speak, everything she says is obnoxiously exaggerated, including the faces she makes to punctuate every dumb-ass comment. Idiot then admits that she wants kids but worries she'll never get married because her longest relationship lasted, like, three months (how did somebody stand her that long?). And then it hits me -- it's like this person has been transplanted straight off Blind Date and Lily is the poor, unsuspecting slob they've dumped her on. This chick is THAT irritating.
Idiot starts to wrap up the "interview" by summing up Lily's position in life: "[She's] divorced, needs money, and is heading back into the job world." Wow, no wonder they pay her the big bucks. Her stunning insight is punctuated by a big fat "BUT," of course. She proceeds to give Lily the lowdown on the workplace, essentially making it clear that Lily's the exact opposite of the staff -- everyone there's like five years old and they have no lives and it's all done on computers. She points out that Lily has no computer experience listed on her resume and says that she's "just wondering why [Lily] thinks [they] might be a good place for [her]." She doesn't really sound like she's looking for an answer, though. More like she's letting Lily know she doesn't have a hope of fitting in. Lily takes a beat but then straightens her spine and stiffens her lip. Looks like Phil's pep talk paid off. She reminds Idiot that she was editor of her college paper "back in the Paleolithic Era." Idiot smiles widely at the joke, like old people are so cute sometimes. Lily also mentions her experience as an assistant editor at Chicago magazine. "For five months?" Idiot asks. Lily explains she left because she got pregnant, and Idiot jumps in to let her know she's not judging Lily's life decisions, she knows things were different "in those days" when "they didn't like pregnant women to work."
Lily's had enough. Making a visible effort to stay calm, she states that her skills are the same whether they're practiced on paper or a computer; what she does at the bookstore is harder that what Idiot needs; and what she does as a mother -- trust her -- is harder than both. So Idiot should just give her a chance to prove herself.
Cut to Lily pacing and ranting at Rick's office. "Can you believe [the Idiot] said that?" I wonder which particular remark out of the countless inane utterances she's fuming about. "Well you are old," Rick says. Even though he's joking, he's clearly a brave man. Lily hits him. She talks about how young everyone at the office is, and how much energy they all have, and it's pretty clear she feels inadequate. She complains about having to write synopses for the day--"like an audition"--conveniently overlooking the fact that she has no portfolio or other body of work to show them. And the fact that she has to have them done overnight is really not such an outrage, it's actually called 'working to deadline.' Which I'm sure editors were expected to do even twenty years ago. Rick soothes Lily with a lovely little pep talk, and Lily wonders why she got mad at her dad for telling her the same things. Rick points out that he's not her father (we noticed), and Lily tells him she "[doesn't] want him to be." Right, that was Jake's job.
We cut to Lily at her computer working on the synopses with Phil hovering over her shoulder correcting spelling mistakes. He's offended that she "has to prove herself to these people" and wonders "what are they, blind?" Well, you know, Lily's hair may be fabulous, but it's not going to correct those punctuation problems, now is it? Grace comes in to get Phil to drive her to rehearsal and he starts spouting Shakespeare again. I suspect he only knows those two lines because he keeps using them over and over. Much hilarity ensues as Judy enters the room and joins Grace and Lily in making fun of Phil.
Black-and-white Lily interrupts with this observation: "If you ever want to see how you were raised, just watch your parents with your children."
Swelling with pride, Phil is insisting he is going to watch Grace perform whether she likes it or not.
Watching Phil with Grace, black-and-white Lily remembers he "was always so BIG. So much fun. I never realized how much he bossed everyone around."
Grace takes charge of the scene in the living room, zipping up Phil's jacket and telling him they're leaving right now. Phil makes a joke about how she treats her elders. After they exit, Judy flops onto the couch with Zoe, and Zoe tells her she has beautiful hair. Judy says "Thank-you dahling, but it's [Lily] who has the beautiful hair." Does Sela have some new line of hair care products or something? It's the only explanation I can think of. Zoe mentions that Lily's been interviewing, and Lily shoos her out of the room to take a bath. Judy and Lily then demonstrate their happy, sisterly bond as they talk about Lily leaving the bookstore. Judy fake grumbles that Lily was bad in the bookstore anyway, always flirting with customers and giving away books. Lily says she's not giving Judy the store, and Judy jokes that Lily just wants to profit from the sweat of her brow. "Yeah, all three dollars" Lily quips. She tells Judy that she interviewed at "Pages Alive." "Dot com," Judy adds, impressed at how "cutting edge" it is. Lily complains that her "life is off the map" and she has "absolutely no money" between lawyers and all the rest of the divorce crap. Then she utters the words that in TV-land automatically condemn her to calamity: "[She] just wants one week when nothing happens." Fat chance, this is a "powerful episode," remember? The scene ends with yet another demonstration of warm and fuzzy familial love as the two engage in a squealing, giggling pillow fight.
Cut to the high-school auditorium, where Grace and the rest of the troupe are onstage limping through their dress rehearsal. Phil, alone in the audience, is mouthing the words. So he does know more than just two lines! Who knew? Grace is pretty stinky but Lear actually manages to heave some inflection into his lines. The camera pans back and we see Phil fast asleep, snoring softly. That didn't take long, but I can't say I blame him. Oddly, the rehearsal ends before they even reach the end of Act I, scene i, and Grace walks up the aisle, blabbing the whole time about how she was so terrible, and she's so embarrassed and, methinks the lady doth protest too much. Luckily, her little spiel awakens Phil before she reaches his seat, and she has no idea he slept through almost everything. As Phil stands to leave, he groans and gets a funny look on his face. Grace is concerned, but he brushes it off. Foreshadowing, anyone? There's plenty to go around tonight.
Cut to Phil and grace in the car, where Phil is regaling her with tales of his own thespian exploits. Note: it's nighttime and it's raining. They pull up to a red light, and Phil is so into his story that he doesn't notice the light change. Someone behind him honks, and he turns to bitch them out as he lets the car ease forward into the intersection. But the car across the intersection has already started making a left and, OH NO. "Grandpaaaaaa!" Grace shrieks. Cue the smashing glass.
Lily's still pounding out the synopses, and Zoe's showing her this neat little feature called the pull-down menu (Lily really is in trouble with this whole computer thing), when the phone rings. Each heads in different directions in a quest for the cordless, and Lily pulls it from under a couch cushion. You can tell right away it's bad news because she moves very slowly and her face looks frozen. She clutches her chest as she asks "What kind of accident?"
After the commercial break, we see Lily and Zoe tearing down a hospital corridor and rounding the corner to reach the nurses' station. Lily asks frantically where she can find Grace and Phil and we hear Grace say "Mom." The three of them race into each others' arms and Grace tells Lily that both she and Phil are okay. PSYCHE! Well this obviously wasn't "the accident that would change their lives forever." Zoe keeps hugging Grace because she's so relieved she's not hurt.
Cut to Phil being wheeled out of a room by a lovely young nurse and doctor. He's in a gown with a big piece of gauze on his chin, and he's in the middle of telling a joke. In the background, Lily races around the corner and catches up to them. The doctor explains to her that they've checked everything, including his heart and internal organs, and everything looks okay. They'll keep him overnight for observation. Jake pops up and he's assured that Grace and Phil are fine. In fact, Phil says he's glad for things like the accident, because "everything looks so beautiful to [him]" now. He then jokes about the beautiful nurse and the doctor's beautiful nose and basically just shows us all he's full of life. "[He's] not on any drugs" he assures Lily, "[He's] alive. That's the only drug [he] needs." Uh-oh. Phil has just unwittingly jinxed himself but no one else seems to notice.
Later that night, we see Lily diving across the bed to grab the ringing phone on her night stand. It's Ricky-pooh checking in and making sure everyone's all right -- Zoe answered the phone earlier and told him about the accident. He's pacing around, inexplicably holding a mini-basketball. He and Lily talk about how scary it is worrying about the people you love and thinking you could lose them and HEY -- that's more foreshadowing, just in case you missed it. Lily complains about how much she still has to do -- those damn synopses come up again -- and that now her dad will be moving in for another two weeks and will obviously try to take over her life. Rick suggests she let him.
The morning, normal family chaos is unfolding in the Manning kitchen as the kids get ready for school and Lily's on the phone trying to locate her father in the hospital. While she waits on the line, she asks Grace if she's okay to go to school. Zoe says she wouldn't if it were her in the accident. Grace makes it clear they're both overreacting and, besides, she has to go to rehearsal. She's not kidding. Phil and Judy come tripping through the back door and Judy announces "He called me at six-thirty." She does not sound pleased. Phil wanted out of the hospital so badly, he's still wearing his gown. Even though he's on crutches with a broken ankle, he puts on the bravado, insisting he's going upstairs. They all point out that it's basically impossible, even for him, and insist that he sleep on the couch in the living room. Phil utters the obligatory "it doesn't matter where [they] put [him] -- [they] won't even know [he's] there." Somehow I doubt it, and I think they do too. Judy and Lily both have somewhere to be, but Judy's is more urgent so she wins and Lily's left papa-sitting. Lily tells Phil she'll be back in twenty minutes after dropping off the kids at school. He says he'll be fine and starts trying to make breakfast for himself. He rummages very clumsily in the fridge, his crutches clearly getting in the way, as Lily begs him to sit and wait. He drops something sloggy and wet all over the floor and she flips it. She says she'll make him breakfast and the kids will just have to be late for school. No one argues.
Cut to a small TV set tuned to the History Channel. The camera pans back, and we see we're in the living room, watching Phil watching TV. The doorbell rings, and Phil hobbles over to answer it. It's Rick, and they go through a ha-ha deja-vu of the last time they met. "So Rick Sammler, what are your intentions?" Phil asks, and Rickster the Trickster replies "Bad as ever, Phil." Ahh, those guys! Lily comes in the back door and looks pleasantly surprised to see Rick. They exchange some self-conscious affection in front of Phil, and then Lily tosses some magazines onto Phil's lap, reading out the titles one by one. "What, no Playboy?" he wants to know. The three of them make more warm and fuzzy conversation and then (insert ominous organ music here) Jake walks through the front door (insert sound of needle scratching vinyl here). Woohoo, confrontation! Not. Both men harumph and ahem and put on big fat fake smiles and shake hands vigorously. They make polite chit chat about the restaurant, and Jake even goes so far as to suggest that Rick and Lily come by some night to check it out. Ah, but they're not fooling anyone with their manly displays, least of all Lily.
I know because she said so. Black-and-white Lily popped up to tell us she admires men, "these big, messy creatures who are so oblivious with each other they just have to act like: Everything. Is. Okay. All the time." She punctuates her simulated grunting with little flexing movements of her arms.
Rick leaves and Jake makes a "phew" face at Phil. Or maybe it's a "what the hell just happened" face. Whatever. It's obvious he's glad Rick is gone. At the door, Rick makes a similar gesture toward Jake in the other room and then asks Lily about her synopses. "Oh please," she says.
Cut to Grace sitting in the kitchen talking to Lily while she makes dinner. Grace is issuing the typical high-school kid complaint about Shakespeare's writing, saying no one talks that way, especially not in those long speeches. Zoe walks in and wants to know what Grace is talking about. This is followed by yet another dose of warm and fuzzy feelings as Grace and Zoe exchange some "all-in-good-fun" sibling insults. Grace hops off her stool to chase Zoe around the island. Jake heads through the kitchen toward the back door, and Lily asks him what he and Phil were talking about. "Just business," says Dismissive Man as he closes the door behind himself. Sensing some covert back-room operations, Lily heads in to the living room to get the scoop from Phil.
Big surprise -- Phil tells her yet again to drop the business with the lawyers and not to put the restaurant into receivership. Lily's pissed off because Phil's taking Jake's side but Phil insists he's on her side. She tells him Jake can't be trusted, no one can believe anything he says, and some heavy butting of heads follows. It basically amounts to a power struggle for control of Lily's life. She storms out.
time we see her, she's rolling around in bed unable to sleep.
Black-and-white Lily is kind enough to interpret for us. She says she "never used to fight with [her] father. Not out loud. But boy, the things [she] used to say in her head!"
Lily rolls around the bed a few more times before getting frustrated and throwing off the blankets with a grunt. She goes downstairs, accompanied by her voice-over: "[She] always had to make sure [they] made up." I though she just said they never fought. Anyway, can everyone see where this is going? Guilty conscience, "unfinished business?" Need I say more?
Black-and-white Lily says "it's silly. [She] guesses [she] was afraid he'd stay mad." Oh yeah, that seals it. Lily comes downstairs to find the couch empty. Then she heads into the kitchen, and we follow her line of sight as she turns the corner and -- THIS IS IT -- comes upon her father out cold in front of the open refrigerator. His eyes are open, but he's just staring vacantly and not responding to her. Lily hollers for Grace and calls nine-one-one. Grace is totally freaked and hangs in the doorway while Lily tries to reassure Phil that everything's okay and help is on the way.
We come back from commercials to find Judy propped against a waiting room wall looking blown away. Jake comes striding in like the superhero he thinks he is and goes to Lily to get the scoop. She fills him in and motions toward Grace, who's sitting off by herself. Jake sits to Grace, who is clearly not dealing, and says he knows it's scary, they're all scared, and Grace takes off. Lily and Jake follow her into the hallway, where she tells them it was her fault. She noticed something happen at her rehearsal and she didn't say anything because she knew Phil would get embarrassed. Jake and Lily assure her that no one would have taken it seriously, and no matter what it's not her fault -- no one could have prevented what happened. They give her double-team hug.
Cut to everyone back in the waiting room. Jake is talking loudly into his cell phone about some food order and reminding us that the restaurant is a demanding mistress. She stops for no man. The doctor comes into the room and everyone gathers around him. He tells them Phil is stable but that he had a large stroke in the left side of his brain. He's able to make some sounds, but it's not clear yet how much his speech has been affected. The doctor warns them that Phil probably won't be able to relate to them very much. Jake asks the inevitable: What are his chances? The doctor basically says there's no way to tell. Judy leaves to pick up the Mom at the airport.
Cut to Phil's hospital room, where he's all hooked up to tubes and monitors. Lily and Jake come in, but the kids hover in the doorway, unsure of what to do. Phil keeps making little sounds like "yeeah." From his bedside, Lily tells the girls that "It's okay. It's still Grandpa," and they venture closer. Lily holds Phil's hand and talks to him.
Black-and-white Lily interrupts to tell us that Phil used to read to her every night, even after she learned how to read on her own. She figures it's how she developed her love of books.
Cut to a montage of Lily keeping Phil company: She's staring out the window pensively, adjusting his blankets, and finally, sleeping in the chair to his bed. He calls out and wakes her up. Somehow, she understands that he's asking for a pen, and when she gives him one, he draws a one with a whole string of zeroes after it. "Hundred thousand?" Lily asks, but she doesn't understand what he's getting at. He's able to say "lend Jake" clearly enough for her to understand. She's incredulous and scolds him for worrying about business. Judy and the Mom walk in and Phil's sounds get louder. The Mom looks stricken to see him in this condition.
Cut to the hallway outside his room, where Grace is refusing to leave with everyone else. Jake offers to come back later to pick her up, and despite being flat broke, Lily fishes some money out of her purse and insists that Grace get some dinner in the cafeteria. Grace makes a face in deference to the age-old tradition of knocking cafeteria food.
Back at the Manning house, Lily's trying to care for her Mom, but Mom is too distracted to register most of what she's saying.
Cut to a close-up of a bleeping monitor. Grace is sitting at Phil's bedside watching the blips move across the screen. Phil pipes up to get her attention and says "cack." Finally, Grace understands that he's trying to do Lear, and he wants her to say her lines. "[She] doesn't want to make [him] sicker than [he] is" she protests but then gives in. She starts again with a very rote recitation of the "Good my lord" bit.
Back at the Manning house, Lily is tucking in Zoe, and Zoe asks her if "Grandma is praying for Grandpa." Lily says she is, and Zoe wants to know who she's praying to, since Grandpa is Jewish and Grandma isn't. Lily reassures her that God listens to everybody and Zoe is put at ease. "That's good," she says and then asks, "Do[es Lily] think [she] can go to Meagan's party?" She proceeds to describe the dress she wants to wear, and Lily smiles at her innocence before giving her a big kiss goodnight.
Meanwhile, Grace has chugged through a good part of her lines and is now near the end of the play, when Cordelia is reunited with Lear. He's been broken by her sisters and she laments his fate. "O dear father! Restoration, hang they medicine on my lips, and let this kiss repair those violent crimes," Grace says, and we can see that, finally, Cordelia has clicked for her, as she brushes at strands of Phil's hair with tears in her eyes.
At the Manning house, Judy and Lily are camped out in the kitchen listening to their mother pacing the floor above them. They start going down the "what if" road but stop themselves. It's that same sense of superstition that stops any of us from saying horrible possibilities out loud. We get the sense of their helplessness, fear, and tension as they wait it out.
Grace is still doing her Cordelia, choking out the words through her tears. She puts her head on Phil's chest and he makes sounds like "thank-you."
Lily is upstairs in her bedroom checking on her mother. They're both sitting on the edge of the bed with their backs to the camera, and Lily offers to lay down with her for a while. Mom says that's fine but she's not very tired. She seems pretty distant, dealing with her stress and fear privately.
Jake comes into Phil's room and tries to pick up Grace, who's asleep with her head on Phil's chest. Realizing she's too big for that now, he wakes her up and she kisses Phil good-bye.
Cut to Lily and her Mom spooning. A second later, Lily is coming down the stairs and she heads into the living room where Judy is asleep on the couch. After announcing that their mother grinds her teeth, Lily squeezes onto the couch to Judy, who comments that "the sofa smells like [Phil]." Later, in the kitchen, Lily tells Judy that she had a fight with Phil just before his stroke. Sarcastically, Judy says "I guess that's why it happened," which effectively cuts Lily's motor before she can start off on her guilt trip. Lily notices the message light flashing on the answering machine and discovers a message from Idiot, who says they "were all intrigued by the work [Lily] did" and she wants Lily to come in that afternoon to discuss it. Lily's freaked out -- how can she take a new job now? How can she go to an interview today? "Why not?" Judy wants to know, "It's not like [Phil's] going anywhere." She tells Lily to go to the interview and come to the hospital afterward.
Cut to Idiot, who's holding a latte, the prop of choice for hip young things. Her hair is in pigtails. Yes. Pigtails. She tells Lily that "magazines don't really sound like that, anymore." She says they "try to give [their] writing a little more" and she struggles and searches really hard in that big empty head for just the right word. You know, that buzzword, the one that EVERYONE uses so much it's basically become meaningless jargon? "EDGE" the Idiot finally says, much to my annoyance. But she adds that Lily's work shows promise. Encouraged, Lily says she just needs some time with the staff to get into the magazine's voice. "Staff?" Idiot asks. A dim little bulb lights up over her head, and she clues in that Lily thought the job was for an assistant editor. Amazingly, she musters enough brain cells to find a socially appropriate response. Embarrassed, she explains to Lily that the job is assistant to the editor. The job is being Idiot's personal assistant. Ech. I shudder to think what horrors such a position would entail.
Cut to Lily walking in a hospital corridor, saying to her cell phone, "assistant to a child?" She says it pays only a little better than the bookstore, but she feels like there's a chance for something more. As she turns the corner, we see Jake and Judy standing with a guy in a suit, looking very grim. Phil had another stroke while Lily was at the interview, and the situation doesn't look good.
After the commercial break, we come back to Jake, Judy, and Lily with the doctor. The Mom is slightly behind them with her back to the group, looking into Phil's room. It comes out in their conversation that Phil is basically dead already and only the life support is keeping him going. The Mom's eyes shift to the doctor as he explains all this. The doctor leaves them to wrestle with the decision of whether to cut Phil's life support. They head into a meeting room where Lily, Judy, and Jake sit around the table while the Mom stands off on her own, looking out the window. Judy's having a lot of trouble with the thought of "killing" Phil, and Jake tries to convince her that it's not really killing him because he has no hope of recovering. Judy responds by attacking his right to be there, and Jake points out that Phil is still his father-in-law. "Not for long," Judy reminds him. Lily cuts in on them and silence falls over the room. Lily asks her mother if she's okay. The Mom is very much someplace else and, as if in a daze, says she's fine. She moves to leave the room, and Jake rushes to touch her elbow in a show of support as she opens the door.
Cut to Lily outside, near some loading zone, watching cars go by. Rick brings her a coffee and she asks him how he "handled this at fourteen." "Who says [he] handled it?" Lily admits that her biggest fear as a child was losing her father and she still hasn't outgrown it. Rick points out that since "losing a parent happens to everyone, it's supposed to be bearable, and it's not." He remembers walking around in a state of unreality after his father died and Lily says she keeps waiting for Phil to sit up in bed and say "Fooled ya!"
Cut to a close-up of tubes and machines. The camera pans down to Phil's face, which looks very still and gray. Lily sits at his bedside and sighs heavily.
Black-and-white Lily reminisces about the time she broke her leg skiing. She was seventeen, and it was her first realization that life can change in an instant.
Back at Phil's bedside, she tells him that "[he] was always so easy to talk to. And now--" her voice trails off. She tells him she got "that job, sort of" and laughs. Then she grows serious and says she has to make the hardest decision of her life, and it's about him. She tells him he never taught her how to handle anything on her own. She knows he just wanted what was best for her, but he shouldn't have sheltered her -- it didn't help her in the end.
Cut to Jake, sitting alone on a waiting room couch. His elbows are on his knees, his head is hanging down, and he is looking utterly forlorn. I don't care what anybody says, at this moment I actually feel bad for the guy. He's been there for all of them throughout the whole ordeal and he just got crapped on by Judy for his efforts. Of course, her crapping on him was also an understandable reaction to overwhelming fear and anger over her father's situation. Man, I am wiped out with all this sympathizing. Judy walks over to him, and he turns his face away slightly, his chin wobbling because he's about to cry. In a silent gesture of apology, Judy places her hand over his. He breaks down. Me too.
Cut to Lily sitting alone in a hospital corridor. Grace joins her and says she just saw Phil. Lily says Phil really loved Grace, who responds by rolling her eyes, smiling, and saying "Yeah. That was kind of hard to miss." Grace asks how Lily's doing, and Lily admits she's "not so great." Grace says when she saw Phil, it wasn't him anymore. Phil always had "this look in his eye" and "you always knew what he was thinking." His skin was always rosy, too, but now it's all gone, and she realized "that's what they were talking about all those times in Sunday School. About people having souls." After seeing her grandpa, she knows that a soul is an actual thing, and Phil's is gone, she can just feel it. Something clicks for Lily, and she nods slowly. They head back to join the others in the waiting room. Lily and Judy both know what they have to do, but Judy asks if she can stay in the waiting room while Lily goes. Lily says no way, and they wonder how they're going to tell Mom.
Cut to Mom coming out of Phil's room, still looking vacant and dry-eyed. Judy and Lily approach her and she tells them she told the doctor to stop the life support. Judy is in awe that she was strong enough to do it alone. With a stiff upper lip, Mom tells them she was married to Phil for forty-three years, it was only right that she be the one to do it. The three go in to sit with Phil.
We fade to black-and-white Phil telling us what he wants from retirement -- it's the usual stuff: To sit in the sun with his wife, children, and grandchildren. The kicker? He adds that what he wants is "time, it's all anybody wants. Time to do the really important things." We're left with the silent image of him on his stool, looking jolly like crazy as he laughs and throws his hands up like "what are ya gonna do?" His image fades and we're left with a shot of an empty hospital corridor in fading light.