January 16, 2021
Felicity 3.9, James and the Giant Piece: Me and Earl and the Addict Girl
Creeeeepy
Summary: Living with Sean has rubbed off on Noel, who wants to sell an idea to a website. One of his professors is a programmer at a cartoon site, Icebox, and has encouraged Noel to submit graphics. Felicity likes the limping robot Noel has designed. Too bad it’s not supposed to be a limping robot. There’s also an elephant that’s really a mailbox. Better luck next time, Noel. He’s starting to question his decision to become a graphic designer. Since Felicity has taken classes about life drawing and figures in motion, she thinks she can help.
Elena comes home with news that she has to appear before the school’s disciplinary committee to address her fling with McGrath. She’s one of nine who have been identified as his love interests. Dang, he really got around. At an Al-Anon meeting, Molly tells the group that her boyfriend, James, is facing eviction because he spends all his money on drugs. She admits to using cocaine with him. James has graduated from that to crack, but Molly’s trying to avoid taking that step.
After the meeting, Ben tells the leader, Alicia, that they need to do more to help members who need it. Alicia told Molly about a program she should attend to help her with her drug use, but there’s only so much Alicia can do. She warns Ben that if Molly doesn’t want help, he needs to accept her rejection. He goes to see Felicity, asking her what she would do if she knew someone who was struggling with addiction. Felicity would try to listen to that person and be there as much as she could. Ben pretends he was talking about his father.
Meghan runs into Earl and some friends, and he taunts her for selling out. She’s boring now that she’s settling down with Sean and isn’t partying anymore. When Meghan gets to the loft, she tells Sean they have to go out tonight. She’s distressed to realize that Earl was right – she’s changed. She wants to go to a rave. Sean reminds her that he just had surgery, so he shouldn’t be in a place where people are slamming up against him. Sean suggests throwing raisins and cinnamon into the oatmeal he’s made, his version of going wild.
Elena meets with Dean Allison, who tells her about a former student named Sabina who’s filed the harassment complaint against McGrath. She got Elena’s name, along with McGrath’s other exes, from his assistant, who thought he was taking advantage of his students. It was a typical quid pro quo arrangement – the women slept with McGrath and he gave them higher grades.
Felicity has been able to improve Noel’s cartoon, so she thinks they should team up again. Elena comes home and tells them she’s not going to address the disciplinary committee. The circumstances of her fling with McGrath weren’t the same as the other students’, since he didn’t coerce her into a relationship and she didn’t sleep with him to get better grades. Sabina is the student Elena and Felicity talked to about McGrath’s seminar, and Felicity and Elena agree that she had a weird vibe. Besides, Elena is more concerned with fixing thing with Tracy.
Ben finds Molly at Epstein Bar and encourages her to break up with James. Molly doesn’t appreciate his input. Ben isn’t an addict, so he can’t understand the situation. James joins them, and Molly leaves with him. Elena agrees to talk to Sabina at Dean & DeLuca, but she doesn’t agree to go before the disciplinary committee. Neither will any of the other women who slept with McGrath, since they need his recommendation for post-grad stuff. Sabina just wants one other person to back her up.
Elena tells her that their situations are different, since she wasn’t coerced. Sabina says he just made her feel that way. She knows now that her relationship with McGrath was really a form of harassment. Elena continues to argue that she wanted the relationship. Plus, McGrath was going through a difficult time and needed someone – his ex-wife was sick. Sabina is familiar with that story and now knows that it wasn’t true.
Noel and Felicity keep working on his cartoon together. Does anyone care about this? Yeah, I didn’t think so. She wants to make a cartoon called “Loser Pet Store,” about animals no one wants. One character is a neutered poodle that thinks it’s a cat. Another is a snake that thinks it’s in a relationship with another snake, but it’s really its tail. There’s also an alcoholic goldfish that wants to swap its water for vodka. Noel loves the idea and wants Javier to voice the poodle.
Molly goes to the loft and tells Ben that she’s in over her head with James. In a clinic waiting room, she tells him she met James when he was on a trip to London. She kind of came to New York for him. Hmm, sounds familiar. James is charming and everyone loves him, including Molly’s mom, whose psychic abilities haven’t told her there’s anything to worry about. Molly appreciates that Ben cared enough to say he was worried. She knows James would have a hard time quitting drugs, but she can’t imagine quitting him.
Elena and Tracy chat after class, and though he’s polite and civil, he doesn’t want to talk much. Back at the dorm apartment, Elena admits to Felicity that McGrath changed her seminar grade after she slept with him. Based on that grade she didn’t earn, she got into upper-level classes and landed on the Dean’s List.
Felicity points out that she had to earn those honors by herself. But Elena knows sleeping with McGrath was what set everything in motion. She wouldn’t have met Tracy or taken chances if she hadn’t gotten that grade. Now she thinks she’s a fraud. She continues that the same thing happened to her as what Sabina went through. If she comes forward, though, she’ll have a black mark on her transcript and she’ll never get into med school.
Meghan brings Earl to the loft after spending all day and night partying with him. Sean is annoyed that she’s spending so much time with a guy like Earl. She’s acting like a completely different person. Meghan says this is who she really is. She changed when she started dating Sean, but he hasn’t made any changes for her. Sean thinks that having his testicle removed counts. “That ball can only get you so far!” Meghan yells.
Ben stops by the dorm apartment, where Felicity announces that James is going to move in for a while. She didn’t even know that Molly had a boyfriend. Ben gets Molly alone and asks why she didn’t break up with James. Molly says they had a long talk, and he’s even going to come with her to a clinic appointment. Ben says his father always did the same thing – he would promise he was going to stop drinking, but he never kept his word.
Felicity tells Ben that she wants to tell Tracy what Elena’s going through. Felicity, has meddling in your friends’ lives ever worked out? Over at the loft, Sean tries to make up with Meghan by offering her tickets to a comedy club. Yeah, not good enough. Meghan wants to go to the Fetish Ball. She plans to dress as a pregnant woman. Sean reminds her that it’s Friday night, so he has to observe the Sabbath. Meghan suggests that he tell God that Sean’s ex-girlfriend is going to the Fetish Ball.
Felicity goes to see Tracy and tells him that Elena is struggling with the whole McGrath situation. She only accepted one grade in exchange for sex, but it wasn’t really like that. Elena held everything in for two years, and now she feels like a fraud. Felicity just wants Tracy to reassure Elena that she’s still a good, smart person. Tracy doesn’t want to get involved.
At Dean & DeLuca, Felicity tells Ben she thinks it’s weird that Molly never mentioned having a boyfriend. Ben is only half listening, and he wants to leave his shift early. Tracy finds Elena and tells her he knows about the McGrath stuff. He confesses that he didn’t get into McGrath’s seminar freshman year, but Elena did, which means she’s smart. She shouldn’t believe that she doesn’t deserve the things she’s earned. Tracy isn’t over what happened between them, but wants her to know this is how he feels.
Molly and James are supposed to go to her clinic appointment, but first he wants to do some crack. She resists, but he basically orders her to join him. Ben goes to the clinic to try to catch Molly, but she’s still at the dorm apartment, making out with James. He tells her she should cut her hair, and when she says she doesn’t want to, he cuts it for her. Poor Ben waits at the clinic for so long that he falls asleep.
Noel tells Felicity that his professor loved “Loser Pet Store” and wants to take it to Icebox. Noel wants them to keep working on it together. He leaves as Ben comes over, just as Felicity finds Molly’s hair all over the bathroom floor. Ben tells Felicity that James shouldn’t be staying there. He starts to move James’ bag and a gun falls out. Ben tells Felicity that Molly’s in his Al-Anon group and has talked about James’ drug use. Felicity is a little annoyed that Ben didn’t tell her that Molly’s using, too. She agrees that James shouldn’t be staying there.
Elena meets with the disciplinary committee, alongside Sabina. She testifies that she initiated the relationship with McGrath, but that probably doesn’t matter, since she was 18 and he was 44. After the interview, Elena tells Dean Allison that she didn’t earn the grade McGrath gave her in his seminar. She wants to retake the class. Allison notes that her course load is heavy, so her other work might suffer, but Elena insists on earning her grade on her own.
Meghan goes to the Fetish Ball with Earl, but she’s not as happy to be there as she wanted to be. Earl is pleased that she’s giving up her boring life to go back to the person she used to be. Meghan says they’re not really over; their fetish is breaking up with each other over and over. Earl calls Sean as loser, but Meghan says she doesn’t date losers – she just hangs out with them.
Elena tells Tracy that she testified against McGrath and he’s going to be fired. She appreciates his advice to be honest and be who she is. He tells her she shouldn’t doubt herself. Elena says she misses him, and he jokes, “I hope so.” At the loft, Noel shows Meghan one of “Loser Pet Store”‘s characters, a dog that claims it’s well-traveled. Sean goes home, wearing rave clothes, since he went to the Fetish Ball to find Meghan. Meghan is touched by how far he went to try to be with her. Noel just cracks up.
Molly comes home to the dorm apartment alone and thanks Felicity for letting James stay with them. Ben announces that he told Felicity everything. Molly is understandably upset that he told her secrets. Ben says that James is probably dealing again, and he thinks Molly knows it. Molly says he insists he’s not, and she believes him. She asks to wait until the morning, and then the four of them can talk.
Ben tells her that James can’t stay at the dorm apartment. He mentions the gun, and Molly slams him and Felicity for looking through James’ belongings. Ben tells her she has to go back to the clinic to get help, or she can’t stay in the dorm apartment, either. Felicity thinks that’s too far. Molly tells them that they’re judging her because they think she has a problem, when instead they should be examining the kind of people they are.
Thoughts: I’m surprised Al-Anon lets people who are drinking or using attend meetings. Wouldn’t that trigger other members or make it harder for them to trust each other?
Felicity’s goldfish character sounds like something from a Seth MacFarlane show.
Felicity, if you’re starting a sentence with, “I know what’s going on is none of my business,” don’t finish the sentence.
Meghan and Earl in costume at the ball with techno music playing has intense Alias vibes.
Molly wears a shirt that looks like a sleeveless sweater. Please fire the wardrobe person who picked that out.
'90s Flashback 
Leave a comment