Netflix’s BSC 2.5, Mary Anne and the Great Romance: The Hopeful Romantic

October 14, 2021

Netflix’s BSC 2.5, Mary Anne and the Great Romance: The Hopeful Romantic

Yep, seems about right

Summary: It’s the weekend before Valentine’s Day, and Dawn and Mary Anne are sure that Richard and Sharon are going to come home from a trip to the Berkshires with the announcement that they’re engaged. They don’t. In fact, Richard isn’t even sure how to classify their relationship.

So the “great romance” of the title is actually about Mary Anne and Logan – he’s just asked her to be his girlfriend. It’s a lot different from what she was expecting. Now, “like a pre-Megxit Meghan Markle,” she has girlfriend responsibilities like having lunch in the “couple’s lounge” (just a regular classroom). The other two couples are those ick-inducing joined-at-the-hip, say-things-in-unison types. Plus, her friends think she wants to spend all her free time with Logan, so they accidentally ditch her instead of walking home together. They also make their own plans together for Valentine’s Day and don’t bother to invite Mary Anne, since she’ll obviously be with Logan.

Mary Anne doesn’t want to have to choose between spending time with her boyfriend and her friends, so she decides to let Richard play the bad guy and forbid her from dating. That backfires: With help from some note cards and previous conversations with his therapist, Richard gives her a speech supporting her relationship and assures her that he trusts her.

On Valentine’s Day, Mary Anne and Logan end up at the same restaurant as Richard and Sharon. Mary Anne panics about spending the evening making awkward conversation with Logan, so she suggests a double date. Cue Sharon talking about love languages and Logan guessing that his is English. Also, one of the couples from the “couple’s lounge,” who are supposed to be the most perfect couples at school, breaks up in the restaurant. As first dates go…well, I’ve had worse.

Mary Anne confides to Richard that now that she and Logan are officially together, she feels like they have to be a perfect couple instead of themselves. She misses just being friends with him; they were much more comfortable with each other then. She feels lonely even though she’s in a relationship. Richard tells her it’s okay for her and Logan to just be friends. They just need to talk about it.

Mary Anne worries that Logan will be disappointed, but he’s thrilled that they’re not like the other couples at school. They can just be themselves, and just friends. Mary Anne decides she’s no longer a hopeless romantic, but is now a hopeful romantic, because she tells the people she likes how she feels. She doesn’t let go of it completely, though: When Richard and Sharon say they have an announcement, she gets excited again about a wedding. Sorry, Mary Anne: The Spiers need to fumigate, so Mary Anne and Richard will move in with Dawn and Sharon for a week. Mary Anne decides she’s fine with their family being the way it is, even if they’re not connected by marriage yet.

In other news, Karen is a little obsessed with ghosts. If you ask me, she’s creepier than any ghost. She says she keeps hearing a crying woman in the Thomas/Brewer house, but it’s really Elizabeth, who’s been hiding in a spare bathroom to secretly deal with the side effects of the hormones she’s been taking to try to get pregnant, and her feelings about having another baby. She and Kristy decide to let Karen keep thinking there’s a ghost.

The details:

• Sharon compares Richard to a croissant he enjoyed: He’s “buttery and surprisingly expensive.”
• Karen is doing a family tree project and is intrigued by how her ancestors died. One was struck by lightning, “but it was the dysentery that got her.”
• Andrew is also a weird kid. He watches Wall-E a lot because “he likes the silence of it.” Maybe it’s just a nice break from Karen talking all the time.
• One of the couples in the “couple’s lounge” consists of two boys. Stoneybrook Middle School says gay rights!
• Richard tells Mary Anne that her friends love her “in an almost concerningly aggressive fashion.” Sounds like someone’s jealous.
• Dawn says the person she ends up with “could be anywhere on the gender spectrum.” Her two main qualifications: someone who cares about the environment and has good oral hygiene.

The differences/changes:

• Really, the whole episode is different from the book of the same name. The only similarity is that Dawn, Mary Anne, Richard, and Sharon will soon be living together.

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