August 14, 2021
Felicity 4.22, Back to the Future: Start Again
Probably the last time this group was all together. You know how post-college friendships are
Summary: Where were we? Oh, right: Noel’s dead. Felicity and Ben go to the police station to get his personal items. Felicity blames herself, since Noel wouldn’t have died if she hadn’t time-traveled. At the loft, the three mourn with Sean and break the news to Meghan. Meghan suggests that Felicity can undo this. She found Korsakoff and even has his address. Sean must be very confused.
Felicity goes to see Korsakoff, who thinks she’s been sent to harass him by some guy named Fleming who found out about the book Korsakoff was working on. Felicity tells him that the time-travel spell works. She quickly sums up the past few episodes and tells Korsakoff that he’s the only one who can undo everything. Once he confirms that Fleming didn’t send her, he lets her into his apartment.
Sometime later, Felicity packs up a bunch of her and her friends’ personal items to take back to Korsakoff. Meghan was able to do the spell because she knew everything that had happened, but Korsakoff isn’t familiar with the group, so he needs some help. Ben thinks he might be conning Felicity, but she figures she needs to try this, in case it works. Yeah, Korsakoff might end up keeping Ben’s watch, but oh, well.
Felicity returns to Korsakoff’s apartment and gives him a recap of the series, basically. Oh, great, it’s a clip show. I’m not linking to everything. Sorry. Felicity starts with her high school graduation, when Ben signed her yearbook and she decided to follow him to New York. “You went across the country for this?” Korsakoff asks about Ben’s message. Heh. Felicity insists that she wasn’t stalking him. Plus, Ben handled it pretty well.
We get clips of her running into him in New York, then confronting him for what he wrote in her yearbook and admitting that she read his admission essay. Hi, Julie! Felicity tells Korsakoff that it was hard just being friends with Ben. Noel helped. We see her meet him, then cry to him (and throw up on him) on Halloween. We also see him tell her not to leave New York because she’ll just regret it in five years. Heh, it’s five years later and now she regrets something else.
Felicity admits to Korsakoff that she had feelings for Noel. Clip: Boggle. Korsakoff is doing stuff with all the things Felicity brought him, hanging them on a little tree, and he uses Boggle cubes (is that what they’re called? Eh, whatever) to spell out what I think is “hickey.” He gives Felicity a little break, since she’s overcome with grief. After a few minutes, he puts on a Dean & DeLuca hat that ties Felicity to Javier. Clips: Javier highlights. This should be the whole episode.
Korsakoff tries to do something witchy, but it doesn’t work. Felicity gives him a strand of her hair, which Meghan always uses in his spells. Clips: Meghan being Meghan. This leads to Elena, since Felicity brought Korsakoff her gun from “Assassins.” Clips: Elena in all her Elena-ness. Also, Tracy. Then they move on to Sean. Of course, his clips are about his innovations. Korsakoff comments that he has “a little too much time on his hands.” Felicity says he’s enthusiastic, especially about Meghan. Oh, goodie, clips of Sean and Meghan fighting. Save me, Jeebus!
Korsakoff unspools a tape Felicity brought him and hangs it on the tree. Clip: Felicity’s tape to Sally is played at the party. Korsakoff asks if Felicity lost her virginity to “Len” or Noel. Felicity admits that her first time should have been with Noel. Clip: Felicity trying very hard to make that happen. She tells Korsakoff that Ben developed feelings for her, which caused some issues. Clip: Ben giving Felicity the necklace. Felicity says Noel was fine with that. Clip: Noel not being fine with that and the guys fighting.
Felicity tells Korsakoff that there was always a “force” between her and Ben. Clip: Ben saying that not kissing Felicity leaves an unanswered question, then answering the question by kissing her. But Felicity couldn’t trust him, since he’d let her down too much. She wound up doing some dumb things. Heh, she means her haircut. After that, everyone weighed in on the Felicity/Ben dynamic. Clip: Javier urging Felicity to see Ben differently.
Korsakoff sums everything up: Felicity had two guys in love with her. Yep, that’s the show! Felicity had to choose between them. Clip: Ben regrets not going to the Charlie Chaplin movie with Felicity, and getting a reel of it so he and Felicity can watch it together. He calls it a time machine. This is followed by clips of the two of them kissing and being happy together. The song on the soundtrack is very appropriate: “Let’s pretend that we can start again. We’ll pick up where we left off.”
Felicity clarifies to Korsakoff that she picked Ben, but that damaged her friendship with Noel. Now he’s dead and she’s lost him forever. Korsakoff wonders if that was supposed to happen. Maybe she came back in time to let him go. When you love two people, you have to make a choice. Felicity could have made the wrong one.
Korsakoff tells Felicity to empty her pockets. She’s holding on to something, and he can’t do the spell to send her back to the future until she lets it go. It’s the key to Noel’s apartment, on the Magic 8 Ball keychain. Korsakoff tells her that this is just a chapter in her story. It’ll always be a part of her, but she has to finish it. After a long pause, Felicity gives him the keychain. To finish the spell, the two of them light candles around the little tree. Then Felicity pours wax on all the objects that symbolize her college years.
In bed with Ben, Felicity tells him about the experience and her memories. She admits that she’s afraid to go to sleep since she doesn’t know what will happen when she wakes up. She could be where she is, with Noel still dead, or she could wake up in the future, without Ben next to her. What if she forgets about this moment? Ben apologizes for what he does in the future to damage their relationship. Felicity needs to find a way to forgive him because he doesn’t want to live his life without her.
The two go to sleep, and in the morning, Felicity wakes up with her friends around her, like this is The Wizard of Oz. Noel is there, and he tells her that she was sick last night. She had a fever of 104. Why didn’t they take her to a hospital?? Also, it was all a dream??!?!?! Ugh. Ben comes in to check on his ex, and Felicity is all, “And you were there! And you, and you, and you…”
Felicity tells Noel that he and Zoe are going to have a great life together. She’s left alone with Ben, who says exactly the same thing he said in the past the night before: What he did was stupid and unforgivable, but she needs to forgive him so they can keep being together. Felicity says she doesn’t want to live her life without him, either. She forgives him.
Wedding time! Noel and Zoe get married and everyone’s happy. Elena’s somehow there. Javier fights all the single women to catch the bouquet. Tracy’s also there, and he and Elena may be back together. Lots of smiles and hugs and a few tears because the series is ending. Richard is present but doesn’t get to say anything. And everyone lives happily ever after, I guess.
Thoughts: Korsakoff is played by Kurt Fuller, whom I love. I think I spelled the character’s name wrong, but whatever, it’s too late, I’m leaning into the mistake.
I hate clip shows, but I’ll admit that they’re easy to recap.
Apparently a scene was cut somewhere along the way where Felicity talked Elena into going to Duke instead of Columbia (Columbia being where Elena died), which is how Elena is still alive in the series. I’m surprised the writers bothered to bring her back, considering how little they gave her to do this season. She doesn’t even get any lines in the finale.
’90s music alert: “I Will Remember You” by Sarah McLachlan. I mean, of course.
And that’s it for Felicity! Stay tuned for something very, very different.
March 27, 2021
Felicity 4.2, My Best Friend’s Wedding: Opening the Drawer
The sleeves are weird, but the rest of the dress looks nice
Summary: The last time we saw Felicity, she was kissing Noel on Tar Beach. Well, it turns out the kissing went beyond just that, and the two of them are now putting their clothes back on. Oh, dear. She immediately wants to leave, disagreeing when Noel tells her everything will be okay. Yeah, dude, you’re not the one who just cheated. You’re the one who got what he wanted.
After asking Noel to wait a few minutes so they don’t arrive together, Felicity goes back to the loft to get her purse, then starts to leave. Ben comes home and thinks she’s just been waiting there for him. He apologizes for blowing up at her and invites her to hang out for a while. Felicity lies that she doesn’t feel well, so she’s going to go home and sleep. Before she can slip out, Noel comes down, and they act like they didn’t just do something awful together.
Elena and Tracy come by Felicity’s room the next morning and tell her that their minister is overbooked, so they’d like her to get ordained online and perform their ceremony. Tracy promises that she can get guidance from his minister and from his aunt and uncle who have been married for 50 years. Felicity suggests that the aunt or uncle do the ceremony instead. “No, no, no, they’re nuts,” Tracy says. Felicity agrees, even though she’s the last person who should be preaching about love and faithfulness right now. Also, she has a huge hickey on her neck.
At the loft, Sean has a very important box to present to Ben and Javier. Javier doesn’t care, since he’s focused on wedding planning. He couldn’t secure a place for the wedding rehearsal, so he’d like to host it at the loft. Well, of course. Sean shows the guys the contents of the box: condoms that play “Here Comes the Bride” when ripped open. He calls them Rubber Bands. They play different songs for different occasions. Dare I say that this invention might actually make Sean some money for once?
As Sean says that, after Saturday, Tracy and Elena can finally have sex, Meghan comes in. She comments on the fact that Sean just used the words “Tracy” and “sex” in the same sentence. You might be surprised to learn that this leads to a fight between Meghan and Sean. He’s annoyed that, in the wake of her declaration that she wants to have sex with Tracy, he now can’t get the idea out of his head. Um, the idea of Meghan and Tracy having sex, not the idea of Sean and Tracy having sex. Though maybe he has that idea, too; I don’t know his brain.
Meghan thinks Sean is implying that he doesn’t think she could get Tracy. I don’t know, but I’ll say straight out that I don’t think she could get Tracy. Meghan wants to make a bet that she can get Tracy to kiss her before the wedding. The loser of the bet has to be the winner’s servant for a day. Sean thinks this is the easiest bet he’ll ever win, so of course he’s in.
Noel goes to the dorm apartment with various products Felicity thinks will clear up her hickey. Has she never heard of foundation? Also, the hickey is the least of her problems, really. She thinks she should just be honest and tell Ben that they slept together. Noel disagrees. Out in the living room, Tracy and Elena are practicing for their first dance. He wants to take the waltzing from the living room to the bedroom, even though they’re not married yet. Elena declines, which makes Tracy think something’s going on with her.
Felicity goes to see Pavone in hopes of easing her guilt about cheating on Ben. She thinks Pavone will say she shouldn’t tell Ben what she did. Pavone doesn’t think that way, necessarily – Felicity doesn’t have perspective on the issue yet, and there might be something she’s not seeing yet. There’s a drawer, and there’s something inside it that Felicity needs to look into.
Someone put Richard in charge of music for the reception, for some reason. He notices that Noel is acting weird and thinks it’s lady problems. First he thinks Noel is in a dry spell, but then he thinks Noel scored with someone. Noel likes that it was someone Richard doesn’t know. Her name is Sandy, and she works at a nearby pizza place. Noel, you idiot – of course Richard is going to go over there and check her out!
The show didn’t want to cast people to play Tracy’s parents, so Javier announces that they’re stuck in Buffalo and can’t make the wedding rehearsal at the loft. He enlists Noel and Richard to be their stand-ins. Felicity arrives, and Ben sees that she looks upset, so he takes her to his room to talk. She pretends she’s just emotional about the wedding and how much everything’s changing. Noel comes to get them, since Felicity is kind of integral to the rehearsal.
The next day, Sean is still working on gifts for the wedding guests. Sean needs a better plot. Ben asks Noel if he knows why Felicity’s been acting weird – has she said anything to Noel about her relationship with Ben? Did she say anything the other night? Noel lies that he only saw her for a minute, so they didn’t really talk.
At the dorm apartment, Meghan takes Tracy into the bathroom, where the light is better, so he can give his opinion on ribbon. She offers him some kind of lip product that will make his lips tingle – maybe he’d like to use it with Elena on his wedding night? But the only way to get the full effect is to kiss someone. Yeah, nice try, Meghan, but Tracy doesn’t want to kiss you, and also, he probably thinks you’re crazy now.
Felicity stops by the loft to see Ben, but he’s not home. While she’s leaving him a note, she hears a message on the answering machine from someone named Janet. She mentions driving by their hotel and thinking about him. She’ll be transferring to Columbia in two weeks. Hmmm, I’m sure there’s a completely innocent explanation for all of that.
Felicity and Noel wind up arriving at the dorm apartment at the same time, and he warns her that Ben is curious about what’s going on between them. She asks him about Janet, furious that Ben apparently slept with someone else. Yeah, that jerk! Felicity would never do that to him! Noel starts to give her advice, like she wants advice from him. He tells her that if she wants to come clean to Ben, she should.
Richard comes by, and we learn that he has a band called Morse Code (because his last name is Coad). Also, guess what? He went by the pizza place where Sandy works and learned that there’s no Sandy! Surprise! He also sees the hickey on Felicity’s neck, then quickly puts together that she’s “Sandy.” That means the one person who should never know a secret you want to stay secret now knows Noel and Felicity’s big secret!
Ben and Felicity go to dinner, and she asks who Janet is. Ben reminds Felicity that he told her about Janet – a group of the EMT students got hotel rooms for some exercise, and Janet came on to him, but he told her he has a girlfriend. He insists that nothing happened. He also knows that Felicity’s weirdness lately has to be related to something else.
He thinks it’s because Felicity’s uncertain about her future, while Ben knows what he wants to do. They’ve switched positions since freshman year. He knows he’s been busy, so he’s neglected their relationship a little, and he wants to help Felicity however he can. Felicity fights back tears as she says she’s confused. She wants to spend some time apart.
Richard thinks Noel is itching to run up to the roof and yell, “I finally had Felicity!” Okay, first, I hate when people say “had” when they mean they slept with someone. It’s gross. Second, the roof is the scene of the crime, so Noel should stay away from there. He tells Richard this isn’t funny. Ben comes home, and fortunately, Richard leaves immediately, so Noel doesn’t have to worry about him saying something he shouldn’t. Unfortunately, now Ben and Noel are alone in the loft. Ben reveals that Felicity broke up with him the night before. Noel is, like, the least amount of sorry you can be while saying you’re sorry.
At the dorm apartment, Elena confronts Meghan for trying to kiss Tracy. Meghan brushes it off, saying it’s just part of a stupid bet. Elena asks what Meghan would do if she tried to sleep with Sean. Well, first she would roll her eyes, because that would never happen. Meghan tells her it’s nothing to worry about, and Elena’s obviously just freaking out because Tracy suddenly wants to have sex, but might not after they’re married. Elena disinvites Meghan from the wedding, which Meghan is probably fine with, since it means she doesn’t have to stand in front of a bunch of people wearing a pink dress.
Felicity and Noel go for a walk so she can pretend she cares about how he’s handling the aftermath of their hookup. Then she starts worrying about herself again. She’s concerned that this will ruin their friendship. Noel says he doesn’t have any expectations, so that’s one less thing for her to think about.
Meghan and Sean fight (shocking!) about how Meghan doesn’t care that Elena just threw her out of the wedding party. He accuses Meghan of not caring about other people. She blindsided Elena with something major the day before her wedding. Sean tells her she has to stop testing people and pushing them away just to see how far she can go. Meghan’s like, “The people I test keep failing, so maybe that’s good to know.” Sean warns that she might eventually drive everyone away, including him, and end up alone.
Tracy comes to the dorm apartment, where Elena greets him with, “I want to have sex.” They head straight to her room, but she puts the brakes on before too many clothes can come off. Meghan got in her head, and now she doesn’t know if she and Tracy will have a good sex life after they get married. Tracy points out that Meghan has piercings, though I’m not sure why that means she can’t weigh in here. He promises that they’re getting married for the right reasons.
Felicity chats with Tracy’s unnamed aunt and uncle, who tell her the secret of a long relationship is forgiveness. Your heart gets stronger the more you use it. Felicity’s really happy to hear that. She goes back to see Pavone, admitting that she’s not sure Ben will forgive her for sleeping with Noel. Pavone gets her to realize that, even if she was sure, that wouldn’t solve all her problems. She would still feel horrible about cheating. Pavone thinks she doesn’t want to let go of her guilt because of what she could expose underneath.
Felicity says she deserves to feel guilty since she did something horrible. Pavone says she’s more scared than Pavone ever realized – she’s too scared to look in the drawer. Felicity still doesn’t know what this drawer is supposed to symbolize. Pavone says her problem won’t go away by itself, and she can only hide it for so long. Felicity asks who’s in the drawer. Pavone comments that she never said it was a person. Felicity thinks Noel is in the drawer. Pavone says she chose him for a reason – she could have turned to anyone while she was struggling, including Ben. She’s been dancing around this for years, and clearly wants to be with both Ben and Noel.
It’s wedding day, and Elena is willing to put it off since Felicity is having relationship issues. Felicity tells her she needs to follow her heart. Meghan shows up in her bridesmaid dress, knowing Elena will let her back in the wedding party. She apologizes for trying to kiss Tracy and for making judgments about Tracy and Elena’s relationship. Elena forgives her and says Meghan shouldn’t worry about her relationship with Sean; they’re perfect for each other. In fact, they’re the couple who should be getting married today.
Noel approaches Felicity just minutes before the ceremony and offers to make a pact not to tell anyone that they slept together. Javier checks on them and reveals that Tracy hasn’t arrived yet. Elena finds him outside, and he tells her they don’t have to go through with this if she doesn’t want to. He thinks she’s only marrying him because she doesn’t want to lose him. Tracy promises that he’s not just doing this to have sex – he really loves Elena and wants to spend his life with her. He’s just not sure she feels the same way.
Inside, Elena announces to the wedding party and guests that there won’t be a ceremony. Meghan decides that she’s ready to get married, though, and asks Sean if he wants to be servants for life. She reminds Elena that she said Meghan and Sean should be the couple to get married. Elena likes this idea, so Felicity marries Meghan and Sean instead of Elena and Tracy. Ben and Noel both watch her closely, and poor Elena has to stand there in her wedding dress while someone else gets married. At the reception, everyone’s happy except Ben. Bad Felicity! Bad!
Thoughts: Coincidentally, “My Best Friend’s Wedding” is also the name of the Scrubs episode where Turk (Donald Faison’s character) and Carla get married. That episode also features a wedding ceremony that doesn’t go as planned. And Scott Foley is a guest star!
Tracy has a mustache now and I hate it.
I’m so tired of the TV cliché where one character gets ordained online to marry a couple. Enough, TV shows. J.J. Abrams must be a big fan of it; it happens on Alias, too, as Greg Grunberg’s character gets ordained online to marry Carrie Foreman’s character and Kevin Weisman’s character (in other words, Sean marries Meghan and Earl).
The first song played at the reception is “I Will Survive,” which is such a weird choice. It’s about surviving a breakup, so why would you play it after a wedding?
March 13, 2021
Felicity 3.17, The Last Summer Ever: The Grieving Process
This is kind of cool
Summary: Felicity hasn’t made a tape for a while, but Noel is making one for Felicity. While he tries on his gown for graduation, we hear him telling her goodbye. Felicity is currently meeting with Pavone to talk about how hard it is to say goodbye. You get used to making connections with people and becoming friendly, but then you graduate and it all changes. If you’re having hard times with a friend who then moves away, you don’t have college to keep you together anymore. Pavone points out that life outside of college ends, too. Felicity gets that, but she thought she and Noel would stay friends.
At the loft, Felicity presents her idea for the summer to Ben: Camping. Ben easily agrees. Noel comes in and thinks get awkward. They make brief small talk about Ruby, who’s coming to visit for Noel’s graduation. Felicity tells Pavone that she hasn’t said anything to Ben about Noel kissing her. Pavone thinks that’s interesting. Felicity claims the kiss didn’t mean anything, so there’s no point. Plus, she doesn’t want to make things worse between Ben and Noel. Pavone asks what it matters if Felicity and Noel are about to end their friendship. Felicity admits she’s not ready to accept that the friendship is over.
Ruby arrives in New York with her baby, Eva. She and Noel kiss, so…that doesn’t seem to be completely over. She has no regrets about deciding to keep the baby. Things didn’t work out with Wade (clearly, since she kissed Noel), but Ruby isn’t too broken up about that. Felicity joins them before the two can start talking about anything too intense.
Elena and DeForrest return to the dorm apartment after a trip to an amusement park and find Tracy leaving Elena a letter. Molly shows up for two seconds to tell Elena that Tracy’s actions remind her of James – just when things seemed to be over, James would show up and they’d get back together. Elena says she can’t trust Tracy anymore, so that won’t happen. She’s not going to meet up with him tomorrow, as he’d requested.
Ben turns down some opportunity, pretending he has to stay with a sick aunt. Felicity bugs him about what he just backed out of. He’s reluctant to tell her, since he thinks it’s embarrassing. Finally he admits that watching the paramedics save Avery made him think about becoming an EMT. He applied to a summer program in Kansas City (just as a joke), and he got in. Felicity thinks he should consider doing it, even though this would be their last summer together without job obligations.
Sean is back to his old money-seeking ways, this time offering scalped graduation tickets. Meghan’s parents are richer than we thought, since, in addition to their house in Tuscany, they also have a house in Geneva. They’ve offered to let Meghan and Sean spend the summer there. He reminds her that they talked to Dr. Zwick about Meghan making him feel emasculated, and this fits into that category. He’d rather work for his own money than accept a nice offer from Meghan’s parents. Sean suggests that they come up with an idea together for what to do over the summer.
Felicity and Noel meet up at Epstein Bar so she can give him a graduation present. It’s an out-of-print book he wanted a couple years ago. Noel tries to turn it down, but Felicity insists that he take it. He leaves immediately afterward. Later, Felicity and Ben set up a tent at the loft, talking more about the EMT program. She still thinks he should give it a shot. Sean disagrees, since Ben can’t even take his own temperature. Ben tells Felicity they’re spending the summer together and the discussion is over. She suggests that they skip Noel’s graduation and leave tomorrow.
Elena ends up meeting with Tracy after all so she can tell him in person that she’s moved on to DeForrest. Tracy and Rose have ended things, so clearly he wants Elena back. She’s mad that he wanted to be celibate, then dumped her for someone he then slept with. Tracy denies that he’s ever slept with anyone other than Elena. Elena reveals that she found that condom in his wallet, but Tracy’s just kept it there since he dated Elena.
He went to Africa to get some distance from Elena and be with people who share his beliefs. He and Rose didn’t make sense, but he and Elena do. He’s not giving up on the possibility of them getting back together. Elena tells him that she didn’t think she would be able to get over him, but she did, and she’s not going to go back to him.
Sean and Meghan present their summer ideas to each other, though she’s still stuck on going to Switzerland. He wants to go to Atlantic City, which isn’t far enough away for Meghan’s tastes. She suggests Hawaii, but Sean doesn’t have the money for that. They start fighting, of course. Meghan wants him to let her pay for a fun vacation because she can. Sean responds by clucking like a chicken, which Dr. Zwick told them was a good way to end an argument. I’m still not sure that woman was qualified for that job.
Noel and Ben are both packing up the loft, Ben for the summer and Noel forever. Noel announces that he’s sorry, not for anything in particular (like kissing Ben’s girlfriend), but in general. He wants the two of them to part on good terms. I think Ben just wants to part. He asks Noel what it’s like knowing what he wants to do with his life. Noel feels lucky, but he also feels like he just fell into something good. It just took one graphic design class his freshman year to give him direction in life. Ben tells him that he thinks Noel and Ruby were great together, in case Noel wants any relationship advice from the guy dating the woman he’s in love with.
The next day (I guess), Noel hangs out with Ruby and Eva, inviting them to dinner with him and his parents. He notices that Ruby is still wearing a bracelet he gave her. She says she likes it because it reminds her of him and makes her feel closer to him. She admits that she misses him. Noel goes home, blatantly ignoring Felicity, then deciding to speak to her after all. He tells her he can’t keep the book she gave him because it’ll remind him of her, which he doesn’t want.
Felicity leaves, then comes back to yell at Noel for dumping his friends because he’s afraid of what comes next. He tells her what really scares him is her following him through his life. She thinks he’s ending their friendship because she won’t be with him, which is selfish. She gives him back the book. Noel says he’s not selfish just because he wants her out of his life. As she leaves for real, Ruby shows up, having heard the end of the fight.
Back to Noel’s tape and getting ready for graduation. He wonders which memories of Felicity will stick with him. The only thing he remembers about high school biology is a question he missed on a test. Is the only thing he’s going to remember about Felicity their fight, after all those years of right answers?
Felicity asks Pavone if she’s the one being selfish. Pavone notes that she’s just trying to move on, and anger is one of the stages of the grieving process. Felicity doesn’t think this is about grief, but Pavone says losing a friend is a loss. First was denial, when Felicity bought Noel a book because she couldn’t accept the end of the friendship. Then was anger. Now she’s bargaining, believing that going to graduation will help ease the pain.
Felicity says she just doesn’t want the fight to be the last interaction she has with Noel. She’ll just apologize to him. Pavone doubts she can leave it at that. Felicity spills everything she really wants to say: She cares about Noel, and she wishes he had more faith in their friendship after everything they’ve survived. As Noel graduates, Felicity tells Pavone that she doesn’t know what her future holds, but she always thought Noel would be part of it. She counted on their friendship and wants it back. Then she’d invite him to go get ice cream.
Javier makes his only appearance of the episode when he catches up to Noel after the ceremony. He offers to let Noel work at Dean & DeLuca if the job in Seattle doesn’t work out. Ruby comes up to Noel next, and he asks if she came back to New York for graduation or… She finishes for him, admitting that she came to see if there’s still a chance for them. Now she knows there isn’t, because Noel is clearly still in love with Felicity.
Ben and Felicity have made it to the ceremony after all, and Noel pulls Felicity outside for a chat. He apologizes for their fight, and she tells him she understands where he’s coming from and she wishes things were different. She was being selfish. We meet Noel’s mother for the first time as she meets Felicity for the first time. She’s heard all about Felicity, of course. She insists on taking a picture of Felicity and Noel together. Once they’re done, the two of them just wish each other luck.
Felicity packs up her room in the apartment, feeling like that makes things final. Ben joins her and says that going to graduation make him think even more about his future. He now wants to do the EMT program after all. Felicity is supportive but doesn’t want to spend the summer in Kansas City. Plus, he’ll be too busy to see her anyway. Yes, she’d love to go camping, but she’d spend the whole summer feeling guilty that Ben wasn’t doing something amazing for himself. Ben says he doesn’t have to go, but Felicity thinks he does.
Elena goes to DeForrest’s place to have a big talk, but he already knows what she’s going to say: She’s getting back together with Tracy. He’s been through this before, and he doesn’t want Elena to have to break up with him, so they’ll just end things like this. Elena feels horrible, and she knows what it’s like to be in DeForrest’s position. She really did like him and doesn’t want him to think she just saw him as a safe choice. DeForrest says he hopes Tracy makes Elena happy. She asks him to say something mean so she doesn’t feel so bad walking away from him.
Now that Ben and Felicity aren’t going camping, Sean has taken all their stuff so he and Meghan can go instead. Yeah, Meghan seems like a big fan of camping. She tries to be nice and not shut down her beloved boyfriend’s great idea, but it’s obvious this is a bad idea. Sean gets it – they could have all their meals made by a personal chef in Switzerland. Looks like he’s changed his mind about spending the summer in luxury. Felicity, meanwhile, will spend the summer in the loft, alone. How fun!
Felicity sees Ben off to the airport as we see Noel making his tape to her. He leaves her a time capsule with a gun from the Assassins game, a magic 8-Ball, and Boggle. He thinks their time apart is important. He’s sure they’ll get through this and continue to be in each other’s lives. Tracy goes to the dorm apartment, where Elena tells him she broke up with DeForrest, but that doesn’t meant she wants Tracy as her boyfriend again. Tracy doesn’t want that, either…because he wants to be Elena’s husband. Instead of responding to his proposal, she passes out.
Felicity is moving into the loft when Noel shows up. “The Internet’s dead,” he announces. His project was canceled, so he no longer has a job in Seattle. Look which two people have no summer plans and a whole loft to themselves? Felicity asks Noel if he wants to get some ice cream.
Thoughts: No one’s getting a summer job? Really?
Obviously Elena and Tracy can’t work out. This was 2001, and Donald Faison was about to start on Scrubs. Though Greg Grunberg was pulling double duty here and on Alias, so what do I know?
Want to feel old? Eva would now be the same age Ruby was when Ruby had her.
Season 3 is short, so we’re already done! Just one season left…
February 6, 2021
Felicity 3.12, Girlfight: Unabashedly Evil
Danger! Danger!
Summary: The Christmas party has dissolved into chaos after James’ arrival with a gun. Sean and Tracy chased him out but lost him on the street. Everyone else is trying to find out if anyone was hurt, since the party guests have spread out around the apartment. Felicity checks on Molly, who’s shaken up and blames herself for James’ actions.
Ben is trying to tend to a blond woman who’s bleeding, and as Felicity calls an ambulance, she sees that Elena was also wounded in the arm. Ben rides in the ambulance with the blond woman, Avery, and tries to distract her by talking about plans for Christmas break. Her heart stops and Ben looks into her lifeless eyes as the paramedic tries to revive her.
Later, Sean interviews people about their experiences. Ben is shaken by the memory of watching a woman die. Felicity talks about hearing stories about tragedies that happen to other people. Noel literally dodged a bullet because he happened to be bending down to tie his shoe when James fired the gun. Ben clarifies that the paramedic saved Avery. Molly says that the police found James about an hour after the shooting, and he’s in jail. Tracy doesn’t want to go to Africa now, since it’ll mean leaving Elena (who’s going to be fine), but he knows the program is important. Molly will go back to England for a while.
We fast-forward three months, to Javier giving Sean an interview about the shooting. Javier can’t believe how easy it is to get a gun. Welcome to America! Elena has fully recovered and is taking a self-defense class to feel safe again. Unfortunately, she keeps practicing what she’s learned in class on Felicity. Felicity promises to take the class when she has time, but she’s dealing with classes, work, and Noel’s existential crisis.
Noel has been slacking on “Loser Pet Store,” but Felicity tells him she’ll be coming over later to make him work. Avery comes by the loft with a present for Ben, but Noel doesn’t realize who she is until she says her name. He tells her she’s the reason for his existential crisis. Everything has felt pointless to him since the night of the shooting. Avery, on the other hand, feels like she’s gotten a second chance, and like her life has new purpose.
At the dorm apartment, Meghan complains to Sean about her new psych project: She’s been assigned to work as a teaching assistant at the college’s elementary school. Meghan, unsurprisingly, hates kids. Sean’s like, “Then just don’t do it,” as if that’s an option. Meghan is anxious about returning to her bad childhood memories, and Sean isn’t sympathetic. He thinks she’ll end up having fun.
Felicity goes to the loft to try to make Noel do something productive. She accuses him of feeling sorry for himself. He tells her Avery came by; it sounds like she’s been away from school this whole time and is just now back. Felicity isn’t happy to learn that Avery was looking for Ben, and Noel sent her to Dean & DeLuca to find him. It’s clear why Felicity’s unhappy, because the way Ben and Avery look at each other when she shows up at Dean & DeLuca is the way Ben used to look at Felicity.
Meghan’s role at the elementary school is going exactly as poorly as you’d expect. Felicity shows up at Dean & DeLuca and meets Avery for the first time; Felicity sent her a nice care package while she was in the hospital. She tells Avery that Elena is really into her self-defense class and invites Avery to come along when Felicity goes to her first session that afternoon. Avery gives Ben his present, a really nice swimmer’s watch. She asked his mom for advice on what to get him. She feels like Ben saved her life, and she wants to repay him, so he can ask her for anything he needs.
Elena tells Sean that Tracy is back a month early…but not alone. He didn’t call her to tell her he was back in town. She saw him hugging another woman and figures he brought a new girlfriend back with him from Africa. At the self-defense class, Avery overhears Felicity and Elena discussing Tracy and encourages Elena to talk to him. The situation probably isn’t how it looks. The instructor has Avery practice a take-down move on Felicity, which ends with Felicity on her back on the floor.
Meghan tells Sean that the kids weren’t as bad as she’d expected, but the other teachers are awful. One sent her home to change clothes. Sean says Meghan should get revenge by teaching the kids witchcraft. He’s joking, but Meghan takes him seriously. Elena goes to Tracy’s and asks him about the woman he was hugging. That was Rose, and Tracy decided to leave early with her group. He admits that they’re dating.
Avery comes by the dorm apartment to apologize to Felicity for being so aggressive in class. She gives Felicity an expensive apology sweater, then asks if Ben liked the watch. Avery thinks Ben and Felicity were made for each other. Felicity doesn’t want to accept the sweater, since it’s so nice and pricey, so Avery says that in their next self-defense class, Felicity can flip her, then buy her something.
At the loft, Ben, Sean, and Richard are playing video games while Noel tries to read. Richard and Sean tell Ben that Avery is a trust-fund kid, which explains how she’s able to afford such nice gifts. Richard thinks Ben should take advantage of her generosity. Ben declines, but when Avery offers him courtside Knicks tickets, he has a hard time turning her down.
Later, Ben tells Felicity about the game, which is that night, and Felicity is a little annoyed that he’s going with Avery. She thinks Avery should have given him both tickets and let him pick someone to go with. Ben offers to try to get another ticket, but Felicity has to work on “Loser Pet Store.” Ben promises that it’s just an innocent basketball game. He feels bad for Avery, since she seems to think she can only make friends by buying them things. For the record, Felicity’s wearing the sweater Avery gave her.
While working with Noel, Felicity tries to convince herself that the game is just a friendly thing and she has nothing to worry about. Noel’s like, “Well, it’s not like she’s ugly, so…maybe worry a little?” Meghan meets Sean at the loft and tells him that her teaching job has been going great – so great that she now wants to be a teacher. Specifically, she wants to teach witchcraft.
Sean, of course, objects, so Meghan thinks he’s being too critical. He should be happy that she’s figured out what she wants to do with her life. Sean backs down and offers her some encouragement. Meghan thinks it’s weird that they just had a fight and didn’t break up. Yeah, thank God.
Ben calls Felicity from a club and invites her to join him and Avery there. She asks if she can bring Noel, too, even though Noel doesn’t want to go. When they get there, Avery hasn’t put them on the guest list, so they can’t get in. Felicity thinks Avery did this on purpose. Noel decides to channel Leon and get them inside.
Avery introduces Ben to some friends she’s told all about him. They haven’t, however, heard about Felicity. “Leon” uses his new existential readings to convince the bouncer that the VIP list doesn’t matter – the only list that’s important is the one that says who gets to go to Heaven. The bouncer seems to decide he doesn’t want to spend the night arguing with college kids, so he lets Felicity and Noel inside.
Felicity immediately pulls Avery aside to ask if she’s interested in Ben. Avery admits that she is, but she knows it doesn’t matter, since Ben is so in love with Felicity. Avery feels a connection to Ben because he was with her in the ambulance when she briefly died. She hasn’t been able to stop thinking about him since then. Avery knows her money will only get her so far, but until then, I guess she’s going to use it as much as she can.
Elena tells Sean that she’s realized that Tracy needs to be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t want to have sex. Elena claims to be okay with it, but she’s clearly not. She meets up with Tracy at Epstein Bar to encourage him to be with Rose. At the moment, she seems to be a better match for Tracy than Elena is. Elena just wants Tracy to be happy. He gives her his wallet and tells her to order whatever she wants while he uses the bathroom. Elena is surprised to find a condom in the wallet.
At home, Felicity complains about Avery to Ben, calling her “unabashedly evil.” Ben is sympathetic toward Avery, but Felicity says that being shot doesn’t absolve her of having to take responsibility for her actions. She’s sick of seeing Avery everywhere. Ben promises that he wants to be with Felicity and no one else.
Felicity is concerned because she and Ben both said they didn’t want anything from Avery, but they’re accepting what she offers anyway. Ben is amused by how angry Felicity is; he’s never seen her hate someone before. He promises that now that Avery has thanked him, things will go back to normal. Yeah, probably.
Noel takes Avery to the loft after his surprisingly good night at the club. In fact, they had such a good time that they stayed until the club closed. Avery casually asks if Ben is coming home that night, so it’s pretty obvious that she’s more interested in him than she is in Noel. She tells Noel that she no longer feels like her life has renewed purpose. She hasn’t lived up to the expectations she thought her life would have. Noel can relate – he’s graduating in just eight weeks. They start kissing. Oh, dear.
Meghan gives one of the girls in her class a little witchcraft kit, so her teacher decides to report her to the psychology department. Meghan tells Sean that she now has to undergo a psychological evaluation. Ooh, fun! For us, not Meghan. Avery’s generosity hasn’t stopped, and she’s sent a motorcycle over to the loft for Ben. Ben promises Felicity that he’s not going to keep it.
Noel has figured out a solution for a plot problem in “Loser Pet Store,” and though he’s still having a tiny existential crisis, he’s coming out of it. He tells Felicity he was with Avery when she ordered the motorcycle for Ben, like she was ordering a pizza. Felicity realizes that Noel slept with Avery. Noel says that when she wants something, she really wants it bad. Ben gets on the motorcycle, supposedly just to check it out, but it looks like he won’t be giving it back.
At their next self-defense class, Felicity tells Avery that Ben is returning the bike. Avery doubts that. The instructor has them practice moves on each other, and this time Felicity puts Avery on the floor. She tells Avery that she returned the sweater. At home, Felicity happily tells Elena that she took Avery down. Elena is also down – she’s coming to terms with the fact that Tracy doesn’t love her. Sex clearly wasn’t the issue between them, so it must be that Tracy never loved her.
Ben tells Sean that he doesn’t want to push Avery away after everything she’s been through, but he needs to tell her he can’t accept the motorcycle. He meets with her at Dean & DeLuca, returns the watch, and tells her to stop buying him stuff. She asks him what he saw and heard that night in the ambulance. He tells her he saw her die, but he didn’t hear anything.
Avery says she could hear him, even though he wasn’t saying anything – she heard him inside her, telling her not to go. Ben says that’s what he was thinking. Avery heard him, and she stayed, and now she feels like she belongs with him. Ben resists, reminding her that he has a girlfriend. Avery tells him he can keep the stuff she bought him; they’re just things. What’s really important is what they went through and how she feels right now. She’s never felt like this before, and she doesn’t think Ben has, either.
Thoughts: Who knew you could take three months off from school and then get right back into classes in March?
Way to illustrate that Noel is having an existential crisis by having him read Sartre. You don’t have to be so literal, show.
Spin-off idea: Meghan and a bunch of kids. That’s it.
Not enough Javier! Not enough!
January 30, 2021
Felicity 3.11, And to All a Good Night: Time for Chekhov’s Gun to Go Off
The parrot and the turtle
Summary: The ladies of the dorm apartment are planning a Christmas party, but Molly isn’t in the mood for celebrating. Even though she couldn’t walk away from James when Ben hoped she would, she did wind up leaving him, and she’s back in rehab. Felicity thinks that’s something to celebrate. She and Ben will be spending part of Christmas break in Florida (if Sean can get them a car) after a visit from Felicity’s mother.
James calls, and since Molly doesn’t want to talk to him, Felicity tells him she’s not there. He doesn’t believe her, so Ben takes the phone from her and tells James to stop calling. James gets angry, and Ben wonders how Molly could date someone who’s such a jerk. If James didn’t have a gun, Ben would be much more aggressive toward him. This is, of course, exactly when Barbara arrives, along with Meghan, who laughs over Felicity’s mother hearing her boyfriend talking about a dangerous drug addict.
Noel drops in on Felicity at work and tells her that Icebox loves them and wants them to write the first episode of “Loser Pet Store.” Despite this, Noel isn’t feeling the holiday spirit, since he’s single. Apparently Natalie is dating someone else. Felicity tells him that Barbara’s in town, and she’s worried her mother doesn’t like Ben. She invites Noel to the apartment’s Christmas party. He jokes that he’ll bring Natalie’s new boyfriend.
Sean and Richard tell Ben about their new business idea, selling Christmas trees. They’ll triple the prices a few days before Christmas and make tons of money. They want Ben to help them, but he has plans with Felicity and Barbara. Sean threatens to withhold his uncle’s car for the Florida trip, so Ben has to give in.
Tracy and Elena have hit a bump in their relationship post-sex. The sex isn’t the only issue, though: Tracy got accepted into a program that provides medical care and sets up clinics in Africa. He leaves in three weeks. Sean, Ben, and Richard go pick up their Christmas trees, discovering that there are more than they expected. Sean says they’ll need a bigger boat.
This makes Ben late for the play he’s supposed to see with Felicity and Barbara. Barbara didn’t know about the Florida trip, so she’s under the impression that Felicity will go to California with her after the holidays. James calls Molly and asks to meet her. She declines, but he knows she called him in a moment of weakness. He begs her to see him, yelling at her when she says she’s hanging up.
The guys borrow a truck, which Ben rushes to leave in so he can get to the play. It won’t start, but Ben is able to get to the play a little after it starts. Unfortunately, he was supposed to bring the tickets, and he doesn’t have them. Barbara decides to just call it a night and go back to her hotel. Ben encourages Felicity to go with her and have some quality time alone with her mom.
In a cab, Barbara asks Felicity if Ben gets into a lot of fights. (She heard about one from some friend of Ben’s.) More questions about her daughter’s boyfriend reveal that Ben hasn’t declared a major yet. Felicity shuts down the conversation by simply saying that she loves him. Later, she goes to the loft, which now looks like a forest. She tells Ben she feels bad for Barbara, who’s spending her first Christmas alone. She’s using her maiden name again, and it feels weird to Felicity. She’s considering skipping the Florida trip to spend the holidays with her mother.
The next day, Noel shows Barbara some of “Loser Pet Store,” which she seems to enjoy. She also clearly likes Noel more than Ben. She invites him to have dinner with her, Felicity, and Ben that night. Meghan’s impressed that Sean has put together his own Christmas tree lot – when she gave him the idea months ago, he thought it was dumb. He insists that it was his idea, so she asks him to show her his book where he keeps all his business brainstorms. Sean claims it was stolen. Meghan tells him she’ll take a cut of his profits, then. He says no, so she tells him to enjoy the holidays as a single man.
Ben walks Molly home after an Al-Anon meeting and they find James waiting for her. She continues to refuse to talk to him. James tries to intimidate Ben, but it doesn’t work. Ben then goes to meet Felicity, Barbara, and Noel for dinner, mentioning that he and Molly ran into James. Noel brings up James’ gun, which doesn’t make Barbara feel any better. Noel, stop talking.
Barbara gets upset and leaves the table. Felicity follows her to the bathroom, where Barbara expresses concern over all the bad stuff Felicity’s gotten mixed up in. Plus, she’s dating a guy who doesn’t have any direction. Barbara dated a guy like that and knows Ben is just trouble. Felicity should date Noel instead. Barbara thinks the parrot and turtle in “Loser Pet Store” are Noel and Felicity, and that Noel is still in love with Felicity like the parrot is in love with the turtle. Felicity sets her straight and goes back to the table.
After dinner, Felicity and Ben go to the loft and he complains about Barbara picking on him at dinner. Felicity wants him to cut her some slack, since she just got divorced, but Ben says she was being obnoxious. Felicity thinks he’s just upset because he doesn’t have any plans and Barbara got him to admit it.
James calls Molly and tries to get her to admit that she still loves him. He warns her not to hang up. She tells him for the umpteenth time that she doesn’t want to talk to him or see him anymore. At Epstein Bar, Sean gives Meghan an early Christmas present, a leather whip. Dear baby Jesus, please save me from this. She wants to take him to Radio City Music Hall for a show, but Sean and Richard are selling trees. She asks again for a cut of the profits, but he won’t agree. Meghan calls him a cheapskate and tells him to leave. Then she calls the fire department to report a fire hazard.
While Noel and Felicity work on “Loser Pet Store,” she asks him for his opinion on how Barbara treated Ben. Even Noel thinks she was too hard on him. They’re working on the turtle, and Noel says he’s a loser. Felicity disagrees. Tracy and Elena meet with his pastor, Cathy, who tells them God wants them to take responsibility for their sins. Elena doesn’t feel like having premarital sex is a sin. Cathy says they’re at a crossroads in the relationship. They need to decide what they want both separately and together.
A fire marshal named Howard pays the loft a visit and tells the guys to get rid of the trees before they get fined. They can move the trees to Sean’s cousin’s lot, but Ben refuses to help. Sean calls him out for being in a bad mood and mentions the hit his wallet would take if he couldn’t sell the trees. Since Sean lets Ben be late on his rent all the time, Ben kind of owes him.
Felicity comes by to check on Ben, who’s thinking about skipping the ladies’ Christmas party. He feels like she was being judgmental when she asked if he was more annoyed with Barbara or himself. He doesn’t like being asked questions he doesn’t have an answer to, and Felicity shouldn’t have defended her mother for bugging him. Ben suggests that she spend Christmas with her mother instead of him.
Tracy goes to the apartment to tell Elena that he spent 20 years believing that only people who are married should have sex. When he met Elena, she said she was okay with that, but obviously she wasn’t. Now Tracy thinks that if he can’t figure things out by himself, he’s looking in the wrong place. He’s going to Africa.
Ben asks Barbara to meet him at Dean & DeLuca, where he tells her he knows she’s worried about his relationship with Felicity. That bothered him at first, because he felt Barbara was making a snap judgment, but then he started looking at the situation from her perspective. He doesn’t have a major, his dad is an alcoholic, and Noel is right there.
One of Ben’s teachers once said that all the interesting people she knew didn’t know what they wanted to do with their lives when they were 20. So if nothing else, at least Ben will probably turn out to be an interesting person. Yeah, that’ll pay the bills. Ben says that Felicity cares about him, and because of that, he thinks he might someday become the kind of person she thinks he can be. Because of that, she means a lot to Ben.
Barbara goes to the apartment and tells Felicity she made holidays plans with a friend, so Felicity can stick with her original plans. Felicity thinks the Florida trip is off, though. Barbara thinks she and Ben will work things out. She admits that it was unfair to compare Ben to her own loser boyfriend. Besides, Barbara had a lot of expectations for her boyfriend, so she’s responsible for that relationship not working out. Felicity doesn’t think that’s fair, but Barbara says she chose the wrong guy. Barbara admires how confident Felicity is compared to when she first came to New York.
Felicity goes to the guys’ new tree lot, but Ben has left to get coffee. Sean admits that they’re not making as much money as he’d hoped. He’s okay as a salesman, but his prices are too high. They wind up giving away trees. Felicity goes home, where the Christmas party is in full swing. She encourages Meghan to go cheer up Sean.
Noel shows up and admires Felicity in her cute sparkly tank top. No matter where their relationship stands, Elena and Tracy are still having fun together. Meghan goes to the lot, where Sean and Richard are making people happy by giving away all the trees. Meghan’s ready to take Sean to the party. Back there, Felicity asks Noel if he’s the turtle. He admits that he is, but he says the parrot is Ruby. She pretends to believe that.
Ben finally gets to the party, and he and Felicity make up. Noel turns to Molly for entertainment and invites her to dance. James sneaks into the apartment as Sean and Richard arrive with a tree. No one notices as he pulls his gun, takes aim at someone, and fires.
Thoughts: This episode was directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal, father of Jake and Maggie.
How do you not have a major picked out halfway through your junior year? How do you plan to take all the necessary courses in a year and a half? Does Ben have a crappy advisor, or has he just never met with the advisor?
Sean seems okay with selling Christmas trees even though he’s Jewish. I’m surprised no one mentioned that.
We haven’t seen Javier in a while. I demand Javier!
January 23, 2021
Felicity 3.10, Final Touches (AKA Let’s Get It On): Drawing on Reserves
Is this man a qualified professor? I’m not so sure
Summary: Felicity gets a letter she doesn’t like and goes to see a professor named Boyden. She thought she’d dropped his philosophy class, but the drop request didn’t go through, so she’s still enrolled. She never attended any classes, so she’s in danger of failing. It’s too late to drop the class, so Felicity’s only option is to ace the final, which is worth 50% of her grade. Boyden laughs as he tells her that even students who have been to class all semester won’t get an A.
At the dorm apartment, Felicity asks Meghan what happened to the two letters she asked her to mail two months ago: the drop-class form and a letter to Sally. Meghan insists she mailed them, but she’s wrong. She thinks Felicity’s smart enough to pass her final despite never going to class. Felicity should make Meghan take the final for her. Also, why would you mail a drop-class form instead of taking it to the registrar’s office?
Ben took the class Felicity now has to study for, and he’s sure she’ll do fine on the final. She disagrees – she has to cram a semester’s worth of philosophy in three days. Didn’t Noel TA a philosophy class? Isn’t that the class Ben took? Noel can help her. Problem solved. Speaking of Noel, Felicity’s supposed to be working on “Loser Pet Store” with him, but she doesn’t want to push that aside for…a graded class. Come on, Felicity.
Molly comes by to get the rest of her stuff, now that she’s no longer welcome in the dorm apartment. Felicity and Ben try to encourage her to get help, but she doesn’t listen to them. At the loft, Sean is having trouble performing sexually after his surgery. Meghan thinks they just need to give it more time, but Sean thinks that, after four weeks, there’s something else going on. Richard comes by with an idea to make money for the student government budget: a sexy calendar. Meghan tells him he needs to make one with men and one with women. She offers to pick the guys for the male calendar.
Felicity and Noel go to Icebox to meet with Morrison, the professor who has connections there. He likes that “Loser Pet Store” is cute, since most of Icebox’s stuff is offensive. For example, there’s a cartoon called “Queer Duck.” Yiiiiiikes. Morrison tells Felicity she should take one of his classes; her animation skills are great. While Icebox likes “Loser Pet Store,” there’s another cartoon they also like, and only one open spot. Felicity and Noel will need to come up with ideas for their next 20 episodes by Friday.
Elena and Tracy chat as they leave a class together, and though they’re much friendlier than they’ve been recently, he’s not ready for things to go back to the way they used to be. He spoke to his minister about the situation, and she told him he can decide whether or not to let go of the past, but not whether or not he wants to forgive Elena. For now, Tracy is ready to be friends.
Instead of studying or working on “Loser Pet Store,” Felicity goes somewhere with Ben and complains about how much work she has to do. She knows she needs to tell Noel she can’t work on the cartoon with him right now. They meet up with Noel at Epstein Bar, and he’s all excited about the cartoon because he thinks it’s going to lead to huge success. So I guess Felicity can’t back out now.
Molly comes in, planning to meet James there, and tells Felicity and Ben that she appreciates their offers of help, but she can’t just walk away from her boyfriend. They tell her to make sure she’s taking care of herself. James arrives and wonders why Molly’s chatting with the people who kicked her out of her apartment. He says Molly doesn’t need any of her so-called friends, then orders them to stay away from her.
After working on the cartoon with Noel, Felicity goes to Ben’s room to study. He guesses that she didn’t tell Noel she has to drop “Loser Pet Store.” Felicity knows she can’t handle both responsibilities right now, but she really wants to do the cartoon, so she can’t bring herself to drop it. Good luck staying awake while reading philosophy in bed after a long day.
Meghan, Richard, and Sean meet with potential models while Sean grumbles that Meghan’s enjoying checking out the guys a little too much. Sean shows even more interest in the female models, eagerly asking one what her interests are. They include walking barefoot on the beach and praying for world peace. Her dislikes include loud people. “Okay, thanks for coming in!” Meghan yells. But first the guys need to see her in a bikini. You know, for the calendar. Meghan comments that she’ll get Sean a drool cup for Hanukkah. They fight, and she tells him that if he likes the model enough, he can sleep with her.
Molly speaks at an Al-Anon meeting, telling the group that James is both using and dealing again. She’s also using. She knows it’s wrong, but she can’t help herself when she’s with James. After the meeting, Ben tries to talk to Molly about getting away from James, but Molly makes excuses. He says he’s going to get clean, and that he’s only dealing to get by. Molly is willing to believe him because she loves him.
More fighting over models. Richard wants to know what’s up with the Bickersons. Elena and Tracy stop by and Tracy looks through the stack of photos of the female models. He’s surprised so many hot women go to their school. Meghan thinks Tracy’s hot, too, and tells him to take off his shirt. She quickly tells him he’s in the calendar.
Felicity and Noel work on their episode outlines at the dorm apartment, though Felicity’s done about as much work on them as she’s done for her philosophy class. He thinks she doesn’t care as much about the cartoon as he does. Exhausted and overwhelmed, Felicity starts crying. Noel gets mad, for some reason, and decides to just work on the cartoon himself. Well, there you go. Now Felicity’s free to study. As Noel leaves, Molly comes by again and asks if she can move back home – “something happened.”
At the loft, Noel complains to Ben that Felicity is being a bad friend. Ben tells him that Felicity’s working hard to pass her philosophy class and help Noel at the same time. She didn’t want to abandon Noel. Felicity calls to tell Ben to come to the apartment, where Molly tells the two of them that James pulled a gun on her while he was high. She regrets just leaving the hotel where they’ve been staying. She doesn’t think she’s strong enough to leave him after all.
Ben reminds her of an Al-Anon lesson: She has to fix herself before she can fix anyone else. Molly thinks she can’t live without James, but Ben tells her she has to. Molly says she’s scared. Felicity tells her that going back to the hotel won’t make that go away. Yes, something bad might happen to James, but if Molly goes back to the hotel, something bad might happen to her, too.
Meghan and Sean fight. Again. Some more. I’m tired. Richard finally tells them to shut up. He realizes they’re struggling sexually in the wake of Sean’s surgery. Elena arrives as Sean leaves and objects to Richard and Meghan’s choice to put Tracy in their calendar. He’s sweet and religious, and Elena thinks that putting a shirtless picture of him in a calendar will mock that. She storms off to talk Tracy out of it. Meghan comments that he’s not going to sleep with her anyway.
Ben takes Molly to the rehab clinic where they met up previously. He notes that he doesn’t really know her, even though they’ve done this before and gone to meetings together. She appreciates how nice he’s been. Noel makes up with Felicity, feeling bad about how he treated her while she’s struggling. She suggests that they try to get an extension on their work for “Loser Pet Store.” Noel calls Morrison, but that’s a no-go…though Noel tells Felicity that Morrison said yes. He also finally tells Felicity he’ll help her study.
Elena finds Tracy and calls him a hypocrite and a tease for wanting to pose shirtless but not have sex. Elena, in what world are those things equivalent? Tracy is willing to do it for a good cause. Elena thinks he should have asked her what she thought first. Tracy reminds her that they’re friends, not a couple. Elena decides she can’t be his friend anymore.
Noel quizzes Felicity on philosophy stuff, but it’s not going well. James bursts in looking for Molly (“you guys need to lock your door,” Noel says helpfully), since she moved all her stuff out of the hotel room. He tells her that her friends don’t care about her, and she knows she belongs with him. Molly resists leaving with him, so he orders her to get her stuff. Ben calmly tells James that Molly just wants to sleep for a little while. James backs down and leaves.
Sometime later, Noel and Felicity head to the library, leaving Ben and Molly behind at the apartment. Felicity and Ben admit that they were scared when James came by. She’s proud of Ben for how he handled the situation. The study session doesn’t go well, and Felicity isn’t optimistic that she’ll pass the final. She’s too tired to retain any more information. Noel urges her to rally and draw on any reserves of energy she might have. He has faith that she can do anything she wants. Plus, he’s sacrificing his own study time to help her, so she’d better succeed. He wants this to be something they look back on and feel good about.
Back at the apartment, Molly is trying to draw on her own reserves to get the strength to break up with James. Ben advises her to do it in public and offers to come with her. Molly’s worried that James will get mad if he sees Ben, but Ben promises to stay out of sight. While Felicity takes her philosophy final the next morning, Tracy goes to the apartment to tell Elena that she’s right – they can’t be friends anymore. But it’s because he wants to get back together.
Felicity goes to the loft after her final and tells Noel it went great, thanks to his help. He decides it’s time to tell her they didn’t get the Icebox extension after all, so they have to finish their episode outlines by the next day. That means another all-nighter. Felicity doesn’t hear that part, though, since she’s already asleep.
Meghan, Sean, and Richard finalize the calendars at Epstein Bar, but only Richard is excited about how successful the project will be. Sean looks through photos of the male models and laments that he’ll never look like them. Meghan would never fantasize about him. Sean has wanted to be intimate with her since right after the operation, and he’s worried that if he can’t perform, Meghan will dump him for someone who can’t. Meghan admits that she thought his failure to perform meant he wasn’t into her anymore. They kiss, and the problem is solved.
Ben watches from across the street as Molly waits for James on a sidewalk. Molly breaks the news to James that they’re done, and though Ben can’t hear them, it’s pretty obvious that James doesn’t take the news well. Ben silently pleads with Molly to walk away, but she doesn’t. She leaves with James, giving Ben an apologetic glance. Hey, great, Meghan and Sean are fine again, still together to fight about something else next time. Can’t wait. Tracy and Elena are also fine, and he’s no longer a virgin. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem happy about it.
Thoughts: Morrison is played by Scott Adsit. I hope he got paid extra for having to sport some ridiculous facial hair.
The whole didn’t-know-I-was-enrolled-in-a-class-and-have-to-take-the-final thing is definitely based on a common nightmare, but it actually happened to a friend of mine. I’m not sure how she dealt with it, though.
Molly should have stayed at the loft instead of the apartment. It would have taken James a lot longer to track her down.
I can’t deal with Sean and Meghan fighting in every episode. It gives me Steve/Clare flashbacks.
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.
January 9, 2021
Felicity 3.8, A Good Egg: It’s Tricky
Look at us, just two heterosexual people in love
Summary: Noel is still filling in for Ben at Dean & DeLuca, and he’s working on a “project” he needs Felicity’s help with. Felicity guesses the project has to do with Jane. Javier arrives with his baby nephew, Isaiah, and gets Noel to watch him while he talks to Felicity. Javier has baby fever, and he and Samuel want to become parents. Of course, without a woman in the relationship, they can’t do this the traditional way, so Javier would like to know if Felicity would be the child’s mother.
At the loft, Ben tells Felicity a little about his first Al-Anon meeting. They’re both glad he went. Ben takes the “anonymous” part seriously and doesn’t mention Molly being there. Felicity announces that Javier wants her to donate an egg so he and Samuel can have a baby. Samuel’s aunt would be the surrogate, since they want someone they know to do that part. Felicity says she’s not going to do it, but she’s said that before, so…
Elena tracks down Tracy, who’s been avoiding her and clearly doesn’t want to talk. He lets her know that Finn told him he and Elena hooked up. Elena wants to explain herself, saying she was confused and got caught up in the moment. Tracy spits out that he hopes the sex was worth it, because they’re done.
Noel and Jane go out again, and he’s still doing that thing where he reads her emails and then studies up on something she likes to make it look like he likes it, too. Noel, you are exhausting. She sees a little suspicious that he dropped into her life out of nowhere and has so much in common with her. He says that either the planets aligned or they got lucky. He moves in to kiss her, but Jane turns her head and admits that she’s thinking about someone else, an old friend she’s interested in. She doesn’t want to mislead Noel if there’s something possible with that friend.
At the dorm apartment, Felicity tells Ben that she’s thinking about donating her egg after all. Ben has reservations about the arrangement and isn’t sure Felicity has completely thought this through. After all, she’s been known to act impulsively in the past. At Dean & DeLuca, Javier tells Felicity that he got into a fight with his brother about having a baby who will be raised by two fathers. Felicity announces that she’s ready to move forward and donate her egg. Javier thanks her for giving him and Samuel a family.
Now Felicity will have to explain this decision to other people, like her mother. Molly, however, thinks she’s doing something wonderful. At the loft, Sean catches Noel reading Jane’s emails, which Sean says is a felony. He thinks this is a great hook for the show. Noel is concerned that he’s now competing with some guy named Tricky, a friend of Jane’s from summer camp. He lost the email he was reading and needs the address of a retirement home, which Sean inadvertently captured on tape. Jane volunteers there, and Noel is going to join her. Sean tells him he has a problem. Noel pretends to agree, then tries to grab his camera.
He’s already at the retirement home, playing chess with a resident named Howie, when Jane gets there. She sits down to watch and asks if Noel is winning or losing the game. He’s losing, but he thinks the tide is about to turn. Felicity goes to meet with a fertility counselor named Liz who is herself mother to a baby who started out as a donor egg. Felicity wants to know about the steps she’ll have to take to get pregnant. Injections and blood tests are involved. Maybe she should just have sex with Javier.
At home, Felicity tells Elena about the meeting, and Elena bluntly tells her not to go through with it if it’s too much for her. She’s working on a letter to Tracy, since he won’t talk to her. She tells Felicity she slept with Finn, again saying she was confused. She asks if Ben would have forgiven Felicity if she’d actually slept with Randy. Uh, doesn’t seem like it.
Ben and Molly are both at the next Al-Anon meeting, and Ben decides to share with the group this time, though all he says is that he hates his father. Molly goes next, talking about her boyfriend, James. A few weeks ago, she shared that she wanted to break up with him to protect herself, but she doesn’t want to abandon him while he’s going through some difficult times. Molly admits that his alcohol and drug use is a bad influence on her – she thinks she’s addicted to an addict.
Noel walks Jane home, still talking about how much they have in common. He wonders, hypothetically, what it would be like if they didn’t have so much in common. He wants to go out again, though he knows Jane has plans already. Jane is curious about how he knows that, but not so curious that she doesn’t agree to cancel her plans and go out with Noel.
At the dorm apartment, Ben tells Felicity that he’s been thinking about the egg donation and doesn’t want her to do it. What if she disagrees with how Javier and Samuel want to raise a child who’s biologically hers? What if, like Julie, the child wants to get to know her someday? Felicity understands where Ben is coming from, but she still wants to give Javier and Samuel a child. Ben asks why she’s always putting other people’s needs ahead of her own. Felicity wonders why he’s so upset about this.
She goes to Dean & DeLuca, where Javier tells her that his brother seems to be coming around on the idea of Javier and Samuel having a baby. Ben’s discomfort with the idea of Felicity donating an egg has made her uncomfortable as well. Javier is disappointed, but he and Samuel do have a backup donor in mind.
Elena joins a study group Tracy’s in, and the two of them bicker until another member of the group reminds them they’re not in a therapy session. Once everyone else leaves to take a break, Elena gives Tracy the apology letter she wrote him. Back at the dorm apartment, Noel has turned to Felicity for help getting out of the jam with Jane. Felicity urges him to tell her the truth. Noel is like, “But I enjoyed all the stuff we’ve done, so maybe being creepy has made me a better person?” Felicity tells him he always underestimates himself – he doesn’t need to lie to get a woman’s attention.
Javier lets himself in and tells Felicity that the backup donor wants to meet with the parents who will be raising her biological child. The thing is that she doesn’t know the parents will be two men. Felicity objects to what he knows is coming, but ultimately Javier convinces her to pretend to be his wife so the donor, Patty, will believe she’s donating an egg to a straight couple. He lies that they can’t conceive naturally because he’s impotent. Except he mixes up his words and says he’s omnipotent.
Patty is wary about the situation because she offered to donate to another couple who wound up getting divorced right before the donation was to occur. Javier promises that he and Felicity are totally, completely, romantically in love. Felicity’s conscience gets the better of her and she says she needs to figure out how to tell Patty the truth. “Creatively would be good, or not at all,” Javier says. Felicity just tells Patty how awesome Javier is and what a great father he would be.
Noel and Jane have dinner again, and she tells him about Tricky. He was like a brother to Jane until he started wanting more. She was worried that getting involved with him would ruin their friendship, but she was tempted…until now. Now she wants Noel. They start making out and wind up in her bedroom, but Noel decides he needs to come clean before they go too far. He confesses that he’s been reading her emails to learn more about her. Jane calls him a stalker and kicks him out. “That’s fair,” he concedes.
Javier and Samuel have a baby shower for the baby they haven’t even conceived yet. Meanwhile, Patty goes to Dean & DeLuca looking for Javier and Felicity. Ben and Molly end up alone together at the shower, and he asks if she’s using along with her bad influence boyfriend. Were the drugs Felicity found in her closet Molly’s? Molly says no, then tells him she won’t talk about her issues outside of meetings.
The shower attendees are toasting the fathers to be when Patty shows up. She’s just in time to hear Javier calling Samuel his husband. She was going to drop off some medical records, but now she’s not going to go through with the donation. Felicity tries to smooth things over with her, but Patty’s conservative upbringing means she doesn’t think Javier and Samuel can be the right family for a baby.
Tracy has read Elena’s letter, but he tells her he can’t forgive her. Noel meets up with Richard at Epstein Bar, where Richard has big news: This woman he’s been interested in forever was showing some interest in him until she started seeing someone else. Last night, she canceled their plans to go out with the other guy, but it turns out he’s a fraud. Does this sound familiar? Jane is the woman, Noel is the fraud, and Richard is Tricky. In addition, Jane came to him for comfort after she learned the truth about Noel, and Richard is no longer a virgin. When Jane arrives, she and Noel pretend they don’t know each other.
Molly tells the Al-Anon group that she’s been attending for a month now, which means a lot to her – she’s trying to heal. She also lied to someone she cared about. The drugs in the closet were hers, and she doesn’t know why she said they weren’t. After the meeting, Ben promises not to tell Felicity about the drugs, but he’s worried that Molly is still using and bringing drugs into the dorm apartment. Molly reminds him that the group is a place for them to talk about the horrible parts of their lives and commit to helping each other. They’ve made an agreement and he can’t back out.
At the loft, Felicity tells Ben that talking to Patty made her want to help Javier and Samuel even more. Ben has been trying to figure out why the idea of her donating an egg bothers him so much. He’s realized that it means she would be sharing herself with someone else in an extreme way. If she wants to go through with it, he’ll support her. Felicity appreciates that, but she knows Ben was right when he pointed out that it would be complicated for her to be around a child who was biologically hers without being hers to raise. So it’s a no on the egg.
Episode-ending music montage! Felicity takes Javier the gift she didn’t have in time for the shower. Tracy rereads Elena’s letter while Elena waits by her phone for him to call. Noel goes back to the retirement home and plays chess with Howie again. Felicity and Ben hang out together, two totally normal college students with no biological children and no secrets about roommates who are bringing drugs into their shared living spaces.
Thoughts: Richard Erdman, who plays Howie, is better known for his role on another show about college students – he was Leonard on Community.
These people have never heard of adoption, have they?
I highly doubt a fertility doctor would approve of Samuel and Javier’s plan to use Samuel’s 49-year-old aunt as a surrogate.
I’m so disappointed that we didn’t get a scene where Meghan tells Felicity she’s making a horrible decision and should never procreate in any way, shape, or form.
January 2, 2021
Felicity 3.7, Kissing Mr. Covington: Nothing to Lose
OH, ELENA
Summary: Felicity brings Ben home from the hospital after his beating by Randy’s friends. His face is bruised and his arm is in a sling. Since he won’t be able to work for a little while, Noel has offered to fill in for him at work. Mr. Covington calls, but Ben doesn’t want to talk to him. He’s surprised that Mr. C. knows about his assault. Felicity guesses that the hospital called him and he flew out to check on his son (Mrs. C. is out of the country). Ben repeats that he doesn’t want to talk to him.
Noel runs into Jane (or is maybe stalking her?) and invites her to get sushi. She had a bad experience with it and doesn’t eat it anymore. Plus, she has to get to class. She leaves as hopefully Noel figures out a way to learn how to talk to women like a human being.
At the dorm apartment, Felicity is in a great mood and is dancing like no one’s watching. It turns out someone’s watching, though – Mr. C. She tells him not to take it personally that Ben doesn’t want to talk to him. He’s just “going through something.” Mr. C. is going to AA and thinks Ben should try out Al-Anon, meetings for family members of alcoholics. He wants Felicity to try to talk him into going to a meeting. Mr. C. wants Ben to get that he’s in the city because he really cares about his son.
Sean, who’s still in the hospital, has taken an interest in Judaism. He guesses that his roommate, Morgenstern, is also Jewish. Sean tells Meghan that before his surgery, he made a pact with God: If he survived, he would devote his life to God. Now he’s going to follow all of the 613 commandments in the Torah.
At the dorm apartment, Noel asks Elena for advice on how to get to know Jane. He admits that he got her email password and is tempted to read her private messages to find out more about her. Elena tells him to definitely not do that. Lies will ruin everything. Speaking of lies (well, secrets), Tracy arrives with news that the paper he and Finn wrote is going to be published.
As Noel logs into Jane’s email just seconds after Elena and Tracy leave, Felicity tells Ben that Mr. C. came to see her. Ben thinks Mr. C. is just using his charms to win Felicity over. Felicity asks Ben to give him one more chance. Elena meets up with Finn at Epstein Bar and tells him she loves Tracy, so whatever’s happening between the two of them needs to stop.
Mr. C. returns to the dorm apartment, disappointed because he’s sure he’s really lost Ben. His sponsor encouraged him to come visit, saying he had nothing to lose. Mr. C. gets that because he’s already lost it. He starts crying, and when Felicity gives him a comforting hug, he kisses her neck, then tries to move to her lips. He realizes how uncomfortable she is and leaves.
Despite not wanting anything from his father, Ben has put up a little basketball hoop Mr. C. gave Felicity to give him. Felicity tells him that Mr C. came to see her again. Ben has decided to give him a second chance after all, and Felicity awkwardly encourages him to go for it. Felicity, honey, you need to go back to therapy. I’m sure Pavone would love it.
Meghan is trying to gather stuff for a Sabbath meal, telling Molly that Sean is suddenly “ultra-Jewish.” Molly says that happened to a friend of hers who was hit by a car and then started thinking she was the Virgin Mary. Yeah, that’s not the same at all, Molly. Tracy meets up with Finn and another classmate, who share the news that McGrath was busted for sexual harassment. Tracy wonders “who would want to get down with the prince of darkness.” The third classmate knows someone on the disciplinary committee and has a list of women who were involved with McGrath. The list includes Elena.
Noel has gotten a bunch of info from Jane’s emails and now knows multiple ways to her heart. His first choice is crashing her yoga class. Elena warns that he won’t get away with this. Noel tries anyway, showing up with the same book Jane is reading. Then he asks her out for Indian food, her favorite cuisine.
Meghan takes Sean some Sabbath things and he thanks her for doing a mitzvah (good deed). She got a discount at a Judaica store because she told the clerk she was converting to Judaism. That lie may cancel out her mitzvah. Sean asks if she would ever convert for real, but Meghan thinks that’s a ridiculous idea. He tells her that, in that case, they have to break up. He wants his kids to be Jewish, “not Jew-witch.” Meghan leaves him all the stuff she brought him, except the wine.
Tracy confronts Elena over her relationship with McGrath, clarifying that his assistant filed the harassment complaint and gave the disciplinary committee the names of McGrath’s flings. Tracy knows they were together years before, and Elena didn’t cheat on him or anything, but he’s upset that she never mentioned this to him. He’s going to try not to take it too seriously.
Felicity helps Ben get ready for a visit from Mr. C., which goes well, though Felicity looks like she’d rather be anywhere else. When Ben leaves the room, Mr. C. apologizes to Felicity for the kissing. He’s had a horrible year and has felt alone, but talking to her made him feel hopeful. Felicity tells him that he’s making her uncomfortable. Mr. C. thanks her for not saying anything to Ben.
The next day, Ben tells Felicity that he got tickets to a play that night but can’t go. He wants Felicity to take Mr. C. instead. Meghan complains to Molly that Sean broke up with her after she spent all this time comforting him and let herself become vulnerable. Elena glares at Noel as he reads her one of Jane’s emails, then tells him that she cheated on Tracy with Finn. Noel tears up the emails and offers Elena a deal: He’ll tell Jane the truth if Elena comes clean to Tracy. Elena notes that she has more to lose here than Noel, but she agrees.
Sean’s roommate, Morgenstern, reveals that he’s a rabbi. He asks what will happen if Sean has a relapse or gets a different type of cancer. What will happen to his relationship with God? If Sean loves Meghan, he should propose to her. He shouldn’t waste his life on things that aren’t important to him. His “crash diet” with God won’t last. God isn’t a fad; He’s a way of life.
Elena invites Tracy to the dorm apartment so she can break his heart. Before she can, he reads her an acrostic he wrote her (“E is for everything you do so well. L is for your long, luscious locks…”). He promises that he will always love her. This is the first time someone’s written a poem for Elena, and she can’t crush him after that.
Noel and Jane have dinner together, and things are going well, but his conscience tells him he needs to be honest. Instead, he uses a line she wrote in one of her emails, the exact line she told a friend she wants a guy to say to her. In this instance, it’s not what she wants to hear, and she slaps Noel. Good for her. Run away, Jane! Run far away!
At the loft, Felicity tells Ben that she feels like she’s getting sick, so she should skip the play with Mr. C. He guesses there’s something else going on, but she just says that Mr. C. makes her uncomfortable. Ben asks if Mr. C. did something to her. The fact that his mind goes there says a lot, doesn’t it? Ben decides to go pay his father a visit.
He finds Mr. C. at Epstein Bar and asks what Mr. C. did that made Felicity too uncomfortable to be alone with her. Mr. C. first says that they hugged, but Ben guesses that there was more. Mr. C. admits to the kissing, then tries to explain himself, saying he came to New York because he wants to make things right with Ben. Ben replies that he doesn’t want Mr. C. in his life.
Back at the loft, Ben tells Felicity he feels bad for what Mr. C. did. He’s trying to hold in the rage he feels toward his father. Felicity reminds him of when they carved pumpkins together their freshman year. That was the first time he ever told her about his father. She thought she understood then, but now she knows it goes deeper.
She’s gotten him pamphlets on various groups that might be able to help him. Ben says he doesn’t need a group – he needs a new dad. Felicity tries to talk to him about Al-Anon, but Ben doesn’t want to feel like he’s the one who’s messed up. Mr. C. returns, and Felicity leaves without talking to him. Mr. C. has come to say goodbye to Ben, who isn’t interested in a conversation beyond that. He’s definitely not interest in offering forgiveness. Mr. C. says he loves Ben, then leaves.
Sean shows up at the dorm apartment and asks Meghan to marry him. She’s confused, since he just dumped her. He tells her he no longer cares that she’s not Jewish. Meghan wants an apology first, but when Sean apologizes, she says he doesn’t get the real problem. Dumping her because she’s not Jewish is “anti-anti-Semitic.” Heh. She says she’ll get back together with Sean but she won’t marry him.
Sean tells her that this wasn’t even his idea. Just what every woman wants to hear after being proposed to. He explains that Morgenstern pushed him to propose. He needs a little more time to decide if Judaism is really this important to him. Meghan is willing to give him that time.
Tracy finds Finn and says that Elena told him about the affair. Of course, Finn thinks he means his affair with Elena, not her fling with McGrath. Finn’s pleased that Tracy is cool with everything. He says it wasn’t really an affair anyway; he and Elena were only together one time. Oops, looks like Tracy’s going to get his heart broken after all.
Noel is a disaster filling in for Ben at Dean & DeLuca. Jane comes by to apologize (!!!), telling him that her friend reminded her that she wanted a guy to say exactly what Noel said to her at dinner. She’d like to get to know him better. Jane, nooooo! What’s wrong with you??? Ben goes to an Al-Anon meeting after all and is surprised to see someone he knows: Molly.
Thoughts: Leave it to Felicity to not be honest with Ben right after they’ve made up from a big fight over how she wasn’t honest with him.
Trivia: Kit-Kats are kosher.
Meghan wears her best green cheetah-print shrug and zebra-print tank top to visit Sean in the hospital. Guys, remember shrugs? Also, Molly wears three headbands at once. Sigh.
December 26, 2020
Felicity 3.6, One Ball, Two Strikes: These People Are All Nuts
Just who I would want to see after surgery
Summary: At Dean & DeLuca, Javier is telling Noel that he thinks his humanities professor has a crunch on him. Noel isn’t impressed. He needs some advice on what to do if he had a friend who was gay. No, it’s not him. Javier immediately guesses that it’s Richard. Noel asks if he should tell Richard that he may know Richard’s secret. Javier says Richard will come out if and when he wants to (if he is, in fact, gay). Noel just wants Richard to know that Noel accepts him. Javier advises him to just say that he’s Richard’s friend no matter what. He thinks Noel is sweet for caring so much.
Later, Noel tells Sean (on camera) that he wasn’t going to say anything, but then Richard started talking about a woman he wants to date. Noel thinks he’s pretending to be straight, so he tells Richard he’s his friend no matter what. Richard asks why Noel has been acting so weird lately. Noel finally announces that he knows Richard’s gay and it doesn’t bother him. Richard is surprised at this and asks if Noel thinks he’s hiding something he’s shameful about. He tells Noel to go to Hell and storms out. Javier slaps Noel on the arm and says, “I told you.”
Sean has a pre-surgical appointment that afternoon but is trying to go about his normal life until then. He wants to downplay the importance of the whole situation to Meghan. It’s been a week since the whole Felicity/Ben/Randy/picture drama went down, and Ben is still keeping to himself. Sean and Meghan aren’t surprised.
Sean interviews Felicity about what she’ll be displaying in the upcoming senior art show. She’s still working on it. Sean asks if she wants to talk about “the whole Ben thing,” since he needs better content for this week’s episode. He asks if they’re going to break up. Felicity understands why Ben is upset with her, and since he asked for space, she’s trying to give it to him.
Later, Ben and Felicity work the same shift at Dean & DeLuca, and when Ben tries to get Javier to communicate with her for him, Javier refuses. Ben and Felicity keep things professional and civil for about five seconds before they start fighting. She insists once again that nothing happened between her and Randy, but he still thinks something could have happened that she doesn’t remember.
Javier tells Richard about how he came out to his parents: He got them a cake with the message “your son is gay.” That way, if they kicked him out, at least there would be cake. But he picked up the wrong cake, so he had to come up himself. They already knew, and they told him they love him exactly the way he is. Richard figures Noel put Javier up to this, so he walks out on another conversation.
Sean runs across traffic to film Tracy and Elena kissing goodbye before Tracy leaves for a weekend Habitat for Humanity build. He’s supposed to work on a sociology paper with a classmate, so Elena offered to put his part together with the partner’s. Sean loves how in love they are. But later, Elena tells Molly that Finn is still on her mind. Molly thinks that she’s struggling more with abstinence than she’s let on. Speak of the devil, Finn comes over and tries to make plans with Elena. She tells him she’s dating Tracy, but Finn already knows. He’s Tracy’s sociology partner.
Felicity tracks down Randy again and asks him to talk to Ben. She’s out of ideas for salvaging the relationship. Richard goes to the loft to yell at Noel for telling Javier he’s gay. He knows Jason because they worked together in Florida. Meghan notes that Richard seems overly defensive. Richard reveals his big secret: He’s a virgin. He’s never even kissed a girl. He’s never told anyone because he thought they would laugh at him. You know, like Meghan is now. Richard leaves and Meghan says she wishes she felt compelled to apologize, but she doesn’t.
Sean wants to film his pre-surgical appointment, but his doctor doesn’t think it’s a good idea. His bloodwork has come back indicating that he has a tumor and will need to spend the night at the hospital. Sean reminds him that he was supposed to have an outpatient procedure. That’s now turned into the removal of a testicle.
At the loft, Noel tries to write Richard an apology email, but it doesn’t come across quite as well as he’d hoped (“I’m so sorry I forced you to admit that you’ve never had sex with a man or a woman”). Sean comes home and lies to Noel and Meghan that he was misdiagnosed. Noel gets a call for a computer repair, and Sean wants to film him, so they head off together. Meghan still seems worried.
Sean films as Noel goes to his repair job, expecting the computer’s owner to be nerdy and pimply. Instead, the owner is a supermodel (see below). “Noel has had a system error,” Sean quips. The owner, Jane, agrees to be filmed, since she loves documentaries. Noel struggles to make the repairs, since Jane smells so good. Sean reminds him that he’s married before leaving to film Felicity.
Felicity is setting up for the art show, though she’s not sure her piece is right for it. Professor Morton reminds her that, even though the pieces are being offered for sale, this is about showing her work, not selling it. The piece is actually really good; it’s a man in a suit running toward a wall. At home, Molly tells her that Meghan is throwing a dinner for Sean that night. Ben will be there, but Felicity decides to suck it up and go anyway.
Randy finds Ben drinking at Epstein Bar and asks for just 30 seconds of his time. He swears that nothing happened between him and Felicity. Ben asks why Randy came to see him. Randy says again that nothing happened. Ben responds by punching the crap out of him. Finn meets with Elena at the dorm apartment while everyone else has dinner at the loft, supposedly celebrating Sean’s clean bill of health. Molly mentions that she had an uncle who went through something similar, but it ended up killing him.
Richard comes by, having received Noel’s apology email, and says he’s going to be the bigger man about this. Noel asks if he’s still into Molly. Richard isn’t, but not because he’s gay. At the dorm apartment, Finn tells Elena he has a dilemma: He thinks Tracy’s a great guy, but he also likes Elena. Elena shuts that down ASAP. Back at the loft, Richard has his own story about someone who lost both testicles to cancer. Meghan tells him to shut up as Sean goes out for a walk.
Elena calls the loft to get Felicity’s advice on how to handle Finn. While Felicity tries to help, Noel tells Richard that he met and likes Jane. Richard tells Molly he’s sorry he’s been acting weird lately, but she understands – she was once a virgin herself. Richard thinks Noel told her, but it was Meghan. Yeah, he should have seen that coming.
Ben comes home and Felicity passes the phone to Meghan, who tells her to just sleep with Finn. Sean’s doctor then calls, asking for Sean to call back so they can reschedule his surgery. Felicity follows Ben to his room, wanting to end the coldness between them. He tells her he ran into Randy, and she guesses that they got into a fight. Ben yells at her not to defend Randy to him.
When Sean returns from his walk, Meghan confronts Sean about lying about his health. He doesn’t want to undergo what amounts to amputation. Meghan tells him that she doesn’t want to tell him a story about someone she once loved who didn’t get help, like Molly and Richard did. She doesn’t want to have a story like that. Instead, she wants to remind Sean that he has a lot to live for and needs to take care of himself. If he can’t find a reason to do it for himself, he should do it as a favor to her.
Sean films himself for the first time, announcing that he’ll be having surgery the next day. He’s worried that he has cancer and that it’s already spread. Finn and Elena fell asleep while working in her room, but she thinks they finished everything they needed to. He disagrees, then kisses her. She doesn’t pull away. Elena, no! She tells Felicity everything after Finn leaves, and Felicity tells her that Ben beat up Randy.
At the loft, Sean gives Ben his grandfather’s pen, one of his most prized possessions. He’s worried he’ll die in surgery or from cancer, and he wants someone to have this important object. If he lives, Ben can give it back to him. Sean asks if he’s going to Felicity’s art show, but of course Ben doesn’t want to.
Sean says that having cancer has made him see things differently. Ben is out of control and needs to find another way to handle his anger. If he’s going to let one drunken night end things between him and Felicity, maybe he doesn’t deserve her. Sean and Ben are similar, but Sean isn’t going to let his anger come between him and his relationships.
Noel goes back to Jane’s with new ideas for fixing her computer. She’s a dance major but took some complicated math class as an elective (she regrets that). Noel has trouble keeping his eyes on the computer instead of her. He gets punished when he spills a drink on the keyboard. Felicity, Elena, Molly, and Richard walk around the art exhibit, which Meghan hopes will get Sean’s mind off of his surgery. Felicity wishes things were better with Ben so she didn’t have that on her mind.
As Ben arrives, Morton introduces Felicity to a couple of professors who like her piece. Felicity is distracted by the sight of Ben. Sean tells Tracy that he’s Jewish and wants some advice on how to talk to God. Tracy says there’s a reason Sean is going through this. He’ll ask God what he needs to, and God will do what He does. If Sean makes it through this, which Tracy thinks he will, he’ll realize that he doesn’t need to find God, since God has already found him.
Fast-forward to post-surgery, and Sean’s friends give him a bag of peanuts, which Richard calls replacement nuts. Classy, guys. On the walk home, Richard tells Molly that the whole situation has made him put fears in perspective. She confirms that he’s never been kissed, then gives him his first. They’re only going to be friends, though. Speaking of kissing, Elena tells Finn they can never kiss again, since she has a boyfriend. Then they kiss again. ELENA, NO.
Ben and Felicity end up alone at the dorm apartment, wishing things could go back to the way they were. She asks if he can just believe her when she says nothing happened with Randy. Apparently not. She’s surprised to find her art piece in her bedroom – Ben bought it for her. It reminds him of himself, running into walls like an idiot. She’s the only person he can trust, and he can’t lose that. Noel goes back to Jane’s, sneaking a look at her password while she’s on the phone. NOEL, NO. Felicity sends Ben out for groceries while she cooks dinner, but when he gets outside, he’s ambushed by Randy and some of his frat brothers, who attack him.
Thoughts: Jane is played by Tyra Banks. Yes, that Tyra Banks. She’s actually not that bad.
Greg Grunberg is really good in this episode. I kept wanting to give him a hug.
Why would you confront a guy who’s mad at you when he’s been drinking? How dumb is Randy?
'90s Flashback 
