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“Chasing Life” recap (1.15): Meme Girls

Previously on Chasing Life, April and Leo got together, April and Dom started to butt heads at work, Brenna almost got arrested trying to visit Greer, Natalie moved in with Beth, and Dom and Natalie made out.

But don’t worry, Beth walks in on that kiss and stops it right quick. She physically puts herself between them and introduces April’s ex-boyfriend to April’s half-sister. Natalie thinks this is just the funniest thing that’s ever happened.

But Beth feels more nopenopenope about it. She gives them a moment to say their FOREVER GOODBYES, and when she skulks off, they have a laugh about it, and part ways with a stage-handshake.

The next day, Natalie visits the Carver house to use the washing machine (next thing you know she’s going to be calling Sara “Mom”) and asks April about the Disney princess glow she’s got going on, and April says she had a lovely date night with Leo, though it didn’t end the way Natalie assumed it did. Speaking of men April has fooled around with, Natalie has a hilaaaarious story to tell April. She tells the story in her over-the-top, always “on” way of hers, and explains how she sort of accidentally made out with Dom last night and isn’t that the best thing April has ever heard? But half sisters before misters!

The whole time April tries her darndest to keep a smile on her face but either Natalie is bad at reading fake smiles or she chose to ignore it.

At work, April runs into Dom in the elevator and waits until he’s mid-coffee sip to mention that she knows he made out with her half sister. She tries to play it cool, saying he can make out with whoever he wants, and he douchily says that he knows. Dom either needs to man up and try to win April over or he needs to move on, because bitter is not a good look on him. And with those dimples, it’s very hard to find a not-good look for him.

Meanwhile, Sara and Brenna are shopping on Brenna’s last day of summer freedom, Sara giving a speech about new beginnings and fresh starts. When that fails to inspire her daughter, she asks Brenna if she’s still worried about seeing Greer, which of course she is. Luckily, the very thing that kept Greer’s parents from approving of her will come in handy now, since Greer will be in all AP classes, and Brenna will certainly not. On that note, however, Sara recommends stepping up her school game, since for reasons unclear, 10th grade is one of those randomly pivotal years that will determine her college career. Brenna jokes about getting her GED and moving to California with Uncle George, and at the mention of his name, Sara flies into a tizzy.

That night, April gives Beth a hard time for not telling her about Dom and Natalie. Beth said she was going to, but “your new sister made out with your old boyfriend” isn’t exactly an easy thing to casually bring up. Beth does warn her that she’s bound to hang out with Natalie more, now that they’re roomies, so she might as well get over it now. As they settle down on the couch for some trashy TV, April apologizes for bailing on their club plans, but Beth swears this new plan is A-OK.

When Beth gets back to her apartment, Natalie is just getting ready to go out. She uses her energetic charm (and a little abuela-shaming) to convince Beth to go back to the club with her.

Speaking of abuelas, Grandma Emma is posting selfies from her high school reunion, and April thinks Grandma is cooler than her. Brenna and I both agree that this is true. While clicking around on the internet, Brenna discovers that she’s been memed.

Brenna tells April that the whole school is posting pictures of her peeping out from behind things, but April is going through a really self-involved phase right now and shrugs it off, like she doesn’t know what the internet is, like she doesn’t remember how hard high school is, like she doesn’t see the anguish on Brenna’s face. Instead, she’s distracted by troubling images SHE found on the internet: pictures of Natalie and Beth hanging out the night before.

At school, Brenna walks into a classroom and is greeted by Ford and her friend teasing her by mimicking the meme, though she swears that she had better things to do than make a Tumblr dedicated to her ex-best friend. And then a girl named Shelby walks in, dishing out meanness at Ford and Brenna alike. Behind Shelby, the last person Brenna wants to see: Greer. Damn those unleveled classes.

Brenna realizes with horror that Greer could have been involved in this multimedia bullying, but Greer promises she had no idea any of this was happening.

And to make matters even more awkward (because what else is high school good for besides making awkward moments more awkward), the class they’re all in is Sex Ed. The teacher mentions a secret box, and though he’s talking about an anonymous question box, Brenna looks back at Greer, and catches her quickly looking away.

Across town, Sara meets up with April because it’s time for Leo to meet Mama Carver. Sara is frazzled and says it’s because two of her patients aren’t listening to her advice, but she’s here to focus on meeting Leo, who of course is a parent-charmer and is calm, cool, and collected during lunch. Sara can’t turn off the therapist OR mom in her, and tells Leo that it must have been hard to be sick during his formative years, when most people are figuring out their dreams and goals and chasing them; he never got to go through that phase of feeling invincible, and now that he has his whole future ahead of him, it must be kind of scary. Leo shrugs this off, saying he’s got plenty of time is all.

At group, Leo and April hear a girl share who talks about this very thing, being sick during her formative years. She also talks about how she had these two best friends and cancer sent their trajectories in opposite direction, and eventually they grew apart. She lost her friends even while she was winning the battle for her life. This is exactly the opposite of what April wanted to hear, and she looks quite worried.

At school, Brenna is teased again and starts to walk away, and Greer chases after her. Greer promises again that she had no idea that Shelby was behind that meme, but Brenna is too hurt to accept an apology right now. She says she’s not surprised Greer didn’t do anything to stick up for her, since she can’t even stick up for herself. Because now this thing she did is coming back to bite her twofold. She broke into her ex-girlfriend’s house to see the girl she loved, and Greer just sat there and let her get almost-arrested. And now that it’s coming back around as a meme, Greer is just sitting there, denying her involvement but doing nothing to stop it. Greer apologizes again, saying things have been hard for her, but Brenna didn’t hear those words, didn’t process them. Instead Brenna says Ford was right all along, that Greer is shallow and selfish, and she’s glad they’re not together anymore.

When Sara comes home between patients, she finds Brenna sitting on the counter crying into an entire cake. Sara is furious at first, because Brenna is skipping school on the second day of her junior year, but Brenna breaks down. She tells her mom that everyone hates her, that she has no friends, and she doesn’t know how she could possibly survive two more years of this hell. And then in the saddest voice begs Sara to homeschool her.

Sara knows that being lonely is the worst feeling in the world, but she promises Brenna that if she just stays strong through this, it will pass. Nothing lasts forever, not even the most painful of feelings. She also says that she’ll make new friends, as impossible as that seems at 16. In light of her devastation, and in exchange for some of the cake she’s eating, Sara lets Brenna off with a warning.

That night, April and Beth are drinking at The Charles, April aggressively overcompensating for feeling like her tendency to tire will drive Beth and her apart. Natalie joins them, much to April’s chagrin, but she rolls with it and the Carver sisters help Beth plan a house party. Beth seems surprised, but pleased, that April seems down for anything, but runs with it.

At work the next day, Danny insults the bags under April’s eyes, and April makes him feel bad by blaming the cancer, but after a few seconds of watching him squirm, admits that it’s because she was out until 2am, and that she has to rally for the house party tonight. And rally she does, with energy drinks and lots of mental prep talks. Sara tries to tell her to stay home, but she’s determined to be a normal 20-something and scoots out.

The doorbell rings, and it’s Ford at the door, here to see Brenna. Ford says the enemy of my enemy is my friend, so she and Brenna should team up to get back at Shelby. Ford promises this ceasefire will only last while they plot their revenge, and then they can go back to their regularly scheduled feud.

At Beth and Natalie’s party, April is oozing with jealousy over her best friend and her half sister bonding all over the place. And then almost drowns in her jealousy when Natalie grabs Dom by the arm to show him around the apartment. To make matters worse, Leo has to stay late at work and probably won’t make it. (And she doesn’t even KNOW that he had a spell of blurry vision and a ragey storm-out at work, or that might have pushed her over the edge.)

April decides her best option for enjoying this mayhem is to get drunk, and so she does. Drunk April sings karaoke and it’s terrible and adorable and everyone thinks it’s just the best thing.

But then Natalie and Beth decide to do a roomie duet and April sinks back into her sea of jealousy.

In Brenna’s room, Ford is scheming but her ideas are less payback and more cruel-and-unusual. Brenna jumps on that train but her idea is not only cruel-and-unusual but also kind of illegal. And as much as Ford loves Orange is the New Black, she’s kind of keen on freedom. They laugh and joke and suddenly it’s like old times again. Ford admits that she missed this, and Brenna admits that she did too. And then, Brenna gets an idea.

At the house party, Drunk April starts yelling at Beth. She yells about Natalie, and Beth says she’s not allowed to be jealous about her going out after spending the night with her first. Beth isn’t going to feel guilty for having a life outside of April, especially considering how much Beth dropped to be there for April when she was sick. April snaps again about Natalie and tells her where to shove her selfie and storms away.

The next day in Sex Ed, the teacher finds a question in the anonymous box and Ford and Brenna exchange mischievous looks. The teacher starts to read aloud an “anonymous” but very obvious “confession” from a bully, admitting that she’s a mean girl. Brenna puts on a fake, sickly sweet voice and says that she’s proud of Shelby for admitting she has a problem. And I’ll admit, as much as normally would be against retaliating against bullies, this was pretty classy. Especially since there were no lies in the letter; Shelby was a bully, and she was called out as such. Admittedly, writing it from her own perspective maybe wasn’t the wisest, but it was no secret Shelby was kind of the worst, and honestly I’m surprised she was even embarrassed about being called out on her reign of terror.

Anyway, Greer is highly amused by the whole thing.

Leo brings April coffee for her hangover, and April tells him that she and Beth had a horrible fight and she feels awful about it. She texted Beth to meet her at the wharf and Beth’s response was vague, so April has no idea if she’ll get to apologize for her rant in person. She runs off, sick, and Leo admits to Sara that he never thought about his future because for so long, he was sure he wouldn’t have one. And now he’s scared. Leo has someone to talk to, and Sara has someone to listen to her, and thus a lovely friendship begins.

At school, Greer walks up to Ford and Brenna and Ford decides to leave the ex-lovers be. Though she growls at Greer before leaving. I don’t remember Ford being hilarious. I remember her being annoying. If she’s going to stay hilarious, she can stay, but she will have to stop being jealous of Greer’s existence.

Greer tells Brenna that she made Shelby take down the meme site, and Brenna says better late than never I guess.

The bell rings and Greer goes to sit down and take something out of her bag (I’ve rewatched the scene 10 times, I can’t figure out what it is to save my life, but it feels important, the way she went for it desperately when the conversation with Brenna didn’t go her way). Brenna is confused, Greer used to be like Pavlov’s dog, automatically heading to a classroom at the sound of a bell, but Greer says she’s going to go find food instead if Brenna wants to come. Brenna says she shouldn’t miss more class than she already has this first week of school, and Greer shrugs and runs off.

Lucky for April, Beth does show up at the wharf, and April apologizes for going cuckoo-bananas on Beth at the party. She admits she feels like Natalie is lifejumping her, taking her best friend, her ex-boyfriend, everything. Beth promises that she can have a relationship with both sisters and not let one compromise the other. They thankfully make up and immediately start joking and laughing because I would not have been able to emotionally handle April and Beth not being friends for one single minute longer.

What did you think of “April Just Wants to Have Fun”?

Here are some of our favorite #ChasingLesbians tweets from this week:

Even the wonderful Joni Lefkowitz joined in on the fun this week!

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

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