Previously on Chasing Life, April got an editor for her book, Beth quit her job to make her own line of clothing because her boyfriend Pharkas convinced her it was a good idea, Dom realized he was still in love with RECENTLY WIDOWED April, and Brenna kissed Finn over his mask like the saran-wrap kiss from Pushing Daisies.
We open at a bar with Beth and April stalking someone on Instagram. April’s old college friend, Ellie, is visiting Boston and April is feeling weird about it because they were frenemies at Vassar; Ellie beat her out for editor of the paper and valedictorian, and we all know how competitive April can be.
April tells Beth her agent said she needs to boost her social media presence, because when you’re a writer, you are the ambassador of your own personal brand (true fact…p.s. follow me @PunkyStarshine). A handsome fellow sidles up beside her and tells her that her face will only help her personal brand, she looks at him all confused and awkwardly waves her ring finger in his face. She wasn’t even close to thinking about moving on, so she wasn’t expecting to be hit on tonight. Beth tells her it’s okay if she’s not ready to move on, because she can be part of a throuple with her and Pharkas.
Instead of her usual breakfast of hypocrisy and black coffee, Brenna is beaming to herself in the Carver kitchen. Sara is glad to see her youngest daughter giving her doorframes a break and asks if she and Finn are going steady yet. Brenna rolls her eyes and says it’s not like teenagers use Facebook anymore so there’s no officially making it official. They’re just together, and they’re happy.
Brenna says that even though they’ve just started dating, she feels like they’ve known each other forever. Which I guess is a reference to the fact that she’s his marrow donor and still doesn’t know it, but I’m going to pretend like it isn’t. Sara asks about the Junior Ball and Brenna says they’re not going because it’s a SCHOOL DANCE and that would surely ruin her street cred. April tells her that she’ll regret not going, even if she only goes to mock the whole institution.
When Brenna leaves for school, Sara asks April if she’s excited about moving out. She’s not really ready to cut the apron strings, but she’s happy to have a new place. She hasn’t really lived away from home for any period of time yet, so she’s ready. April tells her mom about how she reacted to getting hit on, and Sara assures her that she’s very together for a person who is battling cancer and who just lost her brand new husband.
Armed with this compliment, she goes out to meet Ellie, who is posting a picture of her coffee (that shouldn’t have had her banged up cuticles in it-amateur) and having a fan meet-up later. April mentions her cancer memoir and Ellie reminds her that she was once an easy-to-embarrass, private person. She’s full of backhanded compliments, like how she calls April her little hall monitor.
They take a selfie together because of course they do.
After this excursion, April immediately goes to Dom’s to vent about it. When it’s Dom’s turn to share, he says he might just sell his weather-beaten house. He’s looking for a new place to live, and has expanded his search outside of Boston and even outside New England.
April goes home again for dinner, and while they’re setting the table, April and Sara realize they accidentally set themselves up for yet another Awkward Dinner Party because April invited Beth and Pharkas, but Sara invited William and his son, the guy Beth used to make Graham jealous.
William makes things extra awkward, really laying in on Beth, despite the fact that he’s old enough to be her father. Brenna tries to quell the weird by telling Beth she wants a Kingston original of her very own.
The next day, April visits her agent (who is still in my office, by the way) who tells her that a publisher is interested in her book, but she’s up against someone else for the same demographic. Someone named Ellie. Who supposedly has skin cancer.
April gets that crazy look in her eye and finds Beth. She tells Beth that it’s weird that Ellie, who literally just told her about the poop-cat photo she took the other day, never mentioned that she had cancer while they were out together, TALKING ABOUT CANCER. Beth wants to give her the benefit of the doubt, but April wants to beat her once and for all.
April tries to change the subject to less stressful things, but Beth is even more stressed than April, because she’s working on her business plan and getting nowhere fast.
While looking at Beth’s computer, the girls see that Ellie tweeted about cancer, but also stole some of April’s words right out of her mouth. Beth is officially on April’s side now, and April is angrier than ever.
At school, one of the gay dudes from the LGBTQIA club invites Brenna to the junior ball afterparty, and it isn’t until they disappear into a sea of snark that Brenna realizes Finn might actually want to go to the dance. When she realizes he only said he didn’t want to go because he knew she didn’t, Brenna asks him to go to the dance with her all officially.
I swear Brenna’s getting cuter with time.
Brenna asks Beth to make her a dress for the formal, and while Beth is taking Brenna’s measurements, William stops by and practically calls the dress crap. This grown-ass man tells a 20-something that her dreams are worthless. It’s kind of horrifying.
April and Dom head to a literary event to try to get her proposal in front of the right eyes, but her agent is fairly useless (and not worthy of Valerie’s office) so April tries Plan B. She shows her old ID “by accident” and then while looking for her new one, FAKES A SEIZURE. That’s when I realize that April has gone totally bonkers; poor Dom almost had a heart attack! It’s like that one time in Now & Then Roberta faked drowning! April’s lucky Dom didn’t slap her across her face!
Anyway, April’s stunt DOES get her in, and when she finds Ellie, she finds out that Ellie’s story is about how much perspective she got from her skin cancer scare. April, whose life still hangs in the balance as she pumps herself full of untested drugs on the daily, is steaming at the ears just being within a foot of this girl. Ellie is one of those people who seems nice on the very surface, until you talk about something of substance. Once, in college, a group of friends were sitting around my dorm room, and for whatever reason we were talking about really difficult times in our lives; things that kind of shifted our perspectives, things that affected us on a cellular level. All of our stories were about other people- death, addiction, abuse, etc.-and then this one girl said, totally earnestly, that one time there was a fire in her house, and even though no one was home, she lost all of her designer jeans and purses, and still hadn’t replaced them all, so she totally understood all of our pain. That girl was Ellie. They’re both everything wrong with this world.
April sends Dom to distract Ellie while she tries to make connections. She ends up running into Raquel, her old boss from the Post. Raquel knows the president of the publishing company April was trying to catch the attention of, because Raquel is Head Girl of Slytherin and knows everyone who’s anyone.
However, when April does meet the president of Book Smart, she only remembers Ellie’s book proposal. Raquel tells April to send her the proposal directly, promising to get in front of the president herself.
Meanwhile, Beth is up late working on Brenna’s dress, stressed out and discombobulated and wearing the cutest glasses ever.
Beth is starting to regret quitting her job, and lashes out at Pharkas for pushing her out of the nest before she was ready to fly. Pharkas sees he’s not helping anyone by lurking around, so he leaves her to her own devices.
Later that night, at Casa Carver, Finn arrives to pick up Brenna, who is forced to fake her walk down the stairs for some classic pictures.
Brenna and Finn decide to embrace the ridiculousness of the whole situation and do a ton of the traditional awkward photos that couples at school dances are forced to take by their adoring parents, as though attending a ball or formal or prom marks any kind of accomplishment other than not getting expelled.
April decides to hang out one-on-one with Danny for drinks-I think they had this new cocktail called Plot Device-and Danny tells her that Dom is definitely still in love with her, and if she mentions to Dom that she’ll be bummed if he leaves Boston, he won’t even look anywhere else.
Sara helps April move into her new apartment, and tries to get her into the moving mood by chucking multi-colored shower poufs at her. April is too distracted to enjoy it though, and immediately tells Sara what’s on her mind. That’s some impressive parenting; my mother would probably use excessive force to try to get me to tell her how I was feeling and there’s no way in hell I would have. Sara gets April to admit that she selfishly wants to tell Dom to wait for her to be ready to even consider the possibility of continuing where they left off in their relationship many moons ago when timing was not in their favor, and Sara says maybe sometimes it’s okay to be selfish.
At the afterparty, Brenna’s LGBTQIA friends give Finn a non-alcoholic shot because they’re sweet, but it has cilantro in it which has tasted like soap to him since he got his new bone marrow. AND GUESS WHO ELSE DOESN’T LIKE CILANTRO. You guessed it, Brenna. They also give Finn and Brenna a room to themselves since Mariah is off somewhere with her girlfriend (thank goodness). The guys give Finn a safe sex care package and shuffle the little lovebirds into the empty room.
At Beth’s apartment, April’s agent huffs and puffs his way to the door and tells her that he has news. He’s not sure if it’s good or bad, but it’s news. Raquel “leaked” some of April’s book proposal in the paper. The lit agent doesn’t know what this means, but April is convinced it’s sabotage.
Brenna and Finn sit awkwardly on the bed in the room they were gifted, standing a safe distance apart just in case.
Brenna doesn’t want things to be awkward, though. She knows he has to prioritize his health, and she’s supportive of that. He doesn’t want to prioritize himself, and he pulls the most teenage move he’s ever pulled and pulls his mask off and tries to kiss her. She pulls away, saying it’s too risky, but he’s willing to risk HIS ENTIRE LIFE TO KISS A GIRL. She doesn’t want to make him sicker but she’s a teenager too so she eventually gives in and kisses him back. And probably he won’t get sicker since he has her bone marrow in him. I’m pretty sure that’s not how science works, but I’m pretty sure it also doesn’t give people psychic connections either, so.
April goes to visit Dom again, and when he starts rattling off cities he could move to, and April wants to tell him that she’d miss him if he went, but she sees her wedding ring and decides against it.
Brenna and April show up for Sara’s 10k, which she finishes, bless her heart, and finds it worth the pain to be embraced by her daughters.
As April’s voiceover (from her book proposal) says, we withstand the lows to get a taste of the highs, because they’re worth it.
April comes back to her apartment and finds Beth in the bathroom, looking lost and scared, because she is pregnant. And what’s worse, she has no idea if it’s a baby Pharkas or a tiny hipster.
April gets a phone call, and Beth tells her to take it, because her problem isn’t exactly about to go away. It’s her lit agent, and he’s excited because the comment section on her leaked proposal blew up, so Book Smart wants to sign her. He teases her for shopping a title that is already being shopped around, and that’s how April finds out Olivia Ortiz is trying to get Chasing Life by Thomas Carver published.
Dun dun dunnnnn.
What did you think of “Ready or Not?” Next week is the Season 2 finale-tell me your hopes and dreams for the last episode!
Here are some of our favorite #ChasingLesbians tweets from last night:
Anyone that tries to encourage me to run a 10k is not my friend #ChasingLife #ChasingLesbians
– Heda Shan (@ShanLaShawn) September 22, 2015
This could almost be a #TheFosters dinner party. #ChasingLife #ChasingLesbians
– Ian Pérez (@DoKnowButchie) September 22, 2015
So, we’ll be seeing Greer at the last 5mins, probably, of #ChasingLife next week? #ChasingLesbians
– Anne (@Lacey1789) September 22, 2015
This cannot end well. #ChasingLife #ChasingLesbians
– Josh (@YankeeJosh) September 22, 2015
I just love this show! Up, Down, Up, Down…Pregnant! #ChasingLesbians
– Brittana Hair Porn (@glendaoz66) September 22, 2015
#BethsPeriod Best hashtag of the night! #ChasingLife #ChasingLesbians
– Audrey (@pamplemoussee76) September 22, 2015
Holy shit #ChasingLife version of Kurt and Blaine, mind your own business. #ChasingLesbians
– Kitty (@SmartLittleLiar) September 22, 2015
