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“Chasing Life” recap (2.13): The Final Chapter

Previously on Chasing Life: Brenna kissed Finn (and maybe more) despite the risks that might bring to his health, April wanted to tell Dom to wait for her despite the risk that might bring to everyone’s happiness, Beth found out she was pregnant but doesn’t know who the father is, and Natalie’s mother decided to try to publish Thomas Carver’s thinly veiled tell-all book.

We open in Italy, where April is in her own personal heaven. Just kidding! It’s a dream. April wakes up on her and Beth’s couch, and scurries to get ready to she can accompany Beth on her doctor’s visit for a change. She mentions that she fell asleep on the couch because she’s having a hard time figuring out what her final chapter would be, but today is about Beth, not her.

At the doctor’s appointment, Beth gains a new appreciation for April when she freaks out about a little blood drawing needle. She realizes that if her pain tolerance is this low, she probably shouldn’t push a human through her tiny birth canal, but April talks her through the needle stick.

Beth finds out she’s six weeks pregnant, which means it’s a little Pharkas baby, but Beth still doesn’t know what to do. April can’t help her, though, because she got a text from her mother that said simply, “Come home.” I have trained my own mother better and a text like that would have read, “Come home, no one died.” Because I have a worst-case-scenario brain. You would think, with a year like April’s, Sara would know better.

Anyway, April got the rest of the manuscript sent to the house, and George and Sara are in a tailspin. Brenna still isn’t worried though-she trusts Natalie to not let this get out of hand.

April is more worried about Olivia, who she’s sure Natalie told everything to. Sara doesn’t trust George to handle this alone, so Sara and April decide to go with him to the negotiations about the rights to the manuscript. George wanted to share his secrets, so his problems are all of their problems now.

April goes to her lit agent and tells him he has writer’s block. He tells her that she has two weeks to turn something over, despite her writer’s block, because a) the publisher wants to capitalize on the press, and b) Valerie wants her GD office back.

He suggests getting out of town to clear her mind, and April likes the sound of that.

April goes to Dom’s for guitar lessons, even though that seems like the very last thing she has time for right now, but she lets off steam, telling Dom she feels like she’s spread too thin. She tell him she’s going to Italy with Beth, and he says he should throw them a going away party, even though literally nobody does that for vacation. But then he says that he might be leaving town, and we see his real motivations.

George, Sara and April go to the meeting with Olivia and Natalie’s lawyer (or maybe Thomas’s lawyer) and George refuses to sign the publishing rights over. April asks Natalie why she’s doing this, but it’s clear Olivia is the captain of this sinking ship. She’s mad that George let Thomas die, that he asked her to lie. Olivia doesn’t care about the consequences; she didn’t get any of the insurance money she lied to help secure, so she wants her due now.

When they get home, Sara breaks out the wine, and Brenna knows things didn’t go well. What she didn’t expect to hear, however, was that Natalie was complicit in the tomfoolery.

Considering George is the reason they’re being blackmailed in the first place, Sara tells him that he’s not very good at helping and that she’s going to be hella involved in this from now on. Brenna is having a really hard time wrapping her head around this; she had come to see Natalie as a true sister, and can’t believe she’d be part of this. She really thought she could trust her.

But then Brenna gets a text that Finn is really sick and on the way to the hospital, so George tells her to pass on information about a certain doctor, and off to the hospital they go. Again.

When they get to the hospital, Brenna tries to joke around about pickle chips, but Finn is a coughing mess. He has the flu, and Brenna wonders if it’s her fault. Because of that one time they fooled around that they shouldn’t have. Brenna jokes about them toning it down, having a long-distance relationship without the distance, but Finn doesn’t want that. He likes her so much that his 17-year-old brain cared more about being with her than SURVIVING, and he realizes now that this wasn’t the best choice. He has to focus on getting better, so for now, they’re through. He literally says, “Maybe it wasn’t meant to be,” and you will know I find this particular choice of words unfortunate in a few minutes.

At Beth’s apartment, Beth practices telling Pharkas she’s pregnant on Dom, but is still wound tight about it so it’s not coming out right at all. The doorbell rings and she thinks it’s him so she wants to hide, but it just ends up being Natalie, looking for April. Natalie tells April that she’ll always be her donor, but that she has to publish the manuscript, because she’s sick of being people’s second choice. April says just because her dad treated her like she was second best doesn’t mean they did; look at Brenna, for example, she welcomed Natalie with open arms. Natalie looks worried then, and doesn’t love thinking about Brenna feeling betrayed.

Later that night, April is working on storyboarding her manuscript when she gets a paper cut. And as if that’s not bad enough, it won’t stop bleeding.

She goes to see Dr. Hamburg and Dr. McPretty, who don’t have good news for her. Her numbers are down, meaning the latest trial isn’t working. McPretty starts talking about ways to make her comfortable and April starts to (VERY UNDERSTANDABLY) panic-he’s talking like she’s out of options. Dr. Hamburg steals his voice and puts in her magic conch shell and assures April that they’re not out of options. For example, though waiting until she was in remission would have been ideal, they can still do the bone marrow transplant as a last ditch effort.

At school, Brenna walks around looking pretty but lonely when she hears a bit of hoopla in the hallway. She turns to see Natalie strutting down the hallway, blowing the minds of awkward hormonal teenagers (male and female) as she goes.

Natalie tells Brenna that no matter what’s going on, she’s still her big sister, but Brenna says she’s not acting like it. Big sisters are role models and good listeners and sometimes they go on vacations instead of helping pay for tuition but they don’t blackmail family. Natalie tries to explain that she was tired of being invisible, and Brenna points out that she never treated her like that. She says Natalie should have leaned on her sisters instead of running home to mommy dearest. All Natalie had to do is reach out; she wouldn’t have been invisible to Brenna and April.

Sara and George are home weighing their options; George wants to do things alone, but Brenna comes in and says he’s not alone. Sara agrees. They’re all in this together. Sara suggests maybe just signing over the rights to the story and hoping for the best, but April walks in just then and says no: The Carvers are fighters and they’re going to fight this, just like she’s going to fight for her life. Oh and by the way her clinical trial failed.

But April believes that they can all fight these battles, they can fight them together, and they can win.

At Casa de Carver, Brenna is pretending to read Three Sisters (ironically enough) but is actually looking through the photos of her and Finn from the dance. Just when she looks like she couldn’t get any sadder, the doorbell rings…and it’s GREER.

Greer was in town and wanted to surprise Brenna, since she’s been a little unresponsive via text message. Which means they text all the time. Then again, Greer says the last text she got from Brenna was about “family stuff” which means it could have been 10 minutes ago or 10 months ago. Anyway, Greer tells Brenna she looked gorgeous in her pictures from the ball-“gorgeous” was her own word. They fall back into being sweet and adorable together, as easily as puzzle pieces. Greer, bless her heart, asks who Brenna went to the ball with in the PERFECT nonchalant-but-actually-I’m-a-little-jealous-but-really-it’s-fine-see-I’m-totally-cool-and-asking-about-it tone, and Brenna insists they’re just friends.

Brenna asks what she’s even doing in Boston, and Greer says her and her father are here for a couple of days, but pretty soon, they’re moving back. TO BEACON HILL. FOREVER.

I screamed, but Brenna looked a normal amount of excited.

Dom throws his going away party for himself and also sort of Beth and April even though they’re only going on vacation, but the girls have a lot weighing on their minds. Beth eventually gets tired of pouring her beers out into a plant and corners Pharkas in the bathroom. She rambles a bit but eventually spits out that she’s pregnant. He takes a minute to process but when she presses him, he assures her that no matter what she decides, he’ll support her. Which automatically makes me think he has literal skeletons in his literal closet, but maybe he’s just a nice dude.

Beth says they can make the decision when she gets back from Italy.

At the end of the party, just April and Dom are left. They start to talk about their feelings, and April starts talking about her adventures, and then she tells him she still has feelings for him too. He doesn’t want to be her adventure but also he kind of does. He kisses her but she’s still not quite ready for that. Dom is ready to move on, but April doesn’t want to die without exploring what they could be. I dunno, I hate this whole thing. I like Dom well enough but Leo literally just died. I get that April’s wigging out about having regrets but I kind of liked the idea of them just being best friends. I don’t know.

Anyway, George and Sara deliver Olivia a cease and desist, saying they don’t care what she does. Natalie begs them to stop fighting and says she wants to end this feud, to break the cycle. Natalie says that they won’t be treated like side characters if they stop acting like the villains of this story.

While April and Sara look for April’s passport, they talk about Dom and Leo and all of April’s Big Feelings. Sara says she had her epic romance, maybe the guy who’s as reliable as a hangover after jagerbombs ain’t so bad.

April and Beth make their rounds to say goodbye, and it’s a very finale-esque scene.

April is looking wistfully back on her house and Beth tells her to pull herself together, they’ll be back soon. Dom shows up and tells April he changed his mind, he wants to be part of her adventure, so she asks him to drop everything and come to Italy with them. And he does.

Though I’ll admit, once the trio is in Italy, it’s pretty adorable. I just wish it was purely the three best friends that anyone could have.

April is feeling inspired and happy, she’s glad she’s here with Beth and Dom, and she’s happy she has crossed everything off her “Things I’d regret if I died tomorrow” list. She has no more regrets! Dom says she can start a new list, but April isn’t so sure.

Back in Boston, Brenna is all dressed up and Uncle George asks where she’s going. She says-LISTEN CLOSELY-she’s spending a sexy evening at the New England Aquarium with Greer. George is so excited (he ships Grenna) that he calls Greer Brenna’s “former lover,” which is wrong on so many levels.

Brenna gets a text donor people giving her a six month update on her marrow recipient. The details sound a lot like Finn, and George RUINS EVERYTHING by saying Brenna and Finn meeting was “meant to be.”

Brenna runs out the door, possibly to ABANDON POOR GREER AT THE PENGUIN EXHIBIT, and Sara asks if she’s off to see Greer because she too ships Grenna. But is better at it than George. But Brenna doesn’t get to see either of her love interests, because there are police officers at the door looking for one Mister Uncle Doctor George.

In Italy, Beth decides she’s going to have little Pharkas junior, and maybe she always knew that she would.

At sunset, April tells Beth and Dom that if she goes home, the transplant is her final shot. But maybe this is where she should end her story, maybe Italy is her final chapter. She thinks she could die happy, having done more in her short life than most people do in their long ones. This kind of talk is scaring the crap out of Beth and Dom, but April just happily flits about to take in the sunset.

THE END. AHHH. Okay, so as far as April’s storyline goes, that would have been a killer series finale. (Pun intended.) But BRENNA AND GREER’S STORY IS SO WIDE OPEN. George’s too I guess but mostly I’m concerned about Grenna. So if you have a second today, tweet #RenewChasingLife so ABC Family knows we’re looking for it.

What did you think of “La Dolce Vita”?

Here’s one last roundup of #ChasingLesbians tweets (hopefully just until next year!):

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

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