Archive

“Chasing Life” recap (1.17): Friends without benefits

Previously on Chasing Life, Greer had a bit of a mental breakdown because she literally went off her meds and confided in Brenna about it, April caught baseball star Ricky Miranda doing drugs and wrote a piece about it for the Post, and April and Leo fought about maybe having nothing in common but being sick.

We open with April getting harassed by the guy who runs the coffee cart because her article threatened to take down a Red Sox star. I saw a lot of people on Twitter being a little incredulous about his refusal to serve her, but as someone who was raised in Boston, I can tell you that this is 100% believable. My dad was more upset the day I bought a Yankees hat than the day I came out as a lesbian. By like a billion. (It was a phase, I’m over it. Being a Yankee fan, that is. Still a lesbian. Obviously.)

Anyway, when April tries to complain about this to Dom, he’s just impressed she got recognized by name as a journalist. He asks if she’s second-guessing her choice to write the article, but she knows she reported the truth, so she has no regrets.

Brenna and Greer are having coffee and Greer’s hair is back to blonde. Brenna says Greer looked like a My Little Pony with the purple hair (LIKE IT’S A BAD THING) and asks Greer how she’s feeling. Greer says she feels better; she’s still off her meds but she doesn’t feel as out of control as she did last week. Brenna asks if Greer’s parents will notice but they learned how to parent in Rosewood and are always either Out of Town or oblivious. Greer changes the subject and gives Brenna a present she brought, looking more excited than a puppy playing fetch.

The present is a purse Brenna has been eyeing since their trip to Florida; a purse that costs $300. Brenna looks worried about this purchase-I imagine for a myriad of reasons ranging from the impulsivity to the romanticality of the gift-but is very grateful.

Across town, Beth tells April that her job as second assistant to a fashion guru is kind of boring. The first assistant gets to do all kinds of fun stuff for the preview show tonight, and all Beth is in charge of is the food, which doesn’t exactly show off her skill set. Somehow the conversation ends up back on April, as it always does, and she admits she hasn’t talked to Leo and is kind of okay with it; she thinks they’ve both changed too much for things to work out between them.

At dinner that night, Emma has returned to the Carver fold, and is also mad at April about bringing down a Red Sox player, but is much more good-natured about it. Sara asks her mother about her high school reunion, but Emma dodges the questions until Brenna comes home, providing a happy distraction. Sara asks why Brenna was late and Brenna lies and says she picked up an extra shift at the tattoo parlor. Emma whisks Brenna away asking about privacy settings on Facebook, probably sensing that they both have secrets they’d rather keep to themselves.

The next day at work, April hears on the news that Ricky Miranda is claiming to be clean and is willing to prove it, which could prove an issue for April. She goes to talk to Bossman but he is nowhere to be found. She asks Danny for advice and all he can suggest is finding someone to corroborate his story; and April knows this means she might have to talk to Leo again after all.

April tries to ask Beth for advice, but Beth has a bigger fish to fry. The first assistant quit, so if she can prove herself at tonight’s preview event, she could be up for a promotion. All she has to do is find real teenagers to be models for the line. April suggests just going to the high school to recruit people, but Beth saw Fame (and Criminal Minds) and doesn’t want to have to register as a sex offender. April then remembers that, despite being wise beyond her years, her little sister is an actual teenager.

Brenna, however, does not love the idea of being a fashion model.

But after some begging (who can resist the Australian accent?), Brenna relents, and offers up Greer as another model. April notices the expensive-looking purse and Brenna’s quickness to suggest the girl she was supposed to be banned from seeing and starts pelting Brenna with pointy judgement. Brenna says to get off her jock because the purse is from Good Will and her and Greer are just friends and can she not tell mom because one time she kept her CANCER SECRET and it’s not like Greer is a bad influence on her. Quite the opposite, in fact. So April agrees, and everyone’s happy. For now.

At work, April gets called into the Big Boss’s office and Danny is jealous but April is as nervous as a kid who got called into the principal’s office.

Ms. Callahan tells April that Bossman got fired and April just might be next because Ricky Miranda passed his drug test and is threatening to sue the Post. Callahan tells April to fix it, because if they have to print a retraction, April is so very fired. April’s idea to fix it is to go on national television and give an interview in which she pinky swears that she is telling the truth. Callahan allows it, but says that if she messes this up, April is a goner.

April goes back to her desk in full panic-mode, not sure why she suggested an interview because she’s 24 years old what does she know about giving national interviews? Danny suggests getting a political coach, and when April says she can’t afford one, Danny suggests getting some in-house help.

April reluctantly slinks to Raquel’s office, tail between her legs, and asks for help, buttering Raquel up like a breakfast biscuit.

Raquel tells her that Rule #1 of interviews is not being fake, so April takes the Raquel Approach to Getting People To Do Something For You and passive aggressively threatens to tell Callahan if Raquel doesn’t help her. Raquel is impressed by her cutthroatiness and agrees.

During fashion show prep, Beth stifles a laugh attack when she sees Brenna and Greer in floral getups proper enough for the Amish. Though, Brenna admits that Greer could pull of literally anything, and she’s not wrong.

The designer tries not to trip on all the names she’s dropping as she tells Brenna and Greer that she’s thrilled that her line looks so good on them. She tells them it represents the innocence of teens, and they exchange a look as they surely remember all the not-so-innocent things they’ve done together.

The designer loves Greer’s whole aesthetic and asks Greer to be her centerpiece, her grand finale, and Greer agrees.

That night, April tries to watch trashy TV with her mom but Sara keeps asking her real questions about work and Leo and everything. April decides to go to bed instead, which makes Sara realize that it’s awful late for Emma not to be home yet. Sara asks if April has noticed anything off about her grandma’s memory lately, but April reminds her about how Emma schooled them all in Jeopardy recently and goes to bed without a second thought.

Sara’s mind is still wandering though when she runs into Emma slinking around in the dark of the kitchen like a teenager after curfew. Emma swears she was at book club, but Sara thinks her outfit says otherwise.

Sara begs her mother to tell her if she’s not feeling like herself, and Emma, realizing her daughter thinks she’s starting to lose her faculties, admits that she’s been dating someone. But that’s all she has to say on the matter, thank you and goodnight.

April’s interview training session begins bright and early the next morning. Raquel’s take-no-prisoners attitude is exactly what April needs to toughen her up for the job. Do nots include: hesitating, having that look on her face, taking breaks, having an attitude, being naive. Dos include: Nailing the interview. End of list.

Meanwhile, Sara’s office neighbor comes by under the guise of giving her updates about Dede, the woman she helped, but really to ask her on a date. She gets all flustered and starts rambling about how she just got out of a relationship kind of with her dead husband’s brother who moved across the country and also isn’t he a little young-he saves her from herself and says they can just go as friends if it will keep her from having a full-blown panic attack.

When she gets home from work, Sara finds a strange man in her house. She’s a little alarmed, but before she can call 911, Emma appears, introducing the man as Sam, her new boyfriend. Grandma’s got game!

April goes to the fashion show to help Beth, who just needs her to check on Brenna and Greer. April goes looking for her sister and is about to ask the girl in the Von Trapp curtain dress when she realizes, to her delight, that girl is her sister.

Brenna asks about the interview prep and April is pretty convinced she’s going to bomb it. Brenna is confused by April’s sudden pessimism but before they can get too into it, Greer comes over with Brenna’s purse asking where her lipgloss is. The designer walks by just then and compliments the purse, which Greer says she got out of the window at Saks, causing April’s eyebrow to shoot up at Brenna’s lie. Brenna shuffles them off to the catwalk and Greer reaches out to touch Brenna’s arm, telling her she looks great despite the fact that she’s wearing a muumuu.

But Brenna can feel her sister’s judgy eyes boring a hole in her back so she pulls away from Greer. Greer, being in a sensitive state right now, lashes out and spits out an apology, saying she’ll leave Brenna alone if she find her touch so offensive. Brenna tries to explain, but Greer storms off before she can mutter some kind of code about her hawk-eyed sister.

April asks Brenna why she lied about the purse and Brenna says she just didn’t want to make it a big deal, because her and Greer are still just friends, she promises. April asks why Greer was “all over” Brenna, which feels like a gross exaggeration (it’s not like Grenna came at Brenna tongue first) and demands the truth from Brenna. Beth interrupts and says she can’t find Greer, the designers #1 girl, which is a huge problem.

Brenna finds Greer freaking out and tugging at her neckline (real talk: high necklines are stressful) and despite Brenna’s best efforts to calm her down, Greer ends up ripping the collar.

The designer starts to have a meltdown but Beth promises her that everything will be alright.

At la Casa de Carver, Sara asks Emma why she lied about Sam, and Emma admits it’s because she didn’t want to rub her new relationship in her daughter’s face so soon after a tough breakup. But while they’re laying down truths, Emma would like it to be known that she’s highly insulted that Sara jumped to Alzheimers before sexytimes, even though neither are things a daughter particularly wants to think about her mother having. Grandma Emma says her high school reunion gave her perspective; a lot of her old friends are dead, but she sure isn’t.

So she has decided to live life to the fullest why she still can. In fact, she’s starting to wonder why she didn’t start acting on her impulses a long time ago.

April finds Brenna moping at the fashion show and asks what’s going on. Brenna says that Greer is fine, she’s just going through some things and trying to figure out life without her prescription mood pills. Which, okay, I get that April is her sister, but A) she hasn’t been particularly supportive of anything Greer-related today and B) even though Brenna didn’t specifically say “depression” or “anxiety,” “mood stuff” isn’t exactly an unbreakable code, and Greer told Brenna that stuff in confidence. April puts on her adult hat and asks about Greer’s doctors and parents and says that Brenna is just a kid (every 16-year-old’s favorite thing to hear) and that she shouldn’t be shouldering this burden on her own (which OK, FINE is kind of a good point) but Brenna says she’s not going to give up on someone just because they’re proving to be a little difficult, which shuts April right up.

Beth fixes the dress Greer ripped and April is pretty impressed with her handiwork. Beth’s boss is too (and also hates interviewing people), so Beth is promoted to first assistant and given two blackberries and a slew of kind of confusing orders.

After the show, Brenna finds Greer sitting on a staircase and joins her.

Greer says Brenna is probably regretting getting her this gig, but Brenna says mostly all she is is worried about Greer. Greer admits she’s confused. She was tired of her parents having so much power and control over her life, and thought stopping the medication would change that, but instead she feels more out of control than ever. It’s not unlike developing an eating disorder; you start to have control over your own body and your own choices and then one day you realize even that is out of your control and you couldn’t go back to eating normally even if you wanted to. Not on your own. Greer also admits that being around Brenna isn’t exactly helping. It’s hard to be around Brenna and not be WITH her.

Greer sees the hesitancy on Brenna’s face and knows she lost her grip on one more thing in her life; Brenna doesn’t want to get back together. Brenna assures her that it’s not exactly that she doesn’t WANT to be with Greer, it’s just that she thinks Greer could use a friend more than a girlfriend right now. Which is really annoying only in that I can’t even be mad at her because she’s right. It’s like a few weeks ago on Gotham when Montoya was all, “We can’t do this, Barbara, we’re toxic together” and it’s frustrating because you want to be happy for them, being all mature and making good choices, but at the same time you just want them to be together forever. But as the ever-wise band The Fray once said, “Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.”

Later, Brenna tells April about her plan to be there for Greer as the best friend she can be, no lady kisses included, and April understands. April admits that Leo is depressed too, and Brenna jokes that they both fell for headcases, which is really funny considering it’s not like you’d find the two of them in the textbook under “well-adjusted.” April makes another comment about being able to ponder this coincidence when she’s unemployed and Brenna tells her to snap out of it. What’s the worst that can happen if she bombs the interview? She gets fired? Maybe some temporary local embarrassment? Having to go into the Witness Protection Program just to get a cup of coffee in New England? Seems like an awful lot of misappropriated stress for someone who survived something with the worst case scenario of death.

Sara, inspired by her mother’s speech, takes one more look at her new office mate and decides to skip the fumbling speech and go right for the kiss. Despite the Zach Galifianakis beard. *shudder* To each her own, I guess. And he sure doesn’t seem to mind.

Thanks to Raquel’s prep work and Brenna’s prep talk, April nails the interview, positioning herself as the concerned citizen, saying that Ricky Miranda is sick, and it was her duty to reach out and get him help, very publicly, and that she knows what it’s like to be sick.

Raquel is proud, Callahan is impressed, and April is pretty darn pleased with herself. Until she goes into the bathroom and her nose begins to bleed. Now, I’m really hoping this is just a stress nosebleed. They happen. But April fears the worst and goes out to tell the first person she sees about her concerns. This person happens to be Dom, which is ironic since he was the last to find out the first time, and probably bad news for Team Leo.

What did you think of “Model Behavior”? Do you think the “Grenna” friendship will last? Do you think it will become something more, or do you think it will break down?

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

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

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button