How to Stay Married – Season 3, Episode 7

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The job of a penultimate episode is to provide a springboard to a season (or series) finale. I felt this finale really did its job within the last five minutes.

This episode kicked off with the Parents and Friends Committee meeting, where Luna reveals that the site she has decided on for the school’s Contemplation Garden is the old, unused cricket nets. Greg is completely against it as cricket is a national treasure, however Luna points out that no-one uses them. When Greg comes home, along with Brad (who makes his first appearance since episode three), he tells Em that he has decided to run a cricket clinic. Greg video calls Gilly when Em is asleep to ask him to run the cricket clinic. When Greg is putting up posters promoting the clinic up at the school the next day, Luna tells him that Gilly is an inappropriate role model, due to him prematurely promoting his book on his octopus people theory on morning television.

This leads to Em and Audrey watching Gilly’s appearance in Audrey’s office. While Em was confident about the book being a best-seller, once they witness Gilly’s appearance, Audrey chastises Em and kicks her out of her office, before she reads the new chapters Em has written. Greg then calls Em to apologise for going behind her back to get Gilly to appear at the school, informing her he also knows about his octopus people conspiracy theory.

Back at the school, Greg tries to cancel the cricket clinic, but Brad encourages him to run the clinic, due to his love of the sport and his previous experience running cricket clinics when they were younger. While the clinic gets off to a bumpy start with the parents and kids expecting to meet Gilly, it eventually becomes a success when Greg encourages the kids to have fun playing, and gets Luna’s son, Clarence, to fall in love with the game. Another father at the school, Brayden, comes up to Greg when the clinic ends and encourages Greg to oust Luna as President of the Parents and Friends Committee, due to the parents loving his cricket clinic.

Meanwhile Em gives Audrey the new chapters to read, only for her to throw them in the bin. When Em asks Audrey if she even wants her to succeed, Audrey points out to Em that she hired her off the street for an entry-level job, gifted her the chance to write My Sh*t Husband only for it to tank (continuity error considering Audrey’s enthusiasm to promote it and the success of Terry and Greg’s podcast), and that Reese Witherspoon is never going to call about making a My Sh*t Husband spin-off (for those of you who have forgotten, Witherspoon bought the rights at the end of the previous season). Em then contemplates quitting her job. Em later leaves to pick up Sophie from work and they end up having a drink (milkshakes) together to vent about their bad days (I’ll get to Sophie’s in a minute).

Meanwhile Sophie is ignoring Ravi, despite Lindsay telling her that Ravi has been walking around like a lost puppy since their fight at the cinema in the previous episode. Both of them are going for the Star Class jobs at the cinema as two of the staff are leaving and both of them are next in line for a promotion. However only Lindsay gets the job as one of the staff members ends up staying on. The promotion means that Lindsay will be Sophie’s boss, which doesn’t sit well with her. Sophie confides in Em that she feels she has no boyfriend or best friend due to these recent events.

The episode ends with Sophie getting her period and asking Em for tampons, which leads to Em realising that her own period is 10 days late.

Overall I felt that this was another weak episode, however it did its job in providing springboards for the finale – Greg deciding to oust Luna as the Parents and Friends Committee President, and the possibility of Em being pregnant with a third child. I felt the episode was weak due to the execution of the Em subplot, and Greg’s subplot lacking excitement. In all honesty, if Greg was ever going to oust Luna as President, surely an inciting incident of some kind would have been a better motive for doing so, as opposed to a one-off successful cricket clinic. I also felt that Sophie’s subplot didn’t really add anything to the episode, especially as, much like the Ravi subplot from last week’s episode, it remains unresolved.

Stray Observations:

-The title Em has given the book is Adam Gilchrist – Truth Seeker, stumped by his own search for meaning.

-Terry and Marlo didn’t appear in this episode.

Best one liners and interactions:

  • “The old hand is as eco-friendly as anything Luna.” (Greg to Luna on eating a lamington out of his hand with no plate or napkin underneath)
  • “I love your handbag Luna, have you been…at the shop?” (Brayden to Luna after she catches him talking about her behind her back)
  • “I thought it was an interesting angle.” “Owen Wilson’s nose is an ‘interesting angle’, knee bending to shave under my glutes is an ‘interesting angle’…” (Em-Audrey on Gilly’s book)
  • “Cry me a river Emily and drown some kittens in it!” (Audrey to Em)
  • “Do you want the dead principal’s body in the minutes?” (Brayden to Luna at the Parents and Friends Committee meeting)
  • “We can not plot success on crumpled paper.” (Em to Sophie on her jammed paper in the printer)

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