Loveday Writing

Julia goes over to Leon’s apartment to tell him, when he doesn’t act shocked and surprised, she asks him if he knew. He admits that he knew but refuses to talk about it, despite Julia wanting to know where and who she came from. Later, after Julia has left, Leon and Genevieve talk about Julia’s paternity, showing that Genevieve knew and this may have been what she was referring to when she told him in the previous episode to tell Julia the whole story. Leon tells Genevieve that he thought her father would come looking for, not that his work and the science behind it would reveal the truth.

Later, Julia goes to Donovan’s house to meet his kids, Luke and Olivia. Luke is welcoming and friendly to her, while Olivia is hostile, pointing out that parts of her outfit were made from dead animals. When she comes over on another night, she buys Olivia a hemp sweater hoping to win her over, but she’s still hostile, she buys Luke a sweater with The Pretenders logo on it as he was wearing short-sleeved shirt with the logo on it, only to find out that the shirt he was wearing belonged to his mother. On another night, Donovan comes over to Julia’s apartment and tells her that he moved things along too fast and that they need to keep their relationship in their “love bubble” by continuing to have secret sleepovers for the foreseeable future.

When Isaac asks Julia about cancelling an impending fertility appointment, she tells him she’s putting her plans to have a baby on hold for now. He asks her how her chat with Leon went and she tells him it didn’t go well.

Later, Julia meets with Leon at Sarah’s bench to put hydrangeas next to it for her birthday. Leon tells her that Sarah had a one-time fling and Julia tells him that she needs to know who her biological father is.

Edie, Tim and Amanda – Edie and Tim are keeping up appearances as a couple at work for the sake of Leon’s case. Amanda offers Edie a deal of 15 years for Leon, however Chad doesn’t go for it as Leon isn’t pleading guilty.

Later, Edie meets Amanda’s ex-wife, Margaret, when she drops off Lorenzo to Amanda’s apartment whilst she’s visiting. Amanda tells Margaret about Edie staying over. Margaret tells Amanda that Edie should explore her sexuality further before she commits, as she doesn’t want to see her or Lorenzo get hurt. Later at work, when Tim comes to Edie’s office to ask her if she’s had a chance to look at draft motions for Leon’s trial, he sees a gift bag she’s prepared for Lorenzo. When Edie tells him Lorenzo is Amanda’s son this upsets him to the point that Leon later finds him drinking at work and he tells him about Edie and Amanda’s relationship.

When Edie comes over to see Leon at his request, he tells her that he knows about her relationship with Amanda and fires her.

Roxy – This episode sees Roxy released from rehab, where she is clean and looking for a new purpose in her life to maintain her recovery.

Another part of her recovery is making amends. One of her first stops is Isaac’s office, however he doesn’t accept her apology as she knew what she was doing and didn’t think of the consequences that would fall on him. Roxy also tries to make amends with Natalie and Izzy, however Izzy is now training at Round Offs and Natalie says she still can’t trust her, especially after Nick spoke with her. Roxy tries to warn her that Nick is manipulative, but Natalie says she doesn’t believe her, as Nick told her she’d say bad things about him.

Roxy later confronts Nick outside of the gym, telling him that their relationship was wrong and threatens to go public. Nick tells her that no-one will believe her and that they didn’t do anything that she didn’t want. When Roxy tells Edie and Julia the truth about their relationship and that she was 16 at the time, Edie tells her the statute of limitations hasn’t run out and she can get the legal process started to charge him, but Roxy refuses as she thinks no-one will believe her.

After she tells her parents about the relationship, correctly labelling it as sexual abuse, and they believe and support her, she tells Edie and Julia that she wants to stop Nick before he hurts anyone else.

Overall, I felt that this was a good but not great episode. It’s starting to look like the days are numbered on Julia and Donovan’s relationship, while Margaret is clearly throwing a spanner in the works in Edie and Amanda’s relationship, perhaps out of jealousy, although this wasn’t made clear. I felt that the most compelling subplot was Roxy’s, she’s clearly changed and I was happy to see the improvement in her relationship with her parents, which actually made me question whether their unlikability was due to the stress of Roxy’s addiction or if it was just inconsistent writing. I guess only time will tell.

It will be interesting to see where we go from here, especially with Roxy deciding to do something about Nick and his predatory ways.

Stray Observations:

-In the Thanksgiving episode, Julia was thinking about changing the Institute’s name, it turns out she did by changing it to Growing Branches, this is shown by the new logo on Isaac’s lab coat.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “The sister ship has officially sailed.” (Edie to Julia)
• “I thought I had her Tuesdays and Thursdays?” (Edie to Julia on Roxy)
• “I got this, I’m not scared of her.” “I am.” (Julia to Donovan on Olivia, then Luke to Julia on Olivia)
• “It is 100% hemp and 100% exchangeable.” (Julia to Olivia on the hemp sweater she bought for her)