Loveday Writing

Meanwhile, Julia tells Isaac that she’s ready to resume fertility treatments and he tells her that his file got flagged by Immigration and that he needs character references to submit with his visa application, asking her to be a reference. Julia immediately agrees. Meanwhile, Roxy has a meeting with Marty, the host of GameZone, the show she appeared on two episodes earlier. He’s asking her to come back onto the show for a ‘do over’ interview, due to the social media hate the show’s received for her treatment when she appeared on it.

Meanwhile Amanda gives a damning opening statement that captivates the jury as Edie watches on in the gallery. Later, Edie, Julia and Roxy meet up at the diner. Julia admits to Edie and Roxy that she’s not completely defending Leon, but she does want him to have a fair shake at the trial. While Edie admits to hooking up with Tim but labels it a mistake, with Julia and Roxy pointing out that she said the same thing when she hooked up with Amanda for the first time. Julia also asks Roxy and Edie for feedback on potential sperm donors.

Back in court, Amanda’s strategy that Edie accurately predicted is played out. Multiple victims, including Diane, testify about how violated and embarrassed they feel about Leon taking advantage of them. Emotions from both sides come to a head when Diane overhears Leon express his frustration about how the trial is going and Diane’s testimony in the courthouse hallway, and they get into a screaming match, with Roxy having to pull Diane away.

Later, Edie and Amanda meet up at Edie’s hotel. Edie tells Amanda about hooking up with Tim and she apologises, but also admits that she’s in uncharted territory and she’s going to make a lot of mistakes along the way. Amanda tells her she’s not going anywhere.

Later, Julia goes to work to find Olivia waiting for her in her office. Olivia tells her that Donovan has been depressed since the break-up and she tells Julia to call him as she made him happy. Julia and Donovan get back together later in the episode.

Back in court, Amanda puts a former patient’s husband on the stand, who reveals that Leon told him he had a low chance of conceiving, only to go on to have two more daughters and getting a second opinion from another doctor, who told him that there was actually nothing wrong with his sperm.

Meanwhile, when Roxy arrives to appear on GameZone, she overhears Marty and his co-hosts joking about triggering Roxy and belittling the seriousness of her situation. Upset, she calls Isaac and asks whether she should leave, he suggests to her that she make the interview about her, like Marty said it was going to be. Roxy ends up doing so by showing off her knowledge of football and calling out Marty and his co-hosts on their behaviour on the air, before walking away. Later, whilst Roxy is at the driving range, Marty comes to see her to tell her that the show was a ratings hit and the network wants to offer her a permanent co-hosting gig on the show, alongside him and his other co-hosts. Roxy wants a producing credit, just like Marty and the other co-hosts get, Marty says that he’s sure she can negotiate this. She asks him to let her think about it and he does, but before he leaves, he tells her he can be professional and not to turn down the offer on his account.

Back at the courthouse, Tim and Amanda end up having to share an elevator. Tim tells her that Edie is back on the defence team and about their hook up, thinking that Amanda doesn’t know, only for Amanda to inform him that Edie came clean about it straight away. She also tells him that she knows how messy personal relationships can become during trials and hopes that they can all do their jobs. This leads to Tim later confronting Edie in her office, expressing his anger over her telling Amanda the truth about their hook up straight away, in contrast to her keeping the affair a secret for so long from him. Edie tells Tim she never meant to hurt him and he tells her that she should be with Amanda.

Later, Julia takes Donovan to the diner and tells him that she is on the road to being artificially inseminated. Donovan asks her why she wants kids so much, Julia puts him in place by asking him if he’s ever been asked the question he just asked her, was he ever made to explain himself for wanting something. Meanwhile, Isaac comes to see Julia at her apartment to get the character reference she wrote for him, only to find Roxy there. Roxy ends up proposing to Isaac, as marrying her will mean he can stay in the country, he says yes.

Towards the end of the episode, Julia visits Leon. He asks her if she wants him to be convicted, she tells him she wants him to be held accountable. Afterwards, as she is walking home, she sees a man following her, when she turns around to confront him, an older man, Mark, introduces himself to her. He apologises for startling her and explains that he owns the dance studio he saw her dancing in, at the end of the previous episode, which makes Sarah question if he’s her biological father.

The episode ends with Edie and Amanda hooking up in Edie’s hotel room, with someone outside taking photos of them from the street.

Overall I was happy to see Leon’s trial finally getting underway, especially having the trial start with the prosecution presenting their case, which puts Leon’s actions in a more realistic light, in terms of how awful they were and their ramifications, as we’ve generally been led to see things from Leon’s perspective.

I also appreciated that Edie came clean to Amanda straight away and their relationship didn’t break up, a solid contrast to her relationship with Tim, which he points out. I honestly questioned in the final moments of the episode why Edie and Amanda didn’t bother closing the hotel window’s blinds, considering how worried they’ve been about getting caught during the trial. It will be interesting to see the consequences of getting caught played out in the finale.

I found Roxy proposing to Isaac to help keep him in the country cliché, but it was on par considering their past relationship and reignited friendship. It will be interesting to see whether they end up following through with the engagement and wedding in the finale.

I had mixed feelings about Julia and Donovan reuniting. They are well-suited, but Julia broke up with him due to his children not being ready for him to date and her desires to have a child of her own. While Olivia did give her blessing after seeing Donovan suffer, resolving one of the reasons for the break up, the conflict of Julia’s desire to have her own biological child and Donovan’s desire to not have another child hasn’t gone away. It will be interesting to see what happens next and it will go one of two ways – either Julia will give up on having a child, which has already been explored in earlier episodes, or Donovan will change his mind, which would be cliché and undermine the writing of the relationship. Either way, writing-wise, it won’t be a good outcome.

Despite some writing flaws present, this episode has provided a great springboard for the finale.

Stray Observations:

-Isaac said that his file was flagged by INS, but the US Immigration Department hasn’t been called INS since 2003.

-Julia says in this episode that Donovan dumped her, but she actually broke up with him.

-Roxy apparently follows badminton and American Football, and goes to a driving range to relax.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “I miss the barely tolerable version of him that dated you.” (Olivia to Julia on Donovan)
• “I’m sure she was only too happy to tell you about how I was listening to Joni Mitchell on loop and eating bags of mini chocolate chip cookies.” “She only told me about the sweatshirt and ice-cream but that’s good to know too.” (Donovan-Julia on Olivia)
• “I’m an American citizen…as far as I know.” (Roxy to Isaac)