About:
Drinks Taken: 13
Follow the whole rewatch here!
Last week, Sarah braved Felicity’s venture into After School Territory, and we all learned a little something about how smoking crack is bad, okay?
Let’s drink to not doing that!
The Felicity Drinking Game Rules
Drink once every time:
You cringe during the “New Version of You” credit sequence.
Felicity is endearingly earnest.
Ben smiles sheepishly.
Noel is adorkable.
Elena is a better friend than anyone deserves.
Meghan is mean and it’s awesome.
Javier butchers a word or figure of speech.
Richard freaks out (in a good or bad way).
Drink twice every time:
Felicity stresses you out.
Felicity says, “Dear Sally.”
Sean invents something.
Javier refers to Ben as “Benjamin.”
Onto the eps!
3.10 “Final Touches”
The Molly and James drama drags on this week, so I’m going to kind of blow past it. Molly wants to break up with James; she doesn’t want to break up with James. She wants to move back in with Felicity and the girls; she doesn’t want to leave James alone in their crappy hotel room. He’s using and dealing again, OF COURSE, and then he pulls a gun on her, OF COURSE, so she tells Ben she’s going to break up with him, but she insists on doing it in person. Ben wisely suggests she do it in a public place, and he’s going to be there in case anything goes wrong, but he promises he’ll stay out of sight. Molly goes to break up with James, but we’re watching from across the street with Ben and can’t hear what they say. James keeps pleading with her, and the scene ends with them walking off with their arms around each other, OF COURSE. Molly at least has the good grace to look back regretfully at Ben. Only thing worth noting: when James shows up all crazy and violent at the apartment AGAIN, Ben keeps his cool and bravely manages the situation so James leaves without hurting anyone. Ben rules; this plotline does not.
Meanwhile, Sean and Meghan are having a little trouble in the bedroom since his surgery. The sexual tension is making them both very grumpy, a situation made worse by Richard’s newest idea as Student Body President: to make a calendar of sexy students, one of dudes and one of ladies. Meghan and Sean help him with the auditions, but that means they’re both ogling hot people in front of each other while feeling insecure about their sex life, so then they get real extra-grumpy. But of course they talk it out, with both admitting that they’re just afraid of rejection from the other, and then they make up and have sex and it’s very nice!
Also making up and having sex: TRACY AND ELENA! Okay, sorry, I skipped ahead in favor of an easy transition, that’s bad writing. Tracy and Elena are trying to be friends, with Elena obviously wanting more, and Tracy trying to figure out if he can forgive her. When they stop by Sexy Student Calendar Central, Meghan tells Tracy to take off his shirt, which he does willingly enough. THANK YOU, SHOW, AND ELENA, HOW DARE YOU CHEAT ON THIS PERFECT MAN:
When Elena finds out Tracy’s hot bod’s going to be in the calendar, she flips out and yells at him that he’s a hypocrite and a tease, which is crazy behavior, but of course she’s really just super nervous that all the other gals at UNY are going to realize how gorgeous Tracy is and she won’t have a chance. When Tracy is firm in telling her that she is in NO position to talk to him that way after cheating on him (and good for him), she tells him she doesn’t think she can be his friend anymore, and he looks sad. Later, he shows up at her place and tells her he can’t be her friend either – and then he kisses her! And it makes me so happy!
While this seems like GREAT NEWS, Felicity Season 3 can’t ever give us a second to enjoy a damn thing, so the next scene cuts to them in bed after having had sex. Elena looks h-a-p-p-y, but Tracy looks, well, like he immensely regrets what he just did.
Finally, Felicity has that nightmare where she forgot to drop a class, never attended and now has to make an A on the final in order to pass, except it’s NOT A DREAM! Because Meghan totally spaced on mailing in Felicity’s drop form, gah. You internet-age college students have no idea how good you have it. So she has less than a week to cram a semester’s worth of knowledge into her head, and she also has a lot of Loser Pet Store (!) responsibilities at the same time. Noel is SO excited about this endeavor, and they pitch the show to the university’s animation department, or something? The professor tells them they have until Friday to outline 21 episodes, which means Felicity’s week is terrrrrrible. Ben keeps telling Felicity to flake on Noel, but she doesn’t want to, not only because he’s treating this project like a lifeline, but also because she’s excited about it and wants to do it. She doesn’t tell him about her final, and while trying to brainstorm with him she gets overwhelmed and bursts into tears out of exhaustion, the most relatable moment of this entire series. Noel is SUUUUUUUCH a butthead about it, calling her unreliable and storming out, until Ben defends Felicity to him and tells him about her class. Noel apologizes gracefully and then pulls an all-nighter to help Felicity ace her final, which she does! It’s not as exciting as the finals episodes of the past two seasons, but I still like it.
How many times do I have to take a drink?
7.
Cameo
The animation professor is played by 30 Rock‘s Scott Adsit! Hornberger!
The Truest Thing Anybody Said This Week
College Nostalgia Moment
That feeling of cramming for a very scary final and then crushing it? That’s gold.
College Anti-Nostalgia Moment
That said, when Felicity bursts into tears because she’s sooooo tiiiiiiired and still has so much studying to do before she’s allowed to sleep? Yeah, I don’t miss that.
3.11 “And to All a Good Night”
Luckily, the Elena and Tracy strife goes to healthy place in the very next episode. Tracy admits that, while it felt great in the moment, he’s feeling guilty about having sex, and they talk about it a lot and even go to counseling with his pastor. He tells Elena he was accepted to an HIV outreach program in Africa next semester, and he can’t figure out what to do about their relationship, so he needs some space to think, and he’s going to take the semester abroad. She’s sad, but they end the episode looking GORGEOUS and dancing together in total swoonworthy love, so though I’m super bummed that Donald Faison’s leaving to make Scrubs Tracy’s leaving for Africa, I’m happy with the lack of drama and the healthy place he and Elena have found. Especially because there’s plentttty of other drama in this ep.
Felicity’s mom has come to visit, and we all need to remember to call her Ms. Hunter now because she’s gone back to her maiden name. Felicity and Ben have plans to go to Florida together over the holidays, but Ms. Hunter seems really upset because it’s her first Christmas by herself since the divorce, and Felicity feels guilty. And it doesn’t help that Ms. Hunter seems determined to disapprove of Ben, for some understandable reasons but also without really giving him a chance. Stuff keeps happening that makes Ben look kinda bad – Sean shenanigans, James shenanigans, the fact that Ben has gotten into multiple fistfights this year (fair) and he’s ALMOST A SENIOR AND STILL HASN’T DECLARED A MAJOR (Benjamin.) – and while Felicity tries to defend him to her mom, she doesn’t really do the best job. Meanwhile, Noel is being Noel, all cute and excited about Loser Pet Store and a generally smart, motivated, clean-cut guy, so Ms. Hunter keeps trying to get Felicity to rejoin Team Noel, which rightfully infuriates Felicity. (She should introduce her mom to Leon! That’d do the trick.) She tells Felicity that the turtle from Loser Pet Store who’s desperately in love with the parrot is obviously Noel, and Felicity chews on that a bit.
Ben and Felicity get into a pretty big fight about her mom, and it seems bleak, but then Ben does his perfect Ben thing, and he invites Ms. Hunter to talk with him at Dean & Deluca. He tells her he understands her concerns, but that a teacher once told him the most interesting people don’t know who they want to be when they’re 20 years old, and he knows he’s going to be an interesting person. And he tells her that Felicity believes in him, and, “On a good day, I feel like I might become everything she sees in me.” OMGGGG of course this works like gangbusters on Ms. Hunter, who is just a human woman so she cannot resist The Covington. Especially when he says THIS:
SWOOOON! Ms. Hunter gives Felicity her blessings and tells her to go to Florida with Ben over Christmas. BUT later, at the Christmas party the girls are throwing at their apartment (where everyone looks AMAZING, Felicity, Ben, Noel, Elena, Tracy, everyone), Felicity asks Noel if he’s the turtle, and he says he is, but lies that Ruby’s the parrot. Felicity seems a little nonplussed at this news, but then she goes to give Ben one hell of an embrace because he looks hottttt and Noel stares after her moonily, OBVIOUSLY in love. Have you tried reading her emails so you can spy on her innermost thoughts and win her over that way, Noel? Consider it!
Okay, ugh. Molly DID finally break up with James, and she’s being good and sticking with it even though he’s constantly calling the apartment and harassing everyone, and he even shows up once while she’s with Ben. She stays strong and I’m proud of her, but then James shows up at the Christmas party all tweaky and black-eyed, and the fun cheerful scene goes into crazy intense slow-mo, like what is this, Law & Order: SVU? James pulls out a gun and the episode cuts to black before we hear a gunshot. It is SO dramatic and not at all like this show and I very much don’t care for it. But the rest of this episode’s pretty cute, so.
How many times do I have to take a drink?
6.
Sean’s Big Idea
The Seananigans this week consist of a Christmas tree farm called Blumberg’s Deep Discount Holiday Tree Emporium, which Meghan maintains was her idea (from her “list of legal and barely legal sources for quick holiday cash”), and they fight over it, but it’s a dumb idea anyway so who cares. They make up, because they always make up, and yay.
Meghan’s Christmas Present
Sean gets her a leather whip, and she’s thrilled, and when he tells her he considered leather panties, she tells him he made the right choice.
That’s it for this week! QUESTIONS: does anyone buy Tag from Friends as a violent drug dealer? I cannot. How do you feel about the ramped-up Noel feelings? What’s your favorite Tracy scene, as Donald Faison (mostly, other than a few eps here and there) leaves the series? (Sob!)
Meet Sarah here next Wednesday morning as she covers “Girlfight” and “Blackout”!
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