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Last week, things got super intense (and upsetting) with Mr. Covington, but at least now Ben has started attending an Al-Anon group, whose members include Molly. It’s strange to say this but in lighter news, Sean had surgery for his cancer, which was a success! And then he broke up with Meghan for not being Jewish, a bonehead move that Meghan forgave him for, thanks goodness.
I wish I could say that things are looking up, buuuuuut I can’t. Season 3 continues to be heavy AF, so the drinking, it is necessary.
The Felicity Season Three 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.”
And now, let’s dive into these episodes (once of which is a Very Special Episode).
3.8 “A Good Egg”
Javier meets with Felicity to tell her that he has a “maternal flare lit up within” him—he and Samuel want to be parents! And he wants Felicity to be the surrogate mother!! “You have my most favorite genes, you know,” he says, “and I’m not talking Jordache, of course.” While she’s shocked, she immediately begins to seriously consider it, because she loves Javier and wants to be a good friend to him and also because she’s Felicity. Ben thinks this is a terrible idea (I wholeheartedly agree), and tells her, “You do these things impulsively sometimes” (I super duper wholeheartedly agree—like does Felicity not remember that whole fake engagement thing?). Doing her research (because Felicity has to be a nerd about everything), she meets with a fertility counselor who clearly should not be in charge of marketing because she makes the entire process seem AWFUL. Felicity is understandably freaked out, and Ben is once again the voice of reason. “You’re always putting other people’s needs in front of your own,” he points out. “You can’t keep doing that.” YES EXACTLY LISTEN TO BEN, FELICITY. Thankfully she does heed his wisdom and confesses to Javier that she can’t do it—but she later agrees to pose as Javier’s wife because the would-be surrogate mother wants to meet “the mommy and the daddy.” Recalling their fake engagement (thank you!), Felicity resists. “We’ve done this before!” she groans to Javier, who responds, “And you were so good!” So they meet this insufferable surrogate (we’ll call her Patty the Smith Grad even though I can think of far more worse things to call her) and manage to pull off a convincing portrait of a married couple (?!), so Smith Grad agrees and then… they have a baby shower? Isn’t that a little premature? At any rate, Patty the Smith Grad walks in and sees Javier and Samuel kiss and is horrified. “That is not my idea of a family,” she huffs, and Patty, you are not my idea of a human being. Felicity feels terrible and wants to help—and Ben is super sweet with her, admitting that his initial reaction against her being a surrogate is that he didn’t want her to share herself in that way. But, he realizes, “That’s my problem, not yours.” She ultimately realizes that she’s not ready to become a mother, and while I feel for Samuel and Javier, I am like HALLELUJAH FELICITY MADE A RATIONAL DECISION.
Meanwhile over at the Al-Anon group, Molly shares about her boyfriend James, who’s started using drugs more and more frequently. “I think I’m addicted to an addict,” she confesses. A Very Concerned Ben pulls Molly aside and asks if the drugs Felicity found in the closet belonged to her. Molly denies it, but then later admits in the group that the drugs did belong to her. YIKES. Now Ben’s in a super tough position, because Molly keeps reminding him about the group policy of maintaining privacy, but he doesn’t want to keep the drugs a secret from Felicity, who freaking lives with Molly. I mean, I get the need for trust but Molly, this is so not cool.
In other bad news, Tracy is still mad at Elena for cheating on him with Finn. “You had your sex now,” he tells her. “I hope it was worth it.” Clearly, there’s no way it was worth it. Elena finally tells Felicity about it (I was beginning to wonder what happened to all of that female friendship) and decides to pour her heart out in a letter to Tracy. He reads it, but he still can’t forgive her. I HATE THIS SO MUCH!
Noel is still being a complete creep and dating (read: spying on) Jane, though the latter is also emailing an old friend named Tricky that Noel thinks might be competition, so he doubles down on his plan and starts volunteering at the old folks’ home where she also volunteers. I CAN’T EVEN. Sean finds out what’s going on and confronts Noel about how skeevy he’s being, but it’s Felicity who finally gets Noel to wake up and stop being a dirtbag. After he admits the whole scheme with Jane, Felicity is waaaaay kinder to him than he deserves and tells him, “You underestimate yourself, you always have.” And then she says the nicest, most perfect Felicity thing: “If there’s one guy who doesn’t have to lie to get a girl’s attention, it’s you. Trust me.” It’s a shame that such a warm sentiment is wasted on Noel, who goes right on making out with Jane—well, at first. But his conscience finally wakes up, and he comes clean to Jane, who kicks him out of her apartment (as she should) and immediately hooks up with Tricky.
And now comes the best part of the entire episode: Tricky is RICHARD!!!!! Who is no longer a virgin! “I’m sure it was a pity thing,” he tells a shocked Noel. “But I needed it.” Suck it, Noel! And get it, Richard!!!
How many times do I have to take a drink?
13
Team Ben
His protectiveness of Felicity is so sweet (and well-founded) that it has completely erased that whole Randy drama from Ben’s permanent record. Thank god.
Javier’s Potency
Javier: It’s that I’m… omnipotent.
Lonely Island’s “I Just Had Sex”: The Richard Remix
Richard: The Eagle has landed. The concerto has played. The ball has left the yard, my man.
Richard, I say this with absolutely zero irony: I am so happy for you!
3.9 “James and the Giant Piece”
The good news is that Ben is now a regular at the Al-Anon group. The bad news is that Molly’s still doing cocaine and not getting any closer to walking away from James, who has started smoking crack and is about to get evicted. Great guy! Given his experience with his alcoholic dad, Ben is desperate to help Molly, and while at first she rebuffs his advice to break up with James, she later admits that she’s addicted to him and needs help. I dig this friendship development, especially since there is zero romance happening between them (thank you, writers!). Unfortunately, Molly ends up doing the opposite of calling it off with James: she invites him to move in! WHAT IN THE ACTUAL EFF? Felicity is totally weirded out by the fact that Molly has never once mentioned her boyfriend of two months (yep, that’s a warning sign), and I wanna be like, girl, you don’t even KNOW! But Ben does, and he’s struggling between his desire to keep Molly’s trust and his need to tell Felicity. Molly swears that she’s going to bring James to the rehab center, but when Ben arrives, they’re nowhere to be found… because they’re smoking crack in the apartment bathroom. Okay, did anyone else hear that GIANT RECORD SCRATCH? It feels like the tone of the show just went completely off the rails—how did we get from college relationship dramas to smoking crack?! James, very high, demands to give Molly a haircut, which she clearly doesn’t want, and you can easily see that this relationship is toxic. He’s intensely controlling and gah, this scene (not to mention this storyline) is really disturbing.
Later, Felicity finds all of Molly’s hair in the bathroom, which she shows to Ben, who declares that he doesn’t want James staying at the apartment. He starts to move his bags, and a GUN FALLS OUT WHAT. That’s all Ben needs to spill Molly’s secrets to Felicity, who is completely overwhelmed by the truth and upset that he didn’t tell her sooner. When Molly comes back (sporting a new short ‘do), Ben informs her that James can’t stay there, and neither can she—unless she goes to the rehab center. No surprise, Molly feels betrayed by Ben and lashes out at both of them for being bad friends, and all I can think is thank goodness Ben has experience with addict behavior so he can help Felicity through this.
If you thought it was time to shift to a lighter storyline, think again! Because now we get to talk about McGrath! Elena, who never told Felicity about her affair, finally confides in her and tells her and Noel that she’s been asked to speak to the University Disciplinary Committee (headed by the Dean from the Felicity/Ben “cheating” episode). Apparently, one of the former students who had an affair with McGrath came forward to claim that he coerced her into giving him sexual favors, and then he gave her better grades, and now the Committee is asking to speak with a list (!) of women (provided by McGrath’s assistant, who clearly knew his business). The other women are afraid to speak up, both because McGrath is a tenured professor but also because they’re concerned about how the alleged grade changes will affect their transcript, chances for med school, etc. Elena is definitely worried about the latter, and she also feels like she’s not like the others—she pursued McGrath. She meets with the main accuser, Sabina (whom Felicity and Elena met with back when they were applying to be in the seminar), who drops a bombshell: when McGrath told Elena that he was going through a rough time because his ex-wife was gravely ill (causing Elena to want to “comfort” him), he was lying—his ex-wife was never sick, and she was never his ex-wife! What a SCUMBAG. The worst part is that Elena feels like she hasn’t deserved anything she’s gotten in the past two years, all because McGrath changed her grade on her final paper: without that grade, she wouldn’t have gotten into other classes, and then she wouldn’t have met Tracy, and gah my heart is breaking because Elena Tyler, you are the smartest, hardest working girl at this school and you’ve earned every accolade you’ve received. But you don’t have to take it from me—take it from Tracy, who talks to Elena after some urging from Felicity, bless her. He tells Elena that he didn’t even get into McGrath’s seminar, and she did; “You’re the smartest person I know,” he says, which is like the greatest compliment you can give Elena. Thanks to the boost of confidence inspired by his words, Elena testifies (with Sabina in the room? Is that legal?), and as one of the committee members asks her questions about what happened (pointing out that she was 18 at the time, and he was 44), the depth of McGrath’s harassment, the very wrongness of what he did, finally sinks in. She tells the dean that she wants to take the course again, so she can earn the grade. “I want to do it for me,” she insists, and yeah, I definitely teared up at this moment. She finds Tracy to thank him, and he’s working on forgiveness, and MAN these two need to make up already.
Okay, now for something not so heavy! Noel is trying to sell some animation work to Icebox, an internet cartoon site. He shows his draft to Felicity, who hilariously mistakes a mailbox for an elephant and offers to help, because Noel’s problem isn’t technical, it’s artistic. He introduces her to Flash, and she gets super into it! It’s nice when the show reminds you that oh yeah, these people are in college and supposedly studying things they’re interested in. It’s also great to see Noel and Felicity working together, because it means Peak Nerd for both of them (and also because Noel is easily offended and Felicity’s attempts at diplomacy are hilarious to watch). She comes up with a concept about a motley crew of crazy animals at a pet store called “Loser Pet Store,” which 10/10 I would watch, and they decide to move forward with it! Side note, we need to add a Loser Pet Store shirt to the FYA store.
And then we get to the best storyline of the episode: Meghan’s Identity Crisis! It all begins when she runs into Earl on the street, and he refers to her as Carol Brady, Martha Stewart and FFOE, “Former Friend of Earl’s”. Um, eat a bag of dicks, Earl. Basically, he’s called her the worst thing possible: boring. She totally freaks out and insists to Sean that they go out. “I’m a shell of my former self,” she shrieks. “I can’t remember the last time I had my hand stamped!” Sean would rather stay home and make oatmeal (okay, that’s pretty boring), so Meghan goes out with Earl and doesn’t come back until, like, a day later. Understandably concerned, Sean berates her for being MIA, and she is super mean to him. “This is who I am,” she snaps. “I’ve changed for you.” And he hasn’t changed for her, she argues, so Sean buys tickets to something that isn’t the Fetish Ball, and Meghan really wants to go to the Fetish Ball. He won’t go, because it’s the Sabbath, SIGH, so Meghan, dressed as a pregnant lady (awesome), attends with Earl. She still refers to Sean as her boyfriend, to which Earl responds, “I thought you broke up.” Meghan, of course, has the best reply: “It’s what we do, it’s our fetish.” She realizes she misses him, so she heads back to the loft, where Noel tells her that Sean went out. And where did he go? THE FETISH BALL! He comes home, in full S&M glory (truly a sight to behold), and tells Meghan he went looking for her at the ball. She’s appropriately touched, and honestly, I don’t think we could survive Season Three without these two.
How many times do I have to take a drink?
7
YOLO Meghan
Meghan to Sean: Tonight, I’m wild, I’m young, and I’m wearing leather.
Sean’s Assless Chaps
Sean, wearing a vinyl S&M outfit, walks across the room and in doing so, reveals the fact that he’s wearing assless chaps
One of my favorite moments from the reunion was when Scott Foley and Amanda Foreman talked about the reveal of Sean’s ass in this scene–they had no idea, so their reactions of slightly horrified laughter were completely genuine. I also love the way Sean walks away like a huffy little kid.
Cameo
Eddie Cahill plays James, and while no one is hot enough to make up for a crack addiction, he’s pretty damn magnetic in the role. After Felicity, he went on to two other pop culture icons: Friends (!) and Dawson’s Creek, and you also may have seen him in Under the Dome and CSI: NY.
So… how’s everyone feeling? This is a tough period of the series, but I know we can get through it together!
Also, what do we think about Ben witholding Molly’s secret from Felicity? Is Felicity justified in being upset with him?
And if we made merch inspired by Loser Pet Store, would you want it? I’m all about that alcoholic goldfish.
Tune in next week when Meredith recaps “Final Touches” and the misleadingly named, “And to All a Good Night.”
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