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Drinks Taken: 18
Follow the whole rewatch here!
Last week, Felicity and Ben made up and nothing else matttttersssssss!!! Except, okay, Ben got Lauren pregnant. So there’s that.
Let’s drink to Noel, who totally saves Belicity this week like the mensch he is!
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!
4.13 “Kiss and Tell”
Ben’s still feeling tumultuous about his decision to not be in his baby’s life, and yeah, Ben, you probably should, because this isn’t even the first time you’ve bailed on a woman (or girl) you’ve gotten pregnant? Please pull it together, sir. Felicity’s sort of avoiding him because she doesn’t really believe him when he says that everything will be okay, and when Ben tells his dad about Lauren, his dad and Felicity both say the say thing: that they don’t think Ben will be able to live with himself if he doesn’t do the right thing when it comes to Lauren and his child. Uhm, co-signed. Meanwhile, the UNY guidance counselor tells Trevor and Ben that they probably need some volunteering experience to get into a good medical school, so they sign up to be Big Brothers. Ben sees the adorable young man he’s meant to mentor and totally BAILS ON HIM because all of this hits too close to home. But after a pretty okay talk with his dad (who almost drinks this week but doesn’t), and a pretty okay talk with Felicity (who is facing some serious insomnia over this baby news), he at least shows up for his Little Brother Oscar, who is too cute for words. Metaphor!
Meanwhile, Felicity confides in Noel about her career anxiety, pretending that’s the only reason she can’t sleep. He’s great and at 2:30 in the morning whispers to her a patented Noel Crane Encouragement Speech, and they mutually settle on architecture as a potential future for Felicity, since it marries both her art and science backgrounds. Aww, it’s nice seeing these two be friends again.
Noel has a friend named Adam who’s an architecture grad student, and he connects Adam and Felicity, because he’s the best at being helpful. Adam’s in the midst of his own break-up crisis and not paying a ton of attention at first, but he and Felicity work on a model for a big design project together, and then Felicity invites him to a party at the apartment to be nice. Adam misinterprets her niceness and tries to kiss her, and Felicity’s like “nooooooo.” Adam flees in shame. Aww, lil fella.
Meanwhile, Noel and Zoe have decided to be friendly professionals at work, but when Zoe sees Noel chatting with a pretty blonde in a meeting, she gets jealous and trashes one of his ideas without even hearing it. Later, she admits that she behaved badly and that she was jealous, and they kiss. Later, Felicity runs into Noel and Zoe all cute and date-like at Epstein, and she looks a little wistful. Don’t do that, Felicity! No wistfulness for you! Zero wist!
Finally, Meghan and Sean hit a rough patch and then make up ADORABLY. Sean’s hurt that Meghan never likes any of his ideas (uhm, wellllll…) and Meghan’s sick to death of staying home every night. So she flirts with a hot rock star dummy in her acting class, and he flirts with a cute woman who works at the coffee cart and likes one of his dumb ideas, and they both invite their conquests to the party and then get furious about it. Later, they crawl into bed and Meghan tells Sean she likes his dumb idea, and Sean asks Meghan if she wants to go out the next night, and then they cuddle and make up and it’s really just hugely cute.
How many times do I have to take a drink?
10
Cameo
Adam’s played by Men In Trees‘ and Anger Management‘s Derek Richardson.
Sean’s Big Idea
Shoe covers: little jackets that go over sneakers to make them look like dress shoes. SO DUMB.
4.14 “Raising Arizona”
Felicity and Ben are still in a bit of a weird place because of the whole looming baby issue, but at least Ben’s decided that he’s going to be in his child’s life. He goes to tell Lauren that, and she’s like, “cool, great, I’m moving to Arizona, and if you want to be in the baby’s life, you should, too.” So then he and Felicity kind of wig out about how they’re going to handle that, and meanwhile Adam’s model was approved for a big design job and he wants Felicity to work on it with him here in New York, which totally sorts out her entire “what am I going to do when I graduate” crisis. (Also Adam cheerfully promises to never try kissing her again, so that’s good.) Meanwhile, stupid Trevor gets in Ben’s head and convinces him to be weirded out that Noel and Felicity are hanging out lots (doing boring, non-sexy stuff like going on walking architecture tours together), and it all blows up in a big fight when Ben sees Noel hugging a tearful Felicity after she confides in him about Lauren. Bluuuuurgh – especially when Ben has the gall to blame Lauren’s pregnancy on Felicity’s cheating. Insanity!
But because Season 4 never stops proving itself to me, right when it seems like Belicity is DOA, Noel gives Ben an urgent speech: “She loves you! She loves YOU, not me. You guys love each other. You should be together.” Noel! I love you! Those dummies hear him out, and they finally have the real, honest, mature conversation they should have about what they’re going to do, and it’s clear they’re madly in love and this relationship isn’t going anywhere, baby or no. Felicity tells Ben she can’t go to Arizona with him because she finally has some direction in her life, and he understands, so he goes to Lauren and gently and with no malice tells her that he has some rights, and it’s not fair of her to wait four months to tell him about this baby and then just make unilateral decisions without including him. She hears him, and tells him she’ll consider staying. Yay! I mean, as far as unplanned pregnancies go, this one is turning out okay.
The episode ends with Ben sheepishly inviting Noel to hang out at Epstein Bar with him and Felicity, and then there’s a slow-mo montage of them all laughing and having fun together and Felicity looks so happy she could die, and I won’t lie to you, I cried at the airport while watching it.
Things seem to be going great with Zoe and Noel (yay! He deserves it!) until a coworker sees them together on a date, and Zoe panics. Noel suggests that they just tell her dad they’re together, and she refuses, and when he gently presses the issue, she just dumps him instead. Noel’s crushed, but since “Raising Arizona” is all about sweeties making impassioned pleas to their friends’ love interests on their behalf, Sean tells Zoe that she’s missing out on one of the best possible humans by not being with Noel. Zoe takes Noel aside and admits that she didn’t want to tell her dad about them because he’s very protective, but it has nothing to do with Noel. Turns out, Zoe suffered some severe depression (to the point of hospitalization) over the past three years because “I was in love with someone who’s in love with someone else.” Noel can’t help but smile because he knows. that. feel. He’s so sweet and compassionate here, and they make up and kiss and the same coworker walks in on them, and Zoe laughs that they’ll definitely have to tell her dad now – and she’s okay with that. Yay!
Finally, Mavier continues to rule! Meghan and Javier are both going out for the same mattress commercial, with a paycheck of $3000, and they fight over it, until Meghan decides she hates the fighting and tells Javier she’ll drop out. Meghan!! Instead, Javier suggests that whoever gets the commercial will take the other out for dinner, but then they find out that they both intentionally flubbed the audition so the other one could get the gig. Aww! Meghan grumps that they didn’t get the $3k, but Javier says, “We got something much better. A real friendship.” And then the best hug ever happens.
How many times do I have to take a drink?
8
Sean’s Helpful Advice
The Truest Thing Anyone Said This Week
I am SO GLAD Noel, Felicity and Ben all made up, but I have to say Ben’s not entirely wrong when he tells her, “Every time something goes wrong with us, you run straight to him.” Maybe rely on one of your girlfriends every once in a while, girl!
That’s it for this week! Gosh, these have been nice episodes. Question based on Sarah’s observation of last week: if you could have a spinoff of two Felicity characters, would it be Meghan and Javier, Elena and Noel (I miss Noelena!), Ben and Professor Hodges (I skipped recapping it this week but Hodges is so great and supportive of Ben in both eps), or some other twosome?
Meet Sarah back here next Wednesday morning as she covers “The Paper Chase” and “Ben Don’t Leave.”
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