Sometimes closure doesn’t mean everything is closed. It opens the door for more issues.
It appears that when it comes to the heavier storylines this season, AMLT drafted David Giuntoli’s Eddie for all the angst and heartbreak.
Meanwhile, for the most part, everyone else’s current issues got wrapped in a bow or are progressing forward on A Million Little Things Season 3 Episode 3.
You know, there is a sweet spot with pacing. If you drag a storyline on for too long, it gets grating, but it’s not as entertaining if you wrap it too quickly.
With shortened seasons and the like, it calls for blessedly strategic and tight storytelling for so many of our favorite series. It’s a challenge for some and a godsend for others.
We’ll mull over how that applies to Eddie’s storyline, but first, let’s discuss how we got some of that sweet Danny and Uncle Gary screentime we always crave.
Surprise, surprise; in Delilah’s absence as she and Charlie prepare for a month-long trip to France (assuming it happens, since that virus we don’t want to speak about may or may not factor into this season), she’s leaving Gary in charge of the kids.
Gary is the logical choice since he gets along well with both teens, he has more flexibility than the others, can move right into Delilah’s house, and he’s not “delicate.”
If we had another month to spend with dad, we would take it.
Sophie
It’s a potential challenge for Gary, but they’ll step in as a group and help out with everything. He also has Darcy, a mother, and all shall be fine, assuming Delilah ever gets to leave.
If she prepared for departure, but she hadn’t left yet, why exactly were Gary and Darcy sleeping at their house? He said something about the sheets, so it was the Dixon home, yes?
Danny, the most chill kid of them all, had a bully plot. I suppose we should be grateful the series didn’t go the predictable route and have it be due to his sexuality and the other kid’s internalized homophobia or something.
No, instead, Tyler texted and harassed Danny because he lost his sister to depression, too. Kids have a way of honing in on someone who is more like them than they’d like and unleashing all of their furies on the person.
It was a running theme of the hour with anger, how we dispel it, misdirect it, internalize it, and such and so forth.
Uncle Gary gives halfway decent advice. Despite it leading to Danny with a bloodied nose, Tyler showed up at the Dixon home to apologize and share that his sister died, too.
Tyler’s grief came in the form of anger, and he directed it at Danny. Danny is such a good kid that he didn’t let it faze him in the least when Tyler admitted his issues. They went off to play basketball.
Gary is right about kids that age and how their bullying has to do with something that rarely reflects their victim.
Gary: You walked home from lunch? Who are you Ferris Bueller?
Danny: I don’t know who that is.Gary: What? Dude, John Hughes? Sixteen candles?
Danny: I don’t know what that is.
Gary: Oh my God, Dan. 16 candles? We’re going to watch this movie. There’s a guy in this film you’re going to like a lot OK? He’s so attractive he slid me like three notches on the Kinsey scale.
It was a precise, neat storyline that wrapped with ease and fastly.
Interestingly, Tyler, as a young Brown boy with anger issues, is how that connected to what Rome spoke about with Dr. Heller.
Tyler is still young, but maybe through this experience, he’s learned a better way to channel and expel his anger and grief.
It’s something Rome had to figure out, too. He and Dr. Heller both commiserated over how difficult it is with certain emotions like anger as black men. It takes next to nothing to come across as the Angry Black Man or volatile, so Rome has worked a long time not to come across that way.
Rome: I just feel so angry all of the time. It’s like I — it scares me.
Heller: Why does that scare you?
Rome: Because it ain’t never been like this. This is what I work so hard to avoid because I feel so out of control, and I hate that feeling. Heller: In control of your life or in control of your anger?
Rome: Same thing.
Heller: Why do you say that?
Rome: You know why. You walk around like a pissed off black man in America if your anger doesn’t kill you, someone else will.
Instead, Rome puts on airs as he internalizes, but internalizing feeds his depression and anxiety as he learned. Dr. Heller had to remind Rome that it’s not so much about NOT being angry — he should have full access to all of his emotions as anyone else. It’s how he chooses to express that anger.
It sounds as though it took Rome blowing up on some guy who didn’t have a bag to pick up his dog crap (which is gross) as a jumping point to talk to Dr. Heller again.
He had a lot going on; tensions between him and Regina were high, and he was grieving over Eve and the baby. He was angry about the situation, but he had no one to project it on or place to direct it.
Believe me I get it. The energy Black men have to expend just to exist in America without access to our full range of feelings is exhausting, but you have a right to be angry. The important thing is you learn how to identify and express it in a way that isn’t dangerous to yourself or others.
Heller
It wasn’t Gina’s fault that he was upset, or Eve. He couldn’t fathom blaming her for wanting to keep her child, so it was festering in him, and it led to some explosive outbursts.
Rome needed that talk with Heller. Hell, we probably all did, and the man is an excellent therapist. More than anything, Heller reminded Rome that it’s not healthy for him to walk around as if he’s a ticking time bomb, and he needed to communicate with Gina.
They had a chat when he took her to the place they met, and it’s too bad we’ll never get flashbacks of how Rome crashed Gary’s date with Gina and won her over. It sounds hilarious.
Gina was doing some soul-searching of her own earlier after she got Gary’s accidental text and realized that everyone was tiptoeing around her feelings. She did admit that seeing Delilah with Charlie was hard for her, and she confided in both Maggie and Delilah.
Sometimes, you need your girls to talk things over with, but hell, maybe Gina needs a therapist too. Rome walked away with tools and reminders to communicate with his wife, and Gina’s lessons were about the baby.
They both need to work on their communication skills. It feels as though they’ve sailed through their issues and are fine at the moment.
It seemed as though it would take a bit longer for them to get on the right path, but they’re back to #CoupleGoals, and Gina called to check on Eve and the baby while Rome offered to give Eve their collection of baby stuff.
But what if it’s OK that neither of them wanted to speak to Eve anymore? And does this mean they’ve given up on having a baby right now?
As far as timing goes, Maggie is making things happen in England. She has started her podcast, and she’s living her “Eat, Pray, Love” best life, getting to know who the new or real Maggie is.
She doesn’t want to be the Maggie whose brother died, nor does she want to be the woman who had cancer. It’s quite inspiring and suits her.
She needed an arc like this after everything she’s gone through. What do you want to bet she read or listened to Shonda Rhime’s book about saying yes?
After years of chemo, I’m finally throwing up because of things I’ve done and not things being done to me.
Maggie
Her trapeze excursion sounded like a blast, and it’s good that she still went even though Jamie didn’t. It meant it was for her and not him and that she wasn’t using him as a crutch.
She came back liberated, excited, and bold. I didn’t anticipate her making a move on Jamie so soon. She went from making a snarky comment about Gary moving too fast to seducing her new roommate while still wearing a vomit-stained shirt.
Maybe it was the shirt that grossed me out. Maggie and Jamie seemed like an inevitable thing, but we were hoping for a bit more slow-burn, as we mentioned during our A Million Little Things Round Table.
Why did this have to go so fast?
Jamie: What?
Maggie: I don’t know. I was just thinking that maybe you’d be my butter toffee. So there’s that. Or you could just completely forget I said anything.
Jamie: Do I have to?
And that’s another storyline that ties in with the musings about pacing. Does it mean that something messy and drastic will happen, and that’s why we got a hookup before the midseason finale?
Can we expect something like that with Eddie, too?
The physical therapy sessions with Eddie and Darcy were OK. Eddie brought out the genuine remorse for everything that happened over the years. His sincerity regarding his family and wanting to be friends with Darcy broke the tension between them.
As a result, things were a bit anti-climatic. Then, Darcy revealed a story of how she walked in on her father having an affair in her youth.
Presumably, it showed that she has a hangup about Eddie and infidelity because of her childhood experiences. It felt unnecessary, though.
Why can’t Darcy’s issue be that she dislikes how Eddie’s actions hurt her best friend? Or that she hates dishonesty and deceit? Or the countless other reasons could have for not liking a man who cheated on his wife and had a baby with one of their best friends?
Eddie: I’m getting a vibe that I’m not your favorite person. Let me just address the elephant in the room. This last year, the family has been through a lot. A lot of changes, listen, I know how important you were to Katherine when Delilah and I. well, I’m sure she told you some of the things I did.
Darcy: All of the things.
Eddie: All of the things. OK, that’s great. Maybe we can do a little PT on our relationship. Look, somehow Katherine found it in her to give me another chance, and I hope you do too. Because well, as you can see, I’m a different person now.
Darcy: Edward, are you playing the handicap card?
Eddie: Oh, bet I am, yeah.
It was also something that gave us more background on Darcy, and naturally, for Darcy to continue working within and solidifying her spot in this group, we have to get to know her better.
It’s something she applied to her relationship with Gary, too. He wondered when she would introduce him to her son as her boyfriend, and she had her reservations.
However, even that seemed perfectly reasonable without it having to tie to something in her childhood. It’s a logical thing for any single mom to do.
But she recognized that she isn’t her mother, and Gary’s not her father.
Neither of them is like the woman her father cheated with, and she has to let that baggage from her past go.
Yes, they hit us over the head with everyone having one thing or another they needed to release, some more forced than others, but overall the theme was weaved through each storyline thoroughly and well enough.
Katherine hoped to force Eddie to let go of the past and Alex by taking away all the paperwork he obsessed over. It wasn’t the best idea, and it’s a reminder that the Savilles also have to work on communication skills.
Eddie: Reverend Stewart, so how did you know where I lived?
Reverend Stewart: I followed your wife and Theo back from the hospital.
Eddie: What?
Reverend Stewart: I’ve been here a few times. I needed to look you in the eye.
It did bring back the lovable Carter, though. Carter and Katherine pieced together a lot about Reverend Stewart in a day. It’s exactly why it makes no sense that Eddie keeps so much from his wife.
She’s one of the best assets in their group, dammit. It turned out the Rev showed up outside of their house seven times.
But he isn’t the person who ran over Eddie. Does that mean the drunken guy is the real culprit, or will this lead to another mystery for the series?
Reverend Stewart sitting down with Eddie to talk was a close to the Lake House mystery, and in hindsight, I wonder if it was ever necessary in the first place.
Eddie: It sounds like your daughter told you what really happened the night Alex drowned. I was on the boat with her, and honestly, I don’t remember much about that night because I had been drinking. But I do know that had I been sober, I could’ve pulled Alex out of the water and that she’d still be alive right now, and I’m so sorry.
Reverend Stewart: That’s not how my daughter died.
It was a suppressed memory Eddie didn’t even remember until his sister brought it up, and it led to hit and run, but any number of things could’ve done that.
If this was all there was to the story, I suppose they needed to pull the cord on it early, but if it comes up later in some way, the storyline dragged too long.
Despite everyone treating Eddie like a pariah or a monster, the Reverend knew Eddie didn’t kill Alex, and she didn’t drown.
She overdosed on drugs her sister gave her, and Rev covered it up as a drowning. It makes ZERO sense that this man let a 17-year-old boy think something awful happened on his watch, co-signed everyone else believing it, and then fixed his lips to say he didn’t realize how much it hurt Eddie.
I didn’t think my lie had affected anyone but myself. Obviously, I was wrong. It was tearing you up in ways I couldn’t even imagine. I came here to confess. May the Lord forgive me for what I have done to you.
Reverend Stewart
What?! A man who was cognizant enough of protecting his daughter’s memory and his other one’s future sure as hell knew how damaging all of this would be. He didn’t want it to affect the people he cared about, so it’s a bullshit thing to say.
It also means nothing about the Lake House storyline makes any sense anymore. Eddie was looking into something for no reason.
His sister brought it up for no reason. Colleen hollering at Eddie to leave it alone was to protect herself, and even when she knew it was haunting Eddie, no one batted an eye.
Now, Eddie has gone from accepting that the hit and run was some form of punishment and way to make amends for his sins with Alex to a pointless event that ruined his life.
Eddie: It sounds like your daughter told you what really happened the night Alex drowned. I was on the boat with her, and honestly, I don’t remember much about that night because I had been drinking. But I do know that had I been sober, I could’ve pulled Alex out of the water and that she’d still be alive right now, and I’m so sorry.
Reverend Stewart: That’s not how my daughter died.
He’s angry all over again. And he feels as though, if not for the endless lies by the Stewart family, then he wouldn’t have gone there and got hit and ended up in a wheelchair.
Any number of things could’ve led him to this without that particular storyline, and it seems like a waste. Like, we could’ve just as easily conjured up a memory of the Saville household that gave us insight into why neither of them speaks to their parents (assuming they’re still alive) and how both of them ended up addicts.
Speaking of addiction, Eddie is in pain because of the accident and the PT. It caught Darcy off guard when she realized he was only taking Ibuprofen, and he admitted that he didn’t want to screw anything up with Katherine and Theo.
Eddie going for and taking the pain meds after everything that had transpired with Alex’s father was a game-changer.
I don’t doubt he’s in pain and needs the medication, but choosing to take them without telling Katherine about it and when he chose to take them is concerning.
Eddie has been able to get through without programs during the tenure of this show. We know he went to rehab after Theo was born, but that’s the extent of it. He may not be able to get through this phase in his life without more help, though.
As a recovering addict, Eddie can take the pain meds if he needs them, but he needs someone to monitor his usage, make sure he’s taking them only as needed, etc. That means getting help instead of going at it alone without talking to anyone.
Eddie is trying so hard not to squander his second chance. But he’ll do that exact thing without proper communication. Did he tell her the latest with Stewart? Hell, did Katherine update him about the SVU? TALK, people!
We’ll have to see where this takes him. It could be nothing worth concern, or it could be everything.
Over to you, AMLT Fanatics. Did those final moments with Eddie concern you? Are you surprised by the conclusion of the Lake House storyline? Are Maggie and Jamie moving too fast?
Hit the comments below!
You can watch A Million Little Things online here via TV Fanatic.
Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.