A Million Little Things recap: Jon's debt is revealed
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After a massive recap of basically everything that’s happened up to this point on the show, we’re back into the action with a flashback scene from the man of mystery himself.
In the apartment we saw him go into with Ashley (to kiss her!) in the winter finale, Jon sits opposite a video camera and records himself. Then he tells whomever he’s talking to that he’s sorry for abandoning them and tells them there’s nothing he can say that’ll make this make sense. Then he apologizes to…the enigma that is Barbara!!
Back in the present day, Delilah is out running — the whole gang’s in training for a 5K for mental health awareness and suicide prevention, you see. Mid-jog, she flashes back to her conversation with (property lawyer) Katherine about her home being repossessed. Turns out she signed a document to leverage their home against Jon’s debt without looking at it. Her kids notice something’s up with her but for now, she’s keeping her/their problems from them.
At the hospital, Gary is eating a donut while Maggie gets chemo. She’s wearing a wig and her taste buds have been dulled by the treatment so she’s not super happy with Gary for eating that delicious ring of goodness in front of her. She mentions to her boyfriend that she’s doing the 5K race with everyone else and Gary tells her she should be resting not running, but she doesn’t listen. Meanwhile, at Gina and Rome’s place, Gina is nervous about Rome being off his meds — despite the great sex they’re having as a result — but he’s feeling good, in fact, he just cracked a 6-minute mile.
Eddie’s been gone for a couple of weeks at this point and he’s missing everyone terribly. He calls Theo from the tour bus to give him a tour of the bus (see what I did there?) which happens to include a bandmate having some sexual relations. For that reason and the fact they’re running late, Katherine terminates the call swiftly and they head to her office (on a Saturday!) where everyone is meeting to figure out the repossession problem.
Katherine starts with the good news: She’s managed to get them a 60-day extension on foreclosure, so if Delilah can get caught up on payments by then she can keep the house. Great! Jon’s life insurance money is about to come in. Problem solved! Not so fast. You see, they’ll need that money to cover the casual $18 million (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) commercial loan that Jon took out to cover some properties he was underwater on. Since Jon used their personal assets to secure the loan, it’s now Delilah’s debt. So basically she’s f—ed since once it defaults they’re going to come after everything, including Jon’s life insurance. Gary thinks it makes no sense, but D think it makes a lot of sense, assuming she now understands Jon’s reason for taking his life. Delilah tells Gary he’s always put Jon on a pedestal and it’s time to take him off of it.
But first, a flashback: Ah, the moment where the guys first met in a stalled elevator. Jon hops in last as the doors are closing, telling someone on the other end of the phone that they have until he loses service in the elevator to close a deal. After that intro, it naturally falls to Jon to negotiate their escape from the elevator when it stops between floors. He presses the help button and tells the poor man on the other end to get them out of there in 20 minutes or he’ll renege on the deal he just made to buy the building.
At Delilah’s soon-to-be-former home, Theo is FaceTiming with Eddie and lets slip to both his dad and a nearby Sophie that Delilah has a big problem, but he gets cut off before he can divulge any more details to Eddie. When D gets home, Sophie manages to bluff more information out of her mother and when she learns the truth, she’s surprised her mom knew nothing about it. She gets mad at her father, calling him a liar, and decides she doesn’t want to do the race to honor his memory anymore. Elsewhere, Danny’s potential boyfriend Elliot comes over to sponsor him in the race, but Danny blows him off when his mom arrives as he still hasn’t come out to her.
Over at Maggie’s place, Gary arrives to find Maggie wig-less and getting ready to go out running. He still doesn’t think she should be working out, but Maggie protests that it’s the one thing that makes her still feel like her. They go out jogging together and Gary is having more trouble than Maggie so she runs ahead giving him a minute to catch his breath and flashback to the elevator scene once again. The guys are bonding over Gary’s discomfort in the confined space and play a game of “who would you have dinner with, if you could have dinner with anyone.” Jon chooses his wife and kids, sharing that he doesn’t get home for dinner often enough, while Gary chooses T. Rutledge, the guy whose name is on the elevator and presumably owns the building, for the impact he’s just had on his life. Recap continues on page 2.
Since they now don’t have Jon’s money for the restaurant, Gina thinks they should liquidate it but Rome doesn’t agree. He tells his wife he’ll go back to making commercials to help, but Gina puts her foot down, remembering how miserable that job made him. They need an investor, so Gina invites her mother over for dinner. They almost have a nice time, but then Gina’s mom calls her daughter out for needing an investor, but not her, specifically. She leaves, upset that her daughter won’t give her a real chance at a fresh start.
Katherine and Delilah go to talk to someone at the bank where Jon secured the big-ass loan. The banker doesn’t want to give them any info, so Katherine says some fancy legal words and gets them the documents. While they’re getting those, Ashley walks into the same bank to close an account named Rutledge and withdraw the rest of the cash in it. She pockets the check and is almost seen by Delilah on her way out, but manages to sneak out unnoticed. Back at the house, D invites Katherine and Theo to stay for dinner, but when they walk in, Eddie’s there and now knows everything. It’s kind of an intimate exchange between the former lovers as Eddie expresses his concern and understandably Katherine feels weird. Upset, she leaves despite Delilah’s protests that she stay.
It’s race day! Gary is very supportive of Maggie but is also trying to distract himself and avoid thinking about Jon. Maggie sees through it and makes him talk to her. He tells her that no one believes in Jon right now except him. In his gut and heart, he knows that the facts aren’t the whole story and he can’t turn on him now when he needs him the most. Maggie points out that Jon was everything that Gary thought he was, but he also human and that Gary won’t be betraying him by admitting that. Just then Delilah texts to say the race is off because Sophie is out. So Gary and Maggie go over to talk her back into it.
Gary tries to persuade Sophie she should run for a second, but then gets distracted when she mentions some girl Danny has a crush on being there. Knowing that Danny isn’t out to his family yet, Gary tries to deflect attention from him, but the kid decides to comes clean that he has a crush on a boy. Delilah assures him she’s not disappointed in him in any way. He says he was just trying to be the person she thought he was and thinks that’s why his dad kept things from them too. And just like that, they decide to go to the race after all. What an insightful kid!
Eddie has decided to stick around for the race too. He’s kinda peeved at the other guys for not telling him about everything going on with Delilah. They talk about the elevator and how Jon was there for them and how it turned out that he really needed them and they weren’t there for him, that they “couldn’t get him over the finish line.” Now, who feels like crushing this race?!
Delilah and Sophie look on fondly at Danny and Elliot and D tells her daughter the 5K is for them, not her dad, because they’re the ones who are still there. While we’re all sharing revelations at the race, Rome tells Gina he reached out to his agent and the car campaign is his if he wants it, but Gina is still opposed and winds up calling her mom to tell her they do need a fresh start (and an investor!).
They’re all kinda making a big deal of five kilometers (Maggie excluded), but anyway, we’re off! Maggie runs ahead, but soon feels weak and has to stop. She sits down and cries and everyone else manages to pass her without noticing she isn’t there. When Gary finishes he realizes she hasn’t and runs back for her. He finds her crying on a bench and she laments how unfair it is that her body won’t do what she needs it to do. He tells her she’s strong and powerful and brilliant and she’s also human. She knows he’s quoting her to her, but he’s also not wrong. They start walking to the finish line together but realize they’re about to be timed out of the race by some guys in a truck picking up all the cones on the road, so the others come back to cause a diversion while they make it to the end. Delilah and the kids make a makeshift finish line out of their number bibs so Maggie can cross it in style. She runs to the end as they chant her name. Maggie thanks Gary for getting her across the finish line and promises to destroy him when she’s better. And because we’re enjoying a nice moment, Gary gets a call from Katherine to inform him that her assistant has discovered Ashley has been transferring money to pay off Jon’s loan since he died. Katherine mentions that the Rutledge trust is the signatory and Gary has a quick elevator flashback to inform us that the guys used the word “Rutledge” as shorthand for “take care of my family.” Ah, it’s all so…unclear now!!
Katherine and Gary rush over to Ashley’s while she hurriedly shreds documents. Only Ashley’s not at home; she’s at the other apartment she was at with Jon previously. It’s full of Harvard memorabilia and the video camera from the first scene of the episode. Realizing she’s not at home, Gary and Katherine leave to look for her elsewhere.
…Elsewhere, Ashley is waiting for someone outside an office building. She yells to the passing woman (Constance Zimmer) that they need to talk, but the woman just responds, “No, Ashley, we don’t.” Ashley yells after her, “You owe this to him!” but she doesn’t stop.
Well, color me confused. The mystery woman can’t be Barbara since Ashley didn’t seem to know who that was, so I guess we’ll just have to tune in next week! Until then…
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