A Million Little Things recap: Is Emma the mysterious Barbara Morgan?
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With only two episodes (including this one) of the first season A Million Little Things remaining, it’s time we got some Barbara Morgan-related answers!
Luckily for the curious among us, we kick off the episode with Says-She’s-Not-Barbara-Morgan-But-Possibly-Could-Be-Barbara-Morgan casually jogging right outside the Dixon house. She’s going by the name of Emma and is low-key stalking Sophie. After convincing Soph that they met at the 5K a few weeks ago and sharing a tale that she also lost her husband, “Emma” snags herself an invite into the Dixon household under the pretense of leaving a not for Delilah about their shared grief. While she’s waiting for Sophie to grab a pen, she takes an envelope addressed to Barb out of her pocket for no apparent reason. Just then Delilah returns with Gary, and realizing Gary will recognize her from when he came knocking at her door looking for Barb, she flees without a word.
Elsewhere, it’s operation day for Maggie and she’s all set for surgery. While Gary is trying to stay positive, they both look scared. Mags realizes she left the lucky rosary her mom sent her at home, but doesn’t have long to dwell on it before the doctors come to wheel her into the OR. She has a fearful, teary moment and admits to Gary that she knows her chemo pal Linda died. Gary tries to talk her down and off she goes.
Feeling on edge, Gary hangs out in the waiting room with Rome. He needs a distraction so leaves to get Maggie’s rosary beads, but when he gets back to the hospital, a woman (Jan from The Office) steals his parking spot from right under him. He’s mad and yells and honks at her. It’s very obvious she’s going to turn out to be Maggie’s mom, and lo and behold, when he finally gets back into the hospital, Rome and Eddie introduce Gary to Patricia, Maggie’s mom and parking-space stealer. The guys tell Gary to let it go and not mention the parking debacle, but after trying to make small talk with her, he winds up apologizing, expecting that she will too. She does not. Gary goes off at her and she’s all, this dude my sick daughter is dating is quite the catch.
Later, though, a blood-transfusion misunderstanding (it was called in for another patient but Patricia and Gary panicked thinking something terrible was wrong with Maggie) ultimately brings them together when Gary catches up with Pat in the hospital’s chapel. They chat about lapsed Catholics and Maggie’s dead brother Chad, and Patricia shares that it wasn’t until Maggie got sick that she found her way back to God. They’re in a pretty good place by the time Maggie wakes up, having come through surgery successfully. Gary winds up asking Maggie to move in with him. She thinks they should wait for the pathology report, but he doesn’t want to not live because of fear. She scribbles “I’m in” on a post-it note and hands it to him. I’m very happy for them, but I really think they should consider moving into Maggie’s place — it’s way nicer. (Recap continued on page 2.)
While all of that’s been going on, elsewhere in the hospital, Rome misplaces a copy of his script, which he has now completed. He discovers a teenager has picked it up and is really invested in the story, so he lets him finish it. After he’s done, they chat and the boy shares that he’s felt like the story’s protagonist: unseen and that his pain is invisible to others. Rome is glad that his work has made someone else feel seen and calls a suicide prevention line to ask if he can volunteer for them. He goes home and gives Gina his script to read. It’s now titled Invisible.
Over at the restaurant, Gina is upset that a glowing review barely mentioned her and seemed to give most of the credit to new investor Andrew. D is less bothered and is going along with most of Andrew’s advice, causing Gina to explode at her, accusing Delilah of not believing in her. It all gets resolved though, when two patrons of the restaurant ask to talk to the chef and share their excitement that they can finally eat her risotto again — they’d been big fans back at Gina’s first, failed restaurant. Having made up with Gina, Delilah heads off to Jon’s secret apartment to pack it all up with the help of Andrew.
On the Katherine/Eddie front, Katherine is completely cured from her near-fatal car accident last week and is on a field trip with Theo at the aquarium. He has a nosebleed and is just generally being a brat. When the song that Eddie wrote (and sold to another singer earlier in the season) comes on the radio, Katherine calls her estranged spouse to share her excitement. They both agree it’s been the best part of their otherwise challenging days. Sadly for Katherine, when she and Theo get home, he still hasn’t snapped out of his mood and ends up telling mom that she did a bad job today because she didn’t cheer him up, and, just to drive the knife in further, he adds that it should’ve been dad with him. Katherine is the best and very bluntly tells him that that’s not okay; she’s sorry he’s in a bad mood but doesn’t mean he gets to take it out on her. Kudos to Theo, he promptly apologizes and asks for a consequence, suggesting he take out the recycling. Katherine tells him that feeling badly about what he said is his consequence. He cries. It’s great acting from a five-year-old or whatever he is. Later as Katherine tucks him into bed, he says sorry again and she assures him that she never stops loving him, even when they’re upset with each other. He’s all, oh, just like you and dad!
About that… Eddie comes over to sign divorce papers and they discuss the fact that they’re getting along better now than they have in forever. Because she’s a saint, Katherine admits to Eddie that she realizes it’s a long time since she made him feel good about himself and explains she got with Hunter because she wasn’t feeling good about herself. LIKE SHE, IN FACT, OWES CHEATING EDDIE ANY KIND OF EXPLANATION FOR THAT, UGH. She says she needed to feel noticed, they both did, and cries as he comforts her. They almost kiss but then, of course, Theo wakes up having a night terror about being shark bait. That kid, man. Anyway they fall asleep with Theo between them, but when they wake up, they sign the divorce papers nonetheless. They hug.
Okay, we learned basically nothing about Barbara Morgan. In the last moment of the episode all we get is Delilah going through old photos of Jon’s and Sophie identifying Emma/Possible-Barb in them, so we know for sure she and Jon were pals. Let’s hope next week’s season finale has ALL the answers! Until then…
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