A Million Little Things recap: Parents, pianos, and prime Lexus placement
- TV Show
We pick up this week’s episode of A Million Little Things at storytime over at Katherine and Eddie’s. They’re reading to Theo but he is freaking out over some factual inaccuracies in his dinosaur book (of course he is) so Eddie grabs Katherine’s iPad to verify the answers online. It’s then that he notices his wife has been doing some intense Googling of homes for sale and law firms hiring in Austin, Texas.
Over at Maggie and Gary’s, the latter is having trouble flossing. Uh-huh, you read that correctly. Meanwhile, Maggie is looking for her missing running shoe but finds her old funeral plans instead. When Gary gets done retrieving the stuck piece of floss from his teeth, he joins his girlfriend in the bedroom and asks if she’s going to go with him to their remission support group that day. She makes an excuse about staging her apartment for sub-letters with the help of Delilah, which he kinda buys in the moment, but when he goes to the meeting alone later, his fellow supporters tell him that she wants to get on with her life rather than sit there talking about it.
How might Maggie do that, I hear you ask? Well, first she has a heart-to-heart with Delilah, breaking down in tears and admitting how much she misses her brother. Then, remembering that the psychic (a few episodes back) mentioned something about a part of her brother living on, she heads over to Eric’s music store to try to touch his heart. No, really. He pulls back from her groping but hugs her instead and they have a nice chat where he talks more about his late fiancée. Maggie plays a few notes on a keyboard and tells Eric she used to play the piano before she got sick. He encourages her to take it up again now that she’s better and tells her about an open mic night at a nearby bar, promising he’ll sit in the front row if she goes.
Elsewhere, Delilah is taking pics of baby Charlie for her birth announcement. Prior to Jon’s death, the Dixons would send out pics of the family on such occasions. Sophie thinks that’s something they should still do, so Delilah reluctantly (she’s worried maybe Eddie should be part of it) calls the family photographer, who drops everything to come over and snap them once he learns of Jon’s death. When the remaining Dixons gather to take the pic, Danny is really upset because he can’t find his wallet, which seems totally unrelated until a man comes to the door to return it. The stranger believes it belongs to Jon since his license is in there, but as it transpires, Danny’s been carrying around his dad’s ID since his death to keep him with him in some way. He was okay with the photo when he thought he could have his wallet, and therefore his dad, in it with them. He gets upset and refuses to take the pic. The Dixons regroup to have a chat about missing Jon, with Delilah admitting she wasn’t ready to take the photo either. Luckily, Maggie shares an anecdote about changing family traditions after death, and D decides the way to proceed is to gather the whole gang for the pic. You can imagine that’s real easy for poor Katherine. She and Eddie have had a nice morning up until this point. After she explained to him that she was initially considering Austin as a fresh start for the whole family but realized they can’t go anywhere without Charlie, Eddie took her across the street to tour a house that’s for sale. They assume fake identities and have sex in the walk-in-closet — seems to do their marriage a world of good! And they mostly end the episode in a good-ish place apart from telling Theo that they wouldn’t be having any more babies.
From one set of marital issues to another! Rome is directing a Lexus commercial and Gina comes by to visit him on set. Everyone’s super excited about the cool new spin Rome’s put on the campaign, but as Gina watches, she realizes it’s a scene borrowed from their own lives — the one where Rome told her he wanted to have a baby and she shot him down. She tells Rome she finds it passive-aggressive, but they don’t have much time to get into it because Rome’s parents are coming to the restaurant to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. Everything’s going fine until Rome’s dad Walter gifts his wife with a cruise. It’s the one thing she’s been asking for forever, but he makes the mistake of telling her he’s giving in to her so they never have to talk about it again. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you romance! Anyway, Renee (Rome’s mom) is understandably upset about the delivery and tells him he shouldn’t have given it to her if he was just going to make her feel guilty about it. She tells him to leave — and he does! But only makes it as far as the kitchen, where Gina tries to talk him down while Rome works on his mom at the bar. Walter asks Gina if Rome ever asked her to do something she didn’t want to do and did she do it? When she answers that no, she didn’t do it, he decides he shouldn’t have to do the thing he doesn’t want to do either and storms out. So mature. See, having a baby and going on a cruise aren’t exactly the same thing, but no one bothers to point that out. Just then Renee comes in to accept his now-unavailable apology.
Back on the Maggie/Gary front, Maggie comes home and tosses her funeral plans in the trash. Later, Gary asks her why she didn’t go to the remission group and if things are okay between them. She replies that she’s trying to figure out who they are without cancer, who she is without cancer. There were so many things she wanted to do before she got sick, like music and travel. She explains that since she met him she’s been dying and now she really wants to get back to living. Gary asks her to let him help her figure it out, but she says it’s something she needs to do herself. Not totally sure what that looks like for them? Eek. Anyway, when Gary gets home later, he finds her funeral stuff in the trash and gets a little teary, while out on the street Maggie drops an envelope in the mail box and smiles to herself. Gary finds the flier for the open mic night and goes to see her singing, but when he gets there it’s just Eric watching some other dude play. The scene is cut with footage of Maggie playing alone in her old apartment to make us think she’s at the bar and Gary is upset to see her there with Eric. Poor Jason Ritter, he’s just trying to help!
Luckily for Rome and Gina, they don’t have to follow through with their offer to give up their bed for Renee because when they get home, Walter is there dressed in a full sea captain outfit and telling her that she deserves anything she wants for putting up with him for 50 years. Amen! Later, Gina tells Rome she doesn’t want to end up like his parents, resenting each other for compromises. They agree to make sure they talk things through. She tells him the commercial bothered her because she wants to find a way to give them both a happy ending. Neither of them quite know how to get there, though. Pretty sure there are spas for that?
And that’s it. Until next week!
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