User Reviews

Julia's is going to Bailey's literature class after he dropped out and loves it. When got caught the professor offers her a job as his assistant and this way she can sit in on his classes. Griffin is cheating on her with Rosalie. Annie slips down into alcoholism. Claudia goes to a psychologist to deal with her depression.

Great story about Julia. She always loved to study and one can see how she enjoys the class. But even with happy story of her getting the job as an assistant one can't be happy for her because of Griffin's cheating. It is too bad although it made me laugh when he was thinking about Madame Bovary when doing it.

Claudia's story is getting very intense too. She is obviously having more trouble with Charlie's sickness and is now doing other things that were not suggested by psychologist. I am pretty interested how this will go.

In this episodes all the stories are related somehow to Bailey. Griffin starts an affair with Rosalie, cheating on Julia, in a similar way than Bailey did with Callie, cheating on Sarah. Julia enters a literature class in SF University, under Bailey's name. Claudia, after talking to a therapist and fearing for Charlie's life, decides to move away, just as Bailey wanted in the episode Falsies and in season 2 mostly. As for Bailey, ignoring his sponsor's advice caused the relapse in alcohol of Annie. Except for Griffin's, all the stories were enjoyable, sad but great. The sadness streak continues.

Claudia's story was the saddest and the best of the day. Following Claudia's deep sadness in the last episodes, I guess Kirsten talked to Charlie about it (off screen), about how his younger sister spent her days out of school, so now Charlie decides to take her to a therapist. He tells her she has to because he's worried about what she'll do if he gets hospitalized again or if he's not around, in other words, if he dies. When Claudia hears this, sadness and shock are in her face, but she says she'll be fine and that she doesn't need to talk to anyone. Charlie says he's not asking, they'll go. In the first meeting, she tells she feels bad for "screwing up" and with her silence admits that is hard for her to talk about her feelings. So the therapist gives her a few ideas, and she asks Charlie to give her driving lessons. They spend "father-daughter time" while driving, and he says he feels terrible for making her feel guilty about the problem with Social Services. Then he feels the symptoms, fatigue and sweats, and Claudia decides to stop. Later she tells him she'll ask driving lessons to Sarah or Annie, and though he's surprised (he was willing to take her driving again), he accepts. In the second meeting, she's saddened, tears fall from her eyes, and the therapist, Mrs Schultz, notices she has been really afraid of talking to Charlie because he's sick and didn't want to be bothered. Claudia says she just can't, so Mrs Schultz encourages her to spend more time with Charlie, that he's still the same person and could make things "less terrible". She misses him and usually he was there for her when she needed him (like when their parents died she says). In the house, she reaches him while he was starting to build a bench for the backyard, and though she tries to leave him work, he insists in listening to her, so she asks him driving lessons again. They go driving again to Crissy's Fields and this time, she happily succeeds, so they go to a fast food place to eat. There, he suggests buying her a car when she gets her license, saying he was 18 when their parents bought him one. She reacts happily, but when he says he wants to know what she'd be doing, be sure she has something left if he dies, the deep sadness and shock returns to her (that single moment was excellent, especially for the look in her eyes). In the next meeting with her therapist, Claudia says that she did what she told her, she spent time with Charlie and says it was great and made her feel better. But she says "that's what you wanted me to say right", implying that it didn't work and her sadness remains there. Claudia decides herself that she has to try to get a new life, independent from him, to prepare herself if he dies. She tells him this in the backyard, saying that Mrs Schultz told her to. He seems surprised, but accepts it, whatever to make her feel fine. About the bench, he miscalculated the legs, so people over 2 feet tall can't sit there. This story was the best of the episode, showed in a very sad way how Claudia suffers facing the possibility of losing her "father" forever. And Charlie realized that he did some damage to her by focusing on his illness, so now he was again a good father, like he usually was in the past. He was more kind and compassive, which is what she deserved. I think that the problem with Social Services, and a talk with Kirsten, made him realize what he had to do for Claudia. Then, for her, these moments are really hard. First, she lost her parents, but she had Charlie, Bailey and Julia. And though Bailey means a lot for Claudia, the reality is that Charlie has been her true father after Nicolas died. He was there taking care of her since season 1, just rewatch all those episodes, like All Nighters, where she only could feel safe with him around. In season 2, she was deeply happy with him and Kirsten as her "parents", suffered a lot when and after the disaster happened and regained hope and joy in season finale. In season 3, he and Kirsten took care of her in spring-summer and then with the depression, she felt their absence. She spent some time with him after Kirsten was taken away but then she felt abandoned by him all because of Grace. And when he dumped that woman, he focused only on Claudia and Owen, as the beginning episodes of this season show. In the rest of the season during his cancer, she missed him, and sometimes he listened to her (like in 4x11, 14-15), but other times, he focused on the disease and ignored her, making her suffer. All these things prove why is so hard for Claudia this moment, because she might lose her "father" forever. Now they are not optimistic, so she feels that she should prepare herself to a life without him. To finish this part, Lacey did an amazing job here just like in all the cancer storyline, especially when showing Claudia's suffering. And this episode makes me wonder how good could be the bond between her and Matthew. It's obvious that in those times they and the main cast wanted and cared about each other, but would be good to know that the bond is still there now. In the last years, Lacey showed nice messages and pictures with Scott, Neve and Paula, but none with Matthew, considering his past disappearance and absence from POF reunions. I hope one day they all can reunite, many moments of the series prove that they were a somehow a family, not the first, but maybe a second.

About the other stories of the day, Bailey finally has more time to spend with Annie and buys her a gift, a star for her sobriety birthday. But she says she has the flu and that she misses him. Later, when he doubts, Sarah tells him that Annie asked an extension for the rent and that she took Natalie to school in a cab. When in the night, Annie asks them the extra keys because she locked herself out the apartment, they give it to her, but he and Sarah realize that Annie is drinking again. He doubts about confronting her but Sarah is adamant that Annie is drinking and needs help, especially for Natalie's sake. When Claudia visits and asks Annie driving lessons, Bailey refuses and confronts her, but this just make things worse. After failing to appear in her 2nd birthday of sobriety, he goes to her apartment and she says Natalie is with a friend in a sleepover. She tempts him with a drink, saying they can drink together, so they won't feel anything. He refuses, throws the glass quietly to the floor and leaves (great scene). Then, in the restaurant, Annie apologizes and tells him that he was there for her too much, he helped her a lot with the job, with Natalie but with Charlie's pneumonia, he disappeared, leaving her alone. He was the center of her life. She couldn't help but drinking again, so he finally agrees to help her. Their whole story today was great and sad, also Paige Turco did an admirable job. What Annie said it's the truth, Bailey got involved too deeply with her (in the same way he did with Jill), and because of this, she suffers his absence. Besides, he will get hurt too. It's curious a trivial fact left by this episode: Annie relapsed after 2 years sober, and Bailey will relapse too in season 6 after 2 years and some months of sobriety. As for Julia's story: she realizes that "Bailey" is a unisex name so he asks his permission to take a literature class at SF University under his name. He doubts but accepts when she says she'll do it for herself. Griffin is initially reluctant but lets her do it because will make her happy. Everything goes well, she writes an essay about the book Madame Bovary (while Griffin spends time with Rosalie), and the teacher approves it, besides praises her participation in class. While returning home each time, she tells Griffin how she sees Bovary from her perspective and how she was lonely and corrupted. Then, the teacher finds out that the real Bailey was really bad in literature, so he doubts if Julia really wrote the essay. She's forced to tell the truth and says she's not enrolled in college because a year ago she thought it was a good idea. So to keep Julia in class, he offers her a job as his research assistant, with minimum wage but with free access to the library and all the literature classes. She's excited and finally reaches the happiness she looked for in college, but at the end in the library, finds a note from Rosalie in Griffin's jacket. Julia's story here was great, and finally she's happy doing what she always liked. And in comparison to seasons 5 or 6, here was showed how she lives a common college life without any need of dating someone, she was just focused on literature and the story, which is perfect for her. To finish, Owen's absence was noticed, so I guess that Kirsten took care of him during Charlie and Claudia's driving lessons, considering what happened last episode. They both could have appeared but who knows, maybe the Cavarno twins needed a rest after the amazing work they did this season.