Good Trouble – Happy Heckling

By: Marnie Faith

The age old testament of “never meet your heroes” proved true for Alice (Sherry Cola) as she happened to be attending the same comedy club as one of the biggest queer comedian’s in the Good Touble bubble – Lindsay Brady (Rhea Butcher)!  Following support she garnered from two fellow sapphic comedians at Jazmin’s (Hallie Sahar) quinceanera and after much deliberation over whether to go with leather or plaid (in this instance, leather came out victorious), Alice finally made an appearance at a renowned comedy club. Of course, she wasn’t performing an actual set – merely spectating. One of the aforementioned friends she met a few episodes prior did say her hellos followed by frantic cheers over the fact she finally booked a slot…without sleeping with anyone!  When they all settle at the bar they spot the renowned Lindsay Brady. Despite her recurrent Instagram stalking, Alice is yet to secure that mutual follow off her yet. Apparently, Lindsay returning the follow is a thing of dreams, as she’s a stickler for a good ratio. Regardless, Alice and company vow they’ll play it cool and meet her after her set. 

Alice’s first real experience seems to be going great so far since she’s front row, seeing a stand up she clearly has a lot of respect for, with a new group of friends who’re all ready to support her and help her flourish…until it all goes terribly wrong. Evidently unfamiliar with the stand-up etiquette, a clearly overly excited Alice can’t contain her heckling. Although innocent, she just wants to join in with the set! It clearly is off putting to Lindsay to hear an audience member gain more of a reaction than some of her short falling jokes.  It would appear joining in off the back of some of Lindsay’s lines are enough to make them break and wanting to pull back the focus on themselves, Lindsay calls for the spotlight to be placed on Alice. From here, Lindsay shows no signs of holding back and goes in on Alice, especially her appearance. With remarks like, “Look at that leather jacket…I’m sad that a cow had to die for you to almost look alright,” Lindsay’s returned heckles are enough to leave Alice sipping uncomfortably at her drink, wishing for the ground to swallow her whole. 

Moving on from this Alice is still reveling in her humiliation. Joey (Daisy Eagan) stops by the Coterie and is on the receiving end of Alice’s recollection of the entire ordeal. It seems she even did a French exit from the club, leaving both her tab unpaid and her credit card unclaimed! It’s after this that Joey reveals they know Lindsay and it goes deeper than just a returned follow on Instagram. Joey reveals to Alice that they share an ex with Lindsay. According to Joey, Lindsay pries on the most relevant girl in the scene at the moment and then tosses them aside when they grow bored. Joey even goes as far as explaining how, whilst dating their mutual ex, Lindsay not only tore their entire relationship to the ground, but then continued to sack the ex off again once they grew bored a second time.

Regardless of Joey’s warnings, Alice heads back to the comedy club the following day to settle her tab and finally retrieve her credit card. She’s unfortunately met with a lot of humored stares and a few snickers, but thankfully her friends are there to welcome her to the safety of their booth. When just trying to visit the restroom, Alice bumps into Lindsay yet again. Met with an ominous “it’s you” energy from Lindsay, Alice becomes visibly uncomfortable. This doesn’t last long; however, Lindsay tells her that whilst they didn’t appreciate the heckling they can appreciate the fact that Alice is genuinely funny. Toward the end of the episode Lindsay returns the mutual and offers to give Alice some tips to help fine tune her set. Something tells me this is all going to go horribly wrong!

For Callie (Maia Mitchell) quite a different set of problems face her this week. To begin with, everyone at her new job clearly think she’s an entitled rich girl who’s had an easy start to life. Sick of always feeling the need to pull the foster kid card, she does her best to hold her tongue and allow her co-workers to continue to draw their own conclusions. This doesn’t last the longest though, as the subject of college tuition is brought up. They all remark on the ridiculous inflation of college tuition prices compared to the stagnant nature of salaries, which leads into them disclosing how much student debt they’re all in. For Callie, this is arguably the most appropriate time for her to drop in the fact she grew up in the foster care system and discloses the fact that her biological father set up a college fund when they reconnected. Marcus (Juan Antonio) remarks that she’s had an easy start in life, which really did make my head turn considering she’d just dropped the bomb shell that she grew up in foster care. 

Seeking solace in Jamie (Beau Mirchoff), she asks what she can do to help him feel appreciated for once. He suggests being his date to the weekend event his company is throwing – a perfect date, until Callie remembers she’s scheduled to work the coming Saturday. However, never one to stick to the rules for too long, she calls in sick and is whisked away for a day surrounded by white men in suits and their doting housewives competing to see who has the nicest white picket fence life. Upon arrival things continue to go gradually down hill. When questioned if he’s a registered Republican, Jamie narrowly dodges answering before his senior takes him away to meet important assets to the company. Hint: he reveals toward the closing of the episode that he is in fact a registered Republican, although tries to save himself by assuring Callie he didn’t vote for Trump. 

When being introduced to the wives of the weekend, Callie is met with the stark realization that she and Jamie have two very different lives envisioned. Although all the women she comes across seem lovely, they all appear very stagnant in life. Despite them all attending law school, they share the fact they gave up a working life to become full time stay at home parents with the added perk of full time nannies. They all gloat about their holidays and latest house refurbishments whilst sporting incredibly expensive wedding rings. While trying to catch some respite from the white picket hell she’s found herself in, Callie manages to bump into Marcus and just like that her sick day is busted. Though he assures her he won’t tell anyone, the pair eventually talk enough to clear the air amongst them both. Marcus assures Callie that she needs to spend less time worrying what he thinks of her and more time figuring out who she is. Some solid advice that she later goes on to repeat to Gael (Tommy Martinez) ahead of his interview. 

When Jamie comes searching for her we see an alternative scenario in which Callie finally admits to Jamie that she’s scared for the future of their relationship. She tells him how today has made her realize they both want very different things in life and regardless of the fact she loves him she’s not willing to give up her career in order to allow him to be the breadwinner whilst she stays at home with the kids and nanny. Back to reality; however, and Callie continues acting like everything is fine to Jamie, allowing him to take her home. 

Throughout the episode we’re offered scenes between her and Gael, although they’re largely him gushing about his budding relationship with Elijah (Denim Richards). The pair seem to be rekindling very nicely and it’s Elijah he wishes to celebrate with when his first review after a rather confidence breaking one a few episodes prior was published. We do later find out that Elijah paid for both Gael’s interview and the interview Gael had framed for Elijah’s new work space, unbeknownst to Gael. 

Speaking of futures, Evan (TJ Linnard) is struggling with the concept of his. Last week saw him ask Mariana (Cierra Ramirez) for a drink after work to discuss her app development. Mariana knew, Evan knew and everyone watching at home knew that it was most definitely not to discuss the app. It seems though Evan was seeking assistance from Mariana to help him with dating. He reveals that due to his Asperger’s syndrome he struggles to connect with people. As a result of him being unable to pick on things such as social cues and humor he doubts whether there’s actually someone out there for him. In a moment of fleeting comfort, Mariana offers him a reassuring arm squeeze, which ex-Speckulate employee Josh (Charlie Bodin) manages to capture and circulate to every Speckulate employee in the hopes of causing trouble. 

The intention of causing trouble is very much achieved as Raj (Dhruv Uday-Singh) is one of the receiving ends of this picture. As if he wasn’t already struggling enough adjusting back to life as Team Blue with Alex (Dustin Ingram) and Sam (Max Cutler), it seems to be one blow after another for him. Alex, never knowing how to keep his mouth shut, makes a passing derogatory remark about Mariana, which causes Raj to finally lose it. He ends up punching Alex in the face and a fight breaks out. Of course, arguably the greatest casualty of the whole thing was Sam’s LEGO. Upon witnessing the fist fight, Evan calls them into his office. However, due to the fact they’re a) two of the best engineers the company has and b) men, Evan lets them off consequence free! 

For #Miraj, it’s not yet clear how the consequences of Josh’s picture will play out, as Mariana is yet to get the chance to tell Raj that it was Jamie who leaked the photo as a means of spiting Evan, unbeknownst of the bigger picture. At a loss of what to do, Mariana resorts to standing on a desk and clearing the air through the sheer force of her vocal chords. She announces to everyone that her and Evan aren’t dating, but if they want something to talk about they should talk about the fact her and Raj are. An act of sheer bravery if I ever did see one! Alex and Raj eventually talk things out over a glass of Scotch and the pair admit to missing each other, regardless of how insensitive, racist and misogynistic Alex may be.