Younger – An Inside Glob

By: Ujjyani Banerjee

Before leaving for the office, Liza (Sutton Foster) witnesses Maggie (Debi Mazar) and Beth (Nicole Ari Parker) making out. They get introduced. Beth takes leave after confirming with Maggie dinner at 10 o’clock. Liza is worried that Charles (Peter Hermann) is secretly working for Mercury by taking a loan against his town house. Maggie feels he needs cash post-divorce, but if Liza’s looking for problems chances are she’ll find one.

At the office Kelsey (Hilary Duff), Diana (Miriam Shor) and Liza discuss about an elderly erotica called The Seasoned Slut by Bronwyn Madigan that needs marketing focus. Kelsey wants to pass, but Diana mentions Madigan’s good past records with Empirical and that Millennial could work well with it’s females-supporting-females USP. Also, it’s a cash cow and Millenial could use some milk. Kelsey hopes Madigan re-ups her contract. She’s also worried about Mercury stealing their authors and wonders who must be funding it. Liza asks if it could be a single rich fella. Kelsey is sure it’s some big media company and decides to meet Zane (Charles Michael Davis) on her way to lunch and soon locates him at a community workspace.

Kelsey smirks at the location, but he’s proud of it. There’s zero overhead and a convenient meeting location at the Suffolk House. After some rude exchanges Zane asks her to suck up the loss, but Kelsey is hurt that Zane stole Audrey Colbert knowing fully well how important the book was to Millennial. She walks out and joins Lauren (Molly Bernard) for lunch. She is stressed and just lost her stress-reliever. Lauren gets into savior mode and resurrects Kelsey’s comatose dating apps by improving her previously intimidating bio and gets her “hits” instantaneously.

At Millenial Diana informs Liza that she’s pitched The Seasoned Slut to Metro Cycle who will display it’s excerpts on their kiosks from April to June. Liza suggests naming the campaign “Get On and Get Off.” Diana calls it gross, but asks to check if it’ll seal the deal.

Clare (Phoebe Dynevor) gets home with Gemma and is in a hurry for work. Josh (Nico Tortorella) takes the baby over and realizes that she’s hungry. Clare sits to breastfeed, but struggles due to a clogged duct. The baby nibbles and helps unclog the duct forcing the milk to jet out and splash onto Josh’s face. He wipes it off and they share a hearty laugh.

Kelsey goes to the salon to get a new hairdo and freaks out upon learning that she’s developed a bald patch. Donning an oversized hat she seeks advice from Lauren. Lauren snaps back that she doesn’t care and reveals that she was up all night trying to shush Gemma. But poor Kelsey claims to have lost four clumps of hair since last night and is on her way to the doctor to see if he can reattach them. Lauren screams in shock upon seeing those clumps. Her scream wakes Gemma up who starts to wail which wakes Josh up. Lauren, seething with irritation, hands Gemma over to him and accompanies Kelsey to fix her mane situation.

Upon getting to the office Kelsey learns that she needs to meet Madigan (Becky Ann Baker) who isn’t keen on signing the contract and Facetimes with the new publisher is in order. Diana hates the hat. Kelsey reveals that she’s developed alopecia. Diana recollects her own case of this disease and lists out her illness history. She asks Kelsey to hold up as this phase shall pass. At the meeting Madigan is grossed out with the campaign name. She doesn’t find her target demographic as the focus, especially with Metro Cycle promoting it and being tagged as a Millennial publication. Madigan notices a general disregard towards experience and she’d pick grey hairs over perkiness on any given day.

That evening Kelsey meets Maggie for dinner and tells her about the stress-related baldness. Maggie herself is fighting yeast infection. She asks Kelsey to have a word with Beth who’s a naturopath. Kelsey does so. Beth asks her to remember that everything is temporary. Maggie gives a look. Liza and Charles arrive. Beth whispers to Maggie that she knows about the infection from her prescription and advises to try natural anti-fungals. She slips a garlic clove into Maggie’s underpants and it starts its magic in no time. At dinner everybody keep smelling garlic, but no one knows where it’s coming from. Maggie feels uncomfortable. Kelsey picks up The Seasoned Slut topic and how they got dropped for being too young. Charles agrees that new people always have the bane of proving themselves to the old guard. Kelsey speaks about Mercury and how hard it is to balance proving herself and tackling this competitor simultaneously. Charles admits that the Audrey Colbert snatch was surprising and tensely asks for more wine. Liza studies Charles closely. Kelsey wants to know the funder behind Zane; who could be it? Suddenly, Maggie stands up and admits it’s her. She’s the garlic woman and states the reason. Everybody breaks into laughter. After dinner Liza asks Charles if he’s the one investing in Mercury. He admits that it’s him. He needed to re-invent himself but seeing things sky-rocket, he needs some time to think. He requests Liza to keep this between each other only leaving Liza to test her own morality.

The next day Liza wants to meet Kelsey before work, but Kelsey is busy running to meet Madigan who’s got a meeting at Suffolk House thanks to her tweet. Kelsey is sure it’s with Zane and wants to intercept for good. Liza rushes there guessing that Charles could show up and Kelsey would learn the harsh truth. It turns out exactly as she expected. Kelsey shouts in disbelief that Charles was standing against her, stealing their authors and they’re the reason why her hair keeps falling off. She leaves warning Madigan about the type of people she’s finalizing her deal with. Madigan; however, is enjoying this showdown as Charles tries to explain himself but Liza has now had enough. She reveals to Madigan that he called her books “matron lit” and leaves.

At the studio Clare comes to meet Josh and Gemma. Josh says he’s learned so much in the past two days. Gemma loves walks, loves being read to and reading senior erotica puts her to sleep. He tells Clare that though they’re amidst divorce he wants equal time and sleepovers with his daugther. Clare is happy and would love this to happen.

Liza and Diana come with a bittersweet news to Kelsey the next day. Quite many agents are making noise about moving their clients from Millennial to Mercury; they don’t care if Charles is in the wrong but they officially favor grey hair more. Also, Charles has resigned from the board which means he’s officially out of competition. Kelsey is left in shock as she learns these new developments which could be a potential disaster for Millenial.