Younger – Bad Romance

By starrymag | March 10, 2016

By: Taylor Gates

 

Liza (Sutton Foster) storms into the living room, ranting about how Caitlin wants to invite Liza’s ex-husband, David, to her birthday dinner. Just when she thinks it couldn’t get worse, Maggie (Debi Mazar) shows her a New York Post article about Josh (Nico Tortorella) getting cozy with Greta, the reporter who wrote the story about him. Although visibly deflated, Liza says the only thing that matters is that Josh seems happy.

 

At work, Diana (Miriam Shor) slams down a copy of the Josh and Greta article. She comforts Liza for about five seconds before telling her not to wallow, as they have a lot of work to do. Diana tells her to start by reserving a table at Ariel—she’s taking Liza to lunch.

 

Diana and Liza sit in a power booth: the perfect place to see and be seen. Plus, the lighting is fantastic. She gives Liza some breakup advice, telling her to throw herself completely into her work. Romance is incidental, but if you work hard enough, you’ll always have a job. Someday maybe Diana will even join Liza at her own power booth. Liza promises Diana that she will be the first one she invites.

 

Jackie, a powerful woman from a rival publishing house, goes over to Diana’s booth. She and Diana greet each other in typical fake-sweet fashion. Liza recognizes her assistant, Emily, as they’ve corresponded before via email. Emily invites Liza to a Young Professionals Society mixer where there will be geeks from all different careers. Diana accepts the invitation for her before sending Emily on her way.

 

Liza goes to Kelsey’s (Hilary Duff) office, asking her if she’s ever heard of the Young Professionals Society. Kelsey says it’s a nerdy club for people desperate to move up in their jobs, but thinks Liza would like it, as she’s pretty dorky herself.

 

Kelsey begins to complain that Lauren has become a total bridesmaidzilla, planning over-the-top things for the wedding when all Kelsey wants is for the ceremony to be lowkey. Liza tells her to make sure she gets what she wants. Kelsey makes a snarky remark about Liza never having to plan a wedding before, but the subject quickly changes when Lauren’s latest crazy suggestions come in.

 

Kelsey makes Thad (Dan Amboyer) promise he’ll start helping her make wedding decisions soon as they walk into Lauren’s (Molly Bernard) workplace. Lauren suggests Kelsey wear a see-through dress, but Kelsey quickly shuts the idea down. Lauren says they need to remain open to her suggestions, as it’s her job as a bridesmaid to push them to the limit. Lauren has hired a crack team for their big day—a sommelier, pastry chef, social media expert and falcon handler. Kelsey and Thad nix the idea of a bird flying around with their rings.

 

At the Young Professional Society mixer, Liza goes to hang out with Emily. Emily’s friend Marta is with her and Liza accidentally brings up the subject of college. Liza lies and says she graduated from Dartmouth in ’08, which turns out to be the same year as Marta. Marta says she completely remembers Liza and tells her she has to come to the Dartmouth alumni group soon. Another one of their friends, Sierra, comes over. It turns out she works at the same company as Thad. Although hesitant at first, Sierra finally tells Liza there’s a rumor going around that Thad is hooking up with his assistant in the 30th floor bathroom.

 

Kelsey tells Liza that she’s letting Lauren throw her an engagement party to get all the crazy out of her system before the wedding. Thad isn’t excited, but he barely cares they’re having a wedding—he can’t be bothered to help her figure out all the details. Liza sneakily asks if Thad has an assistant he would go to for help about wedding stuff, but Kelsey thinks he shares one. Kelsey says there will be hot, single guys at this engagement party. She says Liza should think about rebound sex. Josh is with a famous internet girl now—Liza should get under someone to get over Josh.

 

Liza, David (Paul Fitzgerald) and Caitlin (Tessa Albertson) go to Caitlin’s birthday dinner. Someone starts playing the accordion, making David and Liza think of their honeymoon. One night, David got super drunk and took a band member’s accordion and hat, attempting to play. When they arrived back home, he bought his own at a pawn shop and taught himself to play a little. Caitlin urges him to go play now, against Liza’s disdain. He does, amusing Caitlin and embarrassing Liza; however, seeing the smile on her daughter’s face softens Liza.

 

As the dinner continues, the three of them reminisce about past Halloweens. Seeing how late it has gotten, Caitlin excuses herself to go meet up with her friend, leaving Liza and David alone. David can’t believe how old they’ve all gotten. He says he misses them being together as a family, but he realizes it’s his fault they’re not together anymore. David said he heard that Liza has been seeing someone, but she confesses to him that he broke up with her. David says that makes him an idiot. He tells Liza he knows she thinks he’s a bad guy, but Liza tells him not to tell her what she thinks. She says she’s kind of a bad guy now. David notices she seems cooler lately, ordering them another bottle of wine.

 

David walks Liza home, the two of them pretty intoxicated. He notices her trendy boots and she quickly lifts her dress to show him her hot new underwear. He kisses her and she pushes him away. However, a moment later, she kisses him back and the two start making out.

 

A thunderstorm wakes Liza up and she rolls over to see David next to her in bed. Horrified, she runs to Maggie’s room and climbs into bed with her. She tells her she drunkenly slept with her husband and now he’s going to think they have a shot at getting back together. Maggie offers to knee him in the balls, but Liza doesn’t take her up on the offer. It’s her mess and she’ll deal with it herself…in the morning.

 

The next day, Liza goes into the kitchen, noticing David is gone. She hopes it was all a bad dream, but Maggie bursts her bubble by saying she definitely had a one night stand with her husband. David even left her a note saying, “that was fun :)” Liza chastises herself, saying she can’t keep acting like a 26-year-old having rebound sex. She also admits she’s still pining over Josh, rereading their texts and looking at their pictures together whenever she’s bored.

 

Lauren’s engagement party for Kelsey is fun, but wild. Kelsey says something like this would be completely inappropriate for her actual wedding as she can’t have her religious homeschooled cousins eating sushi off drag queens. Liza spies Thad talking to a pretty girl. Afraid he might be flirting with his assistant she asks Kelsey if they should go scare her off. Kelsey says she’s not allowed to insinuate Thad is flirting with someone else at her engagement party, and Liza apologizes. She says the breakup is just messing with her head.

 

Kelsey reiterates the fact Liza needs rebound sex, but Liza says she already took care of that with a divorcee she met playing the accordion at a restaurant. Kelsey thinks that sounds gross, but asks her if it helped her get over Josh. Liza says it made her realize she wants to focus on work—Kelsey can be the one focusing on relationships for now. Kelsey goes off to talk to other guests and Liza takes one last look at all of her texts from Josh before deleting them.

 

Lauren tells Kelsey this is the best party she’s ever thrown and the wedding is going to be even better. Kelsey says she’s not letting Lauren plan the wedding because she wants something small and quiet that she can bring her parents to. Lauren apologizes for trying to hijack her ceremony, promising to save all the over-the-top ideas for her own wedding. She still wants Kelsey to consider the falcon ring bearer, though.

 

Lauren’s parents make a speech about how Kelsey is like a second daughter to them. They wish Kelsey a happy marriage with as much hot sex as theirs. Thad’s obnoxious coworker grabs the microphone next, making a total bro speech. Lauren’s speech is last and she wishes them a life of wild romance. She tries to end with a falcon flying onto her gloved hand, but the bird refuses to listen to her.

 

Liza gets an email from Sierra. Attached is a video of Thad having sex with his assistant. Thad, who is behind her, sees all of this. Liza confronts him, saying if he doesn’t tell Kelsey, she will.