This week’s episode of Younger took us for an emotional ride with all of its plot twists!
Josh is going to be featured in The New York Times for his tattoo work and it’s a huge deal! Josh is ecstatic to get to have Liza with him as the interviewer, Greta, spends a couple of days to get an inside look at his life. But Liza tells Josh he won’t be able to mention her at all in the interview because The New York Times’ fact checkers will immediately discover that she isn’t actually 26 years old and blow her cover.
Josh is disappointed but he agrees even though it’s killing him inside. We get to see that he really wants to show off Liza and he even says what a big part of his story she really is. He doesn’t feel like he’s being himself in the interview if he’s not mentioning the most important person in his life. Can we all just swoon for how dreamy Josh is? He’s a GREAT boyfriend. It’s odd because we see that Josh seems more affected by not being able to include her than Liza herself.
Back at Imperial, Liza and Kelsey are trying to land a new book for Millenial Imprint. This book is a huge deal as it’s a guidebook to your 20s from a renown psychologist, Dr. Way. When Kelsey and Liza arrive to the book pitch event they unfortunately run into Cheryl. Just a reminder, Cheryl is the woman who was blackmailing Liza last season because she knows her real age.
That seems to be Cheryl’s constant job in this show, to annoyingly remind Liza that she’s indeed 40 years old. I understand her character is necessary but Cheryl’s attitude is enough to get under anyone’s skin.
Dr. Way seems impressed by Kelsey and Liza but during their pitch also takes a moment to psychoanalyze Kelsey’s life. In particular, she begins to comment on Kelsey’s no criteria relationship with Thad. Kelsey is turning 27 and she’s been with Thad for two years but there has never been a discussion about marriage, kids or anything about the future. Kelsey has achieved a lot professionally at a young age but the timeline for her personal life has taken a backseat.
Kelsey leaves the meeting totally freaking out about the timeline for her life and Liza tries to advice Kelsey so she doesn’t make the same mistakes that Liza did.
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Later that night at a work dinner party for Thad she begins to see everything that Dr. Way had said about him. It’s surprising that it took Dr. Way to mention Thad’s signs of immaturity for her to see them because I had seen them since season one. Thad has always been a condescending, selfish jerk and he really shined in this episode as he was talking up a “hot chick” to try to convince her for a three-way to give to Kelsey as a birthday gift. Yeah, that really happened! Super Classy, Thad.
Kelsey is enraged not only because he is so immature and clueless but he also doesn’t see all that she really is, he has no value for her. She’s had enough of it and breaks up with him in that instant. Although it was sad to see Kelsey so hurt, I was clapping for her decision because Thad is just deadweight in her life.
Cheryl continues to blackmail Liza and threatens to expose her to Dr. Way if she doesn’t give up pursuing the book for Millenial Imprint. But Liza isn’t one to stay with her arms crossed. She decides to book an appointment with Dr. Way and tell her the truth herself. As she begins to tell Dr. Way the truth about her age, Cheryl and everything else going on in her life, the appointment quickly turns into a therapy session. Dr. Way is impressed by Liza’s story and it shows that Liza is able to trick more than just those at Imperial.
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Dr. Way agrees to keep her secret AND to sign with Millenial Imprint with the sole condition that Liza will be one of her confidential case studies for the book. Liza is getting to relive her 20s but will she make the same mistakes the second time around? I’m hoping that we get to see more of Dr. Way counseling Liza in the next few episodes.
At work, Kelsey is ecstatic that they were able to get the book for their imprint even with the sadness of her breakup hanging over her head on her birthday.
They plan to get completely wasted that night at Kelsey’s birthday celebration.
When Liza arrives, Kelsey and Lauren are reading Josh’s piece in The New York Times and are completely appalled at the fact that Josh didn’t mention her once. They have a couple of drinks in them which doesn’t help as they’re ripping Josh apart for being so terrible in their point of view. Josh arrives and Kelsey basically eats him alive telling him how he doesn’t deserve to be with an amazing girl like Liza. The whole time that Lauren and Kelsey have been mouthing off, Liza was not able to say anything that truly defended Josh. Josh had happily arrived excited to celebrate and share the news of his feature but as he’s bombarded with insults, he slides Kelsey’s birthday card on the table and leaves.
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Now I understand that Liza was surprised with Lauren and Kelsey’s reaction about Josh’s article but she knew that if she wasn’t mentioned, it was her fault. She could have stood up for Josh without revealing her age but she didn’t say a word. In that moment she couldn’t think of one single lie to defend Josh who has so devotedly covered up all of Liza’s mess.
What happens next brought watery eyes to everyone watching. Nico Tortorella (Josh) truly delivered a great performance and emotionally struck all of our hearts this episode. His eyes showed us how he was truly agonizing over the fact that they are unable to fully be in each other’s lives. He can’t live authentically if he can’t wholly have Liza. Josh is a very practical guy and even though he loves Liza to pieces he can’t continue on with the relationship and breaks up with her.
This time it seems like it may be for real and I’m sure all of the viewers were an emotional mess watching these scenes. Sutton Foster and Tortorella are great actors that have fully invested into their character’s relationship and this week they gave us MAJOR FEELS.
Liza walks back into the bar completely destroyed only to find that Thad has come to Kelsey’s birthday uninvited. He storms in and delivers a speech about realizing how Kelsey meets every single criteria on the list and even more than he could have imagined. He gets on one knee and proposes!
Kelsey is able to change moods from verbally attacking Josh to suddenly forgiving Thad and accepting to marry him. Liza stands there in shock but we can tell that she’s also evaluating if this is really the best decision that Kelsey can make. It’s always seemed like Liza has had the same feelings that we have had about Thad — he’s not a good guy! Kelsey is blinded by her new shiny diamond to see any of that.
Younger is getting better each episode and it seems like they’re going to only up the ante more! Do you think Thad is really the right guy for Kelsey? Does she really value herself if she was so quick to forget everything he has done to her? Will Liza and Josh be done for good? Are there any chances of a reconciliation in the future? Do you think Josh was right in breaking up with Liza?
Leave all your thoughts below!
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