Reader beware: If you haven’t fully recovered from Charles’s jaw-dropping emotional outburst that ended last week’s Younger, I fear for your well-being while watching “Fever Pitch.†There is so much scandalous kissing, you may pass out right there in front of your sofa, spilling that glass of Pinot Noir you’re clutching so tightly.
SCANDALOUS KISSING, YOU GUYS. And I’m not talking about just one couple smashing faces. There are multiple couples. Okay, there are just two. But they are so good.
Let’s start with Liza because seriously, how does one recover from her handsome boss whom she has feelings for making such a declaration? Well, one doesn’t. One has a crazy-hot sex dream about said boss in which one does it up against a bookcase. This is a nerd’s greatest desire. Afterward, Liza is disturbed … in the best way possible. She can’t get Charles out of her head. When she fills Maggie in on what went down, her friend has some sage advice: Just do it already. All that sexual tension isn’t good, so Liza needs to “consummate and deflate.†Liza would rather shut the whole thing down. She’s a lady who likes to live in repression. And with this whole situation being much more complicated than your typical office romance, who can blame her?
Lucky for Liza, Charles plays hooky from work the next day, plus she has a source of major distraction: PitchFest. PitchFest is a day when editors gather in what looks like some demented form of speed dating (is there any other kind?), and listen to pitches from unpublished writers all day. If it sounds like publishing-industry torture, that’s because it mostly is. After Liza sits through pitches that are strange (identical twin sisters where one is human and the other is an alien spider queen!), icky (one dude is too into Lolita), and blatant rip-offs (Girl on the Train, but on a bus!), she finally gets a pitch that sounds promising.
Pauline Turner (welcome to Younger, Jennifer Westfeldt!) sits across from Liza and pitches her a book based on her real life: A writer gets married, moves to the Upper West Side, loses her identity within her marriage, and then decides to leave her family in order to reclaim who she is. It’s sincere, honest, and relatable — plus Pauline name-checks Nora Ephron’s Heartburn, which immediately intrigues both Liza and your recapper. Liza wants to read some chapters. This could be a way to really expand the Millennial brand.
If you’re thinking that Pauline and her novel seem too good to be true, well, hold on to your butts.
That night, Liza heads back to Empirical, eager to prep Pauline’s chapters for the rest of the gang to read. She gets a text from Jay to meet for drinks (he’s so flirty on text, no?), but who should walk in also looking to work after hours but Charles. Liza declines Jay’s offer and spends ample time staring at Charles’s office and getting turned on by a stapler. Finally, she works up enough courage to go see him.
Charles and Liza’s first conversation since the cupcake incident is awkward and lovely, and Liza puts her foot in her mouth about that birthday cupcake getting hard. The conversation is also very short. As if she just can’t help herself, Liza grabs Charles and the two smash faces. It is just as hot as the dream. But unlike that dream, Liza and Charles get interrupted (just as she’s about to tell him the truth about her age!) by a very slow-moving janitor before they can take their make-out sesh to the bookcase. To cover, Liza starts telling the janitor that she’s in there to talk to Charles about a great book idea she was pitched today. The janitor couldn’t care less, but Charles cares … a lot.
He picks up the chapters Liza brought and panics, asking Liza if Pauline Turner looks like the woman in the family photo he has in his desk. Yes, it turns out Pauline Turner is his estranged wife. Before we continue, props to the casting department: This Peter Hermann and Jennifer Westfeldt pairing is so, so good. Get them in a room together!
Anyway, learning your ex is shopping around a book about how you stifled her as a woman is possibly the greatest cock-block of all time. Charles leaves Liza in his office all hot, bothered, and confused.
But in case you forgot (how dare you!), Charles is a gentleman. He would never leave things like that with Liza. She gets a call from him later that night apologizing for leaving so abruptly. The book is actually a very honest look into his marriage, and before he confronts Pauline, he wants to read the rest of it. This isn’t a business call, though: He wants Liza to know that he doesn’t regret what went down before they got interrupted. Strap in, folks — this is going to be good.
If you recall, at the start of this here recap, I mentioned two couples engaging in scandalous kissing. Well, it’s time to talk about Kelsey. Like Charles, Kelsey just can’t face work today. She’s not ready to run into her looming boss (“He’s a giant, Liza. He looms.â€) and possibly lose the job that means so much to her. Instead, Lauren convinces her to take a girls’ vacation upstate at their friend’s glorious lake house that also happens to be full of penis décor … because Younger is ridiculous and I love it so much.
Thanks to Josh’s cute face and his ample weed stash, he is granted permission to tag along on this girls’ trip. After partaking in some of that weed and hearing Kelsey forget to mention that Josh is in attendance when she’s on the phone checking in with Liza, Lauren puts together what many of us have suspected since the start of the season: There’s something brewing between Kelsey and Josh. Kelsey of course denies it. The two are just friends, she swears!
That night, Josh happens upon Kelsey taking in the view, unable to sleep. She’s stressed over the idea of losing her job. Josh gives her a loving, very endearing pep talk about how she’s a boss and the strongest person he knows. Those words coming out of that face makes the whole situation surrounding them seem like they are much more than friends. There’s a little hesitation, but both of them lean in for, that’s right, the scandalous kissing. It’s short, but I felt things. Kelsey backs off before they get carried away, and they both agree that it’s just not the right thing to do. Something tells me this isn’t their last kiss. But, oh, the Liza of it all.
It’s Trout Season
• There isn’t nearly enough Trout in “Fever Pitch†and it seems like a missed opportunity to not force Diana to mingle with the peasants at PitchFest.
• Diana on how Charles has never skipped work before: “Not even during Hurricane Sandy when our power went out and he marched his thoroughbred thighs up 40 flights. So brave.â€