Saturday, June 23, 2018

Younger 5x03 Recap: “The End of the Tour” (Finally!) [Guest Poster: Kay-B]


“The End of the Tour”
Original Airdate: June 19, 2018

Let’s hop right to it, shall we? This week on Younger, we saw Pauline’s major tour go from lies to truth and freedom, Charles finally confront Liza about her big secret, and Kelsey and Zane still being... well, Kelsey and Zane.

"The End of the Tour" focused pretty heavily on Pauline’s new book tour. Marriage Vacation has debuted and Pauline is making appearances all over the city. With her break-up with Charles fresh, she struggles with how much she should reveal to her new “friends” — a.k.a., her book’s fanbase — and consumers. While she is open with Liza and Diana about her impending divorce, she is concerned that if her fans don’t get the romantic ending in real life that the book provides, they won’t continue to support it. While she gets varying degrees of advice from the Millennial/Empirical staff (including Pauline lying about being happy and in love with Charles), Diana and Liza ultimately decide to try as hard as possible to get interviewers and fans to avoid personal questions and press ahead with the content.

Pauline does the best she can, but then has an emotional breakdown when a fan asks her a personal question. Diana asks Charles to show up for his wife and support her — not as a spouse, but as a friend and as a business partner invested in the success of this book. When Charles shows up, it provides a sense of closure and calm, which is exactly what Pauline needs at that moment. Pauline realizes that it is the end of the line for her and Charles, and finally tells her audience that her marriage is over in real life. A peace comes to her too as she gives Charles a piece of her mind, telling him that he is the real reason to blame for her leaving their marriage and he apparently can’t argue with that.

Elsewhere in the episode, Kelsey and Zane are competing for the attention of a new author in the form of President Obama’s former speechwriter, Jake Devereux (Jason Ralph of The Magicians). They both head to Washington, D.C. to woo him. Still arguing like children in Charles’s office about who will bag him, Charles wants them to tag team this effort and just makes sure they sign him since we all know he’s taking meetings elsewhere.

Jake, of course, decides he does not want to choose between working with Zane or Kelsey — he want them both! It is not a surprise to the audience, of course; this has literally been the theme of this relationship/storyline since Charles announced Zane was coming aboard. Oh, and Kelsey and Zane sleep together after choosing each other on the new elite dating app that Kelsey was selected for (via an application that Lauren submitted on her behalf). Oh, and Jake noticed Kelsey’s profile too, so here comes a love triangle!

The big reveal of the episode was Charles finally “confronting” Liza. I put that in quotes because he still didn’t have the gumption to directly tell Liza how he found out about her secret. Basically, in the middle of Charles and Pauline’s public end, Charles makes a not-so-vague statement about obvious things basically being right in front of his eyes. Pauline is flabbergasted and assumes that Charles is making a revelation of love to Liza (girl, you are way behind on that), but in reality, it was Charles letting Liza know that he knows her secret. When Liza runs after him and confronts him directly, they dance around the details (I kind of appreciate that since we already know) and Charles jumps straight to only wanting a professional relationship with Liza since she lied to him. I wish Charles would allow Liza time to explain, and I wish he would’ve approached her sooner.

What did you like about the episode? Lauren and Josh were unfortunately in the background, with Josh still trying to figure out how to end his cycle of heartbreak. I need more scenes with them. Will Charles ever allow Liza an opportunity to explain her story and feelings? Kelsey should give Jake a shot because I want to see more out of her character. Plus, she and Zane have done this dance before.

The question now is: where do Pauline and Liza stand? Now that she knows that Liza and Charles are more than co-workers, how will this impact their working relationship and budding acquaintanceship? Let me know your thoughts!

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