[S2E1] A Fresh Start ((HOT))
As if Love couldn't be any more seemingly perfect, she is now leaving Joe a daily special baked treat in his locker as he continues to fantasize about them finally doing something about their sexual tension. The real Will certainly wants them to do so. A bit jarring at first to see the red smears on his cell wall, but it turns out he and Joe are playing a game of Hangman. The answer is a place that starts with an M, but Joe hasn't figured it out yet.
[S2E1] A Fresh Start
From the start of the episode, it's clear that Joe grew up in a very violent household that affected him and his mother, but he is dealing with a much tamer domestic issue in the present. His relationship with Love has become adjacent to Laura Linney's plotline in Love, Actually, where they can't have sex because she keeps having to take care of her brother.
Over in the woods, Joe is indeed doing good with the parents, until Forty shows up and introduces his new girlfriend, an indie film producer named Amy Adam (an Enchanted nod to the source material), who is actually Candace. The exes play it off like they are meeting for the first time, but quickly take jabs at how fake the other's name sounds. In flashbacks, we start to learn more about what exactly Joe did to Candace. In this case, tie her up, take her to the woods, and knock her unconscious when she tries to escape. Present-day Joe gets her alone to ask how she found him. Turns out she saw him in a viral video of Forty making a drunk fool of himself at Henderson's party. She tells him she is there to protect the Quinn twins from him.
In his mind, he runs through a list of suspects. First, he starts with Will, who, as it turns out, is actually safe and sound in Manila with his wife. From there, he briefly considers Delilah's patrol cop suitor but rules him out, too. Eventually, he makes his way to Forty's home in order to find out exactly what happened when they left the hotel room to get moon juice last night. Forty reveals that Joe made their driver drop him off at the storage unit facility because he wanted to see Delilah (Forty assumed that he was just booty-calling her). Apparently, while Joe was doing that, Forty FaceTimed Candace and met up with her for sex.
As the evidence points toward him as the murderer starts piling up, Joe heads back to his apartment because Ellie, who is hanging there with Love, starts freaking out over Delilah's disappearance. When Joe arrives, he finds Ellie breaking things in the kitchen and crying about how everyone in her life leaves her. She blames herself, which is heartbreaking since both we and Joe know she's definitely not responsible. Yet again, Joe is forced to confront the destruction his pursuit of love has wrought.
Things start to turn around for Candace, though, because as she rewatches a video Forty sent her the night before, she notices Joe walking toward the storage facility in the background. Determined to find the evidence to take Joe down, she heads there, finds Joe in the prison, and locks him inside. From there, Candace uses Joe's phone and lures Love to the storage unit so she can finally see the man she loves for who he really is.
Greetings listeners. School is back in session as HBO Max's Gossip Girl returns for a second year and a new semester. How are Jenny, Ari and Joe feeling about the fresh start? Well, we're big fans of Monet as a multifaceted villain, Luna's glow-up, the status of our fave throuple, and the curious lack of Obie. 041b061a72