Mistresses recap: Lean In

Apologies for the delay on this recap, Mistress-lovers and hate watchers! Here are my excuses: First, I declared National Independence Day from Recapping yesterday in honor of this great country, and then — postponing the inevitable — my cable went down this morning as I was in mid-draft. Could the Mistresses curse be real? Or was this karma?

I bring karma up as it seems our lady friends are rather concerned about such things. I don’t have the scientific data in front of me, but I believe it was brought up a few times (maybe not all of them correctly). Let’s see where everyone in our mixed-up universe is this week.

Karen: Am I alone in feeling like, along with her haircut, Karen seems to have a whole new personality this season? We see her trying to pitch new proposals to that mean book agent, but Babs is not having it. She wants Karen to go on a popular podcast called “Love Chat” with a host who is even “bigger than Marc Maron” and Karen’s face is all what the hell is a podcast. Apparently this Jason Hughes fellow is called a “shock jock” for podcasts — which I wasn’t aware was a thing. But… there you have. Even Joss has heard of him!

So Karen goes to do the show, which is confusingly held in a bedroom with a giant mural of Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes on the wall. Jason Hughes looks like a jerk, tells Karen that he loves the book, and then goes on air and totally destroys her. It was hard to follow, quite honestly, but it was all about setting the “women’s movement” back and creating a “zombie tribe of whores who spread their legs for every Tom, Dick, and hooker-loving Harry.” How this has to do with her time as a thrupple is beyond me, and maybe Karen too because she goes mute.

Later she returns to her office (where they’re shoving a new wacky assistant character at us for reasons unknown) and surprise! Jason Hughes is in there waiting for her. Her “downloads” were huge, like, bigger than “the hot robot from Ex-Machina,” which I believe is Alicia Vikander. (Damn dude, that’s an Oscar winner — show some respect.) He asks her to come back on. She says no.

But later, out for a hike with Joss (who wears a Namaste tank top about which I could write so much more but we’re delayed enough), Karen is forced to rethink this position. That’s because Joss gives a sort of inspirational Lean In talk about not letting men win. She references her trainer in passing, and I wonder why we aren’t following up on that plotline. Another week, I guess.

So Karen goes back on and tells Jason Hughes a thing or three about being tired of men and their garbage. She feels good and energized, but it all backfires because Babs now hates her… again for reasons I don’t totally understand. She lets Karen go as a client and — while Karen parts from her with the burn, “In order for your soul to be compromised you need to have one” — she still gets drunk and weepy about what it all means and where her life is going. She takes a little nap at the office to sober up and when she gets home, she is surprised by someone in her hallway. Who could it be? I’m guessing… Dr. Alec? Or Jerry O’Manny? But we’ll have to wait till next week to find out.

Joss and Harry: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — I don’t want this show messing with the Joss and Harry romance. They seem to keep trying though! This week it’s a mess when Joss and Harry go out on a double date with Jonathan and his (very young) wife. Joss starts talking about doing PR for the restaurant and when they get home Harry is mad. He feels it’s unseemly that Joss was selling herself to do the job but Joss, rightly, was like well hey, why didn’t you ask me to? Harry has read some study that people in love shouldn’t work together, and he doesn’t want to do it. She gets furious and is like, when did you decide this? She stomps off, and he feels right because they’re already fighting.

In the morning, she makes her case while wearing just a towel, proving she’s the smartest one on this damn show. She has a list and presents why they can be great together and etc and etc and it turns out that Harry talked to Jonathan the night before and had already decided to give her the job. She ignores the annoying fact that he is making decisions again without her, and they make out.

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She wants to write a cute puff piece about him on his new website, so she asks him to her office. He obliges by telling a rather adorable story about making spaghetti and ketchup when he was just 7 years old. The chemistry between these two is undeniable, which furthers my feeling that Mistresses should figure out other ways to have drama elsewhere.

When Harry sees the finished piece on the site, however, he is less than thrilled. He is furious that Joss embellished facts from his past. They argue, and he tells her (as she originally argued) that he is the boss and he wants her to take it down. She gets mad, smashes the counter like the hulk that we know she is, and runs out. Man, let’s get to Joss’ rage already! Anyway, this is all much ado about nothing because Jonathan tells Harry to take it down a thousand and to lighten up. Was it just me, or were we supposed to think that Jonathan was evil and now he seems super nice? Sigh. He sends a Ducati over to their house, and I’ll say this now with all of you as my witnesses: If Harry gets into a motorcycle accident at any point this season, that will be it! IT I SAY.

NEXT: A teachable moment!

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Kate: I feel like the show is trying a little hard with Kate and I don’t think they need to. Her accent is cute enough! But her personality is all over the place — first she came to have casual sex with a Latino guy and now she’s Miss Judgey Judgerson.

She’s made friends with Randy, the nice man who makes a great cappuccino at April’s store, but when she walks into the storage closet and sees him getting busy with a married guy, she lets him have it about cheating and blah blah blah. She uses, as an example, some random hot guy she met at a taco truck who was married (but separated!), so she didn’t follow up. Randy tells her to check her attitude (correct) because with it, those girls will never let her into the clique.

But then, it turns out, Randy’s married boyfriend broke up with him. And Randy — ”enjoy your soapbox, my little kangaroo” — tells her a thing or three. Like how he’s been single for 10 years and how he wants everything she wants, like a nice guy and a family and it’s rough as hell out there and she can’t think she’ll just keep meeting hot taco truck guys. And to this I say, Sing it Randy!

She takes this advice so to heart that when “Taco Guy” (come on) calls her, she picks up. I can’t wait to see this guy.

And now, I’m afraid, we must get to April’s story line. She’s all worried about telling Marc about Michael kissing her and decides instead to bend the truth and tell him she got fired. This would be fine except she’s a terrible liar. And somehow Marc thinks the totally appropriate thing to do is to drive out to Michael’s house and yell at him for firing April. Sigh. We’re talking full on Three’s Company misunderstanding as Michael, of course, assumes Marc is talking about the kiss and when he says as much Marc punches him in the face. It’s the angriest I’ve ever seen anyone wearing a violet-colored hoodie ever look.

When he gets home he’s all mad at April for not telling him. Somehow, in the midst of this, she gets mad because she hates macho crap and she brings up Richard. Does anyone remember Richard? I sure don’t. She storms off.

She drives over to Michael’s house. Does anyone own a telephone in this town? Michael has a mean shiner, but he surprises April when he tells her the whole thing wasn’t totally unpleasant. He comes clean: He’s transgender. He tells April he didn’t want to tell her because he was enjoying his first authentic relationship as a man. He tells her a little bit about his backstory and about his relationship with Teresa, his ex, before and after transitioning. He very sincerely tells April that he hopes he didn’t ruin anything for her with Marc.

She’s definitely taken aback and, my guess, is it’s because she doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that she was most definitely attracted to Michael. She talks to Kate about it, who feeds her some idea that she was bonding with Michael on an unconscious female sisterhood thing and what? I have no idea. Somehow Kate convinces her that this means she definitely doesn’t have to feel bad about the kiss and maybe this is the best thing ever. Kate: judgy AND gives terrible advice!

April runs home to Marc and is all, guess what: Michael is transgender so you don’t need to worry. Marc, much more rationally, is like, Isn’t it still an issue? And she throws his ex-girlfriend in his face and that is confusing, and I think I hate April and Marc together.

She goes back to Michael’s house and tells him, good news! She can be his designer. Michael, sweetly, says he doesn’t want to ruffle any feathers even more. And April puts her foot in her mouth a million different ways including saying things like, “Oh, no, of course he’s not threatened anymore.” And then Michael, thank the lord, gets mad. What does she mean “of course”? And, furthermore, he calls BS on April not being attracted to him which, good for him. She says she could never date someone transgender, and he kicks her out of the house. This story line better end up with April and Michael together, or it’s going to be really very enraging.

Number of Savi references: 1.

Best Lines:

“You aren’t running for president. You are a celebrity chef who has never done cocaine.” —Jonathan

“I’ve had a husband die twice and fell in love with a painter who turned out to be an FBI agent. It takes a lot to surprise me.” —April, right before getting surprised

“It’s like Photoshop with words.” Joss, defending embellishing Harry’s background.