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“Heading Out” recap (Ep. 3): L’amour et de l’insecurite

In Episode Trois of Heading Out, we really start to dig into Sara’s deep neuroses, to satisfying but often frustrating degrees. There’s also a lot of French going on, to satisfying but often frustrating degrees.

We begin in Sara’s living room, where Jamie’s reading a book and Justine’s watching a quiz show on the telly – she’s sold her own TV “to save for a new DVD player” – and guessing “Dick Francis” for every answer. She assures Sara that it’ll be the right answer someday; it’s just a matter of waiting. Justine is the best. Short aside: This reminds me of when I used to frequently play Cranium with some friends, like more than most normal people play Cranium, and every time we had to sculpt something out of that purple clay one of our friends would yell, “Clay!,” very seriously, and to this day, we still randomly shout, “One day it will be clay!” One day it will be Dick Francis! Never give up, Justine! Justine also tells Sara that she missed a call from one of her ex-girlfriends earlier, but she can’t remember her name. Sara rattles off a number of ridiculous choices it could be until Justine mentions that she sounded French. “Oh no, that’s Sabine!” A second later, she’s pounding on the door.

Sabine is an archetype of a French crazy lady, and after tossing aside the pillow that Sara’s hiding under, she immediately begins to yell about Sara’s frigidity, her fear of intimacy. The shouts increase until the camera blends into a black and white, gauzy filter, while romantic, loopy accordion music plays in the background. We have faded into an all-French noir film a la the Sherlock sequence at the end of the last episode, which continue throughout the rest of the episode. I like these hokey devices, and hope they keep them up. Sabine bemoans the sexless English language; Sara admits she’s sort of afraid of clowns. Justine breaks them out of the French repartee by announcing, in French, “OK, I have no idea what you’re saying.” A half a second later her face crumples and she cries, “But it’s just so beautiful!” Let’s be honest, at this point I’d be OK with an entire show just based around Justine. Much to Sara’s consternation, Sabine weasels her way into staying at Sara’s house for a few days, as she needs a place to stay while she’s in town for a dear friend’s funeral.

We move swiftly on to another session with Toria, which starts with Toria using one of her plentiful dildos to knock over what appears to be a set of Jenga tiles, symbolizing the crash of Sara coming out to her parents. When Sara asks if the penis isn’t a bit counterproductive in this argument, Toria says, “Ah yes, good point!” And brings out this to use instead: Like every good life coach, she also then brings out a bongo to drum out Sara’s feelings. Sara drums out, “Piss off.” Toria welcomes the emotion! She explains that it’s there, she just needs to express it – like Jamie! Who’s also hanging out during this session. Sara needs to get in touch with her emotions, just like Jamie’s in tune with his “feminine side.” Cue the beginning of an insecurity attack from Jamie all episode. Sara does admit, however, that she’s quite shy, and if she had to show someone she liked them, she’d probably cook for them. Which is cute! See Sara, you can be cute! I’d eat your crumble! Wait, that sounded strange. Afterwards, Sara returns to her house to find this. The next day at work, Sara asks Daniel if he thinks she’s repressed. Without batting an eyelash, he replies that she’s the most repressed person he’s ever met. This quote follows: “You’re repressed, pent up, awkward, weird, neurotic, and you annoy the hell out of me. Why?” Friends, amIright? She shakes her head and walks into an exam room, where – there she is! – Eve’s face is waiting for her, shiny and smiling and perfect as ever. It appears they have run her dog through every possible procedure they could think of, which leads them to a crossroads, a hump they have to jump over to progress from vet office flirting to an actual relationship. Eve is clearly ready to take that leap, and stands up, taking Sara’s hand. Sara clearly takes this as a clue to blush and stutter something about needing to tend to a nervous gerbil, and runs away. Eve sighs. As do we all.

Sara goes to Daniel for advice, presumably because he’s apparently the only other human in the vicinity. She really likes this girl, and needs more confidence. “That’s easy,” he says, and proceeds to imitate what he does for “sexy sexy times,” which is drink some sort of drug addled concoction and convulse like a deranged chipmunk. “Only for about 90 seconds, though. Then your legs give out.” As opposed to the chicken dance number from last week, this bit of physical comedy actual worked for me, a lot of credit for which probably goes to Steve Oram himself.

Once Sara returns to the room, however, where Eve is still waiting to settle her bill, somehow Sabine has shown up and, at that very moment, is filling Eve in on how Sara sounds like an owl when she’s having sex. After she gets rid of Sabine, Sara gathers herself up enough to ask Eve out for drinks. But at this point for Eve, it’s too little too late, and Sara gets rejected. Womp womp.

Back at home, Sabine is cooking French things and has dressed up Sara’s dog like this: But in less ridiculous news, she also speaks this truth: “She is nice, that one. She likes you. But you will blow it with your sad Englishness!” At least I think she says Englishness. It can be hard to make out some things through the French haze. But either way, this is true. Although hopefully she won’t actually blow it? Sabine also then ropes her into going to her friend’s funeral with her, which she does because she is still working very hard on growing a spine, and Sara ends up having to speak at the funeral because Sabine is too destroyed by her grief or something, and then she invites people back to Sara’s house for a wake and on and on but I’m sort of over Sabine at this point because we get it. Let’s get back to Eve. Also, I miss Justine. And wait, wasn’t Anna Skellern supposed to show up in this episode?

Sara does, however, make a phone call to Eve at the end of the funeral begging for forgiveness for her awkwardness at the vet office, and explaining that her faltering, insecure love is sort of like a crumble in the oven, or something, a metaphor which doesn’t quite work but somehow still sounds sincere and somewhat adorable so maybe it does actually work.

At the wake, Jamie and Daniel’s manly bromance which has also been going on during this episode reaches its demise, as Jamie realizes he can still be OCD and in touch with his “feminine side” and be just fine. Phew. Sara also finally reaches a tipping point with Sabine that involves lots of shouting and anger. Sabine is pumped! How wonderful! Let it all out! What else do you have to say, Sara?! And she says this: “You are fun, and open, and you love life! And I hate you for it.” Sara continues this string of brave honesty by showing up to Eve’s house, even though it doesn’t appear that she’s returned her call. When she rings the bell, however, this beauty shows up at the door instead: Sara stutters that she must have the wrong house; Anna Skellern assures her that she doesn’t, and turns to yell into the house. “Darling!” She calls. Sara’s face collapses. Sara and Anna Skellern descend into a painfully awkward silence as Sara’s heart is breaking too much to say anything charmingly witty, and Anna Skellern finally says she’ll run and get Eve herself. At which Sara promptly turns around and legit runs away. Like, she literally runs. Of course, a moment later, Eve shows up, to stare at an empty walk. Oh, Sara! Anna Skellern was probably just saying “Darling” in the way of, “I love you, roomie!” Or, “I love you, sis!” Or, “I just like to use really warm language!” You saw the way Eve’s been flirting with you! Don’t run away! She’s waiting for you with a casually beautiful side braid and her shirt HANGING OFF HER SHOULDER. OFF HER SHOULDER! HER BARE NECK IS WAITING FOR YOU!

Do you think Sara will grow the balls she needs to get her back? And even more pressing, how badly do we all want to live in the house that Anna Skellern and Shelley Conn share?

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