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“Chasing Life” recap (2.10): Rewritten Memories

Previously on Chasing Life, April tried ecstasy to try to get out of her post-widowing depression, Beth reached her limit with April’s erratic behavior and the two got into a fight, and April talked to Natalie and realizes that Doctor Uncle George might not have been telling them the whole truth about their father.

We open with April giving George the third degree. She tells her uncle straight out that she talked to Natalie about what he said about Natalie’s mom wanting to get back together with their dad, but now April knows that isn’t true. George plays dumb, poorly, and April starts to get frustrated. Especially when George suggests maybe Thomas’s weirdness in that last year of his life was about his novel, which he previously claimed to know nothing about.

April goes to Natalie with tales of these shenanigans and Natalie isn’t surprised. She IS the secret child, after all. She’s been part of a mystery her whole life, of course she’s the first to pick up the Harriet the Spy notebook and sniff out clues. Brenna is taping this whole interaction, and when she interjects to offer potential explanations for George’s squirreliness, April suggests the documentary filmmaker not interject.

Brenna has a question, but she’s afraid to ask it in case April gets angry. April makes her shut the camera off but lets her ask it. The question is simply whether or not April is sure George definitely said he didn’t know Thomas was writing a book. She has been wandering around in kind of a fugue state for a hot minute. The girls shoot around some theories and decide that there must be ANOTHER secret family somewhere, because there is one character in the manuscript they can’t attribute to a real person. This line of thought is a little too Spencer Hastings for Brenna and she tells them to send her a fruit cake and call her on a bananaphone when they’re admitted to Radley.

The mystery solving is put on hold when Beth shows up, having trekked through the snow to try to patch things up with April. April is unfazed by her arrival and shrugs off their fight, so Beth starts to leave, but Sara won’t let her go back out into the snowstorm.

April, back on the case, asks Uncle George for the manuscript back, but he says he didn’t finish it and will mail it. April’s ready to accept that answer, but Natalie watches Criminal Minds and probes further. Sara makes them drop it, though, and sends April upstairs to look for a board game the family can play. (Scattergories gets VERY competitive in my family.)

All the board games end up being wet, and April finds a broken snow globe in the box. This triggers a memory of the last time she saw her father. He gave her that snowglobe of Boston to remember when she moved out.

He was on his way to Baltimore and before he leaves, she tells him that he better be back for his birthday because he’s a great dad and she wants to celebrate him. He gets teary and gives her an extra long hug goodbye.

Sara comes in the room and interrupts April’s trip down memory lane, blaming Emma for all the missing board games. April brings up her snow globe memory, and tells Sara that she thinks he knew it was the last goodbye; he cried right there in front of her and didn’t make one single dad joke. Sara shrinks her a little and says memory is tricky, and when April asks about Baltimore, Sara thinks she’s making a mountain out of a molehill to distract herself from her pain.

When they get downstairs, Natalie wants to grill George, but April wants to take her mother’s advice and drop it. Besides, George is literally on his way out the door to fly back to California. Except he’s not, because his flight got cancelled, which Natalie takes as a sign that this conversation was meant to happen.

They’re all snowed in and things are about to get real like that one time everyone got locked in the library on One Tree Hill and so many feelings spilled out that everyone started to sing.

The Carver Clan et al start off the night with a game of Celebrity, which Beth and Brenna OWN. They decide that if they play another round, they have to break up the Dynamic Duo.

Sara, Beth and April go into the kitchen to write celebrity names, and Natalie eventually follows George in, and the girls stare at him as though trying to read his mind. George tells them to just ask their question and April asks for the manuscript again. This time, his excuse is that it’s super buried and he has s’mores so who wants to read anyway?

April excuses herself to take her meds, and Brenna follows with her camera.

She gets some really depressing footage of April talking like she’s living on borrowed time, and Brenna reminds April that it’s thanks to George she even has any time at all. April doesn’t care, she hates being lied to.

Sara comes upstairs and steals April away (why not Brenna, too?) and tells her that she does have a secret that proves there’s no second secret family. One she shares via flashback. Right after April moved out, her father would come home late, stumbling around and slurring his words. It happened so often that Sara sent him to rehab, in Baltimore, but he only stayed a week and Sara doesn’t think it helped. April asks why she never told them that, and Sara says she didn’t want to ruin her daughters’ memories of their father.

Downstairs, Beth is feeling the family drama building and tries to extricate herself to avoid becoming collateral damage, but the snow is blocking the doorway, so she’s stuck. Brenna tells her that she’s part of the family, anyway. In fact, her words are, “You’re my sister, get used to it.” Beth calls her a good egg and hugs her hard enough to scramble her.

April tells Natalie about the alcoholism, saying it’s enough to quit the investigation, but she already gave the mouse a cookie, and Natalie can’t just quit now. Natalie calls out to the vicious journalist deep inside April and says they have to look for the manuscript.

Of course, they get busted with April knee-deep in George’s suitcase. She’s not sorry though; she’s looking for the truth and will continue to do so until she gets it, one way or another. George said he did it to protect the family, but before he can elaborate, a tree dives through the window to join the fun.

May got some GLASS IN HER ARM so after George patches her up, she takes a shot of tequila and goes to bed. Beth and April clean up the glass and board up the window and April takes this time to finally ask how Beth’s life is going. Beth admits, kind of sheepishly, that it’s going really well, especially with her new boytoy Josh. April is genuinely happy her best friend is happy, even if things are weird between them right now.

Natalie and April get back to clue-mongering and this time, Brenna jumps in, too. She wonders if maybe Sara and George got together WHILE Thomas was still alive and married to Sara, not just before and after. They consider suicide upon finding out his wife was cheating on him with his brother, but Uncle George was driving the car the night he died, so that couldn’t be it…unless, of course, he’s been lying all this time.

When they go downstairs, they find an empty bottle of tequila and a very drunk Beth performing marshmallow theatre for Sara and George.

April warns her that when she gets this drunk she makes bad technological decisions, so Beth decides not to ruin her pre-love and goes to bed. Now that it’s just the immediate family, April calls a family meeting to order. It’s time to open Pandora’s box.

Here are the facts:

  • Sara and George never cheated while Sara was married to Thomas
  • Thomas was not having an affair
  • Thomas was dying, diagnosed with the incurable ALS
  • He didn’t go to Baltimore for research, rehab, or another secret family; it was a clinic
  • Thomas wanted to die on his own terms
  • George wanted him to take every second with his family he had left

So right before Thomas turned 55, aka when his insurance would have to be renewed and would end up getting rejected because of his disease, Thomas wrapped his car around a tree on purpose, despite George’s best efforts to stop it.

George had been following in his own car, and when he saw Thomas crash, he ran to him, and found his brother broken and bleeding. He held him until he died, hid the car, rolled around in the glass and dirt, moved Thomas to the passenger seat, smashed the window on that side, THEN reported the accident. He’s been trying to put it behind him, which is why he’s been so squirrely under the girls’ interrogation. Sara asks why he lied for Thomas all these years, and George answers simply that he would have done anything for his big brother.

Natalie points out that leaving him there to die without calling for help was essentially murder, and George says he knew but he also knew Thomas wanted his family to have the insurance money. But Natalie says her family never saw any money. Brenna is worried that George will go to prison for murder and insurance fraud, and George says this is one of the reasons he never told anyone. He’s been carrying this burden of a secret for years, but now the burden is all of theirs.

In the morning, the literal storm has passed, but the emotional storm rages on, leaving everyone looking so, so sad.

April hallucinates her dad, a bittersweet throwback to Season 1, and still slightly worrisome.

Beth calls April and thanks her for letting her crash and not letting her use her phone after drinking enough tequila to kill a horse, and April says out loud that she’s glad Beth made it home safely but also her voice says she’s happy to have her best friend back, too. When Beth doesn’t respond, April asks what’s wrong, and Beth stands in the middle of her half-empty apartment and says that Natalie is gone.

What did you think of “Bottle of Secrets”?

Here are some of our favorite #ChasingLesbians tweets from this week:

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