Somebody Somewhere Recap: The Joel Anderson Effect

Thanksgiving TV episodes are the best. Typically, stress levels are high, inhibitions are low (thank you, heavy pours), and unlikely characters are interacting with each other. In many shows, it’s a recipe for explosive drama. In others, it’s a heartwarming reminder of why you love spending time with these people. Sometimes it’s both! Somebody Somewhere’s addition to the Thanksgiving TV tradition is about as lovely as you’d expect from a show like this. It also serves as the perfect example at how deftly season three has been able to keep its warmth and joy and top-tier jokes while also giving its characters some truly meaty emotional development. In short: Somebody Somewhere rules and this year, I am so grateful it exists. Should we dive into some “Num Nums?” And also some num nums?

After Joel finally expressed his desire to make more time for his friends last week, it’s nice to see that he and Brad are hosting all of Joel’s buddies for Thanksgiving dinner. In a fun turn, Tricia joins the group after her daughter Shannon decides to spend the holiday with her father. Tricia is livid. “If he feeds her a fucking TV dinner, I will rip his fucking dick off,” she tells Sam, and you know what? I believe her. Obviously, Tricia’s anger is coming from a place of hurt that her daughter would choose Rick over her and tagging along with her sister for dinner isn’t what she hoped for, but honestly, she winds up having my ideal Thanksgiving: Start off in a terrible mood, get wine drunk, be moved to tears, eat good food, fall asleep in the car ride home. A perfect holiday, by all accounts.

For the most part, this Friendsgiving is a success. Everyone’s happy to be together, Tiffany and Irma’s secret love affair is outed, and Sam gives one of the all-time great prayers/toasts that, yes, includes mention of how she’s going to fuck up some crescent rolls. Praise be! There is one downer moment, however, and that — not surprisingly — comes courtesy of Susan, who refuses to read a room.

Now that Joel has changed Brad’s mind on having more pictures of people they love around the house, the Thanksgiving guests notice a picture hanging on the wall of a young Brad with his two sons when they were kids. Most of our Somebody Somewhere friends are surprised to learn that Brad was married before, and not only is he a dad, but a grandfather. It’s clearly a touchy, emotional subject for Brad since he doesn’t have much of a relationship with his sons, but that doesn’t stop Susan from asking him for all the details over dinner. Brad is too sweet not to answer and I cannot believe someone doesn’t just fling one of those crescent rolls in her face. She’d probably run screaming from the carbs. (Although Susan doesn’t much seem to mind the Pinot grigio carbs piling up in her glass, does she?) He tells them about Amy, his wife, who he married right after high school. They were best friends, but he still refused to accept who he really was. Finally, he came out, they divorced, and she didn’t allow him much time to be in his sons’ lives. Up in arms, Susan declares that “love is love” and people like Brad’s wife are horrible, but he tries to explain to the table that there is more nuance to the situation. He still loves Amy and can’t fault her for not accepting him when he hasn’t accepted himself for a long time, either. To Brad, it’s a matter of her not seeing the world the same way he does. Perhaps he’s giving her too much grace, but you also have to imagine there’s a lot of heartbreak and anger baked into Amy’s post-divorce actions. Regardless, the entire scene is once again another example of Tim Bagley’s knockout performance this season. From SLS to this? Incredible.

The tricky conversation also allows the rest of the friends to remind Brad of how much he is loved at this table. “Brad, I just think you are the sweetest thing. And I’m so glad you found your person,” Tricia tells Brad before thanking everyone for including her at dinner. Don’t worry; after Tricia emphatically raises a glass to “love is love,” Sam is quick to point out that this is not the Tricia of just a few years ago (and we are grateful for it). By the time Fred points out that they’re a family, everyone is getting a little emo.

And also drunk. Susan and Tricia get so very drunk. It’s okay, it gives Sam and Joel time at the end of the dinner to chat. A lot of this chat includes dunking on Susan for being the worst (and being in disbelief that Fred can’t see the chaos she wreaked upon dinner). But it also includes some lovely friendship moments. And while Sam telling Joel that she now understands his willingness to give up being a father for Brad — “it’s all part of loving someone” — and making sure he knows how happy he makes other people is all wonderful, the bit that stuck out most to me is the moment when Joel finds out Sam almost bought a dog. When she tells him how she lost Pepper, he tells her, “You should try again,” without any hesitation. And isn’t that the crux of so many of Sam’s issues? If she fails or has a setback, she gives up. And isn’t that part of what makes this friendship so special? That Joel knows exactly what Sam needs?

So maybe there really is something to what Sam now refers to as “the Joel Anderson Effect,” because after the conversation, with Tricia passed out in the seat next to her, Sam decides to be brave. Sam decides to try. She drives up to the farm to give Iceland Thanksgiving leftovers. “You gotta have turkey on Thanksgiving,” she tells him. Instead of walking away after that, she goes for it. Well, she goes for it in her own way. She asks him if he ever drinks beer with anyone aside from his bar buddy Jerry — it’s a Sam way of wondering if he would want to get a beer with her sometime. He responds in a very Iceland way: “No.” But before he can get even another word out, Sam takes it as a rejection and hops back into her car. Once again, Somebody Somewhere forces us to sit through Sam crying! I can’t take it anymore! But she can’t help it — exactly what she feared would happen happened. She put herself out there like everyone was pushing her to do and she was rejected.

Except, as it turns out, she wasn’t rejected at all. After a night taking care of her drunk sister with piggyback rides from the car to the house and lulling her to sleep with an impromptu performance of Charlene’s “I’ve Never Been to Me,” Iceland is waiting outside Sam’s house when she returns the next morning. She didn’t give him time to finish his thought. He didn’t want to assume that she would want to drink beer with him. “Well, I did,” she responds (okay, Sam, get after it!). “I would like to drink a beer with you,” he tells her. The smile on her face! The smile on my face! The whole thing is so freaking awkward and cute, I can hardly stand it. No one tell Tricia about it because she would flip the fuck out (in the best way). Friends, maybe what I am most grateful for this Thanksgiving is that we’ve got a date on the books for our girl, Sam Miller.

Tender Moments

• If only the Joel Anderson Effect worked on Joel Anderson. While he agrees with Sam when she talks about compromising for love, later that evening, we find him alone in the kitchen and he suddenly bursts into tears. Joel might need more from his relationship, from his life, than he’s admitting to Brad.

• Sam’s host gift for Joel is a bag full of magnets on which she’s drawn stick figures in various sex positions. Somebody Somewhere should sell these in a bundle with the cunt pillows. They’d make a fortune!

• Okay, you knew Sam was going to give a perfect Thanksgiving prayer/toast when she kicked it off with “Jesus … that’s his name, right?”

• Sam, when Fred says something sweet that makes Tricia get emotional: “The only person allowed to make us cry on Thanksgiving is our mother, thank you.”