A Million Little Things recap: The quest for Colin
We kick things off on this week’s episode of A Million Little Things with Maggie and Gary walking Gary’s dog, Colin. Don’t you love when a dog has a human name? Anyway, when Gary asks, Maggie tells him she was at her old apartment playing piano the night before. At this point, Gary heads into the apartment to pee and Maggie gets a call from Eric. While she chats with him she lets Colin off the leash. Eric’s explaining that he tracked down sheet music for the Oasis song she was looking for and asks why she didn’t come to the open mic, mentioning that he saw Gary there. Maggie hangs up to go and explain to Gary but when she gets upstairs, they both realize Colin isn’t with the other. It’s pretty much Maggie’s fault but Gary’s being nice about it until she mentions being on the phone with Eric when it happened.
Gary calls Eddie to ask him to come and help look for the dog, but Eddie is busy babysitting Charlie. Luckily, Katherine is a saint and comes over to look after her husband’s baby with another woman so he can go and be part of the dog search. When Rome, Gina, and P.J. (who is hanging out with Rome asking questions about his maybe-dad Jon) show up to help too, Gary is a little overcome with all their support. Sophie appears too and P.J. has to pretend to not recognize her from that time he broke into the Dixon family home and saw all their pics.
While everyone else searches for Colin, Delilah goes to record a podcast about life after her husband’s suicide. She tells the podcast host that she still blames herself for Jon’s death and doesn’t think that’ll ever go away. The host then brings up her pregnancy and asks if Jon knew he was going to be a father again when he died. D is thrown by the question but manages to just give a simple “no.” Later, however, she breaks down and Andrew — whom she brought along for support — hugs her. Driving home together after, she tells him she wants to own her mistakes but needs to protect the kids, so she won’t tell them that Eddie is Charlie’s dad. Andrew admits that he’s told some lies too. As it turns out, his wife isn’t dead after all!! But she is in a coma. He tells D that his wife wasn’t feeling well at bedtime one night and in the morning she didn’t wake up. She had a stroke and has been comatose since. One neurologist mentioned to Andrew that she had a 1 percent chance of waking up and he’s lived inside of that 1 percent ever since, keeping her alive on life support. He doesn’t expect anyone to understand so he lies about it. It’s lying that gets him through the day. Delilah gets it; she lies so her kids can get through their day. Elsewhere, Katherine takes Charlie to the park and randomly opens up to a stranger about her unconventional relationship with the baby. The startled woman dips pretty quickly, but Katherine tells Charlie that neither of them should let anyone judge them because they’ve done nothing wrong.
Alright, back to the Colin quest! Gary is clearly mad at Maggie for losing his dog, telling Eddie: “She didn’t not have something to do with it” — which, fair. Just then, they get pulled over by the cops for running a stop sign and Eddie sweet-talks the fellow dog-owning cop out of giving them a ticket. After, he tells Gary he was doing what Jon would’ve done. Back at the apartment, Maggie is feeling really bad when Eric comes to the door. He talks to her about forgiving herself, which he has some experience with considering he blames himself for his fiancée’s death. Of course, Gary comes back to the apartment right at that moment and is irked. Eric leaves and Gary tells Maggie he’s upset she’s hiding Eric’s presence in her life from him. He loses it and yells at Maggie that he thought her mom trying to replace her brother with a complete stranger was the most pathetic thing he’d ever seen until he saw Maggie do it too. Clearly very upset, Mags tells him she’s sorry she lost his dog, but not to make her want to leave too. To be fair, it’s not that Colin wanted to leave, but whatever… Later, Eric leaves Maggie a voicemail apologizing. He tells her one of his biggest mistakes was messing things up for her and it’s probably better if he’s not involved in her life anymore. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, poor Jason Ritter/Eric!!
Having split into groups, the teens and Rome and Gina are still pounding the pavement when they come across some bikes and decide riding around would be a faster way of covering ground. Of course, there are only two bikes available so the teens grab them and head off together. Rome is mad since he doesn’t want P.J. to get too close to his maybe-half-sister Sophie until they know the truth about his parentage. Gina thinks they’re cute together. P.J.’s dad then randomly shows up and P.J. pretends Sophie is his girlfriend to deflect any other questions — I guess it’s easier than explaining that she might be his half-sister. P.J. grabs Sophie’s hand to prove it and explains to Sophie that his dad is super embarrassing. She mentions her dad, who she says was perfect on the surface, but underneath it all was in a lot of pain. P.J. can relate.
Back in the car, Eddie gets a call about a dog at a shelter and he and Gary rush over there only to discover on arrival that it’s not Colin. Gary is really getting upset now and shares with Eddie that he’s scared he’s losing Maggie too. He remembers when she told him that part of him needing to save her life was because he couldn’t save Jon’s. He’s worried that now that he’s not saving her life, she doesn’t need him. Eddie says it’s never too late to redefine a relationship — he should know. They go to leave and Eddie finds a year-old flier for Colin. Remember back in season 1 Gary actually found Colin on the street and adopted him? Well, turns out someone’s been looking for him all this time. Eddie’s about to tell Gary the truth when Rome calls to tell them they found Colin. P.J. had overheard him barking from the garbage chute and they all ran down to find Colin in the basement all along. As a reward, P.J. gets Sophie’s number and Rome is so perturbed that he blurts out the truth to Gina that P.J. might be Jon’s son.
It’s an emotional reunion complete with a grateful speech from Gary, thanking them all. He tells them he loves them all but looks at Maggie. Eddie can’t bring himself to tell his friend Colin’s true identity so he tells Maggie instead and she realizes it’s her responsibility to tell Gary. But when she goes to tell him, he asks if he can speak first. He tells her what he said earlier was unforgivable but asks her to please forgive him anyway. She apologizes too and Gary suggests forgetting everything that happened that day and just going back to normal. Maggie shows him the flier from a year ago and Gary is devastated. Colin lives here, he tells her. He walks off muttering about it being unfair.
After stopping by the hospital with Andrew to visit his wife, D gets home to find Katherine with Charlie. She thanks her and gives Katherine a Scotch set that Jon left her. Katherine explains that sometimes after a long day, she’d stop by Jon’s office to drink and share because she didn’t want to drink in front of Eddie (since he’s a recovering alcoholic). Katherine has the realization that Jon isn’t there with them anymore because he couldn’t share who he was and kept secrets from them all. She wonders if they’re making a huge mistake by keeping Charlie’s parentage from the rest of the kids. She thinks it’s time to tell them and by the looks of D’s reaction, she does not agree.
Looks like next week’s episode should be a lot of fun for Eddie! Until then.
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