A Million Little Things recap: Happy holidays and here's some bad news!
It’s Christmas in the land of A Million Little Things so that means there’s tree shopping, decorating and a million new little (but not really little at all) problems to deal with. Let’s get right into it, shall we?
Over at Katherine’s place, she and Theo are sewing his Superman costume together. Not sure the relevance of that costume at this time of year, but whatever. Theo accuses Katherine of being Santa Claus and she has half a second to look sad over the loss of her son’s innocence before Eddie shows up early to take Theo tree shopping. Classic, Eddie.
Gary arrives at the Dixons’ house trying really hard to be in a good mood after last week’s outburst. He’s wearing an ugly holiday sweater and Delilah wants to take a pic, but pregnancy brain is making her forgetful and she can’t remember where she left her phone. Gary thinks she needs to tell the kids about the baby soon, but she doesn’t want to do it at Christmas. So they head off and meet up with the rest of the gang to pick out a tree and, of course, D slips on some ice, prompting everyone who’s aware she’s pregnant to freak out while her kids grow confused and curious.
The gang gets to decorating and Sophie finds Jon’s Santa suit because of course, Jon dressed up as Santa every year. Upset, she walks out and Eddie goes after her to try to talk about it. He goes for the “talk about my own sadness about missing Christmas with my son because I’m going on tour” tactic to try and get Soph to open up, but she sees through it and they decide to play some music together instead.
Gary’s trying really hard to enjoy the festivities, but he flashes back to Jon putting the angel on top of the tree a previous year and walks out to go have a sad moment in Jon’s office…where Ashley just happens to be having a hushed convo with someone named Donnie about not “doing this to the Dixons at Christmas.” Gary doesn’t take much notice of her call and instead wants to know why Jon killed himself. Now it’s Ashley’s turn to flashback and we see her witness Jon on a tense call, yelling at someone about “having the votes.” In the present, Ash asks Gary if it would make it easier for him if he knew why Jon killed himself. Gary thinks it would, but instead of sharing any of the many details she seems to know, Ashley just tells him to suck it up and make sure the Dixons have a good Christmas. She then leaves to go talk to that Donnie chap she was on the phone with earlier.
Under the pretense of getting more decorations, Gina lures Rome to the garage and tries to resume their bedroom antics from that morning. Rome pulls away and has to come clean about his lack of sex drive. She’s clearly upset, but he assures her it’s not her. He’s not sure if it’s the pills or because he’s not feeling like himself. You see, he feels emasculated by the fact she’s taking care of him not the other way round. Eye roll.
Back inside, Maggie arrives and after an awkward moment ignoring some mistletoe near Gary, Delilah sends her and her ex off to buy more lights together in Gary’s new car. Let’s rename her Subtle-D. Though she’s had her first round of treatment, Maggie’s not telling anyone about her chemo until she sees how she responds so as not to give anyone false hope. On the way to buy lights, she and Gary ride in strained silence, but once they get there they break the ice with mutual outrage at the couple in front of them in line who employed some sneaky spot-saving tactics. Gary and Maggie drop the cancer bomb when the lady in front of them makes an excuse about feeling under the weather. Unsurprisingly, the cancer card wins and they get to move ahead. After all that cancer bonding, they’re much friendlier in the car on the way back — Maggie even feeds Gary brittle. He then asks her if they can be friends. Maggie thinks they can, but then she finds a woman’s scarf in his car. Gary makes a joke about sleeping with his elderly neighbor and Maggie puts on the scarf so that someone can recognize it as Ashley’s later. (Recap continues on page 2.)
While they’re gone, D is serving up some cookies when she gets cramps in her stomach. She’s also been spotting so, considering her earlier fall, she and Eddie decide to take a quick trip to the hospital to have her checked out. They make an excuse about needing to go buy some sparkling apple cider and head out. It’s not the most convincing of excuses, though, and Sophie soon checks the tracking app on her phone and realizes her mom is at the emergency room. She sneaks out to go see what’s wrong. Rome and Gina get the award for worst babysitters ever since they don’t notice she’s missing.
At the hospital, Eddie tells D a story about missing Theo’s birth because of his drinking. He’s happy he has a chance to do it right this time, even if no one else knows he’s the father — for now anyway. The doc takes a look and tells them everything’s fine and then Sophie shows up and, without ID-ing her in any way, the doctor lets her know her mom and the baby are fine. At first, she’s a little upset her mom didn’t tell her about it, but then she’s just happy about it and wants to name him Jon if he’s a boy. When they get back to the house Delilah apologizes to Eddie, but he tells her she did the right thing. She heads inside to tell Danny about the baby while Eddie gets on the phone with Katherine and pretends to be Santa for Theo’s sake. After finding out his son wants rain boots for Christmas (Seriously, kid? Santa’s on the phone and you ask for wet-weather wear?!), he apologizes for being s—y during her pregnancy.
Gary and Maggie get into the car so he can drive her home and he tells her he knows she’s upset he slept with Ashley. She tells him he has no idea how she’s feeling, so he offers to share how he’s feeling instead. And just like that, Gary tells/yells at Maggie that he’s in love with her! Maggie responds by vomiting on him and his new car — very realistically it’s the color of peanut butter from all the brittle. Gary takes a beat then grabs her arm and sees the needle marks from the chemo. Realizing she’s in treatment, he tearily kisses her even though she just vomited; that’s how you know he really loves her. YAY! GAGGIE FOREVER.
It’s time for Eddie to head off on tour. He’s going to be gone for, like, a grand total of two weeks so of course, it’s necessary for the whole gang to show up for a tearful goodbye. Eddie even gets a hug from Katherine who whispers, “Please don’t drink” in his ear. I love Katherine.
Later, at home Rome and Regina toast to next year being better (isn’t Rome supposed to not be drinking because he’s on meds?), and he tells his wife all he wants for Christmas is them. Rome vows to get back to him and who he was and drops the bomb that he wants to get off the meds.
At the hospital, Maggie is getting strapped in for chemo and Gary shows up with the picture of the river in Boston that Jon hung for him while he was in treatment. He pulls up a chair next to Maggie and holds her hand while the drugs are administered. Elsewhere, Delilah turns up at Katherine’s door to ask for legal help about being evicted. I wondered why they casually reminded us Katherine was a real estate lawyer earlier in the episode. At least Katherine’s the best in the biz!
And now for the bombshell, because what’s Christmas without a startling revelation or two? Ashley is over at the apartment building with the secret mailbox going through overdue bills when she gets a text from Donnie simply saying “sorry.” I’m assuming he’s pulled out of whatever deal he was part of with Jon. Then Ashley has a flashback to an outing with Jon to the very apartment building she’s in at the moment, only they bypass the mailbox and head upstairs. When they get to the door of an apartment, Ash asks him what they’re doing here and Jon tells her he’s not the man everyone thinks he is. They step inside and as the door closes, Ashley kisses him!! MERRY CHRISTMAS, VIEWERS. NOTHING IS SACRED; THE MEMORY OF JON IS NOW RUINED FOR US ALL FOREVER.
Guess we’ll find out what happens in the new year…or in season 3 when all the secrets finally come out. Happy holidays!
