Joe disembarked from his flight at LAX, carrying with him a dream and the specter of his late ex-girlfriend, Beck, whose ghostly presence lingered at the fringes of his mind, occasionally creeping into his waking moments with chilling regularity. Romance was never supposed to be in his cards—neither the sentiment nor the personification of it, and perhaps it was intentional how Joe blurred the lines between the two when he conversed endlessly with himself, as was his habit. Regardless, the dynamics between love and Love were escalating rapidly, culminating in an unexpected kiss amidst the bustling fish market. This, in the midst of cuffing season, served as a refreshing twist on conventional narratives: finding love was a perilous endeavor; best to remain solitary and unattached.
As Joe pulled away from Love's lips, Beck's haunted visage flickered across his vision before he snapped back to reality, just in time to hear Love's invitation to meet her friends. Already? Good heavens. Meanwhile, back at Anavrin, Forty—a smug heir whose parents owned the establishment—proposed a ludicrous plan to enhance the bookstore section: screening movies on a continuous loop. Joe managed to extricate himself from that particular quagmire only to plunge into another: an encounter with Jasper.
But first, let's backtrack to how Joe's path crossed with Will, the man whose identity he usurped and who now languished in a plexiglass cell, a prison Joe had somehow managed to construct single-handedly despite his precipitate departure from New York with scant resources. They met in the unromantic realm of Craigslist. Will specialized in crafting new identities and facilitating exits from undesirable locations, skills Joe desperately needed to forge a rock-solid alias that would allow him to flee to Mexico and, when the time was right, return to New York in hopes of reconciling with Candace. Will casually mentioned that cultivating such an identity took years, a decade in his case. As an empty vessel, a "shell person" that anyone could inhabit, Will's guard was startlingly low for someone in his profession. As he naively remarked, "You're lucky you're a white dude. No one ever suspects a thing," Joe hoisted a cinderblock and brought it crashing down on the back of Will's skull.
Now, Will was ensnared in a cage Joe was confident would impress even Mooney. Will pleaded for his medication, but Joe had more immediate concerns: the debt Will owed Jasper. The sum was $3,000, according to Will. Joe crafted a counterfeit classic novel, sold it, and believed he had resolved his issues—until reality intervened. Jasper paid Anavrin a visit, and Joe handed over the $3,000 only to learn his tab was closer to $50,000. To paraphrase Felicity Huffman, "Oh boy!" To ensure timely payment, Jasper whipped out a knife from his back pocket and, without hesitation, chopped off a portion of Joe's finger, including an entire knuckle! Jasper placed the severed digit in a bag of ice he had thoughtfully brought for this very purpose. He assured Joe that if he paid the debt within 10 to 12 hours, Jasper would return the finger, and a miraculous surgeon could sew it back on.
Fortunately for Joe, Rufus enters the picture, a figure owed an astonishing $50,000 by Will, according to the latter's own admission. The exactitude of this sum should have set off alarm bells in Joe's mind, as vivid as the crimson gushing from his wounded hand — akin to a cinematic coincidence where kids desperately need $5,000 to save a recreation center, only to find out about a dance contest across town offering precisely that amount as prize. Yet, Joe remains oblivious, his thoughts clouded by the looming absence from lunch with Love's coven. In his haste to weave a lie, Joe overdoes the details, inadvertently betraying himself, but manages a quick detour to eavesdrop on Love's circle. Personally, I'd have prioritized securing the $47,000 over the pressing matter of my own bleeding digit, but then again, this is Joe.
Among Love's friends are Lucy, an Instagram poet marching for LGBTQ rights, embodying the spirit of countless Jennifers and a few Kates; Sunrise, Lucy's partner, a stay-at-home mommy blogger to a toddler named Candle (a name that raises an eyebrow or two); and Gabe, a pansexual acupuncturist and Love's closest confidant. Joe fears that each person at the table harbors romantic designs on Love. However, his aversion melts away when he witnesses their genuine support for Love's heart-wrenching journey of reopening herself to love after losing her perceived soulmate.
Rufus is located at "a party, at noon, on a Tuesday," the disdain dripping from that revelation like vinegar. Joe, mistaken for John Mayer by several partygoers, finds the humor in the absurdity. Amidst the revelry, Joe spots Hendy, a comedian whom Ethan adored, sparking a poignant memory of his missing friend. I sincerely hope Ethan is faring well. Delilah, the landlord, looms edgily around Hendy, her motives a mystery Joe neglects to unravel.
Descending into the basement, Joe discovers Rufus, a lesser version of Jeremy Renner, immersed in Air Supply's melodies. And what does this man have for Joe? A pouch of medications vital for managing Will's bipolar disorder. Upon returning to the glass cage, Joe finds Will in dire straits, a man battling bipolar disorder, the aftermath of a head injury, and captivity at the hands of a psychopath in a storage unit. Will, too disoriented to acknowledge his need for medication, leaves Joe to lament, "I went to the Valley for you!"
Love arrives at Joe's abode, intending to expose his fabrication: Forty, his excuse for skipping lunch, turns out to be her twin brother, revealing her as another heir to the Anavrin fortune. Joe repeatedly insists that this is an inopportune moment, but Love discerns the depth of Joe's wounds inflicted by his previous romantic entanglement, about whom she remains utterly ignorant. Joe's hallucinations of Beck resurface, prompting him to shout in Love's face, at which point I muse, perhaps now Love will finally see Joe for what he truly is: a man incapable of restraining his anger in the presence of women, unfit to be alone with them ever again.
Returning to their makeshift prison within the storage unit, they find Jasper unexpectedly present! Joe has brought him here, noting Jasper's naiveté in a shadowy industry akin to Will's. As Joe unveils his true identity, Jasper gapes at the surreal spectacle, quipping, "So, you've got him in a Hannibal Lecter setup, huh?" He adds, "You must realize you're in need of psychological assistance." However, in an ironic twist, Jasper lunges at Joe with a knife once more, but this time, Joe is fully prepared. In a seamless blend of self-defense and premeditated brutality, Joe plunges the blade into Jasper's abdomen, terminating his life instantaneously.
Beck's apparition reappears, not to judge but merely to observe, informing Joe of another murder weighing on his conscience. She visually reminds him of the fateful moment he strangled her to death. As I did during last season's climactic episode, I find the exploitation of Beck's abuse for sensationalism or entertainment distasteful. Displaying her neck bruises serves no purpose beyond inflicting further psychological torment.
Dr. Daniel patches Joe up, and he promptly heads to Anavrin to disable incriminating security cameras. Subsequently, Joe returns home to disassemble Jasper's remains before feeding them into an industrial meat grinder, the existence of which puzzles me—is this apparatus part of Anavrin's facilities? Furthermore, Joe possesses a wall adorned with saws, knives, and other instruments of torture. One wonders if a shower cap wouldn't have been prudent, given the likelihood of his hairs contaminating the evidence. Nevertheless, he dumps the pulverized body parts into various dumpsters, bidding farewell to Jasper.
Then, he heads over to Love's abode. (Though this scene was omitted from the episode, I am compelled to believe, indeed, I implore, that he took a shower beforehand.) He attempts, in a rather halting manner, to clarify to Love that it was he who had inflicted pain upon his ex, rather than the converse, and that Beck was oblivious to the perils she courted by entering into a relationship with him. Love asserts her capability to fend for herself; I, however, caution against the alarming surge in intimate partner homicides. Yet, much like Joe weeping over Beck's already evaporated spectral presence, Love remains deaf to my entreaties. She proposes that they can maintain a platonic relationship, and I cannot contain my amusement. Subsequently, she reveals that she too had inflicted pain upon James (her husband), prompting me to voice my fervent hope that she had, in fact, dispatched him.
Seeking redemption for his bleak day, Joe seeks out Delilah in the laundry room. Delilah recounts how Henderson had initially appeared to be her benefactor when she was a stripper aspiring to become a screenwriter, only to drug her beer and sexually assault her at the tender age of seventeen. She harbors aspirations to expose Henderson's despicable deeds, yet faces a wall of silence from potential informants—all young women of color, all strippers, who perceive the risk as outweighing the reward. This experience has jaded her towards the scoundrels she now writes about with impunity. Addressing Joe, she continues, "You nod as though somehow you don't belong to their ranks… You feign niceness, but you're not. And though I may not discern the extent of your malevolence, my radar is finely tuned through hard-won experience. So stay the hell away from me and my sister." I ADORE HER SPIRIT.
Joe retreats to the company of his sole friend, Will, whom he has cleverly duped into consuming his crushed medications disguised in green juice. Will, quiteaddled, confides, "At one juncture, I fancied I witnessed you committing murder." Besides his fleeting homicide fantasy, Joe has also indulged in an old habit—pilfering a pair of Love's underwear from her laundry basket. Old habits, indeed, die hard!
