Dancing Queens
1980’s
Episode 3 of Firefly Lane begins in the 1980’s as Tully and Kate jump on the opportunity to write a new story. Carol is ill and Johnny eventually agrees to give them a big break. Specifically, they have an hour to try and figure this out, as they come up with a story surrounding the Mayor stopping the building of nuclear fallout shelters in Seattle. Johnny is immediately interested, especially when he gets the low-down on the contractors not happy about this development. The pair continue, admitting they intend to ambush the press secretary to get an exclusive with the Mayor. After a rather hilarious and inappropriate joke about Kate channeling Johnny inside her, Tully and Kate head off together. Their ambush works too, as the pair pretend to be marketing reps and blag their make it into the private club. When they find their man, he agrees to put in a word to the Mayor about them. And just like that, the Mayor shows up at work for his interview…just as Carol bursts back in and gets the scoop for herself. All that hard work is gone as Tully furiously walks away.
1970’s
In the 70s, Kate mentions how she may have a crush on Robbie. Tully does her best to try and keep Kate’s mind off things, before the pair head downstairs and sit with Robbie and Sean at the dinner table. Well, not long after Tully heads home with Kate’s Mother Margie. Sher’s shocked to see the state of Tully’s house – and Cloud. Unfortunately the truth comes out as Cloud asks who has cancer. Margie takes Tully aside and talks to her about this, giving her an ultimatum to admit the truth to Kate. After dancing back at her house, Tully struggles to open up and tell the truth to her best friend, eventually heading out that night and stealing her Mother’s car. Together, Kate and Tully make it to the high school dance. When Tully spies Pat outside, she loses control and chases him. Eventually she crashes the car, Pat escapes and Tully drops her façade.
2003
In the present day timeline, Kate tries to remain calm in the wake of her big break at the Seattle Digest. Johnny dances around her words but, unwilling to get into a fight, Kate sighs and asks him to reset. As Kate leaves, she tasks Johnny with looking after their daughter. Kate and Tully finally head out together for dinner, where Tully discusses her new love interest. Together, they talk about Chad, her love interest in the 80’s. However, Gideon shows up and Kate takes her leave at an opportune time. As she does, Gideon and Kate begin kissing outside…but she realizes she’s left her daughter’s antibiotics in her bag and is forced to leave. When she heads back home, she apologizes to Johnny as the two discuss parenting. Eventually he convinces her to stick around as the two begin patching up their differences. At the same time, Tully continues to struggle intimately, breaking things off with Max again after he asks to look her in the face during their love making sessions. Unfortunately Tully collapses on the ground, just as Kate shows up to help her.
The Episode Review
Firefly Lane’s chopped up story continues as we flit between our three different timelines. Unfortunately in doing so, Firefly Lane groups up three storylines that don’t really do a whole lot to progress things here. Sure, we get the drama with Tully trying to get over what Pat’s done but the show has barely touched on the trauma she’s faced following this incident, instead spending a lot of time on how much of a tearaway she becomes in subsequent years, determined to rise to the top. Having said that, creative edits between timelines is good and the acting is also decent from all involved. Once again though the tone betrays this one with slapstick comedy thrown in awkwardly alongside more dramatic segments. We’ll have to wait and see how this one progresses but this episode really doesn’t have a lot of substance.
