‘A Million Little Things’ Makes Us Very Worried About Eddie (RECAP)
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 3, Episode 3 of A Million Little Things, “letting go.”]
A Million Little Things solves one mystery (was David Giuntoli’s Eddie responsible for his friend Alex’s death when they were younger?) but keeps another going (who hit Eddie?) in the December 10 episode.
Meanwhile, Delilah (Stephanie Szostak) gets ready to head to France for a month with her father, and someone isn’t happy with her choice for the kids’ guardian. And over in England, British Maggie (Allison Miller) is brave and takes a risk … or maybe two?
But most importantly, however, “letting go” leaves us very, very worried about Eddie.
Confession Is Good for the Soul, But ….
As Eddie continues to recover from the hit and run and adjust to life in a wheelchair — Katherine’s (Grace Park) best friend, Darcy (Floriana Lima), who doesn’t like him because he cheated, agreed to handle his physical therapy — he’s also doing so without any pain medication, due to his sobriety.
“Katherine gave me another chance,” he explains. “I’m not going to blow it.” And Darcy sees that he is different now, like he said, especially since her problems with him stem from her own parents: her father cheated and never put in the work with his wife that Eddie is with Katherine.
Eddie has also been very focused on putting the pieces together of what happened the night Alex drowned, and when Katherine takes his research to her office, Carter (Sam Pancake) gets so hooked he spreads out all the articles. Because he does, Katherine recognizes the man who came to their house in Episode 2 as Alex’s father, Reverend Stewart (Gerard Plunkett). When Carter checks her doorbell camera recordings, they discover the man’s been to the house four times … and drives a red pickup truck, which is what the police said hit Eddie. However, when Katherine calls the police, she learns it wasn’t a pickup truck, but a red SUV. Stewart didn’t hit Eddie.
But what’s he doing at their house? Eddie gets the answer when Reverend Stewart stops by again. After Eddie apologizes for drinking that night and blames himself for Alex drowning, Reverend Stewart shocks him with, “That’s not how my daughter died.” What Eddie doesn’t remember is he and Alex returned to the dock and she went off with her sister, who had drugs. Alex had a bad reaction, and her heart stopped. Colleen woke their father, who couldn’t do anything for Alex but didn’t want it to ruin his other daughter’s life. He made it look like Alex drowned.
Stewart wanted to tell Eddie because he knew he blamed himself, and he’d been waiting outside the bar the night he was hit, trying to find the courage. After he saw Eddie get hit, he called 9-1-1 and tried to chase down the car but couldn’t. He hadn’t realized how much his lie was hurting Eddie.
But that revelation hurts Eddie, too. He never would’ve been in the bar if he’d known the truth, he tells Katherine later. (He’d almost had a drink because he blamed himself for Alex’s death.) “When the doctors told me I might never walk again, I was devastated, but I thought, you know what, I got what I deserved,” he says. “Now, I’m going to be in this wheelchair for the rest of my life for no reason at all.”
While he puts on a brave face for his son Theo, at the end of the episode, he looks like he’s in (or heading towards) a dark place (and is angry) as he uses the grabber to get his meds (hydroxychloroquine, the anti-inflammatory) from a higher shelf. But is it just a matter of time before his sobriety is a thing of the past?
A Step Forward
Gary (James Roday Rodriguez) is going to be watching Delilah’s older kids while she’s in France (baby Charlie’s going with her). And he gets thrown right into it when he finds out Danny’s (Chance Hurstfield) classmate Tyler has been bullying him (“I’d kill myself too if you were my son”). That is not OK, Gary makes clear. (How great are Gary and Danny scenes?)
Off Gary’s advice, Danny tells Tyler he knows this isn’t about him and gets punched in the face … only for Tyler to later admit he was right. His sister died a month earlier and he hadn’t realized she was depressed.
That bit of parenting from Gary impresses Darcy enough that she decides it’s time for him to meet her son as her boyfriend.
In Need of Better Communication
Meanwhile, Regina (Christina Moses) finding out Delilah asked Gary to look after her kids instead of her (via a text from Gary sent to her calling her “delicate” meant for Delilah) ends up helping her. Yes, it has been hard for her to be around the kids since she and Rome (Romany Malco) lost out on adopting. But being around Charlie before Delilah leaves with her for France made her realize how much she’d missed the baby.
Rome hasn’t had an easy time lately, either. After the actress for his movie reveals she rewrote one of the big monologues, he overreacts a bit when a guy doesn’t pick up after his dog. He’s been trying so hard not to be too angry, he admits to his therapist (Jeffrey Joseph), because “you walk around like a pissed off Black man in America, if your anger doesn’t kill you, someone else will.”
Dr. Heller understands, but Rome doesn’t have to hide his feelings from Regina. She showed how receptive she was when she learned about his depression. “If you suppress your feelings, they still have to go somewhere,” the therapist warns. “When all that rage is turned inwards with nowhere to go, that’s when the anxiety and depression creep back in.”
And so Rome calls up Regina to join him as he scouts locations, at the site of her and Gary’s first date that he crashed. That was the day he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Both admit they’ve been struggling to face some things after losing the baby. But they’ll get through it together and even call Eve to check on her and offer up the baby stuff they have.
A Treat for Maggie?
Maggie incorrectly assumed that she and Jamie (Chris Geere) had signed up for trapeze class together (he thought they were joking). Since British Maggie is brave, she goes alone and enjoys it, despite it being something she wouldn’t have done before. He tells her she deserves butter toffee; it’s what his mother gave him after a big win.
And when he goes to go get some to celebrate her successful podcast recording, she stops him and suggests he could be her “butter toffee” …. and he doesn’t want her to forget she said that. New couple or a one-time (or butter toffee-time) thing? We’ll have to see.
A Million Little Things, Thursdays, 10/9c, ABC