Netflix
Firefly Lane Premiere Review – The Story of Tully and Kate (1×01)
Firefly Lane, based on the bestselling novel by Kristin Hannah, dives into the decades-long friendship between Kate (Sarah Chalke) and Tully (Katherine Heigl).
The show, centered on a female friendship that highlights the highs, lows, and messes, is a good substitute for new seasons of Sweet Magnolias and Virgin River. The pilot episode does a good job of hooking you and making you want to return for more. We’ll get to that cliffhanger eventually, but oof, it’s a lot to unpack.
At times, the transitions between the three different timelines are confusing, but they’re necessary to paint a clear picture of who these women are, their backgrounds, and what inspired their eternal friendship… for now, at least.
Tully’s childhood was tumultuous thanks to a hippie mother, who went by the name of Cloud, and once took her to a protest in a Scooby van and lost her there. That’s really all you need to know about the lack of parental guidance in her life, which later in life fuels plenty of abandonment issues. I don’t really understand why her grandmother kept allowing Cloud to take Tully instead of just getting sole custody of the girl, but regardless, moving in with her mom on Firefly Lane led her to meet her soulmate, Kate.
Their friendship didn’t happen overnight, however.
Unlike Tully, the girl who got all the attention from everyone in school, Kate was a bit of an outcast. As Cloud put it, she looked like she “just walked out of an encyclopedia” with her thick-framed ’70s glasses. But there was something absolutely charming about her that carried over into adulthood, where, you guessed it, she still struggles to “figure it out.”
Kate and Tully were and continue to be polar opposites. But they always say opposites attract, and it’s likely what has allowed their friendship to work so well over the years.
While we don’t actually see them form a friendship during the high school timeline, we do see Kate lying for Tully when she steals cigarettes.
At this point, she also learns that Tully’s mother is a free-spirit and thus, Tully embraces the attention anywhere she can get it, especially from boys.
Meanwhile, Kate’s mother is more maternal and overprotective, which even forces her brother to hide the fact that he’s gay. Props to Tully for keeping that secret!
We also see both the ladies later in life as they dip their toes in the workforce. Tully is working at a local news station and tries to finagle Kate a job by basically ambushing her stud of a boss, Johnny Ryan.
From the moment Kate lays on him, she’s smitten, but he doesn’t immediately take notice of her. Eventually, she reveals her big crush to Tully right before the duo gets pretty handsy on the dance floor during a team outing.
This parallels the local school dance in the present where Kate once again feels like she’s in Tully’s shadow when she sees her cozying up to her PTA crush, Travis.
In the present, Tully’s fame is only amplified as she now hosts her own talk show, “The Girlfriend Hour.” Interestingly, there was a small scene in the past where her mother, high as a kite, was watching the Carol Burnett Show and noted how much she loved her. It gives you a sense that Tully pursued a career in the public eye, specifically as a talk show host, in a desperate attempt to make her mother happy/to be noticed.
But while Tully may be beloved by millions of fans who approach her on the street for hugs and autographs, she’s not happy. It’s a classic case of you can have everything you want in life and still be unhappy.
Due to her abandonment issues, Tully avoided starting a family or getting too close to anyone and instead, invested herself fully into her career.
She made herself unavailable, and that continues on when she has a one-night stand with Max, a 29-year-old she meets at a bar. After they have sex, she’s not interested in the small talk or grabbing dinner because she runs away from any type of emotional connection or commitment.
Kate, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. When we meet her in the adult-stages, she’s a single mom going through a divorce. Her daughter is lashing out by skipping school and she’s on the hunt for a job after years of unemployment.
Firefly Lane Review – A Story of Friendship, Heartbreak and Trauma Spanning Three Decades
She’s a first-hand example of a woman who put her career on hold to have a family. When she arrives at her interview for an assistant editor, audiences get a look at how hard it is for working moms to get back into the game.
The woman doing the hiring, Kimber Watts, is half her age, and not impressed with the gap on her resume. Raising a child doesn’t qualify as “experience” in the workplace.
But since Kate is desperate, she uses her friendship with Tully to land her the gig. So, essentially, she’s still starting from scratch just like she was the first time Tully landed her the job at the local news station.
Tully and Kate both lead very different lives and are in two different stages of their lives, but their struggles are both valid and something we can all relate to on some level.
They envy each other for what the other has, but the audience sees that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side; they’re both messed up in their own ways.
In the final moments of the episode, Kate, who is already upset with Tully for stealing the spotlight at the school dance, sees her daughter’s Planned Parenthood paperwork, and worse, realizes Tully signed off on them without telling her.
While Tully didn’t mean any harm, it’s still a breach of trust from the woman who is supposed to be her friend. And it once again digs into the part of Kate that feels like she can never be as good and as adored as Tully.
Which makes the final scene even harder to swallow. After the dance, Tully goes home to find a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, a delivery from Max, who clearly wants to pursue things past the one-night stand. She’s impressed with the gesture when she hears a knock at the door.
You wouldn’t be the only person who thinks it’s Max, but nope, it’s Johnny, Tully’s old boss and… Kate’s ex-husband and baby daddy.
Throughout the entirety of the episode, the identity of Kate’s husband was kept under wraps, but all signs were pointing to Johnny.
However, Johnny comes to Tully’s to tell her that he made a big mistake in life, which seems to allude to the fact that he’s always had feelings for her.
This might be messier than we ever anticipated.
Kate and Tully’s friendship may be strong, but could it withstand this bombshell? And even if Tully had feelings for Johnny, she’d never do that to the only stable and true relationship in her life, would she?
Oops… she’s doing it again!
The holiday season isn’t complete without Vanessa Hudgens, who is back once again for The Princess Switch 3.
Netflix has released the official trailer and from the looks of it, it’s going to be filled with comedy, romance, and yes, three different accents and voices all performed by the talented actress.
Check out the trailer below.
Hudgens is once again reprising her roles as Queen Margaret and Princess Stacy, with a new addition Fiona, the cousin.
After the special guest, the Vatican’s Star of Peace is stolen, the two royal lookalikes need to team up together to steal it back. In order to do so, they enlist the help of their cousin Fiona who is also identical to them. The three completely different personalities work together to safely bring back the missing treasure.
Alongside Hudgens, the cast includes Sam Palladio, Remy Hii, Nick Sagar, and Will Kemp.
Netflix will release The Princess Switch 3 on November 18th, so set your calendars!
Recap the The Princess Switch: Switched Again right here
Yes, That Is Queen Amber from ‘A Christmas Prince’ in ‘The Princess Switch: Switched Again’
The wait for YOU Season 3 is finally over!
On October 15, Netflix dropped the next installment of Joe Goldberg’s adventures.
Only this time, he was joined by his partner-in-crime, Love, and their new bundle of joy, baby Henry.
The murderous couple moved to Madre Linda for a fresh start, but despite Joe’s insistence that “everything would be different” this time around, they fell into old patterns fairly quickly and left a trail of bodies behind that would eventually lead to the demise of their fictitious happily ever after.
You can read the spoiler-free review here!
1. RIP to Those Who Didn’t Make It
Murder is the name of the game when it comes to Joe and Love. Their list of suspects this season included Natalia, who was the catalyst for all the disturbances in the town defined by tacky athleisure. But, let’s be honest, if it wasn’t her, it would’ve been someone else. Joe has a delusional obsession with finding “the one.”
While watching the season, there was no shortage of potential victims. Anytime the residents of Madre Lina were in a strange setting with Love or Joe, you found yourself wondering: “when are they going to die?”
Surprisingly, most of the victims belonged to Love, whose impulsiveness did no one any favors. After killing Natalie, she bludgeoned anti-vaxxer Gil and locked him up in the glass cage that they rebuilt in the bakery’s basement (also Natalie’s final resting place). While Gil technically killed himself after learning that his wife paid to get their delinquent son into university (looking at you, Lori Loughlin), Love and Joe used it as an opportunity to frame the poor guy for Natalie’s murder and made it seem like the result of a torrid love affair. Wow, they’re good at this. I shouldn’t be this surprised, right?
Joe’s only victim was Ryan Goodwin, Marienne’s narcissistic and druggie ex… but he kind of deserved it.
YOU (L to R) MICHAELA MCMANUS as NATALIE ENGLER in episode 301 of YOU Cr. JOHN P. FLEENOR/NETFLIX © 2021
2. Those Who (Surprisingly!) Survived
To survive a brush with Love and Joe at their worst is, well, an incredible feat. Not many can live to tell that story, but influencer Sherry, her buff husband, Cary, and Theo, an impressionable college student with a terrible relationship with his father, Matthew, also Natalie’s husband, all did.
Sherry and Cary suggested that Love and Joe try to “hack their love life” by sleeping with them. Unfortunately, Love’s jealousy issues took over, and when she accidentally blurted out that she killed Natalie for Joe, Sherry and Cary didn’t stand a chance. It was touch-and-go-there for a bit as Cary accidentally shot and grazed Sherry’s ear, while she intentionally shot him in the leg. Eventually, she found a key and managed to get them out of the cage alive and well. And in true Sherry fashion, she and Cary ended up turning their story into a best-selling book.
Theo was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. He found Sherry and Cary in the cage just as Love arrived at the bakery. He tried to convince her that he didn’t believe what they said about her, but she knocked him out and pushed him down the stairs. However, when Joe went to clean up her mess, he realized that Theo was still alive. Since he promised not to say a word, Joe drove him to a hospital and let the poor kid live. His only sin was falling in love with the wrong woman!
Marienne also survived, but it was also touch-and-go for her. Love had it out for her, and the only reason she made it out of the Quinn-Goldberg household in one piece was because of her sweet daughter. Fly free, Marienne!
YOU (L to R) SHALITA GRANT as SHERRY CONRAD and TRAVIS VAN WINKLE as CARY CONRAD in episode 308 of YOU Cr. JOHN P. FLEENOR/NETFLIX © 2021
3. Joe and Love’s lovers
Joe and Love may have been on the same team, but they were simply trying to make a failed marriage work. Love’s insecurities got the best of her, and when she found out about Joe’s brief rendezvous with Natalie, she felt “wanted” by college kid Theo. She loved that he saw her and craved that attention, which she wasn’t getting from Joe. It was a disturbing relationship, and one she tried to put an end to many times, before convincing Joe that she needed to seduce Theo in order to find out what evidence Matthew had against them.
Meanwhile, Joe developed an obsession with Marienne, a whip-smart library manager who gave him a job and slowly began to fall for him. He saw a light in Marienne, who, as a Black woman, was failed by the system multiple times, and wanted to get custody of her daughter from her abusive ex and local news anchor, Ryan Goodwin. While Marienne’s feelings towards Joe were reciprocated, they were a byproduct of his manipulative charm. Joe knows how to prey on a vulnerable woman to get what he wants.
Thankfully, as mentioned above, both of Theo and Marienne survived, which is a new one for romantic partners in the series. Though, the season did end with Joe going to the depths of the Earth to find Marienne, so maybe she isn’t in the clear after all!
YOU (L to R) PENN BADGLEY as JOE GOLDBERG and TATI GABRIELLE as MARIENNE in episode 301 of YOU Cr. JOHN P. FLEENOR/NETFLIX © 2021
4. Survival of the Fittest
One could argue that Joe and Love were each other’s victims. Their relationship was toxic for the get-go, and no amount of marriage counseling was going to fix it. If Love hadn’t announced her pregnancy at the end of season 2, Joe would’ve killed her on the spot. They were both alive because of Henry, and thus, thought that staying together for the child was going to somehow make all of their problems disappear.
But it didn’t. Their resentment for each other grew as they lied and manipulated each other. They never trusted each other, and the relationship was solely codependency. I do think Love wanted to make a marriage with Joe work, but Joe, despite being a murderer himself, couldn’t see Love as anything more than a monster.
Thus, he looked for any out that he could find. When he set his sights on Marienne, he envisioned a brand new family with her and attempted to “protect her” from Love. In doing so, he was also protected himself. It definitely seemed as though Love’s murder attempt blindsided him. She admitted that she killed her first husband, James, with the same aconite used to poison Joe.
However, Joe was always one step ahead of her because he took an adrenaline pill right before, which counteracted the poison. And he should breathe a sigh of relief because if he hadn’t, Love would’ve killed him with a butcher’s knife.
Their relationship was survival of the fittest — be or be killed. And when she approached him, he stabbed her with a syringe full of the poison he made previously as he anticipated this very moment.
After the poison stopped her heart, Joe cut off two of his toes (the worst part of the season, I’ll admit) and wrote a letter detailing Love’s murder-suicide. No one ever “found” Joe’s body, but since they found the toes, they assumed he died in the fire set by Quinn prior to killing herself. He made her out to be the true villain and escaped from Madre Linda unharmed… well, minus two toes.
YOU (L to R) VICTORIA PEDRETTI as LOVE QUINN in episode 310 of YOU Cr. JOHN P. FLEENOR/NETFLIX © 2021
5. Goodbye, for now, Henry
What about baby Henry? Well, he no longer has to pay for the crimes of his parents. While the fact that Joe killed Love and framed her for a murder-suicide was messed up, out of the two of them, he was clearly the more stable one. Throughout the season, Joe prioritized being a good father because he didn’t want baby Henry to end up like him. Everything he did, in a twisted way, was to secure the child’s future.
He knew that Love would never change and needed to be stopped because she would take them both down, which would ensure that Henry would end up in the system. Since he was placed in the system after his mother abandoned him, it was Joe’s biggest fear, and a future he did not want for his son. Therefore, his choice to give up Henry to Dante and Lansing, a good couple who were trying to adopt, was the most selfless thing he’s ever done.
Sure, it was also a bit selfish because he wanted to pursue Marienne, but still, he made the best choice for baby Henry and ensured that he would have the possibility of a good future. At the end of the day, that’s all that matters.
YOU (L to R) PENN BADGLEY as JOE GOLDBERG in episode 307 of YOU Cr. JOHN P. FLEENOR/NETFLIX © 2021
In the End…
After putting an end to Love — “she must be stopped” — and giving away baby Henry to Dante and Lansing, Joe threw on his invisibility cap, said adios Madre Linda, and bonjour Paris.
Will he say “hello you” to Marienne once again? And even if he does, how will he explain all that went down? He’s good at talking his way out of things, but they also found his toes at the scene of the crime. Marienne may think she attracts toxic men, but she’s levelheaded; she knew when to get out, so she’d never fall for or believe anything he said.
With a fourth season of YOU secured at Netflix already, we know that Joe will keep on keepin’ on and feeding into his delusions. Until his thirst is satiated, he’ll scour the world for Marienne. Or maybe he’ll give up and find a new obsession.
Unfortunately, the world will never be safe if Joe is around.
The suburban dream turns into a nightmare when Joe and Love move into the quiet, safe, and crime-free town of Madre Linda on You Season 3.
The family of 3 — yes, they’re parents now — are looking for a change, but can a zebra change its stripes?
Joe and Love surely want to… for Henry, their new bundle of joy. If there’s anything that can change a person, it’s parenthood. And the series digs into their desires to change deeply, while continuously asking the question: can people as broken as Joe and Love actually change?
While the addition of a third Quinn-Goldberg family member ups the stakes and paints everything in a new light, it’s also heartbreaking to see a child paying for the crimes of his parents.
YOU (L to R) PENN BADGLEY as JOE GOLDBERG and VICTORIA PEDRETTI as LOVE QUINN in episode 301 of YOU Cr. JOHN P. FLEENOR/NETFLIX © 2021
Murder is bad, but murder with a baby that’s sleeping in the same room is even worse. The writers know that all too well. They know how disturbing it is to involve a child, so they juxtapose the innocence and love needed to raise a child with the disturbed inner monologue of two sociopaths.
Joe and Love are proof that you cannot judge a book by its cover. On the outside, they’re the picture-perfect family; the “best team” if you will, but right beneath the surface, they are a timebomb ready to explode.
The trust faded long before Henry was born, and despite their time spent in marriage therapy (at least they are able to recognize that there’s a problem and seek help), Joe, a murderer, cannot get over the fact that Love has killed before, a fact revealed in the final few moments of season 2.
At times, you want to just shake them both and remind them that they’ve both done terrible things not only to each other but also to others.
Joe justifies his kills but judges Love for them, which just tells you everything you need to know about the state of their marriage.
The hypocrisy exists within both of them this season, and, at times, it makes them almost insufferable as they cannot take what they dish out.
Joe thinks that moving to a “soulless suburb” will be the death of him, but naturally, it proves to be most dangerous to all those in their new social circle.
But before it all goes downhill, their new beginning starts off promising — Love opens a bakery, while Joe rediscovers his love of books. As they aim to fit in and make new friends, relationships become more complicated, and despite Joe’s insistence that “things will be different this time,” they are very much the same as they fall back into old patterns.
Marriage and kids do not stop Joe from his delusional obsessions, but they do give him a conscience. He wants to be better, he tries to do the right thing, and he attempts to retrain his thoughts.
And to be fair, he’s not responsible for most of the murders this season so much as he is for cleaning up all of Love’s messes.
Maybe change is possible to some extent after all? And that’s exactly what the writers want — viewers to straddle the line of being horrified by Joe while also empathizing with him.
Love, however, gives in to her impulsiveness all too easily and undoes any progress they may have made.
Joe, as the villain, takes a backburner to Love, who the series unravels as a much more realized character. Love is no longer Joe’s obsession anymore; she’s achieved main character status, and I’ll be honest, a female Joe is oftentimes much more terrifying and ruthless.
YOU (L to R) MICHAELA MCMANUS as NATALIE ENGLER in episode 301 of YOU Cr. JOHN P. FLEENOR/NETFLIX © 2021
We get to know her on a deeper level as her journey through motherhood evolves and she aims to befriend the tacky athleisure-wearing socialites while aiming to hide the darkest parts of herself and mourning Forty’s death all at the same time.
It’s not just Joe anymore, it’s Love and Joe. They put a mirror up to each other, and boy, they do not like what they see. If you look up a “love and hate” relationship in the dictionary, you’ll get Love and Joe.
We already knew they were disturbed individuals, but season 3 truly hammers it home.
One might think that after two seasons, things become predictable and lose their allure. We know what these two are capable of, and we know that they won’t hesitate to spill blood over the slightest inconvenience, yet that doesn’t stop the series from surprising with every twist and turn.
You think you know Joe and Love, but you really haven’t begun to scratch the surface, which is what keeps you on the edge of your seat.
As the mystery deepens — and the body count rises — you find yourself not only wondering whose next but also, how are they going to get out of this?
YOU (L to R) PENN BADGLEY as JOE GOLDBERG and TATI GABRIELLE as MARIENNE in episode 301 of YOU Cr. JOHN P. FLEENOR/NETFLIX © 2021
What will be their undoing? At some point, something’s got to give because their lifestyle isn’t sustainable. And no amount of charm from Joe can erase the damage they’ve inflicted.
In addition to providing timely social commentary — unintentionally — the season also digs into the backstory of what made Joe and Love the monsters they are today.
As Love’s dysfunctional relationship with her mother, Dottie, is explored further in the present day, flashbacks into Joe’s childhood trauma allow us to get more insight into his abandonment and the bullying he endured at the foster home.
The season manages to tap into the sweet spot that made the first two seasons so enjoyable; it’s a thrill from beginning to end.
And when it’s all over, you too will find yourself looking for your new obsession. Hopefully, that obsession is YOU season 4 pending a renewal from Netflix!
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