Ah, to be young and in love in the time of Coronavirus. Though Alex and Nicholas still seem to be a bit on the rocks, Matilda and Genevieve are in the throes of romance, in their own very unique ways. From museums to the great outdoors, love is tested in new ways in this week’s episode, but it seems like everything will work out okay. The episode jumps quickly between Oscar and Genevieve, and Drea and Matilda, so for the sake of clarity each story will be its own section.
Spoilers ahead for Everything’s Gonna Be Okay Season 2, Episode 6 “Regal Jumping Spider.” You have been warned.
Matilda and Drea
It’s time for Dratilda’s first night away! Drea’s parents have driven Drea and Matilda to a cabin they own that is definitely still pre-21st century. Drea is beyond excited, and she shoos away her parents when they ask to come inside and help set things up. She promises to stick to the binder and rules they’ve already agreed upon, and the two of them rush inside to turn on the electricity and start their night away. Just a few minutes later, Drea’s mother calls, and Drea tells her she’s being a helicopter parent. Which would be true, if she weren’t calling because they had managed to forget to bring in a single bag. Suze asks if they can bring them in now, but once again, Drea insists that they come out and get them.
Drea reads through the binder and sees the next step is to check for snakes, which Matilda is not happy about. She looks under the bed and screams, but when Drea checks it’s just a pair of snakeskin boots. Matilda already does not seem to be having a great time. The cabin doesn’t have central heating, so they go outside to try to chop some wood for the furnace. Drea takes one giant swing with an axe and lodges it right in the log. Neither of them can get it out, so they give up and go back inside. They’re bundled up and freezing, and Matilda is miserable. Drea says she’ll start on dinner, which is when they realize they left the bags of food outside all day. Matilda is getting more and more anxious, and the idea of eating bad chicken is sending her over the edge. Drea insists it’ll be fine, but things are not going particularly well.
Dinner is served, and Drea tells her the vegetables didn’t touch the chicken, which she is still choosing to eat. Drea is starting to get sarcastic back to Matilda’s incessant neediness and complaining, and there’s definitely a tense vibe. But Matilda says she trusts Drea to cook and keep her happy, and Drea happy stims.
Things go not so well after dinner. Matilda is making herself sick with worry over just the idea of getting sick from dinner. Drea finally admits she feels angry and unappreciated, and Matilda excuses herself to the bathroom out of fear of being sick. Drea sits outside the bathroom door and explains where all of these emotions are coming from. Drea was hoping this overnight would show that even if they couldn’t be independent alone, they could be independent together. That even if they weren’t like other couples, they could still succeed. She feels like she failed at being a girlfriend. Matilda opens the door, saying she’s okay and didn’t get sick. She apologizes to Drea and Drea accepts, and Matilda promises she won’t leave.
The two lie in bed together, still bundled up. Drea is reading a book, but Matilda is restless. Matilda gets out of bed and goes over the piano. She sits down and begins playing, and seems to smile for the first time since arriving. After a few minutes, Drea comes over and says she’s glad Matilda is happy and enjoys the music, but that she can’t focus and asks if it’s okay if she puts on her noise cancelling headphones. Matilda assures her it is, and goes back to playing. Assumedly, the rest of the overnight goes well.
Genevieve and Oscar
It’s time for Genevieve’s first date! She’s definitely nervous, and asks Nicholas to wait after he drops her off. He cranks up the music and tries to calm her down, and eventually she works up the courage to head out to meet Oscar. They meet outside an art installation, and she opens her bag to reveal gifts she’s gotten him in return for the record from last week’s episode. First, she gives him a record from “a little unknown band called Aerosmith,” but he doesn’t really get that she’s being sarcastic. So she leans into it further, pulling out an Aerosmith mug and t-shirt, which, trying to be nice, he earnestly accepts. Finally she flat out tells him she’s joking, but he still seems grateful.
They head into the art exhibit, which is definitely… modern and experiential. As they go through the different rooms, Oscar tries to get Genevieve to open up and talk about herself, but she seems really uncomfortable doing so. She says it feels like when the school year starts and she’s supposed to say what she did over the summer, and suddenly she can’t remember a thing she did. Oscar sits on that for a moment before asking how she feels about her sudden internet fame. She says she likes it, but only to the point of being like a bestselling author with her picture at the back of a book, and that she’d never want to be a Kardashian-level celebrity. And that’s when they realize the room they’re in is meant to be a uterus. Because art, I guess.
They sit on an artsy seesaw, and Oscar asks if she could have dinner with anyone alive or dead, and Genevieve quickly responds that she’d pick her parents. She realizes though that that’s a bit of a depressing answer. Oscar tries to lighten it back up by saying she only could pick one, but instead of answering they just move into the next room. It’s a room of fun house mirrors with lights like at the carnival, and surrounded by mirrors they finally kiss for the first time! Cue the happy music! Followed by the next room, which is filled with dead animal carcasses and videos from butchers. How romantic.
The last room features many clocks, as well as mirrors and a dot on the floor. A voice on the intercom says that they have 60 seconds to say exactly what’s on their minds. Genevieve tells Oscar to go first. Oscar steps up to the circle and the time begins, and he goes on a long rant about what is true art and what is authenticity. He says he planned this whole speech on authenticity, which is about the most inauthentic thing a person could do, and ends by saying, “We all want something so basic, why do we go to such great lengths to achieve it?” Then the intercom says it’s Genevieve’s turn, but as the clock ticks down, she just stands there, looking in the mirror. She pinches her cheeks into a smile, and then quickly runs out of the room, with Oscar calling after her.
Back outside the exhibit, they exchange pleasantries about their date. Oscar says he needs to just go after what he wants, and that what he wants is to kiss Genevieve. He leans in and she seems to be interested, but just before they kiss again, she starts to giggle. He’s taken aback and even though she assures it’s okay, he doesn’t believe her. She says she has to go and runs off, saying goodbye, and things seem okay, even if they’re perpetually awkward.
In the credits scene, Alex comes home and finds Nicholas in the center of what looks like a disaster zone. Nicholas says he’s taken a double dose of his stimulant so he’s hyper-focused and not ready to go to sleep, which Alex just kind of sighs at. Alex promises he’ll get everything clean in the morning, and heads into the bedroom to fall asleep.
And so ends another chapter in the crazy and yet simultaneously mundane lives on the Moss family. Episode 7, “Woolly Bear Caterpillar,” airs Thursday, May 13 at 10 p.m. ET/9 p.m. CT on Freeform.
