Emily and Mrs.Fields show up at a medium-fancy restaurant to find Maya consorting with Noel Kahn, who’s got his man fingers all over Maya’s mobile.
Emily:Â “Since when has Noel Kahn been your phone repair guy?”
Maya:Â “He saw me struggling and offered to help. He’s really sweet!”
Emily:Â “No, he’s not. But his smile takes up half his face so I can see how you could be confused.”
Emily! I do declare! You’ve gotten sassy and I love it.
Before we move on — just to recap, Noel Kahn apparently spotted Maya in public “struggling” with her phone, which I assume looked like this:
— and offered to fix it for her because nobody upgrades in Rosewood and if your phone breaks or needs something, the best way to repair it is to let a strange guy with ambiguous “phone-fixing” knowledge take it off your hands for a few hours/days/weeks. Henceforth this strange guy will become your “phone repair guy.” “Phone repair guys” are the new “lawnmower guys.”
Sometimes this show feels like the results of a writing exercise wherein young aspiring screenwriters were challenged to construct a multi-season teenage-focused thriller about primarily on cell phones.
So, Mrs. Fields tells Maya it’s great to see her, and it sounds genuine, but then Maya — who acts drunk for the entire meal despite being sober, sidenote  — busts out with “You know what they say about clean living!” Which is just like — whatever, what do they say about clean living? Is it marijuana’s fault that my hair looks like shit today and Maya’s looks straight out of a Vidal Sassoon Academy commercial? Mrs. Fields volleys back with, “Well, whatever you’re doing, it’s working,” ’cause Mrs. Fields wants to take the high road (not to be confused with “getting high,” which is the one-way road Maya took, heading North.)
Emily, painfully attempting to steer the convo south of Awkward City, reveals that Maya has joined the Jolly Juicy Jazz Band of Clean Living at her new school.
Mrs. Fields:Â “You know actually when I was in college, I had a huge poster of Miles Davis right over my bed. I absolutely worshipped that man.”
FYI, this is the huge poster Maya’s gonna have right over her bed at college, DUH:
Does anybody dislike Miles Davis? I thought the entire world was in agreement that Kind of Blue is the best album of all time. Still, Maya is “surprised.”
Maya:Â “Really, That’s surprising.”
Mrs. Fields:Â “Really? I mean what kind of music would you think I would have been listening to?”
Maya:Â “Oh, I don’t know. Classical music I guess? Something very sophisticated.”
Mrs. Fields:Â “Well I think jazz is sophisticated.”
Maya:Â “Oh me too but — jazz musicians are also known for–“
Because pretending to smoke an imaginary joint is far more discreet than saying the word “weed” or “drugs,” Maya does just that (If only Maya had whipped her belt from its loops, fastened it around her arm and dramatically searched for a vein, because weed wasn’t the only drug jazz musicians were “known for”). Maya’s whole line of reasoning is non-sensical as fuck, as judging musicians by their drugging/drinking habits would leave a person stranded on an island with nothing to listen to but Taylor Swift.
Maya:Â “Sorry about that, it’s just my stalker.”
Mrs. Fields:Â “Excuse me?”
Maya:Â “Oh, nothing, I’m just kidding. I dated this guy while I was at True North and he’s having trouble accepting that it’s over. But it’s cool, everything’s fine.”
Gah! Now Mom knows that Maya is indecisive, confused, slutty, having a phase, just dating boys because she’s in denial about her lesbianism, only dating girls because it’s trendy, unable to maintain a monogamous relationship, dishonest, homicidal, an alcoholic, ran out of things to fuck and needed something new, a Katy Perry fan, just waiting for the right guy to come along and fuck the gay right out of her, a cheater, the prize in a game show wherein bikini-clad lesbos and their juicehead male counterparts wrestle to the death in a hot tub of bubbling pre-cum, mentally unstable, trying to seem hip in order to promote her new movie and/or memoir, always up for a threesome, attention-seeking, having her cake and eating it too, planning to date women but ultimately marry a man, would never be seen with a woman in public, greedy and flaky. Also, let’s be real: a jazz musician.
We cut to other scenes and then return to this one, where Maya’s manic drunk-o crazyface remains in full-force and Emily’s acting like Maya punched her in the face with a penis.
Emily: “Why were you acting like that?”
Maya:Â “You’re the one who’s been freezing me out for the last 30 minutes.”
Emily:Â “Because you completely torpedoed dinner!”
Maya:Â “How do you see that?”
Um, like this:
Emily:Â “You kept making jokes about weed–”
Maya:Â “I made one joke and –”
Emily:Â “– and every time I tried to change the subject, you brought it back to True North.”
That’s the thing about True North. It’s everybody’s favorite direction to go in. Honestly I keep thinking about the NYU dorm Third Avenue North.
Emily:Â “I asked you to start over with my Mom.”
Maya:Â “And that’s what I was doing. I was trying to be honest.”
Emily:Â “Being honest is fine, you were trying to get a rise out of her. Why else would you bring up dating that guy? I finally got my Mom to come on board with me dating girls, and you bring that up? It’s confusing for her.”
Maya:Â “Is the fact that I dated a guy confusing to your mom, or for you?”
We cut like Maya just made a stellar point but really COME ON. I’m a badge-blaring member of the Honesty Police with Strong Political Opinions but surely Maya’s psychotic-stalker-ex-boyfriend-from-rehab bit wasn’t a deviation from the rest of her Dinner Behavior Disaster but actually a part of it on multiple levels. Turning it around on Emily seems — well — unfair.
For starters, I’d be appalled if my girlfriend shared what Maya shared regardless of the gender of Maya’s partner — you oughtta save “psychotic exes” for maybe your third Christmas with the fam. Furthermore, she’d already ruined her chance to make a good impression before the phone even rang so probably should’ve stopped talking altogether. But, in the context of the rest of the night’s entertainment, it’s hard not to see all of it as a profoundly obnoxious gesture shared specifically to make everyone as uncomfortable as possible.
All joking aside, if my new girlfriend’s Mom was still in the “maybe she’ll meet a nice boy” phase and I was presenting as a girl-who-likes-girls and I’d just gotten out of a relationship with a boy, I would keep that shit to myself for the sake of my girlfriend. Hell, if my new girlfriend’s Mom incorrectly thought her daughter could manage a full-time job on top of school and I myself had a full-time job on top of school, I’d play it down or complain about how hard/tiring it was to do so. My personal identity/politics/beliefs/”how the world SHOULD be” sometimes take a backseat to love and family or just wanting to have a nice meal talking about music, weather and kittens.
Get them to like you first, and THEN open up the Honesty Box, you know? That’s how you change minds in the end.
That being said, I don’t think Emily’s Mom is confused about anybody’s sexuality, I think she’s confused about why Maya has been a petulant weirdo for the entire meal.
What happened to the Maya who was there throughout the worst patch of Emily’s coming out process? Maya can be mad at Em’s Mom forever and ever, but this dinner isn’t about that. Also, Emily’s Mom is just visiting, why deliberately fuck with their few Precious Moments? Or maybe I’m hurting for Emily ’cause I know how hard it is to date someone your parents dislike, how hard it is to convince them there’s a side of her they just haven’t seen yet. It’s just the worst, it really is. “You know what they say about clean living!” Jesus christ.
Despite the fact that I don’t like Maya anymore and Emily should do whatever I say, Emily stops by her house in the morning for some processing.
Emily:Â “The thing is, I do have a problem with you dating that guy, but not for the reasons you think. I have a problem with you dating anyone but me…”
HOLLER ANYONE BUT ME SHOUT-OUT.
Emily:Â “…and knowing you’re into guys and girls, it just doubles the amount of people that I have to compete with.”
Maya:Â “Trust me, you have no competition… and you were right. As much as I’d like to be zen about it, I’m still mad at your Mom for busting me.”
Emily:Â “So now what?”
Maya:Â “Can I show you something?”
First, props to Emily for being mature and not biphobic. Secondly, last night, Maya smoked a shit-ton of opium and proceeded to decorate her room in a style that’d get at least 1,000 reblogs on tumblr. It’s all deep blue and sparkling with an underwater glow and it works — the decor just SCREAMS “darling it’s better down where it’s wetter.”
Maya:Â “If the sharks won’t let you back in the water, I’ll bring the water to you.”
She’s talking about saliva:
Maya:Â “I admit, I like to live life in the grey area, but the way I feel about you is crystal clear.”
Maya gazes into Emily’s sweet brown eyes like a psychotic vampire starving for a Big Gulp of Human Blood, and Emily opens her neckhole up to love.
Maya:Â “I love you Emily.”
Emily:Â “I love you too, Maya.”
And then they tumble onto the bed, geography be damned!
Well, now at least we’ve got this sorted out:
So. As much as I’m rooting for Emily to be with anyone at all, to have something to hold onto, I’m not sure that Maya is that thing. Two weeks ago Maya actually used “I was seeing someone else” as her excuse for cutting Emily out without any explanation whatsoever, and Emily accepted it not as a red flag, but as a Reasonable Explanation. Sure, Maya’s right to hold a grudge against Mrs. Fields, but if you don’t have anything nice to say it’s best not to say anything at all — if she couldn’t contain her resentment, she should’ve declined Emily’s invitation.
So, what do you think? Do you totally love Maya and hate me?
Oh also the best part of the episode was when Garret fronted like he was gonna hit Caleb with his car and Caleb made a face like “who the fuck are these people?”