In the novel, Fleishman is in Trouble, author Taffy Brodesser-Akner makes it clear that Toby’s profession as a hepatologist is no coincidence. “It was full of forgiveness,” the book reads about Toby’s fascination with the liver. “It wouldn’t just forgive you; it would practically forget.” That quote from the novel stayed with me while viewing the eighth and final episode of FX’s series adaptation, symbolically titled “The Liver.” This episode goes beyond the end of the novel, rooting the story in that of its narrator, Libby Epstein.
Toby Fleishman (Jesse Eisenberg) is awoken in the middle of the night by a knock at his apartment door. “I saw Rachel,” Libby Epstein (Lizzy Caplan) reveals, telling her friend about how she bumped into his ex-wife in the park, took her back to her apartment, listened to her story, and helped her fall asleep, with a scheduled doctor visit for the next morning. “So, that’s it?”, Toby asks uncaringly, adding that he has to work in a few hours. Libby is shocked by Toby’s cold attitude towards the mother of his children, trying to help him understand that Rachel had a mental breakdown and needs help. “She can hire help,” he snaps, which builds to an argument that ends with Toby showing Libby the door.
(Linda Kallerus/FX)
Even though Toby has a new boss at work, life goes on pretty much as usual for his career. We see him helping Solly (Maxim Swinton) with his science project on superposition, showcasing how the electrons of an atom can be in two different states at once, both of which are true. Hannah (Meara Mahoney Gross) decides not to have a bat mitzvah after all the studying of the haftorah, talking Toby out of making her follow the longstanding tradition. “Another great tradition is forging your own path and being better than your parents,” Toby acknowledges, realizing that his daughter has grown up much like his divorce – “Slowly, and then all at once.” Toby takes his kids to the Vantablack exhibit one last time before it closes. This time, they successfully enter the void together.
But this episode – this series, even – isn’t about Toby. It’s about Libby. Flashing back to the beginning of the summer, our narrator reveals that leaving her career to be a suburban housewife has left her feeling like a magazine writer eternally without an assignment. The other housewives don’t understand her hot takes, with conversations always steering back to their children and homes. One day, she bumped into an old friend named Michelle (Michelle Beck) who is so happy now that she’s getting divorced. It was actually the third divorce she heard about that month and it got her thinking about the life she had before marriage. Returning to an empty house, Libby opened up Facebook and sent a friend request to her high school boyfriend Larry Feldman, who instantly accepted and sent her a message. But Larry made things creepy, bringing up a basement memory that caused Libby to close her laptop in disgust. That very night, she received a call from an old friend she hadn’t seen in 11 years – Toby Fleishman. Spending time with Toby and Seth Morris (Adam Brody) made Libby feel like her old self, not needing to explain anything to anyone. Not only did she feel reconnected with her old life, she was also living one she never had through Toby’s stories of wild encounters on dating apps.
It’s been several days since Libby’s husband Adam (Josh Radnor) left the reunion party without his wife, days since she’s been home. She apologizes to her husband as she wakes him up in his sleep. Adam just rolls over and gives her the silent treatment. The next morning, Libby cooks a big breakfast to learn that her daughter Sasha (Lucinda Lee Dawson Gray) no longer eats in the morning. Libby tries to intervene as Adam deals with their son Miles (Oscar Bennett), who refuses to take his swim test. “I got this,” Adam snaps at Libby, refusing breakfast and announcing he placed a bagel order he will pick up on his way to drop the kids off at camp before going to work.
(Linda Kallerus/FX)
“It went on like that for a while,” Libby explains. “Me doing penance, me staring out into the Vantablack wondering how this would get resolved.” Seth was still mad at Libby so they weren’t speaking. Toby and Libby were mad at each other. Libby was trying to return to her suburban life detached from her old one. While driving, she spots Sasha in the front yard of a friend’s house and learns that Adam is in the backyard. It’s a barbeque party she seemingly didn’t know about and she goes in the back to find her husband shucking corn with his friend Phillip (Ralph Adriel Johnson). “Can we talk about this?”, she asks him. Adam tells her that this party was on the family calendar and goes back to chatting with Phillip, confusing Libby when he talks about going over to his friend’s house to watch the game, bringing homemade queso, an interest and skill she didn’t know he had. Phillip senses the marital tension and excuses himself. “Now’s not good,” Adam tells Libby, who begs him to come inside the house so they can talk in private.
In a game room, Libby apologizes to Adam, who tells her there’s nothing to talk about. He characterizes her as being “miserable, sarcastic, and merciless.” She tells him how wonderful he is and that she feels like something is wrong with her. “I feel like I’m not alive anymore,” she explains. “Well, you know what?”, Adam asks, “I’m happy.” He brings up all of the good things in their lives and accuses Libby of falsely characterizing the other housewives. He reminds Libby that they didn’t fall into this life, they chose it deliberately. “I feel like a few years ago I was a person, and then I looked up and I have no idea when everything started to feel so the same,” Libby explains. When Adam asks if he can help his wife figure things out, she tells him this isn’t about him. “Are you sleeping with Toby?”, he asks. Libby tells him she’s not, apologizing for sleeping over at Toby’s apartment one time. Adam returns to the backyard to finish his corn duties.
(Linda Kallerus/FX)
Libby walks through the backyard as a band plays “Free Bird.” As she gets close to a group of her peers, she hears a conversation about kids. As she walks past another group, she heas a conversation about houses. “And this bird you cannot change,” the band’s lead singer belts. Libby goes home, finding the house quiet and empty. She lays in bed reading, turning off the light and pretending to be asleep when she hears Adam and the kids come home. Her husband opens the bedroom door to check on her, closing the door and going back downstairs. “You just staying in bed all day?”, he asks the next morning, already dressed for work. Libby tells him she had a crazy dream. “Guess I’m taking the kids to camp,” he responds, not asking about it.
Glenn (Joe Tuttle), Libby’s former editor, calls her to share that Archer Sylvan (Christian Slater) has died. “In my dream, I’d been asking Archer for advice,” Libby tells us, unable to remember what the advice was about. Her hero, the writer who made her want to become a journalist and work at the men’s magazine. But instead of giving her advice, Archer asked Libby if they’d ever slept together. She reminding him that he was her hero, that she worked at the same magazine as him. “He kept asking what does that have to do with me?”
Libby gets a call from Seth, asking if they can pretend they’ve moved on from their fight and inviting her to a party. At dinner that night, she asks Adam if they can hire a babysitter to go to Seth’s party. He is cold and quiet, saying they don’t need a sitter, he’s not going. “I hope you have a good time,” he says, getting up from the table. Libby covers her eyes from her kids as she cries at the table.
Seth’s party is full of his Wall Street bros and his girlfriend’s twenty-something friends. Libby waits for a drink at the bar when she hears a familiar voice behind her. “You know what’s going on here, right?”, Toby asks. Libby looks around and realizes this is an engagement party. “What an idiot,” she says as Seth clinks a glass to get everyone’s attention. He reminisces about his old themed parties, saying he was always trying to make sense of the world and that he has now stopped trying to do that, he’s just going to listen to what his heart wants and his heart wants Vanessa (Frances Li), who he describes as the most beautiful woman in the room. She cries as he proposes and accepts his ring. The crowd cheers, Libby starts to cry, and Toby teases her for being touched. “I’m sorry, Libby,” Toby says. “I am, too,” she replies.
Later, Seth makes it over to Libby and Toby, asking his oldest friends if he’s an idiot. “I think maybe marriage is like that quote about democracy,” Libby says, “it’s the worst form of government in the world except for all the other forms of government.” Libby and Toby give Seth blessing for a fruitful marriage in a Yiddish accent. Seth recalls that everything the beggar woman said to them in Israel has come true. “We’re all good, right?”, he asks. “I feel like something’s ending. I can’t take an ending right now.” Libby and Toby say they’re all good and Seth leaves to join Vanessa.
(Linda Kallerus/FX)
Toby shares that he heard Archer Sylvan died and she tells him about her dream. She learned that he didn’t have any family or loved ones, so the magazine is paying for his funeral. Toby shares how lucky they both are to have their kids and families. Libby says she doesn’t know what she’s going to do with her life, but Toby says she’s done, that she’s found love and that’s what it’s all about. Libby tells him that’s not enough for her and probably won’t be enough for Toby, either. “I think I might write a book,” she announces, prompting Toby to ask what about. “About life and marriage and money and dissatisfaction and lifelong friendship and how all of these things coelesce in middle age and make you miserable right at the exact point you’re supposed to have everything set,” she lets out. She describes Toby’s story and he brings up that there isn’t an ending yet, so she starts to brainstorm with him, starting with Rachel coming back. “Why does she come back?”, she asks. “She comes back because she was always going to come back,” Libby shares, characterizing Rachel as having been outside of her body watching herself. “In the end, when she comes home, she realizes she really needs to figure out her life because her marriage is not perfect, but it’s not like not being married is ever going to make her young again.” She talks about how it was all a mistake, a misunderstanding, and that Rachel returns on the night of a rain shower that breaks the summer heat wave. Toby will just be home and he’ll hear a key in the lock and turn around and there she’ll be. “And then?”, he asks. “And then the book ends,” Libby says. Toby wants to know more, but Libby shakes her head. “I don’t think I have the imagination for that,” she cries. “That’s okay,” Toby acknowledger. They put their foreheads against each other and say platonic “I love you’s”. Toby admits that he hasn’t been a good friend to her recently. “It’s okay, you’ve been going through a lot,” she forgives him. “But I want you to know you are still you. I can see it all,” Toby acknoesledges, telling Libby that he views her exactly as she was the day they met. It’s a healing moment for them both and they decide to leave the party together. But Toby needs to use the restroom, so Libby goes outside alone. She lights up a cigarette, looks at it, and makes a decision to put it out. She steps to the curb, hails a cab, gets inside, and texts Toby an apology for not waiting for him.
“We fall in love and we decide to marry in this one incredible moment,” Libby ponders on her ride home. “What if everything after that is about trying to remember that moment?” She questions if all of the divorces around her have been a casualty of that feeling. She realizes that no matter what, time will march on, you’ll never be able to return to your former self. “You were only at risk of forgetting that this was as good as it was ever going to get… that you are, right now, as young as you will ever be again.” Libby arrives home, going to the kitchen to get a glass of water, closing the eternally open freezer door. She goes upstairs and checks in on her kids as they sleep. Then she goes to her bedroom, crawling into bed and becoming Adam’s big spoon. “You’re home,” he says, wrapping his arms around the back of hers. “I ran home because I love you so much I think I’m gonna die from it,” Libby says. “I’m sorry I’m late.” Adam becomes tender towards her again. “It’s okay, you always come back.”
(Linda Kallerus/FX)
We zoom out of Libby’s house as it starts to rain. We follow the lightning and thunder across the Hudson into New York City. Toby walked home, getting home soaking wet and relieving his babysitter (Faith Score). Alone, he expected the usual feelings of panic to hit him, but they didn’t. “He was healing,” Libby’s narration explains. He looks out the window at the city, seeing his own reflection in front of windows into other people’s lives. It gives him a feeling of both loneliness and hope all at once. As he stands there looking out, he hears a key in the lock. He turns around. The door is open. It’s Rachel (Claire Danes).
The end
I hope you’ve enjoyed FX’s series adaptation of Fleishman is in Trouble. If you love Libby and want to spend more time with her, Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s novel is entirely from Libby’s narration, allowing readers to linger inside her mind.
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