Sophie (Kim Cattrall) starts the episode off by telling her son that when she was younger, she was a dirty liar. In 2023, Sophie (Hilary Duff) is waiting to hear if her photo had sold, and she can’t keep her focus because of how much she wants this to happen. Walking by the bar, Sophie and Valentina (Francia Raisa) see that Meredith (Leighton Meester) is with Jesse (Christopher Lowell) talking to Ellen (Tien Tran) and Charlie (Tom Ainsley). Concerned that she looks worse than Meredith, Sophie is in a bit of a pickle.
Meredith is telling everyone about her busy schedule, and while Charlie and Ellen seem happy for her and Jesse, Sid (Suraj Sharma) is still struggling to accept Meredith back into the group. Trying to stand out in front of Meredith, Sophie lies about selling her photo at the gallery.
Ellen is busily looking through the peephole hoping that Rachel (Aby James) will show up, and Charlie tells her to relax. Concerned that Rachel isn’t interested in her, Charlie works to help Ellen feel better. Back at Sid and Jesse’s apartment Sid is not liking Meredith, and his resentment for her comes out into the open. Jesse tries to get to the bottom of Sid’s discontent.
Sid tells him that he has had issues with Meredith long before she turned down Jesse’s proposal. Meredith offers to allow Sid the opportunity to air his grievances and he takes her up on the invitation. Sophie thinks that everything went well meeting Meredith, to which Valentina reminds her that everything she said was a complete lie.
One of Sophie’s clients comes to the apartment door, a neighbor who is in labor (played by pop star Meghan Trainor), and has hired Sophie to photograph the home birth. Valentina learns that Sophie lied about her experience photographing home births and confronts her.
Trying to help her pregnant neighbor, Sophie is concerned that this might be the best she will ever do because she’s worried that her photo will never sell. Valentina feels bad for Sophie and tries to help her out with the homebirth.
Sid takes his opportunity to air his grievances and begins to list all the annoying things about Meredith that has bothered him. From her sneezing to her choice of a favorite movie. Sid concludes his list of complaints with a story about the time Meredith ate his specially prepared burritos. (Sid delivers a beautiful speech about what really grinds his gears. Suraj Sharma is hilarious.)
Meredith apologizes for eating Sid’s burrito. Sid still has more to talk about with the burrito incident, but Jesse is uncomfortable and leaves the room. Meredith confronts Sid and says that they need to talk alone.
At Charlie and Ellen’s apartment, the place is all cleaned up and they have opened their door to the hall in hopes of catching Rachel’s attention. Instead, two older neighbors burst through the door because since the door was open they figured Charlie and Ellen were looking for company. More neighbors come in thinking it’s a party, and a large party begins.
Valentina returns to the pregnant neighbor’s apartment with a large amount of cold shrimp and throws it into the birthing tub. Her reasoning to Sophie is that they were out of ice cubes. This was not what Sophie had in mind to cool the temperature of the tub. When Sophie tries to answer her phone, thinking the gallery is going to call about the sale of her photo, but her phone falls into the birthing tub.
When their neighbor comes out and sees Sophie soaking wet in the tub, she wants to know what’s going on. Overcome with all her lies, Sophie admits the truth, and labor begins. Only Sophie and Valentina are there to deliver the child.
As Sid and Meredith talk Meredith tells him that she and Jesse are happier than they have ever been. When Jesse walks into the room, Sid says that he has no more complaints even though he has a deep dark secret about Meredith that would hurt Jesse.
Ellen finds out that Rachel came home and she has had enough of being a party host. Calmly leading her neighbor through birth, Sophie has the help of a paramedic on the phone but drops the phone in the tub and the two friends are there alone.
(The birthing scene is hilarious, and all three actresses make this a top moment for the season, and this is only episode 2.)
Knocking on Rachel’s door, Ellen tells her neighbor that she wants to know why she hasn’t texted her back about going out. Through some social anxiety and worry, Rachel and Ellen reveal that they are perfect for each other, and Ellen asks Rachel out.
At the bar, Sid serves Jesse and Meredith a beer, and thinks back to the night she ate his burrito and what he heard her say on the phone. It turns out that on the day Jesse had a music recital for the kids he taught, Meredith faked being sick because she wasn’t interested in going. She had better things to do with her time. While Sid is making the decision to hide this fact from Jesse, Valentina and Sophie come into the bar excited over helping in the birth of their neighbor’s child.
Sophie sees Meredith and Jesse and tells them that she lied about the sale of her photo but that’s okay because she helped deliver a baby today. Meredith graciously thanks her for her honesty and tells Sophie that what she did was great. Feeling humble, Sophie’s phone rings and it’s the gallery telling her that her photo did sell. Excited Sophie plans to tell the truth from now on, with some room for lies.
Bill’s Final Thoughts:
The season started off with a brilliant episode, and this one is just another feather in the cap for the show. Watching Hilary Duff, Francia Raisa, and Meghan Trainor during the birth scene was wickedly funny, we get some character development for Meredith.
Suraj Sharma continues to be one of the most important characters in the show, and Christopher Lowell proves that Jesse is desperate for true love, that he would be willing to ignore the truth about someone like Meredith.
The one problem this episode had was the lack of Hannah. More Hannah please.