Sophie (Kim Cattrall) tells her son that sometimes in your life you will have to perform a best friend rescue.
In the present-day, Sophie (Hilary Duff) is encouraging all of her friends, Sid, Hannah, Ellen, Charlie, and Jesse (Suraj Sharma, Ashley Reyes, Tien Tran, Tom Ainsley, and Christopher Lowell) how Val (Francia Raisa) and Swish’s (Michael Cimino) engagement party will be a success. By success, Sophie means how it will fail so miserably that this unwanted engagement will finally come to an end.
Hannah just back from California and has no idea what is going on. Jesse suggests Val simply break up with Swish, but this doesn’t go over well with Val. Sophie tells them all that disappointing Swish face to face is a no go.
Sophie assigns all the friend’s special roles for the party to convince Swish to break up with Val. At the bar, the group plans for the evening. Swish seems to be impervious to the roles being played by Sophie and Jesse. Ellen fails miserably at trying to be the bitter divorce.
Sid and Hannah practice their role as the unhappy married couple, but Sid soon learns that Hannah is looking for a house in Los Angeles. So far, the plan has failed. Sophie’s ‘Hail Mary’ idea is to bring in Val’s parents Juan and Raquel (Mark Consuelos and Constance Marie).
Her parents are extremely worried about Val and want to know what’s going on. Sophie preps her parents to be the disapproving dad. But Val’s dad struggles to be angry, and Val’s mom is having trouble showing her disappointed face.
Sid and Hannah are no longer pretending to fight because they are really arguing about their future. Neither is happy with what the other is saying. Hannah wants Sid to consider the idea of moving to Los Angeles and Sid says this is not their plan.
Val’s parents are trying to convince Swish that marriage is not a good choice. Swish on the other hand convinces both that he has a plan, and they both like what Swish has to say. When they meet back with Val, they tell their daughter that Swish has their blessing.
Though she doesn’t want to marry Swish, Val takes her parents advice and agrees to pursue the union. Jesse tries his best to help Charlie and Ellen get over their uncomfortable incident at the apartment. Jesses suggests they do each activity in the book Joe Pesci’s 101 New York Musts (This would be a great book to publish in real life.) This allowed Jesse and Sid to get past their own uncomfortable incident. Ellen and Charlie agree.
Sophie is worried about Val. She questions her friend about her plan to marry Swish. Reminding her friend about Charlie, Val tells Sophie that maybe Swish is the best she will ever do.
Sid meets up with Val’s parents outside, and he seeks advice about his relationship. Val’s dad gives some great advice, and Sid goes in to talk to Hannah. Sophie finds a video of Charlie confessing his love for Val, and this gets Val thinking. With some wise words, Val is reminded that she doesn’t really love Swish, and she is going to end the engagement.
Val and Swish break up. At the end of the night, Sophie asks Val how she feels. Even though she feels guilty, Val is happy that she ended the engagement.
Episode Rating: B
I didn’t like the Swish side story because I felt it distracted from Sophie’s story. It was nice to see Sophie care for her friend, but it was good to get rid of Swish.