Younger - Big Little Liza - Review: 'Did she really just say that?'

On this week's episode Liza was way too close to being exposed in a huge way, Josh had a big decision to make and we met Lauren's new assistant Tam


Don the Snake

Raise your hand if you believed that Don would actually turn out to be a legit love interest for Liza after we saw him stuff a pork chop in his pocket last week? (No one's hand should be up FYI). Yes that is right, Don turned out to be an opportunist who found out Liza's secret by chance and immediately ghosted her to write a tell-all that would hopefully get him back in the upper echelons of Manhattan society and away from writing internet articles about where the members of O-Town are. Honestly, with how much Liza spills her guts every time someone outside the main cast finds out, I am surprised Don is the first one who tried to use this revelation so quickly and in such a large scale. For reasons I will discuss in length shortly, Don's article doesn't get off the ground and he will continue to circle the drain of journalism... which doesn't hurt my feelings. The consequences of what he does leads to one of the most uncomfortable moments that I have ever experienced watching this show.

Meet Tam

Younger has always had a knack for introducing topical issues that society as a whole may not be aware of and this week was no different. Lauren is working on her edible makeup line (only Lauren right?) and has gotten herself an intern named Tam. I personally loved Tam from their first line of dialogue when they told Lauren that they didn't actually do her dry cleaning but ran an iron very hard across it and put it in a bag. Tam is what Lauren describes as gender queer which is something I was unaware of and was grateful to learn about. The use of someone's pronouns is very important to understand because it is how they identify themselves and it should be respected, I learned this as well as Liza, Maggie and Josh and in that moment, I applauded the show for introducing this to people that may not be aware. They then did something as a way to help Liza get out of the jam Don had put her in that gave me pause.

Full disclosure, this review took me a bit longer because there were things that Liza did and said in an effort to maintain her work life that bothered me. I sympathize with why she had to lie about her age in the first place because we live in a world that like it or not is ageist, especially towards women. The idea that a woman over the age of 40 cannot be considered seriously for a job in a younger industry like publishing is very real and what the show is built on, but her choice of words to get out of being found out and risking everything bothered me a lot especially considering that the show just introduced its first non-binary, gender queer character. While it may have been quick and 'funny' using the term Age Queer it made me massively uncomfortable. So I will try my best to explain what I feel was great about this episode and what didn't land right. I spoke to my fellow writers behind the scenes who are fans of this show as well and read up on how this one piece of dialogue landed and it helped me a lot to understand why this made me so uncomfortable. I give the show props for immediately acknowledging that Liza knew it was offensive but not wanting to disclose your age and how it relates to the world you navigate and exploring the very foundation of what makes you, you are two very different things in my opinion. So I guess that is why I didn't land on the side that thought this was a brilliant way for Liza to explain to Reese Witherspoon's people that she isn't truly 41, because it wasn't genuine, it was a means to an end. I would love to hear other's thoughts on how they felt about 'age queer' in the comments because learning about something you may not be aware of is one of the foundations of life.

We Commit to You
I loved Josh's story this week because it was not about who he was getting into bed with or how he was moving on from Liza, it was purely about him and where he views himself in life. Josh needed to either vacate his beloved tattoo parlor or sign a ten year lease. In this episode we see Josh wrestle with the idea of putting down true roots and Liza is there in a friend only capacity to help him with this one, but it was Josh who decided what he would do. Ever since Josh and Liza broke up, I have wondered how the show would continue his story that made sense and didn't feel out of place and this week the show put that right out in the open. Josh has found a surrogate family apart from Liza and as she said, they commit to him and don't want him to be a footnote in their story. So Josh deciding to sign the lease and get a bigger sign made me happy because I love Josh apart from his time with Liza. As a side note, Josh's reaction to Lauren's business exploding all over his living room was great, that guy is the pinnacle of patience with his roommates and they are quite lucky.

Some Other Notes:

*Dare I say Zane was jealous seeing Kelsey and Jake getting cozy? He can act like it is all business but that man cares about Kelsey and honestly, who could blame him?

*Charles was absent this week, and I couldn't help but picture him in upstate New York with his girls decompressing from all the recent drama.

*Caitlin's return was hilarious. Liza reaction to her mashing her face in that bread was priceless and it got even better when she did it to her in a restaurant to prove a point about how ridiculous it was. Liza is a wonderful mom.

So what did you think of this one? In many ways I found it one of the best of the season aside from the issue I mentioned