We resume after Thanksgiving break with Greg balancing things with Tommy and Cristle. Thinking things are looking up, Tommy is worried when Greg hands him an assignment littered with red marks. As she returns to the office, Cristle lays down ground rules for her and Greg to follow. He respects them so they can remain friends.
Katie has been struggling emotionally, even crying during a viewing of Rudolph the Red-Noised Reindeer. She runs into Archie and is crushed that he didn’t fulfill his promise to choose them over he and Sunny. She tells him that she hopes he’s at least treating Sunny right.
After teaching a class, Archie finds Sunny and Mo in his office. Sunny is reading a parenting book while Mo reads his Rate-My-Professor reviews. Sunny is torn about her job offer.
Dylan has a stellar student, Eva, who she believes has a lot of potential in her poems. There are enough fiction writers on campus, thanks to Greg and his class, but Dylan urges her to get more vulnerable and write more poems. When the vulnerability tactic doesn’t work and Eva refuses to submit new work, Dylan hunts her down and takes her out for dinner. Dylan knows that poetry makes Eva happy even though she’s under a lot of pressure as her parents would rather her not do it full time. Dylan presents Eva with the mock-up, with her poem on Page 20 front and center. Eva is overjoyed.
When Tommy doesn’t show up to Greg’s office hours, he hunts down the friend group and learns that Tommy is thinking about dropping out of school altogether. Cristle then asks Greg to help her as Tommy truly sees him as a father figure. When Greg talks to Tommy, he thinks about being a cop. Tommy gets under Officer Mullins’s wing and thinks that being a cop is super fun. After Greg talks to Mullins about his choices, he bribes him into telling Tommy that being a cop isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. The three of them camp out in a parking lot eating donuts. Mullins actually gets vulnerable and tells them that his coworkers often leave him out of events outside of work. He’s really alone, and he tells Tommy it’s just a job.
Greg and Tommy sit on the lawn to talk. Greg tells him that he is such a good friend and has so much potential as a writer, that he should really consider staying in school. When Tommy brings up all of the red marks on his assignment, Greg tells him that he’s tough on students who he believes are going to be great writers. Greg even recites a few lines of Tommy’s. He is heart warmed.
Sunny finds Archie actually reading the parenting book She then tells him about the job offer. When Archie questions her choices, Sunny tells him she isn’t going to take the job. Instead she’s going to stay with him to raise the baby. Mo thinks this is a huge mistake.
Tommy runs into Katie on campus and she looks really sad. Tommy then tells her how lucky she is to have a dad like Greg because he’s so caring and so supportive. The episode ends with Katie going to Greg’s house to talk to him. He surprises her with her own bike. She then sits on the steps and tells him everything that’s going on with her and Archie. He pulls her in for a hug. Cut to black.
8/10