Lisa from HR continues to flirt with Detrick, prompting Nicole to caricaturistically transform herself to favor Lisa’s dress and demeanor, which does little to sway Detrick and more to inconvenience Lisa.
Ned checks himself into a hospital as a desperate dead-end effort to regain Mare’s sympathy. It works. His diagnosis: mold inhalation. Detrick finds a package from Ned’s office as a likely culprit. Mare confirms it was a muffin and card she gifted Ned at the beginning of the season, after the Ohio Journalism Awards.
It upsets Mare that Ned never opened the gift, equating its pristine, unopened condition with his prioritization of their relationship (or lack thereof). He reveals that he wanted to open it upon completion of the Glass Club case, wherein he would feel like he earned such a gift. Mare buys his reason.
When Esmeralda discovers that her son, Mateo, has a low score in Math, she pulls a Drew Barrymore from Never Been Kissed by impersonating a teenager in Mateo’s school. She gains popularity among students who cannot discern her obvious adult qualities. School administration recognize her as Mateo’s mom, and play at her ego by saying she should skip middle school and enroll in college, which is effective at removing her from school property
Near the end, Ned extends a grand romantic compromise to Mare to take the Glass Club story to the Cincinnati Chronicle, conserving Detrick’s journalistic integrity along with it, due to his investigation. Mare’s boss approves the story, which both Mare and Ned agree could be groundbreaking for Mare’s career.
Ned pleads for Mare to return to TTT as a journalist because her writing scares him (typical for an insecure man) as she could excel as a journalist anywhere, especially after she admitted her intentions of signing a six-month lease in Cincinnati when she visited him in the hospital.
This flatters her, and she agrees to occupy her role at TTT so long as she fulfills the role of nothing other than a journalist. In other words, not as a couple.
Ned reveals in his confessional to the camera crew that he loves her. He plans on playing the long game, longing for them to reconcile eventually.
The mismatched personalities of the show’s central couple remains unconvincing. Its lukewarm dynamic cannot match a tender, wholesome intimacy from fellow sitcom couples, like Pam and Jim in the predecessor show, Lily and Marshall in How I Met Your Mother, or Cece and Schmidt in New Girl. Ditching the anticlimactic couple would drive the writers to develop the supporting characters more.
Rating: 6/10