Being Erica recap, episode 8: wherein TV time travel is explained (poorly) and Sam’s baby is born in a tub

This week’s Being Erica opens with the most blatant example of in-show advertising we’ve ever witnessed (even more than Julianne’s legendary love of Tetley Infusions). Julianne and Erica are taking a test drive of the most hideously coloured car we’ve ever seen (metallic vomit comes to mind) and rave for three minutes about the convenient and handy features—perfect for a city girl on the go like Erica Strange. We were convinced the car was going to be Erica’s patient of the week, but instead Erica gets a week off from helping others to voice-over about secrets. Read our recap after the jump.

Erica has quickly forgotten about Adam and has moved on to lovers paradise with Kai, who leaves her a voicemail about a date. Julianne overhears and naturally wants Erica to dish, but Erica is mum on the identity of her mystery man. Kai tells her to meet him in a back alley for their magical date to begin (well, never say he isn’t romantic) and we see that he’s gone full-on Phantom of the Opera, lighting candelabras for a romantic date on the stage of a theatre, which, naturally, Erica finds incredibly charming. Kai wants sex, but Erica “would need a whole lot more to drink before she’d make love on stage,” which leads to yet another painful segue into making Kai sing. He delivers an awkward acoustic rendition of “Let’s Stay Together” which gets Erica in a kissin’ mood—that is, before the mellow is interrupted by that looming spectre of death from 2019 (remember last season where Kai came back to warn Erica about something bad happening in the future?). Kai wants to warn her, but he can’t or Dr. Fred may intervene and remove him from his regret timeline.

The cardinal rule of time-travel we’ve learned from Back to the Future is you can’t mess with the past (although this is very rarely actually something that the writers of Being Erica commit to). Dr. Fred appears to warn Kai that indeed he can’t tell Erica what happens only to tell her himself five minutes later. There’s going to be a bomb attack at Union Station in 2019 and Erica will be one of the unfortunate victims. The next day, after Kai sleeps over, he tries to cheer her up by helping her compile her bucket list: finish a novel, “even if it’s crap,” buy a car (well, Ms. Strange, there may be some affordable lease options available to you if you act now—perhaps a Ford automobile with steady handling?), start a fiction division, visit Cassidy in Brazil, sky dive, take piano lessons, and see the Rockies (she hears “Jasper is stunning”).

Meanwhile, meanie Scott Galven wants to have another meeting with 50/50. River Rock is “a sausage fest” and the 50/50 gals are “covering the estro market” with some prime titles (Sweet Dreams, Kitty and Osso Barko?) and River Rock “wants a piece of their pie.” Clunky sexual innuendo aside, Julianne doesn’t even want to meet with Galven, but Erica’s new realization that she’ll be dead in 8 years lights a fire under her. She agrees to the meeting, where River Rock offers each of them $500,000 for 50/50 and another $500,000 for six-months of a five year contract. Who knew niche publishing out of a club/restaurant/coffee shop could be so lucrative?

Erica wants to “merge” with River Rock, but Julianne is against it and they get into a slight spat. How will Erica learn to stop worrying about the future and just live in the present? With a visit from future Erica, of course. Spotting a 43-year old Erica throws present Erica for a loop (even though she’s got years of time travel under her belt, and her present boyfriend is from the future). It seems Erica both survived the attack and didn’t—future Erica goes on about some multiverse theory wherein every decision leads to a different door (the writers sure love doors as symbolism for choices). In the future, Dr. Fred and Kai warned her about the attack and she avoids Union Station, which implies she does nothing to stop the event from happening. Somehow, all this helps Erica realize she shouldn’t worry about the future (kind of like Doctor Tom has been advising since day one) and she should live in the moment. This leads to a sporty car to drive around in, opening a fiction department at 50/50 (she’s told Julianne she wants to open one), and taking a few weeks off to follow Kai’s band (which just so happens to have a stop in the Rockies) on tour.

Being Erica #Wins and #OhBrothers

• Sam wants Lenin to have sex with her to induce labour, or as the show puts it, to “bathe [her] cervix in prosteglandins.”  Such real medical terms we felt like we were watching Grey’s Anatomy. #OhBrother

• Erica tells Kai mid-kiss, “if I had doctor powers, I would stop time and make this moment last forever.” If her novel writing career ever gets off the ground, we suggest Harlequin romances. #OhBrother

• In case you couldn’t feel the palpable chemistry from Brent and Julianne, he announces “we are having hot crazy sex.” #Win (for them, we guess, but also, seriously?)

• Thank goodness Kai emerges shirtless from Erica’s bedroom—we were worried with Adam’s departure there wouldn’t be any male pulchritude on display. #Win

• Future Erica has a kicky new bob. Is there some way to tell the passage of time without awful wigs? #OhBrother

• Future Erica cries after she leaves Dr. Tom’s office, which might mean that he dies in the Union Station attacks of 2019. #OhNo

• Why on earth would a doctor (of medicine, not time travel) who works in a hospital opt for the more out-there method of water birth? Sam shows off her pregnancy bod in a kiddie pool in their mom’s living room. #OhBrother