Being Erica recap, episode 6: wherein Erica and Adam fight a lot, and everything gets much too whimsical

Being Erica recap, episode 6: wherein Erica and Adam fight a lot, and everything gets much too whimsical

BEING ERICA Episode 6

Stop! That is all Erica needs to say in episode six of Being Erica to freeze time because, for a 24-hour period, she’s a super hero doctor-in-training with Dr. Tom’s powers. There are some limitations, though, because as we know by now, Erica always makes mistakes, and it falls to Dr. Tom to clean up the mess. Erica can only shift time in the present, and she can jump from location to location by going through any door and just thinking of where she’d like to be. It was an admittedly fun episode (as in, Erica wasn’t whining the entire time; don’t worry, there was still plenty of that), but there was a whole lot of focus on her powers, with very little explanation on how it all works. It felt like we were watching an episode of Bewitched or I Dream of Jeannie.

The core struggle for episode six is a fight between Adam and Erica. Erica wants to travel, but Adam is taking a new job that will prevent him from taking a summer trip and also requires that he not go back to school. Erica tries to pressure Adam to rethink the decision he’s making on three separate occasions (you’ll find the whole multiple-regret scenario mimics Groundhog Day but is nowhere near as funny), because she believes he’d get more out of education, but she is never happy with the results of her time travels (in the first, Adam is angry and needs a breather, in the second, they break up and, in the third, they break up, only this time, he accuses Erica of taking away his free will).

Episode six’s subplot involves Julianne, who wants to go “cold turk on the caf,” because she is, in fact, still talking like that. Ray Ray suggests iced tea, which Julianne has apparently never heard of before (she says, “What is this?”), and she likes it. She likes it so much that there are two hits of shameless product placement for “Tetley Tea Infusion thingies,” which we found somewhat annoying, but no more annoying than Brent and Julianne’s net speak and abbreviations-handbook pitch that leads to an endless loop of OMG WTF LMAO. Oh, and Julianne says “abbrevs” a lot, to somehow indicate to the viewer that the writers of Being Erica stopped understanding human beings after 2001.

It is a lot to take in: Erica is jumping around, revisiting the events that transpire throughout her day; Adam is pissed off most of the time, unless Erica has managed to conceal the fact that she’s on her second attempt at manipulating him; Kai is okay with not being able to see Erica at first, but in a second go of the same conversation, he makes a pass at her. She barely resists, and out of guilt, takes Adam to Dublin by teleporting—or whatever—through a doorway. (Spoiler: they still break up, because, oh, she was manipulating him). Finally, Brent and Julianne have a wine-induced kiss (while dancing in the office).

At the end of the episode, Erica repeats a quote that Dr. Tom shared earlier (from Spider Man): “With great power comes great responsibility.” She realizes that even though she may have the opportunity to manipulate the present by reliving the struggles of her day-to-day, it might be more wise to let problems correct themselves naturally. Perhaps this means Erica will no longer be up on a high horse—but who are we kidding? We figure she and Kai will hook up a couple episodes from now, and maybe Brent and Julianne will publish a book about how cat macros are so hot right now.