With death comes confusion. And not being able to ask questions comes with a sense of loss. It’s a question of how one makes it through the pain of death, when there are so many questions that it leaves behind.
To be honest, this episode confused me. It confused me – the viewer – because I couldn’t understand any of the motivation behind it. It felt scattered and all over the place when all I was searching for was a way to understand the characters involved.
A LIL …
The morning of the will reading makes one thing painfully obvious: Sam and Charlie may have lost the same mother, but they aren’t carrying that loss the same way. Sam is sitting with old photos, letting himself feel. Charlie is already trying to get through it. Neither approach to grieving is wrong, but it may be hard for the other person to understand.
When Charlie comes downstairs, pulls a bottle of Jameson out, and starts talking about putting it in the coffee to prepare for the day, there’s almost something darkly funny about it. Who plans cocktails for their mother’s will reading? But that’s Charlie.
Sam keeps trying to connect with his brother by talking about their Mom. He needs support through his pain. He reaches for something honest and tries to give something vulnerable. Charlie doesn’t want to talk about it. His responses are short. He is focused on getting through the day rather than experiencing it.
The distance between them feels so sad because neither of them is wrong. They’re just grieving in opposite directions and have to find a middle ground.
Even Sam’s text interaction with Taylor highlights the difference. She texts to say she’s thinking about him. He responds politely. Appreciatively.
Sam isn’t really present anywhere right now. He’s stuck somewhere in limbo – between grief and confronting his past. It is hard for the viewer to connect to that as the show has yet to admit to what has happened.
For Sam, the will reading is another reminder that Sue is gone.
For Charlie, it feels like something to survive.
And those are two very different things.
MY BESTIE IS A LAWYER
Before the will reading, Percy is pacing the motel room like she’s trying to outrun her own anxiety. Part of it is the uncertainty surrounding Sue’s estate. She doesn’t know why she would be in the will. But most of her anxiety is – Sam.
After what almost happened between them at the tavern, being in the same room feels impossible. It feels like something to be afraid of. Barry’s Bay keeps proving to Percy that being around Sam and Charlie may not be the best idea.
Thankfully, Chantal has no intention of letting her walk into this alone. Part friend, part lawyer, part emotional support system, Chanteal gets dressed and prepares for the possible battle with the Florek brothers. Percy spirals through every possible worst-case scenario.
Ironically, neither of them comes close to predicting the actual one.
At the lawyer’s office, Sam and Charlie are already waiting when they’re told one more person is coming. Unaware of who it could be, neither brother looks thrilled when Percy walks through the door.
Then the reading begins.
Most of Sue’s estate goes to her sons. The house. The assets. The things everyone expects.
Then comes the tavern. Sue leaves the tavern and everything inside it to Percy.
And suddenly, nobody knows what to do with that information. I do not believe that the shock is really about the business and the building. It’s about what the decision means. Sue’s will forces everyone to acknowledge something they’ve spent years dancing around: Percy wasn’t just Sam’s girlfriend. She wasn’t just Charlie’s friend.
She was family.
Sue lost Percy too.
That’s what this inheritance represents.
Not obligation. Not charity. Not a mistake.
Love.
Unfortunately, grief has a way of turning pain into anger, and Percy becomes the easiest target in the room.
Sam is stunned.
Charlie is furious.
The frustrating part is that Percy is just as blindsided as they are. She didn’t ask for this. She didn’t know about it. She walks into the room expecting discomfort and somehow leaves responsible for a problem she didn’t create.
It seems to be a frequent occurrence with the Florek brothers – both of whom don’t seem to know how to take responsibility for their actions.
The more she tries to explain that she doesn’t want the tavern, the worse everything gets.
Because while Percy is apologizing for a situation that isn’t her fault, Chantal is the only person reminding everyone that a will reading is not a negotiation.
Sue made a choice. No one has to like her choice. Whether anyone likes that choice is an entirely different conversation.
By the time Charlie storms out and Sam shuts down, the room has stopped feeling like a legal proceeding and started feeling like a family argument nobody was prepared to have.
The truth is, nobody is really fighting about the tavern.
They’re fighting about ten years of unresolved hurt that suddenly has nowhere left to hide.
NO RUNNING
Summer 2014 feels different from the summers before it.
By now, Percy and Sam have settled into something that looks effortless from the outside. They have their routines, their inside jokes, and their annual tradition of three things to catch each other up on everything that happened during the year apart.
One of Sam’s latest obsessions is running.
Percy, understandably, hates it.
She gives it a try because Sam loves it, but eventually admits the truth: she absolutely cannot stand running. It’s the most relatable that Percy has ever felt. Thankfully, Sam’s response tells us a lot about who he is and how he feels. He doesn’t try to convince her; rather he simply accepts it and moves on.
It’s a small moment, but one that captures the foundation of their relationship. They make room for each other. They don’t always have to like the same things – they just need support.
Percy realizes that she needs a goal and sets one for herself almost immediately. Ever since she first arrived in Barry’s Bay, she’s wanted to swim across the lake. It’s one of those challenges that becomes bigger in your mind the longer you carry it around.
So she decides this is the summer she’s finally going to do it.
And once she makes that decision, Sam is all in.
Season One Every Year After Reviews
- Every Year After Season 1, Episode 1 Review: Every Summer After
- Every Year After Season 1, Episode 2 Review: Young Blood
- Every Year After Season 1, Episode 3 Review: Playing With Fire
- Every Year After Season 1, Episode 4 Review: Anatomy of a Romance
- Every Year After Season 1, Episode 5 Review: I Choose You
- Every Year After Season 1, Episode 6 Review: Plan B
- Every Year After Season 1, Episode 7 Review: The Boathouse
- Every Year After Season 1, Episode 8 Review: Goodbye…
It is a reminder that Sam doesn’t just love Percy when things are easy. He invests, supports, and takes an interest in the things that matter to her. He trains with her, encourages her, and spends the summer helping her prepare for something that isn’t even his dream.
It’s hers.
But his dreams involve supporting her and making sure hers come true.
When the day finally arrives, the entire family shows up.
Everyone is cheering for her.
Looking back, that’s what makes these flashback scenes so bittersweet. Percy didn’t just fall in love with Sam. She became part of something larger – a place where people show up for each other.
The older Percy gets, the more that loss seems to haunt her.
Because the thing she left behind wasn’t only a relationship.
It was a life.
FAKENESS
Percy and Chantal end up grabbing a drink while Percy tries to process the fact that she somehow inherited the tavern. Why would Sue leave her the tavern?
Of course, this is also the moment Delilah appears. Delilah always seems to appear when there’s something she wants.
She tries to play it casual at first, but it doesn’t take long for the conversation to get where it’s actually headed. Delilah had been planning to buy the tavern. She wants the tavern. She has ideas for renovations, memberships, expansions, all the things that make Percy immediately want to say no.
She idealizes Barry’s Bay.
Percy still sees the tavern the way it used to be. Sue behind the bar. Dolly Parton on the jukebox. Summers that felt endless. Percy sees a home
Delilah sees a business opportunity.
.Sam finally discovers what Charlie has been keeping from him. Charlie had already been talking to buyers.
It’s easy to understand why Sam feels blindsided. Losing their mother was already forcing them to confront the future of the tavern. Now they’re finding out neither of them was imagining the same future to begin with.
Charlie sees the financial reality. Sam sees the place their family built.
Neither of them is entirely wrong.
Because Percy is the only person who isn’t looking at the tavern as money.
To Charlie, it’s an asset.
To Delilah, it’s a project.
To Sam, it’s grief.
But to Percy, it’s home.
Did Sue make the right decision? We don’t know, but she probably knew exactly what she was doing.
PERCY’S OLD HOUSE
Percy has spent ten years treating this place like a shrine in her memory. Now it’s about to be demolished. Of course, she wants one last look at her old house.
So they lift her and put her through a window.
Once inside, Percy immediately starts drifting through the boxes, touching walls and trying to hold onto something that is already gone. Every corner comes with a memory attached to it.
Outside, Delilah and Chantelle are pounding on the door.
“Percy, let us in.”
Meanwhile, Sam and Charlie are having their own trip down memory lane. The possibility of losing the tavern has both of them looking backward. They trade stories about growing up there, their first beers, their first heartbreaks, all the moments that somehow became family history.
One of Charlie’s exes once joked that the tavern was basically the meeting place for Charlie’s A**holes Support Group.
Sam’s response?
He always thought membership would be higher.
For the first time in what feels like forever, they’re almost acting like brothers again.
GIRLS NIGHT
Back at the house, Percy finally lets Delilah and Chantelle inside. The conversation eventually circles back to Sam because, of course, it does. The Florek brothers have a hold on this town.
Delilah asks the question everyone has been avoiding. What would have happened if she hadn’t walked in on Percy and Sam at the tavern?
Miraculously, Percy doesn’t try to dodge it. She admits that she doesn’t know.
But she finally admits something she’s spent the entire season trying not to say out loud.
She’s still in love with him.
And for once, Delilah is speechless.
The irony is that while Percy is admitting she’s still in love with Sam, Delilah is admitting her marriage is done. At first, she frames the stress of the separation. But the more she talks, the clearer it becomes that this isn’t really just about her husband. It’s about wanting more for herself.
Delilah misses having friends. She misses having a life that belongs entirely to her. She misses being a person outside of someone else’s expectations.
Chantal gently points out that marriage comes with sharing your life with another person. The problem is that Delilah doesn’t seem convinced that’s something she wants anymore.
And honestly, the more Chantal talks, the more she sounds like Charlie.
Both of them built lives that look successful from the outside while quietly wondering if they chose the wrong future.
The conversation shifts when Percy starts digging through old boxes.
She finds pieces of herself she hasn’t seen in years. Old stories. Old notebooks. Old drafts.
She’s somewhat heartbroken. Why? Because somewhere along the way, she stopped being the girl who wrote simply because she loved it.
She’s mourning versions of herself she isn’t sure she can get back.
LETS REMEMBER
Sam is wiping down the counter and joking that he won’t miss doing this. And honestly, Sam, I hate to break it to you, but adulthood is basically just finding different counters to wipe down.
The joking doesn’t last long.
For the first time in the entire episode, the brothers stop arguing long enough to actually talk. They still don’t understand why Sue left the tavern to Percy. I don’t think any of us can. It doesn’t make sense. But they both agree on one thing: their mother never did anything without a reason.
The conversation drifts back to their father and the years after he died.
And that’s when Charlie admits something Sam never knew. Something that Charlie looks heartbroken to admit.
There was a period after their dad passed away when Sue could barely function. Some days she wouldn’t get out of bed. Charlie would come home from school and find her staring at the walls.
Sam doesn’t remember any of it.
Charlie remembers everything. He remembers doing the grocery shopping. He remembers figuring out meals. He remembers making sure his little brother had breakfast before school.
Charlie is talking about being a kid who became responsible for everyone else before he was ready.
Charlie finally lets the walls down and admits something he’s been carrying around for years.
Part of him was angry at Sue. Not forever or even rationally. But there were moments when he was furious that she left him to hold everything together. It’s the kind of confession grief rarely allows people to say out loud.
It’s a strong moment because it is a reminder that loving someone and resenting them are not mutually exclusive things.
Sometimes both emotions exist at the same time.
Sam listens. Maybe for the first time with his brother, he really listens.
And for maybe the first time all season, he sees the version of their childhood Charlie experienced. A kid who was trying to keep the lights on while everyone else was falling apart.
So when Sam tells him he’s a good big brother, the moment lands. Charlie needed to hear it.
But it also feels important for another reason.
This show has a habit of turning its warmest moments into future heartbreak. Something about the way Charlie reacts makes me think those words are going to matter later.
THE SWIM
Percy was finally ready to take on her big swim across the lake.
After spending the summer training, she’s determined. Sam follows alongside her in a rowboat, partly to encourage her and partly because he refuses to let anything happen to her.
If she gets tired, he’s there.
If she struggles, he’s there.
If she needs him, he’s there.
That’s really the story of their relationship.
When Percy finally reaches the other side, she’s exhausted but proud of herself. It’s something she’s dreamed about doing for years, and now she’s actually done it.
Sam looks just as proud as she feels.
The achievement belongs to Percy, but it’s impossible to miss how much it means to him too.
ANATOMY LESSON
Later that night, they’re studying together in Sam’s room. Or at least they’re pretending to study.
The problem is that they’ve spent the entire summer circling feelings neither one of them wants to admit are there. But leave it to Percy to be more direct. The friendship that always felt effortless suddenly feels charged with something neither of them knows how to navigate. For years, they’ve been each other’s safest place.
Now they’re trying to figure out what happens when friendship turns into something more.
Eventually, the tension they’ve been avoiding finally catches up to them. And for the first time, neither of them pulls away.
It’s not a dramatic moment, actually almost the opposite.
They feel relief.
The relief of finally admitting what has been obvious to everyone else for years.
THE BREAKUP
Sue sits them down and reminds them of something neither of them particularly wants to hear.
They all have dreams.
Big ones.
And falling in love doesn’t make those dreams disappear.
Sue understands something that Percy doesn’t yet. Love isn’t always enough to solve the practical questions.
Percy is still young enough to believe they can have everything. Sam wants to believe it too. But as Sue talks, there’s a flicker of uncertainty on his face. For the first time, you can see him wondering whether loving someone and building a future with them are always the same thing. That fear feels impossible to ignore.
The next day, they’re sitting outside Sam’s house, and you can immediately tell something is wrong.
The problem isn’t that Sam doesn’t care. It’s that he cares so much, he’s already thinking about everything that could go wrong.
Percy notices it too. She asks why he’s acting weird, and eventually he tells her.
Junior year is coming. College is getting closer; he has to concentrate. Unlike Percy, whose future feels wide open, Sam feels like every opportunity he has depends on getting a scholarship.
The pressure is crushing him.
What makes the conversation hurt is that Sam is not really talking about school. He’s talking about fear.
Sam is terrified of wanting something he can’t keep.
Their lives are moving in different directions.
And for the first time, the future feels bigger than the little world they’ve built together every summer.
Sam tries to explain it, but every word somehow makes things worse.
At one point, he admits he knows he’d be an asshole for asking her to wait for him. He knows he has no right to ask her not to date anyone else. He knows he can’t put her life on hold.
Percy’s response?
“You’re an asshole either way.”
Honestly, fair.
From Percy’s perspective, she finally let herself believe this was happening. She finally let herself believe he wanted the same thing she did. And now he’s already pulling away.
The scene is painful. Sam thinks he’s being responsible, and Percy thinks she’s being rejected. In a way, they’re both right.
Percy heads home carrying heartbreak.
The difference is that Sam gets to convince himself he’s doing the right thing.
Percy is left with the feeling that she wasn’t enough to make him stay.
Underneath all the anger is the realization that the summer she thought would change everything may have just ended with her getting her heart broken.
For a first heartbreak, it feels devastating.
BUT HE SHOWED UP
If you have ever read a YA book, the girls’ adventure into Percy’s old house comes to a very predictable conclusion.
The cops show up.
Delilah and Chantal take off, leaving Percy behind. Not on purpose.
Percy, unfortunately, gets caught because she’s too busy trying to save old notebooks and stories that probably should have been packed up years ago. Though if you’re going to get arrested, getting arrested for being emotionally attached to your own memories feels very Percy.
The person who comes to get her is Sam.
And that’s where everything finally boils over.
This isn’t really about getting caught in an abandoned house.
It’s about last week.
It’s about the hugs.
The hand holding.
The almost-kisses.
The lingering looks.
I could go on, but you get the point.
The way Sam keeps pulling her close and then acting surprised when she gets hurt.
Percy finally calls him on it, and we’re screaming: It’s about time.
Percy has spent years carrying the weight of what happened between them. The least Sam can do is acknowledge the confusion he’s creating now.
She’s tired. Tired of feeling like he’s pulling her toward him one minute and pushing her away the next.
Tired of feeling like she’s the only person in the room willing to acknowledge what’s happening between them.
And the frustrating part is that Sam doesn’t really argue, because he knows she’s right. That’s what makes the scene hurt. If he knows, why does he do it?
If Sam genuinely had no feelings left, this would all be much simpler. But that’s clearly not what’s happening. The problem isn’t that Sam doesn’t understand; it is that he understands perfectly.
He’s just terrified of what comes next.
So instead of having the conversation they actually need to have, he retreats.
He apologizes. He says seeing her again brought back old feelings, and it won’t happen again. That’s the most painful thing he could have said.
Not because Percy wants promises.
Not because she expects him to choose her.
But because, once again, Sam’s solution is avoidance. It’s the same instinct we’ve seen from him over and over.
The tragedy of their love is that he’s probably trying to protect both of them. But from Percy’s perspective – or anyone’s really – it feels exactly like another rejection. After ten years of carrying this relationship around in her head, that’s a hard thing to hear. It’s an unfair guilt to put on her.
One of the things this episode does really well is remind us that closure isn’t something another person gives you.
Sometimes you don’t get the conversation or the explanation. Sometimes the person you want answers from is just as confused as you are.
Sam feels every bit as lost as Percy does, but we’re not giving him a pass. The difference between the two is that Percy is finally saying it out loud.
SUE HAD HER REASONS
Percy heads to the tavern and, feeling completely lost, calls her dad. It’s one of the first conversations she’s had all season that doesn’t come with expectations, tension, or fifteen years of unresolved feelings attached to it.
It comes with understanding.
What stands out is learning how close Sue and her father actually remained over the years. Percy is surprised to hear that after her first byline appeared in the Seattle Times, Sue called him to make sure she hadn’t stopped writing fiction. Sue believed in Percy’s talent long after Percy stopped believing in it herself.
That feels important.
For so much of this story, Percy has framed Barry’s Bay as the place she lost everything. Sam. Sue. The future she thought she was going to have.
But her dad gently points out something different. Barry’s Bay is also where she was happiest. It’s where she wrote and where she dreamed.
It’s where she felt most like herself.
He reminds her that when she was younger, she’d disappear into the lake for hours and come back overflowing with ideas. Stories seemed to find her there. Creativity came naturally. Life felt bigger.
That observation lands because it forces Percy to consider something she has been avoiding ever since she arrived: maybe the problem was never Barry’s Bay.
Maybe the problem was leaving it.
For the first time, someone says out loud what the audience has probably been wondering for several episodes now.
What if this is where she’s supposed to be? What if inheriting the tavern wasn’t some cruel mistake? There is a possibility that Sue knew exactly what she was doing.
Her dad isn’t telling her what decision to make. He’s simply asking her to consider a possibility she hasn’t allowed herself to imagine. Sam and Charlie might eventually leave. Their lives could take them elsewhere. But Percy? Percy has spent years searching for something that made her feel alive.
Barry’s Bay already did that.
The conversation doesn’t magically solve anything, but it reframes the storyline. Up until now, the tavern has felt like a burden dropped into Percy’s lap. Suddenly, it starts to feel like an opportunity.
Beneath all the grief, all the longing, and all the chaos surrounding Sam, this story has quietly been asking a different question: Who is Percy when she’s not running away?
And for the first time, it feels like she’s starting to find an answer.
MAKE A CHOICE
Percy sits alone with her old stories, and for the first time in a while, she isn’t spiraling—she’s remembering. There’s a lightness to her expression that’s been missing since she arrived in Barry’s Bay. It’s not romantic, not grief-stricken, not confused. It’s recognition.
This is who she used to be.
And instead of leaving the tavern keys behind like she’s ready to run again, she picks up her stories. That small action matters. It signals attachment. Not just to the place, but to herself in it.
Sam and Charlie are trying to make sense of the will situation, but the conversation quickly drifts into something heavier. Sam admits something that feels long overdue: their mom wasn’t always present. The family story they’ve been carrying around doesn’t fully hold up when measured against reality.
They don’t understand why Sue left the tavern to Percy. It doesn’t fit their expectations or the story of what they thought they would be telling. In that confusion, Sam lands on something that feels more immediate: Percy being here is destabilizing him.
He just doesn’t get that for over a decade, he’s destabilized her.
Percy hasn’t done anything wrong; she just brings everything back to the surface. Feelings he’s clearly still not equipped to handle cleanly.
Charlie, meanwhile, offers the simplest solution he can think of: contest the will. Sam hesitates —and then does something more emotionally revealing than anything else he’s said so far.
He tells Charlie he’s the only person he trusts. The only one he can rely on. Charlie has always been there for him.
And Charlie’s reaction is immediate.
Because that kind of statement isn’t neutral. It’s binding.
He agrees. Of course, he does. He always has.
But the camera lingers just a little too long on his face as Sam walks behind him.
And that’s the tell.
That’s the shift.
Charlie’s expression doesn’t read like comfort or loyalty—it reads like realization. Like the moment someone understands that being “the reliable one” is not the same thing as being free.
There’s guilt there, yes—but also something more specific: the look of someone who has just agreed to something they may not be able to undo. It’s as if the secrets that he’s keeping can take that away.
It’s clear that the brothers’ relationship won’t stay this simple for long.
