Le Bistro
Steffi, Tony, and Ally rush over to Deborah, who has passed out on the floor. Ally goes to call an ambulance, while Steffi and Tony try to revive Deborah.
Park
Bree sits in the park, trying to compose a note to Charles. For some reason, she’s writing it with a sharpie, not that it matters since she just crosses out what she has and tears up the page anyway.
Frankie comes along and she tells him that she’s “dreaming of things that’ll never happen.” He tells her that he needs to ask her something.
Le Bistro
Jacob has arrived and Deborah comes to, wondering why everyone is hovering over her. “Tell me this isn’t a dream,” she tells Steffi, saying she thinks she’s won the lottery.
Corinth Towers – Charles’ Room
Angie comes to see Charles, who tells her that he figured they need to “make up” for the last time.
Le Bistro
Deborah has won $10.5 million and Tony decides to call the lottery commission and make sure this is all correct. Questioned by Steffi about when she started buying lottery tickets, Deborah explains how it came into her possession and declares “cappuccinos for everyone!”
Tony decides to put on some music and Jacob takes Deborah aside, telling her that he’s moving to New York. She tries to convince him to hang around, saying that she wants to open another restaurant and he can be her partner. He’s skeptical that a soul food place could work in Corinth, particularly one called “Planet Deborah.” “You have been in orbit since the day I met you,” Jacob says, but declines to be part of her big plan. She tells him that if he ever needs a loan, he can come to her. They have a nice little goodbye and then Deborah joins everyone else dancing around the restaurant while Jacob makes his way outside.
He pauses as he passes the window, enjoying the celebration from afar.
Park
Frankie asks Bree to come with him to New York. She tells him that she loves him, which he thinks is all they need to make things work, but she wonders why he’s suddenly so eager for them to move in together. He tells her that he doesn’t want her to feel like he’s leaving her behind, like how Charles did to Lorraine.
Corinth Towers – Charles’ Room
Charles tells Angie that he loves her, but acknowledges that she doesn’t love him enough. “I tried,” she says. He gives her a kiss on the cheek and tells her that he knows things are impossible between them because of her feelings for Jacob. “You tried hard. It shouldn’t have to be that hard,” he says. “Our marriage was over before it even started,” he adds. “When Jacob came into town, you realized what was missing. Being the hardhead that you are, you pretended not to see it. But you can’t pretend something away, no matter how hard you try.”
She apologizes, but he tells her that he was pretending, too. “We both wanted this to work; it’s not going to work. I feel like I deserve better. I want someone that’s going to love me, so I’ve got to get out. I’m filing for a divorce.”
Le Bistro
Deborah does some math, figuring out how much she can spend daily for the next decade. Tony suggests that she plan to save some of that money, but she immediately dismisses that idea. “I’m going to buy a big, new house,” she says.
Ally tells Steffi that it looks like she doesn’t have to take care of Deborah anymore and takes another pass at talking her into moving to New York. Steffi tells her that she can’t stop thinking about what happened with Gwyneth and Ally tries to reassure her that she performed an act of kindness. “It’s not my place to decide whether somebody lives or dies,” Steffi says, but Ally thinks it’s more complicated than that.
Ally heads out, bidding goodbye to Tony and the “rich lady.” “I don’t know what I’m going to do without her,” Steffi confesses to Tony, who tells her that he thinks she should go to New York.
Corinth Towers – Hallway/Charles’ Room
Jacob has come around looking for Lorraine, but one of the other maids tells him that she called in sick, implying that Lorraine is hungover. They’re standing right outside Charles’ room.
Inside the room, Angie asks Charles if this is what he really wants and he tells her that the affair she had with Jacob was what he “had coming,” which is insane to me. It’s one thing for him not to hold a grudge, it’s a whole other thing for the show to pretend that Charles and Angie didn’t take a break so that she could sort out her feelings and that she didn’t assure him before they got married that she had done so. Good people can do bad and selfish things without necessarily becoming bad people in the process, and Angie is a sympathetic enough character that she could have been held to account without losing too much luster (especially with the show ending). Having everyone decide that this is ultimately Charles’ fault just makes this seem like the Curtis/Dinah Lee/Trucker triangle all over again, except that Charles is at least going to be allowed to keep his dignity unlike poor Curtis.
Angie tells Charles that he does deserve better than what she can give him and he tells her that he’s going to try to get that. She says that she’s not used to giving up and he tells her that this isn’t like most things and then holds her while she cries.
Le Bistro
Deborah is on the phone with someone to whom she sold her jewelry back when she “was poor,” but now she’s rich and wants it back – also, she wants a diamond tiara. She then makes a call, wanting to buy the Alden mansion.
So this is the list of all the things (so far) that Deborah wants to buy with her $10.5 million:
- The Alden mansion
- A penthouse on Park Avenue
- All her jewelry, plus a diamond tiara
- And she wants to open a chain of new restaurants.
It’s weird to watch this in 2023, when $10.5 million wouldn’t cover any of those things except her buying back her jewelry, but according to an inflation calculator $10.5 million in 1995 dollars would be equivalent to just under $21 million today, which… actually still doesn’t seem like enough to get all those things given that most of it is real estate.
Deborah was broke by the end of the 90s, I guessing.
Tony tells Steffi that he wants her and the baby to have a peaceful life, which he doesn’t think she can have in Corinth. After Tony reveals that he is going to be staying in Corinth, she starts to get upset and says that maybe she will leave, but wonders when he decided that he wasn’t going to. He clarifies that he just means he can’t leave right now, but will come and join her later and they’ll “be together forever.” This is very triggering for Steffi, for obvious reasons, and he assures her that he isn’t Cooper. Nevertheless, she storms out.
Cemetery
Ally visits Casey’s grave to tell him that she’s leaving town, explaining that she almost decided not to because she realized it would mean leaving him behind and then saw a bird soaring in the air and imagined that it was him. “Your soul, looking down on me and watching over me. And I realized that it doesn’t matter where I go, whether I stay here or if I go to New York, you’re always going to be with me.”
She puts a picture of them on their wedding day next to the headstone. “I’ll see you,” she says, crying.
Park
Bree tells Frankie that she doesn’t know where she’s at because there’s so much going on and she’s trying to sort it out. He offers to stay behind with her, but she encourages him to go to New York. She tells him that she can’t be with someone right now and needs to figure out who she is in her new reality. “Is that goodbye?” he wonders. She asks if he’s going to come back and visit and he says he will. “I’ll be here. I’ll be right here waiting for you.”
Corinth Towers – Charles’ Room/Hallway
Charles tells Angie that it’s “going to get better,” but she doesn’t feel that way right now. He suggests they get out of there, which allows Jacob, who is still in the hallway talking to one of the maids, to see Charles and Angie leaving the room together. He misunderstands what he sees, of course.
Episode Counts:
- Deborah Brewster – Nancy Addison Altman
- Frankie Hubbard – Alimi Ballard
- Charles Harrison – Geoffrey C. Ewing
- Bree Hawkins – Meta Golding
- Steffi Brewster – Amelia Heinle
- Angie Hubbard – Debbi Morgan
- Tony Soleito – George Palermo
- Jacob Foster – Darnell Williams
- Ally Bowman – Laura Wright
Loving (1983-1995) 