‘Mrs Fletcher’ finale brings HBO series full circle as Brendan returns home to find Eve ‘Mackey’ in threesome
Spoilers ahead for 'Mrs. Fletcher' Episode 7 'Welcome back'
In episode 1 of 'Mrs. Fletcher', we had Eve (Kathryn Hahn) hovering uneasily outside her son Brendan's (Jackson White) room just to hear him call a girl "dirty, f**cking slut". She retreats to the front porch in shock.
In a perfect bookend, in Episode 7, the series finale, it is Brendan sitting on the front porch. He has the same shocked expression after he interrupts Eve in the afterglow of a threesome, sandwiched between her two crushes, Amanda (Katie Kershaw) and Julian (Owen Teague). With it, their two parallel "coming of age" stories come crashing into each other, both of them on the opposite end of where they began.
At the start of the series, Brendan is an entitled young man who has always got everything he wanted on a platter. In his eyes, he can do no wrong because he has never been told any different.
He has been encouraged by cheers when he bullies Julian. His mother packs up his stuff for college and decorates his dorm room so he doesn't have to lift a finger. It is no wonder that he tells his college advisor he wants a "six-figure salary job" when he gets out of college, doing "something ".
The excess of Brendan's privileges also means that the porn he consumes further enables his sense of entitlement. He is brimming with self-confidence, fattened by attention and virtually no boundary setting by anyone in his life when he starts college.
Eve, on the other hand, at the start of the series, has known only boundaries. Her needs have always been secondary as a single mom and she has solidified her identity as Brendan's mom -- "Mrs. Fletcher".
For Eve, who has always put others before herself, porn enables self-exploration. It leads her to kiss Amanda and toy with the idea of accepting Julian's advances. It all comes to a head at the party, which she throws for herself after reclaiming her maiden name, "Eve Mackey".
The change of name comes after 10 years of being divorced, and it signifies how much of her own self Eve has reclaimed after Brendan left home. But having sprained her foot after she hallucinates seeing Roy, who has been on her mind since his death, she is stuck with a cast.
It is a less emancipatory event than she had envisioned. She feels restless and even tells Margo Fairchild (Jen Richards) she was expecting something more. But once the square kids leave, it is a party of three -- Amanda, Eve and Julian.
Amanda, who has already picked up on Julian's crush on Eve, plays the unlikely Cupid with her vape pen and her on-point music playlist. She is also the one who initiates the kissing and touching, pulling in both Julian and Eve, who have been tip-toeing around each other since episode 3.
They end up in bed, exploring each other, in between laughs, sighs, and moans of pleasure. It is the fulfillment the inner Eve "Mackey" has been looking for, trapped inside the duty-bound "Mrs. Fletcher".
Meanwhile, Brendan realizes he is a social outcast within his limited circle of friends because of what he did to Chloe. He is also falling behind his studies and goes to his advisor with hunched shoulders and a defeated air, an inverse of when he first showed up in college.
His advisor says he has only two options - either bite the bullet and try to at least pass by the end of the year or drop out of the courses he is failing in. It is all too overwhelming and he ends up in the communal shower area, naked and crying on the floor.
It is the chirpy Sanjay (Cheech Manohar) who finds Brendan. The same Sanjay Brendan had ignored and been a general douchebag to when he first came. Sanjay offers to drive him home because he is a sweetheart.
Brendan never once apologizes for his previous behavior and also says, "I got punched in the nuts and I'm the bad guy?". Then he sees Sanjay's expression and amends the statement to "it's my fault," which feels like lip service.
It shows Brendan hasn't learned anything despite everything that has happened to him, refusing to see why he is not a "nice guy". When he reaches home, he slips in quietly so as to not wake Eve. But stops when he hears voices from her bedroom.
He opens the door and finds Eve, Amanda and Julian in a post-coital snuggle on the bed and retreats in a hurry. As he sits on the porch, Amanda and Julian leave one after the other.
He looks accusingly at Amanda and even tries to stop Julian with a "hey", trying to dominate the situation. Julian just looks back and says "hey", before walking off. It just leaves Eve and Brendan, who have no words for each other as the screen fades to black.
