'Sorry for Your Loss' Season 2 Episode 7: Danny-Leigh affair and tainting of Matt’s memory leave fans divided
Danny Greer (Jovan Adepo) lost a brother. Leigh Shaw (Elizabeth Olsen) lost a husband. Both have been connected by the web of grief, rage and the lingering sense of their unfinished business with Matt Greer (Mamoudou Athie) since season 1.
Though there was a hint of attraction, especially when it came to Danny's interactions with Leigh, it was understated enough to pass muster. But with Leigh finally breaching the in-law/friend zone barrier in the last episode, in this week's season 2 episode 7, 'Thirty Years', we saw them take off on an impromptu road trip that ended up in a romantic getaway in a hotel with drinking, gambling and sex.
But there is the squick factor of this new relationship because it breaks the unwritten rules about brothers having a relationship with the same woman. Especially when said woman is still not over the first brother.
It is a fact that Danny is acutely aware of, telling Leigh that when she is with him she can't think about Matt. Danny is also keeping a big secret from Leigh. He hasn't told her Matt was having distinctly un-platonic feelings for Nina (Khalilah Joi), his colleague at the school, and had confessed to him about wanting "something to happen".
This certainly does put a new spin on Danny's hostility toward Nina in episode 4 when she organized the memorial for Matt. It is a testament to how well Matt is written and fleshed out as a character that fans are up in arms about this development that besmirches his memory.
Some of the comments on the series' Facebook Watch page point out that the only way to bring Danny and Leigh together is to make Matt the bad guy. Since fans have got to know Matt, Leigh's love for him and her devastation when she lost him, her decision to "feel good" by having an affair with Danny is a development some fans did not welcome.
However, other commenters have pointed out they know of real-life stories where widows have started seeing their husband's best friend and/or brother because of the grief that united them and their need for something familiar when attempting to forge a romantic relationship again. It is also true that not all dead people are saints and Matt certainly wasn't.
Danny keeps having memories of their fights, nightmares of Matt jumping to his death and all the little ways in which Matt let him and Leigh down. It still remains to be seen how well the series will untangle this complicated baggage in the remaining episodes; not to mention how mama Greer is going to react to her son hooking up with her other, dead son's wife.
Not one to shy away from harsh truths, next week episodes will see Leigh and Danny fighting with Danny calling Matt a "shitty person" and Leigh saying Danny did not have to ruin Matt's memory to be with her.
'Sorry for Your Loss' Season 2 airs new episodes on Facebook Watch every Tuesday at 12 p.m. PT and 3 p.m. ET.