Selfie 1.07: "Here's This Guy"

“You know something? No one has ever baked me a cake. This is the closest I’ve ever come to someone baking me a cake. Standing near a cake that was baked for someone else.”
-Eliza

So, it’s old news now, but I’ve been insanely busy at work, so I had to take a bit of a pause from blogging. “Selfie” in all its adorableness has been cancelled. I’m a fan of Emily Kapnek (I was also a devoted watcher of “Suburgatory”) and I’m also a fan of Karen Gillan and John Cho, so I’m sad to see this show go. I’ll keep blogging any remaining episodes whenever ABC decides to make them available. We’ve never had a show cancelled midseason on MTVP before, so this is kind of new territory. I will probably peruse the midseason offerings in February to see if there is something new to add to the blogging lineup. Anyway, this episode of “Selfie” wasn’t one of my favorites (I don’t like to see Eliza and Henry on the outs…it makes me sad), but it was an enjoyable enough watch. Eliza has to adjust to the new status quo of Henry having a girlfriend, and it’s not going especially well.

The episode opens with Eliza waxing poetic about how it’s nice to have a real life friend in Henry. He’s her only real friend, as she sees it. She enjoys seeing her friend requests and likes on social media consistently climb upward, but having a real life friend is pretty great in a different way. When she gets to work, Eliza goes to talk with Henry, but Henry’s assistant keeps her out of his office. It turns out that Henry is spending time with his new girlfriend, Julia. At first, Eliza is cool with this. Henry and Julia, by the way, are really freaking awkward. They go out of their way to speak to each other in a very formal way, and they also think the same way about everything and have very similar mannerisms. TV rules tell me these relationships just don’t work!

Eliza and Henry seem to have hope that they can continue being good friends despite Henry’s new relationship status. They do just fine with Eliza dating Freddy, after all, but they each have conversations that make them start second guessing that. Larry tells Henry that women can be insanely jealous creatures. Clearly he’s just projecting his issues with his wife. Bryn tells Eliza about how her former BFF has pretty much abandoned her since she started dating someone, and she expresses regret that she wasn’t more supportive of the relationship. These conversations make both Eliza and Henry want to have a conversation about the future of their friendship. Unfortunately, they’re on completely different pages. Eliza wants them to maintain their friendship as-is, but Henry wants to step back a bit. This is pretty devastating to Eliza, although she doesn’t tell Henry that.

The new paradigm really starts to bother Eliza when Henry skips one of their regular lunches to have lunch with Julia instead. He tells Eliza that she can still eat in his office if she wants, but she really wanted to company more than the location. She complains to Charmonique, and Charmonique convinces Eliza to change her strategy from being supportive of Henry’s new relationship to taking Julia down. On first glance, Eliza can’t really find any way to disparage Julia. Julia is a pretty selfless pediatric urologist. Eliza tries making fun of Julia’s job to Henry (the phrase “baby peen” is uttered and shall hopefully never be heard again), but Henry’s not having it.

Eliza is asked to introduce the key note speaker at the upcoming big pharmaceutical convention (mostly because all her social media followers will then learn about KinderKare Pharmaceuticals), and she really wants Henry’s help. Henry tries to downplay the importance of what Eliza has to do (she’s just introducing the key note, not giving it), but Eliza is still nervous. When it becomes apparent that Henry isn’t going to help her much, she starts acting out even more. She leaves a bunch of negative reviews of Julia on Julia’s website, and it’s very obvious to Henry that Eliza is the culprit. Eliza waits around her apartment for Henry to stop by to help her with his speech, but when he finally does show up, it’s basically just to break up with her as a friend. Again, Eliza is devastated, but this time, it’s completely her own fault.

Eliza runs into Bryn and another of her minions on the elevator, and they are carrying a very large cake. The cake is for their friend’s boyfriend, because they really want their friend back. Bryn claims that there is nothing but alcoholism that a most cake can’t fix. Eliza tries to take this advice to heart, and she makes a cake for Julia that is a replica of the male urological system. She wants to try to show Bryn that she respects her profession. Eliza gets Charmonique to make her an appointment at Bryn’s practice. While in the waiting room, Eliza has a conversation with a little girl about the girl’s favorite book. The book is about a very determined kitty. Eliza takes the message that she should be able to handle the key note introduction without Henry’s help. She leaves Julia’s office without speaking to her, but she leaves the cake behind.

Julia brings the cake home and gushes about it to Henry. She doesn’t realize it was from Eliza and thinks one of her patients was just being really thoughtful. Henry, however, sees the tag that says it is from Eliza. He comes clean to Julia that Eliza is actually his close friend. He said he wanted to support Eliza at the key note, but he didn’t want to upset Julia. Julia assures Henry that she is a confident woman and has no issue with him having some female friends. Henry is more in love with her than ever, but he rushes off to support Eliza at the key note. Eliza doesn’t realize Henry is in the audience, but her introduction of “here’s this guy” is a rousing success. When Henry approaches her as she’s watching the key note from the back of the auditorium, she bursts into tears. They’re back to being friends again.

At the end of the episode, Eliza stops by Julia’s office to deliver a real apology. She offers to leave some positive reviews to balance out the negative ones, but Julia thinks that would be unethical. She ends up walking out on Eliza, saying she has “real” patients to see. Eliza is happy, though, because she and Henry are friends again. And, as she puts it, while she and Julia will probably never be friends, in this situation, Eliza was ultimately the bigger person. I guess she’s learning something from her time with Henry after all!