No Tomorrow 1.02: "No Crying in Baseball"

“Well, some risks are worth taking, Evie. We all get to decide what’s important to us. End of the world or not.”
-Xavier

“No Crying in Baseball,” while I don’t think the title had really anything to do with the contents of the episode (other than starting a theme of beginning every episode title with the word “No”) pretty much continued the adventures of Evie and her friends and family that began in the pilot episode. The biggest challenge in this episode is Jesse, Xavier’s fugitive (from a white collar crime) cousin who is currently living with Xavier. Evie’s trying to juggle a new relationship, a fugitive, a potential downsizing at work, her ex still trying to get back into her life, and making good on her promise to try and set up her boss with her boss’ assistant. Such a complicated life she leads for somebody who is supposed to be learning to really live!

At the beginning of the episode, Evie is excitedly telling her sister all about her time with Xavier while eating eggs. She puts too much hot sauce on the eggs, which I think is supposed to be some sort of metaphor for her relationship with Xavier. Evie’s mood is brought down by work, though, of course. Deirdre wants to get started on Operation: Hank-y Panky right away, much to Evie’s chagrin (because it’s just plain weird). Deirdre basically wants to know if she can massage Hank’s shoulders if he looks tense, and Evie assures her that she absolutely cannot. Instead, Evie encourages Deirdre to work on trying to become more approachable. There isn’t going to be much time for working on setting up Hank and Deirdre, though, because Cybermart corporate has brought in consultants from Excessive Solutions (I love the company names in this show) to interview all the staff and plan for layoffs. Evie freaks out because in high pressure situations, she tends to freeze up and go mute. Even with something lower stakes like playing a game of Celebrity with friends (I can definitely sympathize with that particular type of anxiety).

Evie’s personal life quickly becomes as anxiety-inducing as her work life. She and Xavier have been having car sex (an apoca-list item) and generally doing really well. They are happily chatting while watching a projection of stars on the ceiling when Jesse arrives and ruins the mood. Xavier informs Evie that Jesse will be living in his basement for the next eight months. Especially, with the apocalypse nigh, Xavier doesn’t want his cousin to die in prison, and that’s not negotiable. Evie is not amused. At work the next morning, Evie continues to fret over whether or not to call the police over Jesse. She tries to get advice from her friends by using the hypothetical of a ferret in the basement, which clearly doesn’t get her the answer she was hoping for. Hank at least surmises that Evie’s consternation has something to do with Xavier, and he rushes off to inform Timothy of potential trouble in Evie and Xavier’s happy free spirit land.

Xavier is focused on getting Jesse situated in fugitive life. First, he gets a woman to create a fake ID. Jesse becomes Harvey Stevens of Sioux City, Iowa. And now I know what my friend who moved back to Iowa this summer’s driver’s license probably looks like. Then they go to a storage space where Xavier has been keeping all of Jesse’s stuff. Included among Jesse’s stuff is a large bag full of cash. They need some of this cash to pay for the fake driver’s license. They also find a time capsule that they created together back in 1995. There are some typical mid-90s things like a Randy Johnson baseball card, but there’s also a camcorder video tape that Xavier’s mom sipped in at the last minute. This clearly throws Xavier off a bit.

Meanwhile, Evie continues to be consumed with work issues. In an effort to be more approachable and hopefully win Hank over, Deirdre decides to join Evie, Hank, and Kareema for what turns out to be a very awkward lunch. Deirdre keeps texting Evie for advice throughout the whole thing, and she’s just acting very awkward and unnatural in general. In the middle of a discussion of hidden talents, she mentions she can tie a cherry stem into a knot with her tongue, and everybody thinks that went way too far. Hank immediately gets up to get some more mashed potatoes. On the home front, Timothy drops by to give Evie some of her stuff that was left at his place, and he says he wants his stuff back too, including, oddly, the battery in her smoke detector. Evie admits that she does find Timothy handsome, and he’s always been “safe,” although I don’t think she really makes any moves towards wanting Timothy back – she’s still in Xavier-land. Timothy, however, thinks he still has a chance, and he immediately calls Hank to share the good news.

With Timothy gone, Evie sets to reading a book about interviewing while listening to headphones. She is interrupted when Xavier comes in through the window (rather ungracefully…apparently the window climb was more difficult than he anticipated). He wants to make Evie a deal – if he and Jesse successfully help her prepare for the interview, she will go on an adventure with them. Evie takes them up on the deal, I think because she wants to know how they think they can help. Since Jesse used to work in financial services, he starts with a high pressure mock interview that doesn’t help Evie at all. Xavier comes up with another approach – answering questions while playing softball. All goes well until Evie accidentally hits Jesse in the nose. After Jesse repairs his broken nose, he informs Xavier that he found a camcorder in the basement. Evie catches Xavier trying to watch the tape but not being able to get through the first few sentences. She asks Jesse about it the next morning, but all she gets out of him is that the woman in the tape is Xavier’s mother

Hank is doing everything he can to try and get Timothy and Evie back together. He completely revamps Timothy’s style to be more like Xavier’s, which mostly goes okay, although I don’t think Timothy likes the clothes. He looks hot in them though, especially without the glasses. Things take a bit of a turn when Hank tries (and actually does succeed) to pierce Timothy’s ear. Ultimately, though Evie’s not overly impressed with the makeover. She says she preferred the original Timothy, and she rushes off to help Xavier (more on that in a minute, because this actually happened late in the episode). Kareema says, however, that she likes Timothy’s pants and wants a pair. Hank is kind of horrified to realize that he might have accidentally bought Timothy women’s pants. Ultimately, Hank just misses their whole crew hanging together. Evie agrees to a game night the next week, just the three of them. Oh, and Deirdre takes Evie’s advice to do something nice for Hank and buys him an ergonomic desk chair. He seems to appreciate the gesture.

While all this is going on, we learn, in a conversation between Greg (Evie’s dad) and Mary Anne (Evie’s sister) that Greg is trying to become Salesman of the Year at the big box store where he works. Mary Anne buys the extended warranty on a toaster, but it’s still not going to be good enough to beat perpetual winner Barry. Later, Evie realizes she needs to buy a new microwave for Xavier, and while she’s at the store, Greg looks exhausted and informs Evie that he’s been picking up every possible extra shift that he can to win the award. It’s all likely for naught, though, since Barry sold a hot tub. Evie is driving home with Xavier and Jesse when they come across Dead Man’s Cliff, and Jesse immediately wants to stop. Xavier is on board with this since jumping off Dead Man’s Cliff is on his apoca-list. Jumping off the high dive is on Evie’s list, so it seems like a perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

Xavier explains how his mom would take him to the cliff in the summer (they had family in Seattle, even though they’re British) and try to get him to jump, but he never did. He sees this as a chance at redemption. Evie is inspired, and they both follow Jesse jumping off the cliff. The mood comes down on the way home, though, when Jesse throws a beer can and catches the attention of a cop. The cop demands to see all of their IDs, although thankfully, he doesn’t actually run any of the IDs. He makes Jesse pick up the beer can, and then he lets them go. When he drops Evie off, Xavier apologizes and says he’s going to help Jesse leave the country so he won’t put them in danger anymore. Evie sees this as an even more risky option, and this upsets her, because Xavier means a lot to her. She accuses Xavier of letting his apoca-list dictate his life.

Evie and Xavier both face their fears. Xavier finally watches the video, where his mom says to keep Jesse out of jail and follow his heart. Evie faces the panel of consultants. She’s a bit hesitant at first, but then she remembers that if she jumped off Dead Man’s Cliff, she can face anything, and she becomes more confident, telling the consultants exactly what needs to be done other than layoffs to fix her warehouse. The consultants seem to like her spunk. She mentions to them that packages sometimes end up in the wrong country, and this gives her an idea for how to help Jesse. She rushes out of the meeting, sees Timothy, then tries to get to Xavier. Her car won’t start, so she runs, and Xavier’s running too. She tells Xavier she has a plan, and she sets it in motion. The plan, naturally, is using Cybermart to ship Jesse to Canada in a big box, and it goes off without a hitch. Xavier returns the favor by buying a bunch of washing machines so that Greg can win Salesman of the Year after all. Together, Xavier and Evie turn the washing machines into a giant foam party.