‘Single Drunk Female’ Recap: ‘I’m Sorry, But…’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode Three of ‘Single Drunk Female’. To revisit the prior two episodes, click here.
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It is definitely safe to say that we live in an extremely fast paced world. One where we hustle and hustle hard to achieve our dreams and accomplish our career goals, and we also hustle hard to ensure that we create plenty of memories to reflect upon when the day finally comes for us to slow down and reflect upon a life well lived. But while that particular mantra has indeed allowed for so many of us to get ahead and see and experience some wonderful things, there are some draw backs to this particular mantra. For starters, sometimes just going and going, doesn’t allow for us to really reflect upon the moment and what wondrous things we are experiencing and also… the hustle tends to motivate us to neglect our health.
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Because for some reason… we view self-care and healing as a nuisance and something that should be conquered quickly so we can easily resume the hustle. When in fact, we need to take the proper amount of time, which varies from person to person, to heal completely. So that we don’t put ourselves in a situation where our recovery is stunted and extended, and this is something that also applies to mental health care and recovery needs that aren’t physically apparent. Since we are taught often to just suck it up, and get over it, when we’re feeling down and the same goes for problems that are unseen, and it often takes either a setback or a genuinely long recovery time from an affliction, for us to finally come to understand we need to take it slow and heal and that particular lesson is one that Sam was forced to learn during last night’s episode of Single Drunk Female.

Because despite being twenty-eight days into her recovery, Sam was ready to move forward when we catch up with her in ‘I’m Sorry, But…’ since she was back to hanging out in bars with Felicia, and learning a valuable lesson about the cost of club soda, and she was also eager to get to the end of the Twelve Steps. In fact, she was curious as to what it would take to make amends to those she hurt because she genuinely wanted to leave all of this behind and find some semblance of a ‘normal’ life again. But Olivia made it clear that this is a process, one that requires a great deal of work before life can really resume itself and that Sam needed to stick with the plan to a tee. Advice that at first, she was quick to brush off. In fact, she was so eager to move to the amends stage, that she manipulated Felicia into a plan that would let her get right down to apologizing to Brit. 

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One that involved swinging by Brit’s birthday celebration at the local roller rink to apologize in person and find peace in doing so and well… that sadly didn’t happen. Because the apology went south quickly since Sam unloaded instead of making amends and she hurt Felicia in doing this, since Felicia realized she was a pawn in this selfish attempt to heal faster and well, this was in fact… an unfortunate moment that Sam needed to experience. Because it taught her the value of the process and the steps and helped her to realize that she needs to heal herself first and work on her flaws before she can properly make amends to others, and most important of all… it taught her to slow down and take her time and do this right. So that she could truly find herself in a wonderful and stable and healed place, and coming to that epiphany, allowed for her to reach thirty days of sobriety, and helped her to learn how to be selfless and offer up a true apology to someone that was in greater need of it in the moment, Felicia.
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But while that segment was powerful and engaging in its own right and could have carried the entire episode, there were more important moments to be found here. Since Carol’s journey in this tale, explored the stigma that surrounds addiction and how loved ones are sometimes eager to keep it a secret since it can feel shameful and… how that shouldn’t be the case, since addiction isn’t a shameful act, it’s an illness that requires support and honesty. And it accomplished this examination by having her work hard to hide the truth from her book club and even lie when Gail came over to do a residence check, and it wasn’t until Bob spoke the truth did Carol realize that she needs to accept what’s happened and move forward with it instead of feeling shame and it was quite wonderful to see Carol take a giant step in this story as well.

If anything, this was a shockingly powerful episode when all is said and done. Since it did a phenomenal job of exploring the two key themes in this story in a manner that was both honest and humorous. Because everything that Sam and Carol did here, felt organic and real… and having a little humor to go alongside moments that mortify us in that moment, only added to that realism, making this episode an honest slice of life, and it doesn’t hurt that its message extends beyond addiction. Because we could all stand to take a moment sometimes, and really work on ourselves and confront the ghosts we carry with us. Which really just speaks to the brilliance of this show and how it is eager to take the viewer on a journey grounded in the importance of healing, period, and now that Sam has moved past another marker on the road to recovery, it will be quite interesting to see what new challenges and messages her journey will send our way. Until next time.    

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