Lovesick: Season 3 Review

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Previously on Lovesick

3.1 Andi and Olivia

Thirteen weeks after the events in the season two finale, Dylan and Luke are lamenting their love lives in a cafe. Dylan has finally completed his chlamydia treatment and his mission to inform his previous lovers of his diagnosis. Don’t worry, though; this show loves a good flashback so there’s still plenty of awkward conversations and failed attempts at connections to be had this season.

Flashback to shortly after Evie has ended her engagement to Mal and Dylan has committed to Abigail – Evie is back to living with Luke, Dylan, and now Angus, this time sharing a bed with Luke. The group agrees to attend a literary festival where Abigail will be reading her piece in a short story competition. Evie is down to go because anything is better than thinking about her broken engagement, and Luke’s on board because hes hoping to find a literary soulmate. Unfortunately for Luke, he’s not very literary and he ends up plagiarizing a poem in order to impress a woman who’d already read the poem. Outed as not gay and a fraud, Luke struggles to believe Evie when she says he’ll find someone who’ll love him for him. As for her, she’s convinced the timing for her and Dylan isn’t right, and since she took six years to figure out her feelings for Dylan, maybe Abigail deserves her chance now that she has him.

That fateful night that Evie and Abigail met comes back to haunt them when Dylan hides in the crowd and listens to Abigail’s story – a story she didn’t want him to hear. It’s the story of that night and he hears as Olivia (really Evie) admits she’s in love with her best friend (Dylan).

Love/Hate

Poor Angus. At the festival, he and Holly discover they have nothing in common but their upcoming baby.

In the present day, Luke implies that Dylan is in a relationship. Is it with Evie or Abigail?

3.2 Bonnie

As Angus and Evie struggle to put together his baby’s crib, we flash back ten weeks to when Evie discovers Dylan forgot to call off her surprise hen party. The only guest besides the usual suspects is Evie’s cousin Alex, who arrives from Texas. The gang makes the best of the awkward situation by turning it into a celebration of Evie not making a big mistake by marrying the wrong man. This involves them partaking in Dylan’s planned activities like soap making and karaoke, and a trip to Helen’s so Angus can steal the bonsai tree she won’t let him have in the divorce.

Love/Hate

One of the best scenes of the series took place in season two when Angus admitted to Evie that Helen’s hostility stemmed from her being aware that he didn’t love her the way she loved him. There’s another such scene at both the opening and close of this episode. It doesn’t really matter whose fault it is; Angus and his friends have had pretty spotty track records when it comes to personal relationships. He’s naturally afraid he’ll screw up being a father. The character has another opportunity to shine when he finds out Helen has been seeing his college mate. The friend mentions that Helen is in a bad place. She may seem like a major bitch to everyone — and she definitely can be — but Angus knows how much their divorce is hurting her. He chooses to allow her to move on by moving on himself and dropping his claim to the “stuff” in their divorce.

3.3 Abigail (Part 3)

Eight weeks ago it was Luke’s birthday and Luke, Dylan, Evie, and Abigail head to a club to celebrate. Luke picked the venue hoping to impress a girl named Miranda, whose band is playing there. He soon learns he has a trio of competition in her bandmates. Meanwhile, Abigail finally confronts Evie and Dylan (separately) about the timeline of their relationship and their past (and current) feelings for one another. It’s the kind of brutal honesty they’ve been denying themselves for three seasons. Abigail bravely dumps Dylan and wishes him the best with Evie. Dylan and Evie admit they have a lot to talk about, but first they have some sex stuff to get out of the way.

Love/Hate

Love, love, love everything about this. First of all, Jonesy! It was great seeing her again and hilarious watching Luke try and fail to be her wingman. It’s also good to see Luke is in therapy again. I was afraid with his actions in the season two finale that he’d abandoned his efforts at self-reflection. As funny as he can be, it’s time to see him handle his quest for love a bit more maturely than he has in the past.

And kudos to Abigail for doing what should have been done awhile ago. It was refreshing to see this handled like adults, and I love that she made sure to point out that no one did anything wrong. They were all trying to be good people.

That said, it’s about time Evie and Dylan are together properly. Let’s see how long it lasts.

3.4 Evie

It’s the morning after and Dylan and has slept with Evie, Luke has slept with Jonesy (yes!), and Holly has barely slept at all because Angus snores. The parents-to-be convince themselves that a new mattress is what they need, and Angus spends much of the episode procuring a very expensive one to save their relationship.

Weighted down by Luke’s advice to “don’t fuck it up,” Dylan heads to Abigail’s to retrieve his stuff. Because Dylan isn’t a complete asshole, it’s a sad ordeal and he stays long enough to make sure she’ll be okay — as okay as one can be. Later, he and Evie have their first small squabble when Dylan continues to insist everything’s “fine.” She finally gets him to admit that isn’t fine. He’s happy to be with her, but hates that it came at the expense of Abigail’s happiness. See? Not a complete asshole.

Love/Hate

It seems this group of friends can’t be happy all at the same time. Just as it appears Evie and Dylan are finally on the road to romantic bliss, Angus gets dumped by his pregnant fiancee. Though it’s sad, I suppose it’s better to get it over with now rather than after the baby is born.

Am I on the only one who worried Dylan was going to absolutely fuck it up with Evie when he went to see Abigail? Well, Luke suspected as well. Glad to see I was wrong… so far.

3.5 Martha 

Five weeks ago, the gang helped Dylan throw a surprise anniversary party for his parents. Things immediately got awkward when it was revealed one of the guests shouldn’t have been invited due to bad blood with his parents. Dylan then had the unpleasant task of asking her to leave before they arrive. Meanwhile, Jonesy and Luke (still in denial of their current coupling) snuck off for forest sex.

Love/Hate

The twist that Martha actually had an affair with Dylan’s mom was fairly obvious, but still well done. It was nice to see his parents have such a mature, honest, and healthy approach to relationships. Hopefully Dylan learned a thing or two.

Watching Angus see his possible single-forever future play out in the form of Dylan’s father’s business partner was fun, but then things got sober pretty quickly when it turned out the man drank too much and did drugs to hide his pain.

Also, Jonesy and Luke need to stop playing around and make this thing official.

3.6 Queen of Cups

A trip to the fair brings the gang’s relationship insecurities to the surface. Dylan gets way too invested in a tarot card reading that reveals he’s anxious about a recent change in his life. It’s all a little too close to Luke’s warning shortly after Dylan and Evie became a couple. Evie takes the reading for what it is, and parlor trick, but does become concerned with how freaked out Dylan becomes. In the end, he’s high maintenance. She knows it, he knows it, and he promises he’ll relax. Meanwhile, Luke is thrown for a loop when Jonesy tries to set him up with a friend of hers for a casual fling. Despite getting along quite well with the woman, Luke remains confused and a bit insulted by Jonesy’s actions. She assures him that ending their fling before things got any deeper (or weirder) was for the best. Speaking of thrown for a loop, Angus becomes obsessed with winning a stuffed bear for his baby, and when he has to buy the bear because he can’t master the ring toss, he feels he’s failed his baby before it has even arrived.

Love/Hate

Dylan is so extra. On the one hand, it’s understandable because the whole series has been about how he’s lost relationships. On the other hand…. dude, you won. Be happy.

Watching Luke become such a vulnerable character is one of the better surprises this series has delivered. I believe Jonesy is sincere in her desire to end things before it ruins their friendship, but it also appears as though she’s caught real feelings.

3.7 Tasha

After Dylan spies (and hides from) the last woman on his list, we’re taken back five years to the day they broke up. Tasha was opinionated and contrary, and after several failed attempts to break up with her, the deed is finally done when she overhears Dylan complaining about her. She warns him he’ll never be happy because the kind of love he’s looking for doesn’t exist. No wonder he never met up with her and settled for sending her the blue “You better get checked out” card.

This fateful day is also two months after Evie broke up with Angus, and when he completely loses it in front of her new beau, she has to convince him they’re better as friends.

Love/Hate

The best part of this episode was also the most heartbreaking: watching Luke actively avoid thinking about Phoebe and dulling the pain with random hookups. This guy.

3.8 Evie (Part Tw0)

Evie, Dylan, Luke, and Angus go to their college reunion, and Angus puts himself further in debt trying to present himself as rich and successful. Luke decides to take a page from Dylan’s book and seek closure from all of his past hookups so he can confidently move forward with Jonesy. Problem is: Jonesy is content with remaining friends and doesn’t believe in monogamy. It’s a gut punch for Luke, and the audience.

Love/Hate

If this is the last season, and I suspect it might be, I’m thoroughly satisfied even if it’s bittersweet. For three seasons we’ve watched Evie, Dylan, Luke, and Angus look to the past for answers to why love has eluded them, and we’ve seen them obsess over the future to the point where it sabotaged relationships. The reunion — and three seasons worth of bad dates, unforgettable hookups, and lost — taught them to finally be content with the right now.

When I was a teenager, I remember my Dad telling me that the friends and boyfriends I was getting in trouble over, the people who, at the time, meant the world to me, might not even be in my life 5 years from then let alone decades later. It was a hard thing to hear and believe when every relationship in your life is so large, so important. But he was right. That doesn’t mean you don’t look back on those relationships with fondness, sadness, or regret. They meant something at the time and it’s okay to acknowledge that when those feelings resurface. Evie experiences this when she sees her first-year relationship; a volatile one that was plagued with passionate fights and even more passionate reconciliations. He attends the reunion with his wife and child. Their meeting is awkward, but pleasant. Later, Dylan finds Evie crying in the living room and she admits she feels sad remembering just how much she loved her ex, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t happy right now.

The old Dylan would have fixated on this with possible relationship-ending consequences. But the Dylan who’s been through his own fair share of self-reflection and regrets is confident in what he and Evie share right now. So, he holds her in bed and tells her he loves her.

Down the hall, Jonesy interrupts Luke’s one night stand to give in to her true feelings. She’s in it, even though she suspects it’s a mistake. This leaves me torn. As much as I like the pair together, it was refreshing to hear Jonesy not walk back her casual lifestyle when it came to love.

Perhaps the biggest cliffhanger is Angus’ realization that he wants to be with Holly, someone who seemed pretty resolute in her desire to not be in a romantic relationship with him. Then again, I thought Jonesy was firm and I was wrong about that.

Still, as much as I’d like another round with this group of friends and lovers, I’d be perfectly content if the series ends right now.