Following some happy moments in the last episodes, now everything starts going under. Julia and Griffin's marriage little by little falls apart: the bike shop is going under, Griffin is frustrated, he must babysitt Owen at the bike shop (where the kid causes some funny troubles), he can't spend time with Julia and yells at her for the job issues. He loses his computer for lack of money and planned to take Howie's to pay for it but then the man visits and asks for it, so Griffin must cancel the transfer. And when he arrives home, he yells at Claudia for skipping one day at school. Julia defends Claudia and tells he is behaving like his father, and that's the truth, he even uses the same words than him. At the end, he tries to say he's different, and explain his reasons. Julia tells that she feels the same way, everyone expects too much from her so she feels like she's fourty. But they're supposed to love each other, and Griffin is not showing much of that recently. She says she'll sleep in the house that night because Owen needs her, and asks him if he will come, but he prefers to stay in the shed so at least one of them sleep. This storyline still shows that Julia is more ready for an adult life than Griffin. She struggles a lot and she knows it's very hard with Charlie sick, but still, she's doing the best she can. For Julia, Griffin may not be the man she always wanted, but she tries to hold on to him despite the hard times. But he's not like that, he doesn't love her in the same way and is letting the bike shop be the center of his life. All this proves why they did a mistake and why they don't belong together. Then, I want to highlight Owen's part with Griffin at the bike shop, he did a funny job playing in that dangerous place. Besides, he learned new words: "Dam Dam Dam You owe me money" (the Cavarno twins made a wonderful job this season). Meanwhile, Claudia can't spend more time with Reed because he doesn't want to, not even when she just want to be friends. He says she's misunderstanding his gestures so leaves her alone, even though she still suffers for the drama at home. Claudia tries to talk about it with anyone but nobody listens to her. Just as one season ago she is alone. Julia is busy, and just tells her to be in the house when Owen returns from daycare. Charlie only cares about his rash (that Dr Rabin couldn't help with cortisone) and refused listen to her twice, the first one because the rash (fair enough), the second one because he was meditating (wrong move there Charlie, "your daughter needed you"). Griffin is mad and Bailey is out. The perfect person to help her today was Kirsten, but for some reason, that didn't happen (was the writers job to make Kirsten help Claudia).
Instead, Kirsten helps Charlie with his rash, taking him to a herbalist, where they look solutions. Kirsten jokingly says that if Paul knew she was checking an herbalist he'd file for divorce. Charlie agrees that doctors believe they know everything, and then they are welcomed by Dr Fong, who guesses he has Hodgkin's by looking at his tongue and sees the rash in his neck. Kirsten and Charlie are surprised so they trust he can help. He gives him some items to heal his rash, so later he prepares tea with those stuff, whose smell is gross for Claudia, Julia and Owen. He doesn't like it either so reluctantly drinks it. The herbal tea and oriental medicine doesn't work, and Kirsten brings him a meditation book from Berkeley. He tells that is still itchy so she tries to bring him ice but he says he already tried that. He's upset and mentions a curious fact while talking about the rash and radiation: they took to a trip to Yellowstone that ended soon because mosquitos, and they had itchy skin then (I guess that trip happened when they were happily together in summer 1995 or summer 1996). He tells that is much worse than then, that's not just a rash and that radiation might not be working since is just light. The next day, he finally decides to read the meditation book and starts trying. Kirsten easily enters the house (or she has a key or she sees Claudia or Julia often) and finds him in the parental bedroom meditating. She's totally surprised and listens to his investigations. He wonders about studies around the world about cancer, like for Mexican mice thinking he could go anywhere to find a certain solution. He thinks he's losing his mind for believing in not verified things, but she notices that it doesn't matter, since he hasn't been scratching recently. At the end, meditation (or God I hope this works) seems to work because his rash disappears and he stops complaining. He has a good night sleep and Julia thinks it was because she used a new detergent for the blankets, so he loses hope again. The last scene, when Charlie and Kirsten were at the swing chair in the backyard (with him wearing the coat he got from the Briarcliff Inn during their road trip), was really great and emotional, with a nice music score. He felt sad because he thought he could have some control about the cancer but now feels he may not be able to fight the sickness (he thought the rash was gone because Julia changed/cleaned sheets with a new detergent). She comforts him, saying that he had a rash and now it's gone, so maybe it was Julia's work or the meditation, or maybe it was him. He looks at her with saddened eyes and she rubs his back. That was perfect, once again Kirsten was the person that Charlie needed, supporting him like no one else can. Using the perfect words, she manages to reach him, to comfort him in a very special way, sharing moments just like if they were married (which is great). This proves once again why she is the only woman for him, the love of his life. Also, here was showed that since their road trip, Kirsten doesn't have any fear in spending time with him, supporting and comforting him. He was in teary eyes at the swing chair and she just rubbed his back without any doubts. And can be said that they share more things in common, they were a little skeptical, but still they were open enough to give a chance to oriental medicine or meditation (unlike Julia for example). She studied in college for 7 years and she's not like many college people, she's like him in many ways. One more detail to add: considering that itchy skin is a symptom of Charlie's treatments/disease (like fever, night sweats, fatigue and nausea), and then it was gone, I rule out Julia's coupons, so maybe meditation worked, or probably it was just him, like Kirsten said. I liked very much their story today only I wished they helped Claudia, she really needed both of them in this episode like in the good old times.
As for Bailey, he starts messing up things by pushing Natalie to accept his relationship with Annie. Annie tried to protect her so I blame Bailey here, he clearly has no idea what a child with separated parents feels. Overall was a very good episode, still with a dark and sad context, with a great soundtrack and acting, the minus point goes for the neglecting of Claudia.
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