This week we were blessed with a Marnie-filled episode. And, surprise…
Charlie’s back!
But not the Charlie we remember and love. This Charlie is tattooed and muscular. He is sketchy and speaks differently. But when Marnie runs into it, she doesn’t seem to care and they have an episode (a GREAT episode) of debauchery and realizations.
1. No apartment is ever truly big enough to have your own space, especially if you live in a studio apartment in NYC.
Sorry, it’s not a studio anymore. It’s a makeshift one-bedroom…wasn’t that what their last fight was about? And wasn’t the point of creating the bedroom so that they could get some space and time away from each other? Well that plan didn’t quite plan out like they’d hoped.
2. The smallest things are catalysts for your worst arguments with your significant other, especially if you’re like Marnie and are extremely passive aggressive.
How much milk is left in the carton. Who scooped the litter box last. How to properly rinse dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. These are all very insignificant events that account for so little of the time you and your partner are together, yet somehow these become the principals upon on which any relationship is built. In Marnie and Desi’s case, a polite disagreement about Marnie not wanting to accompany Desi on a scone run leads to discussions of emotional cruelty and coldness, desperation, and clinginess.
3. Nothing feels better than space after an argument.
Nothing beats fresh air when you’re filled with hot air, and Marnie was every angry significant other when she stormed out of her room/entire apartment in a dramatic fit.
4. Your ex will always manage to show up when least expected.
Exes are like slasher movie villains in that way. While contemplating her fight with Desi, Marnie runs into her ex from way back Charlie, who is hanging in the back lot of a building that looks nearly vacant. She just stares at him, then walks away leaving him to chase after her like the beginning of an indie romance movie, which the episode kind of was.
5. You’ll probably never stop thinking about the one that got away.
Everyone’s got one: the one that got away. In some cases, it was an important, meaningful love like the young love that Charlie and Marnie had. Whatever the case may be, when things get a little rough, we always ask ourselves what if. And I believe it’s that open possibility, that wonderment that drives Marnie to agree to hang out with Charlie that night.
6. One of the best feelings is the world is hanging out with an old friend (or lover) and having it be like nothing has changed and no time has passed.
It’s comforting to be in the presence of someone familiar. And in a lot of cases you get to regress back into an earlier version of yourself that no one in your present life quite remembers. It’s liberating. Marnie still doesn’t quite know who she is yet, which is probably why spending a night fantasizing about something different with Charlie is so appealing.
7. Everyone wants to be someone else sometime.
When Marnie and Charlie are slow dancing in the restaurant and then walking in the park under the glow of the city lights in an easy ebb and flow of reminiscing and catching up, it’s easy to get caught up in the thinking that life would be so much better if you’d been with someone else. But even though it seemed like the old Charlie Marnie knew and kind of loved, this isn’t him. His super successful company folded and now he’s making some very sketchy transactions, with a brand new New York accent probably to make him sound tougher than he actually is.
8. People can change. Maybe deep down inside they don’t, but they can certainly change their appearance, accent, thoughts on drugs, etc.
Marie called it early on in the episode when she says Charlie wouldn’t know what her “scene” is anymore, because a lot can change in a couple of years. After sleeping together and clearly trying very hard to not harp on the fact that his bathroom is communal and that he’s using garbage bags for curtains, she finds a needle in Charlie’s pocket and realizes that her ex-boyfriend is doing heroin. Charlie is clearly a complete wreck, and Marnie wants no part of his new lifestyle.
9. Sometimes you need to have crazy, risky experiences to convince yourself what you actually want.
It’s not like Marnie got nothing out of her heroin-filled reunion with Charlie. She figured out from it that she doesn’t want to be married to Desi. Okay, she probably knew that but for, but she didn’t want to believe it. This weird, awesome experience she had helped her say it out loud to Desi. She didn’t want to be with him. And now she can move on.
In the final shot, we see Marnie climbing into bed with Hannah and Fran, which was a total flashback to the first episode in 2012 which opened to Hannah and Marnie snuggled up in bed together. So much has changed in the years since, but so much has remained the same like the uncertainty of life and your tumultuous twenties.
