Fleishman Is in Trouble season 1 episode 8 recap & review: The Liver

The finale of ‘Fleishman Is in Trouble’ sees Toby and Libby finally coming full circle with their lives. The episode is now streaming on Hulu.

Recap

Libby visits Toby at night to inform him about Rachel’s condition. She just put her to sleep and got a doctor’s appointment for the next day.

Libby tries to explain to Toby about Rachel’s nervous breakdown, but the latter doesn’t care anymore. He likes to think she isn’t his problem now.

Toby moved on from his life and started focusing more on the promises he made to his children. Even his children started getting mature with time. The family then took another shot at going inside the Vantablack.

Libby doesn’t know what happened with Toby after that because she was lost in her own life. She is headed towards her second year as a stay-at-home mom; her thirteenth year of marriage; her fifth year in the suburbs; and her forty-first year of life.

After all of this, she only saw herself as a magazine writer with no assignments. She thought of a change when she met her friend, Michelle, who is not only getting a divorce but is now also dating her college boyfriend, with whom she connected on Facebook.

Following that conversation, Libby sent a friend request to the first boy she ever kissed, only to see him turn their normal online conversation into something gross in a matter of minutes.

Things changed for her the day Toby called her and they all reconnected. These conversations brought out the most authentic version of her.

Back in the present, Libby returned to her life and attempted to make things better. She woke up the next day and prepared breakfast for her family, but they were way past waiting for her.

They stopped relying on her and had plans of their own to look forward to. Libby soon found out that Adam didn’t even count her in for some parties he went to.

Adam and Libby eventually confronted each other, and the former explained to her how out of touch she is with her family. Another piece of bad news struck her the next day when she learned that her favorite author, Archer Sylvan, has passed away.

Adam and Libby got invited to Seth’s party, but Adam decided not to go along with her. At the party, both Libby and Toby figured out that Seth is going to propose to his girlfriend, Vanessa.

Seth did propose to her, and both Libby and Toby wondered what made him take this decision after watching their lives fall apart.

Toby and Libby sat together, and Libby told him about her plans to write a book. The story of the book is strikingly similar to Toby’s. Upon questioning how it ends, she mentions that Toby’s wife eventually comes back to him.

The only difference is the way she mentions the wife, who is unlike Rachel. She is more like Libby, who really needs to figure out life because she can’t go back to the time when she had unlimited choices.

Libby and Toby get emotional and apologize to each other for behaving the way they did with each other. They plan to walk back uptown together, but Libby decides to take a cab home.

While heading back home, Libby realized the point of the divorces she witnessed. The couples watch each other change, and the work is to recall why they got together in the first place.

One mistakes the person closest to them and thinks if they cut this thing off immediately, they will go back to being who they are, but that’s not how it works. It’s not anyone’s fault; this is going to happen, and one can’t stop time.

Libby comes back home, hugs Adam, and apologizes to him. Adam claims it’s alright, as she always comes back. Similarly, even Rachel returned to Toby and appeared in front of him just the way Libby mentioned in her story.

Review

• The finale seems a bit lost in its storytelling, and it struggles to put forth its message, which doesn’t come out as strong as it should.
• The saving grace for the finale is probably the reconciliation between Toby and Libby. The way Libby narrates her story, which is indeed connected to Toby’s, hooks a viewer for a minute.
• Overall, the finale kept Toby aside and turned itself into a Lizzy Caplan show with her character, Libby, taking the spotlight.

---

Also Read: Who is Archer Sylvan? Fleishman Is in Trouble character explained