Such Brave Girls – Season 1 Episode 5 “Such Friendly Girls” Recap & Review

Such Friendly Girls

In Such Brave Girls Season 1 Episode 5, the girls go see their father’s mother in the hospital, secretly hoping she’ll die soon and leave them money. Their nan says their dad was just there, so Billie goes off looking for him.

Being left alone with her despondent nan makes Josie feel like everything in her life has been a waste. Seb asks that she open up to him, so she talks about her nan’s upcoming death and feelings of insignificance.

Dev sees Josie and Billie struggling and suggests they get therapy, but Deb thinks there are other solutions to her mental health problems. She then informs Josie of one of those solutions: that Seb has moved in with them.

Dev tries to take on a fatherly role to the girls to help out. But they think his behavior means he’s trying to sleep with them.

At the club, Josie and Billie run into Bianca, the girl Nicky left Billie for. It turns out Nicky has hurt Bianca too, and she’s like Billie in that she doesn’t want to let him go. Billie comforts her. Later, Billie and Bianca get in the shower together “to wash Nicky off,” which leads to an intimate experience. Billy just wants to sleep with Bianca, but Bianca decides they can get back at Nicky by telling his parents.

They go to his parent’s house, where Nicky lives, and Billie goes in to be the first one to tell them how terrible their son is. That’s the plan, anyway–but she ends up sleeping with Nicky instead.

Dev decides to have a chat with Seb about his worries that Josie would cheat on him with a girl. Dev then admits to Seb that he cheated on Deb just last night. (He only means that he masturbated while thinking of his late wife.)

Seb admits to him that he’s a virgin, and sex makes him nervous. They both relate to not wanting to show women their fear.

Deb peeks in Josie’s diary to find not much mention of Seb. Dev apologizes to Deb over his “cheating,” but Deb tells him she only wants a stable man who will be committed to her. Now Seb’s wondering how else he can commit to Josie.

Meanwhile, Josie tells Sid she figured out she is: whoever Sid wants her to be.

Sid and Josie bond again over their trauma, but when Sid’s father comes into her room and gives her a hug and kiss, Josie freaks out, mistaking his affection for wanting to sleep with his daughter. Once again, she runs away.

Josie then confesses her problems to her sleeping nan–but it turns out she’s dead. So, she takes her ring and runs off.

While calling a crisis line, Josie walks into the house to find Seb on his knee, proposing to her. When the crisis line asks her if she’s having suicidal thoughts, she answers yes, which Seb takes to mean a yes to his proposal. And she already has a ring!

Dev tells Josie that death is just another stage of life and seems like a lovely place to be. He’s trying to comfort her, but it just makes death sound more appealing.

At the end of the episode, Josie goes to a therapy session. Unfortunately, Deb thinks that since it doesn’t fix her in the first session, it’s a waste of time.

The Episode Review

This is a big episode for both Billie and Josie, who (if it isn’t extremely obvious by now) have some deep trauma they need to work through. I’d wondered before if Billie also hasn’t yet worked out her sexuality (she said previously that women aren’t supposed to enjoy sex), and her draw to Bianca seems to suggest that. 

I love the show’s approach to its central theme, trauma, and how the trauma of the girls’ father leaving them has affected all these characters in different ways. Billie, in her stark fear of a man leaving her again. Deb, in tying her success as a mother and a woman to men. And Josie, in making her trauma her entire personality.

Yet again, Such Brave Girls pulls off these intense themes with morbid hilarity. Josie freaking out about Sid’s relationship with her father was so unexpected, and yet Sadler makes it make so much sense.