Brothers of the Vine
Forever Evermore
Women of W.A.R.
Ahead of the highly anticipated release of Younger season 6 Mills & Boon author Clare Connelly re-watched and recapped everything you missed in Younger Season 5!
I don’t know about you but I was absolutely desperate for Younger to come back after that incredibly moving cliff-hanger at the end of Series 4 (Josh and Claire’s wedding, or as I like to think of it, the one when Josh remembered he loved Liza).
In the new season, Charles heroically outs Empirical’s biggest-selling author as the Harvey Weinstein of books. The company backs away from him and his upcoming release, and in retaliation, LL Moore reveals that his beloved Liza is not who everyone – Charles especially – thinks!
Charles, who’s been falling in love (and fighting that) with Liza since she arrived in the office discovers he’s been lied to and pulls a douche move (as a card-carrying member of Team Josh, I’m not surprised) and meeting with lawyers to work out how to fire Liza. He’s advised it would be disastrous to fire an employee because of their age (derrrrr) so he decides to trap her in a never-ending passive-aggressive snipe-fest keep her at Empirical.
Sexy AF Josh tells Liza that Claire only married him to get her green card (best news ever) and we see him get right back into the swing of casual sex (though in a heartwarmingly adorable friendship I can 100% get behind, he tells Lauren he thinks he and Liza are MFEO – one day).
Things heat up and get inappropro with Kelsey and Zane. They’re vying for the memoirs of Obama’s former speechwriter (Jake, you’re going to want to remember his name, bear with me), in between sleeping with each other, that is.
Liza meets a guy at a party (side note- he’s played by Christian Borle – Sutton Foster’s actual ex-husband!) but he learns the truth about her age and tries to sell the story to Vanity Fair. When fact-checked, Liza talks her way out of it by starting a whole age-queer movement. Yep. Age-queer. She also drops Don (creep guy she’s been dating) like a hot potato (appropriate, given he’s a food kleptomaniac).
Charles is still being frosty to Liza – he tells her he doesn’t know how to be around her given her lie.
Josh decides to sell his tattoo shop and apartment and move away but in a really, really touching scene, Eliza tells him to stay. Kelsey hooks up with Jake (yes, Jake, her author – errrrm…) but she also hooks up with Zane and Jake sees, oh boy.
Charles’s ex Pauline works out that Charles and Liza have had an almost-history and stomps out of the after-party of one of her book launch events. She and Liza have become really chummy so her sense of betrayal is intense and she conveys it beautifully.
In episode six, there’s an awesome, tense, angsty episode where Charles and Liza both end up in the house of famous rock singer Chrissie Hart. She’s writing a memoir and they need to see the draft. They end up having to stay over, and it’s so tense and loaded with delayed gratification. It’s a rare moment where I actually felt for Charles and his superbly-defined Adam’s Apple.
Meanwhile, Diana and Enzo (hot Italian plumber) have reconnected this season, and I am SO there for that.
Episode seven has more Liza and Charles gold. Her daughter Caitlyn begs her parents to reunite for one night to do their traditional Christmas folksy polka dance (it’s very cute and I am so glad we finally get to see Sutton Forster dancing and singing!).
Charles arrives at the party and sees Liza. He pretends he’s meeting her for the first time (because, symbolism, you know? Fresh start!). The episode finishes with a Charles and Liza kiss and all you team Charles people just lost it, didn’t you?
They sleep together and it puts some hair on Charles’s beard chin. He turns up in full-blown Yeti mode after New Years.
Pauline’s book, meanwhile, has been picked up by Reese Witherspoon’s production company, and knowing how important that is to the company, Pauline goes out of her way to be difficult and blackmail-ey. Charles and Liza start to date but try to fly under the radar. That’s tricky though because they run into New York’s only literary agent (apparently) Redmond, at the restaurant they happen to be eating at. Liza – who’s liza-ed to everyone in her life for years – is suddenly a terrible liar.
Kelsey and Liza have an argument when Kelsey learns about Liza’s relationship with Charles but given that Kelsey is sleeping with her colleague AND author, it feels a little unreasonable for her to swing onto the moral high ground.
In Diana-land, we’re seeing a familiar trope play out – the overbearing mother in law. But it’s made all the funnier and more compelling to watch because Diana is no simpering submissive wallflower and she has no intention of bowing down to Enzo’s mama. Enzo, in a further show that he’s just about the best guy on the series, announces on the spot that he’s going to move out of home and into Manhattan.
Towards the end of the season, Liza’s offered a job by Cheryl Sussman, who you might remember from previous seasons (she knew Liza way back when and therefore knows her secret). Employed by a rival publishing house, she’s got a weirdly likable manipulative air about her. Liza sees a way out of her predicament– if she takes the job at a different company, she can date Charles and be open about her age… Liza accepts the job offer.
Kelsey gets kissed by some guy in Frankfurt; Zane punches him (whoops) and he turns out to be an important new client (WHOOPS).
Liza decides not to leave Empirical after all, but when the saviour-investor of season five learns of Liza’s secret relationship with Charles, she says she can’t invest in the company with that kind of liability. In a move that is shocking and unpredictable, Charles steps down as main publisher at Empirical, and anoints Kelsey as his successor! He’s happy even though it’s a wistful happiness – he’s sacrificing the job he adores, but for a future with the woman he loves.
Major surprises all ‘round, with the news that Josh’s green card-wanting wife is pregnant, with his baby! Could he have his cake and eat it too? (He’ll have the baby he always wanted, leaving him free to pursue a real future with Liza? You know it..!).
Younger season 5 has twelve episodes, thirty minutes each. So you could totally spend six hours doing a re-watch before Season six premieres on Stan, June 13.
