Grand Army Season 1 Episode 1 Recap – Brooklyn, 2020

[00:01:00] A few girls are singing inside a locker room. The room is divided into two sides: white and black. A girl named Joey goes to the back of the locker room to check one of the bathroom stalls. She knocks on the door and tells another girl to let her in. Grace opens the door and lets her in. Grace is in pain with something up her vagina. Joey tells Grace she has her back and tells her to raise her leg on the toilet seat. Grace thinks Joey is disgusted by her, but Joey assures her she isn’t. A few black girls hear Grace moaning inside the stall, and they think something lewd is happening. After a few minutes, Joey pulls out a condom from Grace’s vagina. Grace sighs in relief as Joey shows their friends what she pulled out.

[00:04:00] Joey tells one of the girls to pick up the condom, but she says she’s late for class. Joey tells her she’s just joking, but the girl takes it personally. Grace picks up the condom and throws it away. Joey tells Grace that George needs to learn to use a condom, or they can’t do anymore. One of the black girls tells Grace she needs to have a Plan B because she could be pregnant. Grace freaks out and leaves the locker room despite Joey telling her that she’s not pregnant. Joey heads out to the gym with the black girl and tells her she shouldn’t have messed with Grace’s head. The black girl responds she should tell Grace to do better before she regrets her decisions.

[00:06:00] The other girl earlier makes her way to class while all the other students do the same. Her name is Leila. She tells the teacher a report for her presentation, but some of the other girls laugh at her. They are Chinese, and they talk to Leila in Mandarin, but she can’t understand what they are saying. They call her a whore and laugh at her, but Leila can’t even talk back at them. All she could do was send a message on her phone to her friend. Meanwhile, two black kids walk back to school after their audition. They bump into John. They think he is skipping class, but he tells them he‘s just chilling because he can. John tells them he’s already a sure graduate for the year, so he can leave school as he pleases.

[00:11:00] As the two black kids make it back to school, they suddenly hear an explosion. They look outside and see black smoke coming out from the other block. The PA system suddenly tells everyone to go away from the windows. The school goes on emergency lockdown as everyone panics. Leila sees the smoke from the classroom window. She stares at the smoke while one of her classmates tells her to get away from the windows. Joey panics and looks for Grace inside the girl’s locker room. Grace is searching for symptoms of pregnancy. She tells Joey her breasts are sore. Joey doesn’t have time to think because of the explosion, so she tells Grace she’ll check it out later. Everyone follows protocol and evacuates to the upper floors of the school.

[00:13:00] Jay tells Sonia he saw a guy earlier at the park with a bag full of wires. He thought he saw the bomber, but they didn’t believe him. They tell Jay he’s all talk, so he proves himself with a dare. Jay slides down the banisters of the stairs for 25 dollars. Sonia places the bet, but she tells Jay he can’t do it yet, but they can’t stop him. One of the teachers scolds Jay for not taking things seriously. Some of the other boys suddenly shout bombs from the floors below. A guy named Sid sits with the boys, but he decides to look for his sister. Sid asks permission from one of the teachers to look for his sister, but he spots Leila crying in the hallway.

[00:16:00] Leila starts freaking out in front of Sid. She can’t handle what‘s happening; she thinks they will die. Leila can’t take the joke Joey did to her in the locker room. She can’t accept all the hatred she gets from the Chinese girls. She is Chinese, but she can’t speak Mandarin. Sid convinces Leila to come with him to find his sister. They go into one of the classrooms where Leila’s friend is also staying. Sid checks on his sister when he receives a message. One of his friends is making a list of girls good in bed. They want to put Sid’s sister on the list unless he comes up with a replacement. Sid doesn’t know anybody, so he gives Leila’s name.

[00:19:00] Everyone is on their phones looking at news reports of what happened. Articles come out about a suicide bomber in Grand Army Plaza. Two people are confirmed dead as the authorities identify a 23-year-old bomber. Meanwhile, Joey is talking to Tim. She tells him about her problems with her father. Tim flirts with Joey, but she tells him they can’t. Grace tells them she’s getting claustrophobic, but they don’t believe her. Joey also tells Tim about what happened in the locker room with Grace earlier. The black kids mind their own business when Jay starts asking Sonia for her money. Sonia already gave all her money to Dom. Jay and Owen take Dom’s bag to find her wallet. They pass her wallet around, but it falls down the stairwell.

[00:23:00] The teacher goes over to scold the group. She notices Joey only wears shorts and turns her attention to her bare legs. Joey tells the teacher Dom’s wallet goes missing and her bare legs are the issue. Tim gives Joey his jacket to wrap it around her waist. Dom tells the teacher the guys were messing around with her wallet, so it fell down the stairwell. The teacher tells the guys what they did is considered theft. Dom goes with the teacher to look for her wallet. Tim shows Joey her entry in the Bomb Pussy list.

[00:25:00] Leila seems to be losing her shit again, but she is just reciting a piece for an audition. Sid’s sister is the director and writer of the piece she‘s reciting. Leila and her friend, Rachel, look forward to auditions. Sid’s sister sees the Bomb Pussy list; so does Rachel. She tells Leila she makes the list, but she doesn’t find it awkward. It is the first time Leila gets noticed by anyone, and she wants to know more about the list’s criteria. Meanwhile, Dom retrieves her wallet, but all her money is gone. Jay and Owen ask Dom if she got her wallet back. She tells them she got the wallet but not the money. Now Jay and Owen owe Dom 200 dollars.

[00:28:00] People are looking for John Ellis on social media. He ditches classes just before the bomb went off. No one has seen John since the incident. Dom is worried for his safety. The PA system goes off again, and it tells all the students they are cleared to go home. Joey and Tim meet with Anna outside school. They go to the nearest convenience store to buy a few things before going home. Joey speaks to her mother on the phone. She wants to stay at Anna’s, but her mother insists she goes with her father. Joey ends the conversation since her mother doesn’t want to side with her. They talk about the Bomb Pussy list as the police sirens continue to wail outside.

[00:31:30] Anna asks one of their friends why she isn’t on the list. One of the guys responds that they can’t put her on the list because Tim will get angry. Joey goes to her dance class so that she can put the stress behind her. Meanwhile, Leila takes her placement on the Bomb Pussy list to the next level. She dreams about being a star in the Walking Dead series as a Bomb Pussy girl. Leila’s mother wakes her up for tea. She asks them questions about her past. She wants to know all about her real parents because the Chinese kids at school aren’t treating her like a real Chinese. Rachel is supposed to spend the night at Leila’s for their Walking Dead marathon, but they go to a party instead.

[00:35:00] Jay and Owen go to a music store to sell some vinyl records. They need 200 dollars to pay Dom back. The store owner knows them, so he can’t accept two of the five records they are selling. The owner tells Jay he should keep the records because they’re valuable. Jay calls his friend, Eli, who sells weed. Owen tells Jay they shouldn’t be spending the money, but Jay needs to smoke after everything that happened that day. After dance class, Joey goes to the party where they see Leila. Leila and Rachel are freshmen, so Leila gets bullied so often. Joey and her friends laugh at Leila for being dropped off by her parents.

[00:39:00] Leila and Rachel make their way through the apartment, where people drink and do drugs on every corner. They look for a bathroom, but they stumble upon Sid and Flora making out. Sid can’t focus on Flora because of the bombing earlier. He tells Flora the bomber is a Muslim. Flora tells Sid he isn’t a Muslim, but he knows someone will eventually pick on him because he looks like a Muslim. Flora tries her best to get Sid to do her, but Sid stops Flora and leaves the room.

[00:42:00] Meanwhile, John Ellis arrives late at the party. Everyone cheers for him as they have been looking for him all day. John tells the crowd he was out in the streets running for his life when he heard the explosion. Dom’s friends decide to call her so that she can see that John Ellis is still alive. Jay and Owen are also at the party, so they apologize to Dom for what happened earlier. Joey gives Grace some pills for her woes, but she immediately looks for George. George is somewhere at the party kissing Leila. Luke toasts for their lives at the party. They almost died that day, but they didn’t. Anna does her best to get Luke down from the table because he could fall. Grace sees Leila with George; she goes crazy.

[00:46:00] Grace takes a drink from someone and spills it all over Leila. She is about to slap Leila, but Sid pushes her out of the way. Luke suddenly lost his balance and falls from the second floor. Grace tells everyone Leila killed Luke, but Luke is still alive. He coughs up, and everyone cheers him on. Leila is relieved Luke is still alive. Meanwhile, Dom lights a cigarette by the bathroom window while listening to music on her phone. She can’t be at the party because of her siblings, but everything is alright for her.

[00:47:30] Tim and Joey ditch the party and hitches a ride on the subway. They don’t want to pay for the ride, so they just go to the last cabin and hang from the railings.