I Am Not Okay With This Season 1 Episode 4 Recap – Stan by Me

Flashback: Stan gets dressed for Ricky’s party and rehearses lines so he can invite Syd to homecoming. He comes out of his room and sees his father is home. His father tells him he looks like a faggot.

After Syd leaves to find Dina, Stan rejoices in his car because Syd is coming with him to homecoming. He drives home and gets spooked by Syd suddenly crossing the street. He veers sideways, ultimately crashing his car into a nearby tree. He goes down the car to check on the damage and to follow Syd. He sees and hears Syd scream, and of course, he sees the trees collapsing. He calls out to Syd. Syd turns around and walks towards him. Stan looks shocked and asks Syd how she managed to do it. Syd tries to cover up what she did and says the trees were already like such when she came. Stan tells her he saw everything. Syd asks Stan to keep what he saw a secret. She walks away, leaving Stan drenched in the rain.

Syd walks alone deeper into the woods and spends some time in an abandoned wooden house.

The next morning, Maggie wakes Syd up for school. Syd says she does not want to go to school, but her mom ignores her. Maggie tells her to take care of Liam and get him some dinner because she’ll be working double shifts again. “I’m practically his mom,” Syd scoffs. Her mom picks up on it and tells her to say it again. Syd does not repeat what she said and instead says it’s not fair that she always asks her to do everything for Liam. Liam overhears the conversation and says he can just cook his dinner. Maggie tells him it’s nice, but she needs a second with Syd.

After Liam leaves, Maggie angrily tells Syd that she knows her working 60 hours per week is not ideal for Syd, but it pays for their needs. Syd tells her that if their dad were there instead of her, he wouldn’t ask her to do so much. This angers Maggie even more because she plays out a scenario where Maggie is dead. She says that when it comes to her dad, Syd has a gift of selective memory. She says her father is not who she thinks he is because he can be funny and sweet, but he could also be vacant. She says there were times when Syd would go to school, but her dad wouldn’t even get out of bed. Maggie tells Syd what’s truly not fair: she has always chosen her dad over her, and even when he’s gone for over a year already, she is still choosing him.

Syd arrives at school and forces herself to be normal. Stan tries to talk to her, but she goes into the women’s toilet so he can’t bother her. During chemistry class, Stan still tries to talk to Syd about what he saw, but Syd avoids him until she can’t anymore. He says they should test Syd’s power. She gets upset as she remembers what happened that night. The test tubes start shaking, and the contents of the test tubes seem to be boiling. Before anything else can happen, she excuses herself to go to the bathroom.

Dina sees her walking out of the room. Syd goes into a cubicle; everything around her just starts shaking. She tries to calm herself down by thinking happy thoughts, which works because the rattling slows down. Dina bangs into the cubicle door and asks Syd if she’s okay. Dina tells Syd that Brad and she are good and have made up after their fight. She also asks if they can talk about their kiss, but Syd says it’s fine. Dina asks if they’re cool. Syd says they are so cool.

Liam cooks some dinner and tells Syd that maybe she and their mother can talk without being mean because it’s like they are trying to find reasons to be mad at each other. He serves her a bowl of macaroni and cheese with maple syrup, A1, ham, corn, margarine, cinnamon, fish sticks, soy sauce, grape jelly, crushed graham crackers, and an unknown ingredient in a jar in their fridge. Syd tries to avoid eating such a dish, but Liam tells her to try it while it’s hot. She tries it, and to her surprise, it is really good. She tells Liam she has never seen him cook before. Liam tells her he is afraid to cook, but then he realizes that if he tries, he won’t be afraid anymore.

After hours, Syd goes to the bowling alley and tells Stan she thought she could hear some of his theories about her power. Stan gets excited and brings out his comics. Syd laughs and tells him he thought what he did was actual research, not just comics research. Stan explains he thinks the people who wrote those comics didn’t just do it out of thin air but instead based them on modern science and parapsychology.

He says each of the comics features an unknown visitor, some form of a mentor figure who visits the hero to explain their abilities and how they can harness the powers for good. Stan asks her if someone like such has visited her. Syd says no. Stan then tells her there is always an origin, so he asks her if she has experienced a spider bite, radioactive goo, alien gemstones, a secret military experiment, and other outrageous events. Syd says no to all of them. Stan sighs and asks her about her parents because he says that sometimes, people inherit abilities from their parents.

Syd says what they’re doing is a waste of time, so she starts to walk away. But Stan convinces her to stay by saying she has something special and trying to understand it is a big first step. He tells Syd the next step: practice. He tells Syd to focus and try to knock down a set of pins, knock off a tower of stacked soda cans, and pop some popcorn with her power. Syd fails to do them, so they think back on how she was able to use her power at Ricky’s party.

She says she kissed someone at the party. This makes Stan sad, so he asks if she kissed someone before or after he asked her to homecoming. He says he thought they were together because they had sex; it was the first time he ever did it. Syd tells him that it’s her first time too. She says she kissed someone who didn’t wanna be kissed, and her powers almost always come out when she’s angry, embarrassed, or scared.

Stan comes up with an idea and starts telling Syd why she wasn’t kissed back — she’s incredibly angry and repulsive. Syd smiles and says she knows what he is doing. He continues to provoke Syd by saying she will flunk Biology, and she will never figure out what is happening inside her; it will eat her up inside. By this point, Syd is already starting to get affected because the bowling balls behind her are already moving. But Stan does not stop. He says she has a shitty family and how her dad didn’t even leave a note, so she will never know why he killed himself. Syd gets totally upset, and two balls fly across Stan into the wall behind him.

Stan gets amazed and says it’s awesome, but Syd isn’t so pleased. She pushes Stan away, so Stan tells her he didn’t mean anything he said. “I could have killed you,” Syd angrily says, then she goes.

Syd walks along the train tracks. A shadowy, black figure watches her from a distance.

Our Thoughts

Woah! So many things happened in this episode. For starters, we finally get a glimpse of Syd’s father’s personality — that he can be vacant sometimes. Now, we are more curious about why he killed himself. I cannot get over how mean Sydney is to her mom. I mean, they don’t exactly see eye to eye, but she’s still her mom, and she is also still grieving the loss of her husband, so why don’t Syd cut her some slack? Again, Syd only thinks of herself, and she is so annoying. She thinks the world revolves around her! Oh well. She is currently a mess because of her sudden powers, but still, that is not an excuse. I hope she gives her mother some respect in the next episodes.