Not Dead Yet (Season 1) Episode 7: Nell is on a roller coaster ride, facing the ups and downs of life. She is slowly coming to terms with her past and the sudden changes in her life, but the everyday challenges can be overwhelming. Despite this, Nell remains composed and keeps her head up, constantly battling her inner demons to persevere and move forward.
In the latest episode of Not Dead Yet, Nell looks up to her favorite celebrity and takes his advice to embrace life’s greatest gifts: confidence and self-assurance. With these two traits intact, anything is possible, and life can feel like a gift rather than a burden or chore.
Not Dead Yet (Season 1), Episode 7 Recap:
In Episode 7, Nell and Edward have a conversation where Nell attempts to persuade Edward to share his Hulu password with her. While getting ready for work, Edward notices that Nell is having peanut butter for lunch and questions why she’s not eating something else. It becomes apparent that Nell is struggling financially, as she is behind on her student loan payments, and her paycheck won’t arrive for another week.
On her commute to work, Nell receives her next obituary assignment from Dennis via message. However, she struggles to read it while driving and almost gets into a car accident. After slamming on the brakes, Nell takes a moment to be thankful for her safety, and that’s when she encounters the ghost of Carlos Garza, her next subject. As a child, Nell greatly admired Carlos Garza, the baseball game commentator whom she and her father would always listen to.
Nell is overwhelmed with excitement at the sight of her childhood hero and finds it difficult to take her eyes off of him while driving. When Carlos Garza advises her to focus on the road, she assumes he is simply humoring her desire to bask in his presence. Unfortunately, her lack of attention results in a fender bender. Mr. Garza reminds her that having two accidents in one day is not a good start for either of them.
Nell’s car is towed away, and she realizes she will have to pay $300, which she cannot afford. She confides in Carlos that he was a big part of the special memories she shared with her father, and their shared love for baseball brought them even closer. However, when her father calls her, Nell decides not to answer the phone.
Sam comes to Nell’s rescue and gives her a lift to work. She is always concerned about the well-being of her best friend. She ensures that Nell is okay and encourages her to share the little details of her overwhelming anxieties, knowing that even minor hiccups can be challenging for Nell. Upon arriving at the office, the episode kicks off with its usual comedic tone.
Lexi has been given the daunting task of firing people after a discussion with her father. Although she enjoys being called the “Karen” at the office, her fragile personality can’t bear the thought of letting go of innocent people. So, she announces that there will be a performance review overheard by her father via phone. Everyone in the office, including Sam and Dennis, are scared of losing their jobs.
While Lexi’s announcement freaks everyone out, she has no other choice but to comply with her father’s unreasonable demands. In order to make the process fair, Lexi has her favorite calligraphy writer write all the employees’ names on ping pong balls and shuffle them up in a ball shuffler. This way, random names will be chosen for the performance review interviews. The newspaper has to be cost-effective, so letting go of certain employees seems like the best option at the moment.
Dennis is the first one to be chosen for the review, much to his horror. Although he is sassy when it comes to his work, he becomes jittery when the situation becomes critical. He is a headstrong personality with zero tolerance for criticism. When he is called in for the interview, Lexi questions him about his work performance. He gets nervous and starts to fumble. Although he shares honest things about his work, just as Lexi excuses him, he gets more nervous and shouts, “I love you,” to Lexi’s father. An uncomfortable silence follows as Dennis excuses himself from the room.
As Nell prepares herself for the possibility of getting fired, Mr. Carlos Graza encourages her to use her storytelling skills to her advantage and fight for her job. However, Nell’s thoughts are soon interrupted by a series of missed calls from her father. When she looks up, she is surprised to see him walking into the office, and she immediately starts to worry about him finding out about her situation. Nell has always been her father’s favorite, and he sees her as his “wonder child.” She hasn’t told him about her struggles because she doesn’t want to disappoint him. In a panic, Nell takes her father to Sam’s cubicle, pretending it’s her own.
Nell’s father is concerned about her brother, who has been involved in multiple business ventures that have yet to succeed. He hopes that his son will take over the family restaurant to attain some stability in his life. As a typical parent, Nell’s father desires his children to be well-established and prosperous. Nell, however, wants to ease her father’s worries by explaining that children are not always to blame for their struggles, as life’s unpredictability can often knock people off course. Sometimes all they need is a moment to regain their footing.
Nell brings her father to her apartment, which she explains to him as a place that holds significant personal history despite its small size. Meanwhile, Lexi carries on with her task of conducting performance reviews for the employees and calls in Sam for an interview. Despite her loyalty to Sam as a friend, Lexi maintains her professionalism and assists her during the review. It appears that the two share a strong bond, as firing Sam could potentially have negative consequences for Lexi.
After freshening up, Nell joins her father in the living room of her apartment, only to find Edward already there. She is taken aback to discover that Edward has already exposed her financial struggles and the lies she had told her father. Edward, being an honest person, had shared the truth with her father. Edward leaves, leaving Nell to explain her situation to her father.
As any concerned parent would, Nell’s father is surprised and disappointed to discover that his daughter had lied about her financial struggles. Nell explains that she did not want to worry them and preferred to handle things on her own. She assures her father that she will find a way to overcome her difficulties and eventually get back on track.
Despite Nell’s assurances, her father remains concerned about her and does not want to see her struggle like her brother. He offers her the opportunity to come back home and run the family restaurant with him. He wants to support Nell’s dreams of chasing big things in life but does not want to see her suffer in the process. He suggests that if things do not work out for her, she is always welcome to return home and be with her family.
Nell apologizes to her father for lying but tells him that she will manage to overcome her struggles. However, her father poses a crucial question – whether this is the life that Nell truly desires to live.
Not Dead Yet (Season 1), Episode 7 Ending, Explained:
How does Nell handle her performance review? What does she decide in the end?
Nell finds herself at a crossroads when her father poses the question about her true desires in life. Mr. Carlos describes her situation as a critical moment in a baseball game where the game is at its peak. Nell is left pondering about her living situation and her job while waiting outside her office for her interview. She realizes that she does not have a concrete answer yet.
When Carlos asks how she is handling everything, Nell admits that she loves her father but cannot find a reason to disagree with him. She acknowledges that her life would be easier if she were to move back home and work at the family restaurant. Carlos explains that fathers are like umpires in a game, often hated when they get things wrong, but 99 times out of 100, they get things right.
Nell shares a moment from her childhood where she caught a ball at a baseball game, feeling that she was in the right place at the right time, much like how she feels about her father’s offer to work at the restaurant.
As Nell shares her childhood memory with Carlos, he is captivated by her storytelling skills and is transported back to 1994. He praises Nell for her storytelling abilities and encourages her to continue pursuing her passion for writing rather than feeling compelled to make sudden life choices. This advice gives Nell a sense of hope and confidence as she enters her performance review with a newfound sense of purpose.
When Lexi asks Nell about her story, Nell initially mentions the idea of getting fired. However, she quickly takes control of the conversation and explains that she is a storyteller who loves her craft. Despite her struggles, Nell refuses to abandon her passion in exchange for the comfort that her father is offering her. She explains to both Lexi and Mr. Rhodes that everyone in the office is trying to pursue their own passions, and the performance review is adding unnecessary pressure to their already stressful lives. Nell urges Mr. Rhodes to consider the impact of these reviews on his employees and to find a better way to support and encourage their pursuits.
As it turns out, it wasn’t Mr. Rhodes but his assistant who had been on the call throughout the performance review. Lexi’s father had asked him to take his place, which upsets and frustrates Lexi, who is always trying to reach a point where her father will appreciate her. This was her limit, so she storms out and announces to everyone that the rumors of people getting fired were not true.
Everyone rejoices to know that no one is losing their jobs and begins celebrating with one another. Sam asks Lexi about her sudden decision to change things, to which Lexi explains that she essentially fired her father for always making her look like a villain in the newspaper. It will have negative consequences for her, but she wants to focus on the present situation of letting everyone know that no one is getting fired.
Meanwhile, Nell returns to finishing her obituary about Mr. Carlos, narrating how Carlos helped her gain confidence in her life when things were going downhill. Nell’s father reads the obituary she had written about Mr. Carlos and is extremely proud of her for standing up for herself and pursuing her passion. He congratulates her and expresses how proud he is of his daughter for staying true to herself.
Nell reflects on her current state of mind and admits that she is uncertain about her future aspirations. Nevertheless, she acknowledges that her job as an obituary writer brings her immense joy and fulfillment. Despite the fact that she writes about the deceased, this role enables her to explore diverse narratives and gain new perspectives, which ultimately contributes to her self-awareness.
At the end of the episode, there is a heartwarming scene where Mr. Serano and his daughter bond. He expresses his pride in her and encourages her to pursue her dreams, just as he did when he was young. Meanwhile, as Dennis is leaving the office, he hears Mr. Rhodes’ voice on the speakerphone, telling him that he loves him. It later turns out that Lexi and Sam had played a prank on Dennis by pretending to be Mr. Rhodes, and he was completely unaware of their involvement.
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Not Dead Yet TV Series (2023- ) Links – IMDb
Not Dead Yet TV Series (2023- ) Cast -Gina Rodriguez, Hannah Simone, Rick Glassman, Josh Banday
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