Sex Lives of College Girls (Season 2) Episodes 7 & 8: The previous episode showed the characters on more hopeful notes from their college lives in Essex. While Bela is hopeful to get an unpaid internship at Dan’s comedy show, Leighton is optimistic about being in a relationship with Tatum. And while Whitney is attracted to her white classmate, Kimberly begins her sexual adventure with Jackson. Created by Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble, ‘Sex Lives of College Girls’ brings the characters more depth to their teenage lives’ series of ups and downs.
Sex Lives of College Girls (Season 2) Episodes 7 & 8 Recap
Episode 7: The Essex College Food Workers Strike
The episode is written by Beth Appel and directed by Tazbah Chavez. Bela (Amrit Kaur) reveals to her roommates that she hooked up with Dan in an awkward encounter. She is worried about what to do with the feeling of guilt since she is in a committed relationship with Eric (Mekki Leeper). While Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet) thinks that she should be honest with him, Leighton (Reneé Rapp) advises her to take this secret to her grave. While she heads to her magazine discussion with the same resolve, Kimberly learns about the low wages she and other food service workers on their campus get as compared to other colleges.
As a result, she decides to join the strike against it and, along with them, decides to eat nothing from the school dining hall. However, Jackson (Mitchell Slaggert), with whom she is frequently having sex, goes in without any thought of this protest, which upsets her. On the other hand, Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott) goes to her biochemistry class with the same attraction toward Andrew (Charlie Hall). She awkwardly navigates her way through her class.
Meanwhile, Leighton finds her new partner – Tatum (Gracie Dzienny), to be much cooler than her, which she never imagined being possible. As a result, she decides to hide the fact that she feels the need to reclaim her higher status in this relationship. To support her strike, Kimberly and her colleague Canaan (Christopher Meyer) decide to speak with the only person they know from an influential position – Whitney’s mother, senator Chase (Sherri Shepherd). While she is hesitant to participate in this strike, she eventually agrees after considering paying a visit to Whitney.
When she comes to her class to meet her, Andrew approaches her respectfully, unlike how he treats Whitney. He even takes a photo with her to show his family. Meanwhile, Kimberly approaches the senator with mighty determination for change, reminding the senator of herself from her young age. Kimberly gets overjoyed by this compliment. During their discussion, she hands her a speech she wrote for the senator. She does not want to follow Kimberly’s long speech but gets impressed by one of the lines that mention the importance of workers, which was said by the Essex founder.
So, the senator speaks about the strike in a live video and mentions him with his quote taken from the same plaque under the sculpture of him. Meanwhile, Leighton, who tries to seem busy and mysterious, gets asked by Tatum whether she could join a party that she is going to. Since she lied about it, Leighton gets a friend’s help to throw a party in an exhibition hall and takes Tatum with her. But her lie gets revealed when the organizer does not recognize her. She then tells the truth of feeling that she is not as cooler as Tatum, who mentions how inconsequential it is since she genuinely likes her.
During this time, Eric visits Bela at the discussion for her magazine and discloses his knowledge of her hooking up with Dan. While other female writers initially support her, they find it hard to do so when Eric reveals that Bela is the one who wants to be in a committed relationship with him. Later, when she tries to meet him and speak, his two dads stop her from doing so. She catches him later at night alone and tries to have a word again. However, he is so angry about her cheating on him that he even deletes her phone number.
Saddened by this, Bela sits in the mental health chamber created by their college as a way out of giving fair wages to the workers. Meanwhile, the video of Senator Chase gets circulated online for sharing the quote from the Essex founder, a slave owner. Kimberly was not aware of this detail and tries to stop her from leaving the strike. She persuades her to stay and take control of her narrative before the media does.
So, the senator stays and mentions the lack of knowledge about that fact and shares the significance of the strike that should not be ignored due to her mistake. Later, Kimberly asks Jackson not to get any food from the dining hall by noting how much his respect for her work would mean to her. He agrees to it and apologizes to her later about not thinking of it beforehand. Meanwhile, during one of their usual arguments about their devotion to the subject of biochemistry, Andrew and Whitney get closer in their class and kiss each other.
Episode 8: Pre-Frosh Weekend
The episode is written by Sarah Tapscott & Modupe Thompson and directed by Tazbah Chavez. Bela is psyched to invite her young Indian friend – Priya (Avantika). She considered herself her nerdy friend and saw herself as the cooler. However, when Priya arrives in their room, Bela gets surprised to see her being so attractive. In order to keep her higher position intact, Bela tells an embarrassing story about Priya. But she does not want these stories to be shared. At the dining hall, a guy from Essex invites Priya to a party and does not even register Bela being there.
As a result, Bela feels sad for being the uncool one in their friendship. Meanwhile, Leighton is awkward about meeting her father since she has not come out to him yet. Kimberly mentions a flashy plan for her to do so. But Leighton wants it to be a part of just a casual conversation. After her father arrives in Essex, they go out for dinner and find Tatum with her father, who is his old batchmate. While the two men head to their table, Leighton reveals that she has not come out to him yet.
She also fears that Tatum will leave her the way Alicia (Midori Francis) did for not being open about her sexuality the way she is. However, Tatum empathizes with her and tells her that there is no time constraint on when one should come out. That puts Leighton’s mind at peace. Meanwhile, while working at the café, Kimberly gets a visit from Jackson. Seeing him, her colleagues mention how Kimberly is only dating hot, attractive guys who have nothing in common with her, which makes her feel that she is shallow.
While Whitney goes to her class, Andrew mentions that he does not want to be with her afterward, stating her being a distraction from his studies. While he struggles to try to stay distant from her, he cannot resist his sexual desire for her. Meanwhile, at the dinner, Tatum’s father casually mentions her relationship as a gay person, which makes Leighton’s father mention how she does not share a single detail about hers. That is the moment Leighton cannot hold the secret anymore and decides to come out to her father about being gay. Upon hearing it, he leaves the dinner table and heads out.
Sex Lives of College Girls (Season 2) Episodes 7-8 Ending Explained
Bela keeps with her attempts to seem cool to Priya. She also throws a party at her dorm, which she learns Priya bailed on, to go to the other one that the guy from the café mentioned. She reaches there and confronts Priya, who mentions wanting to depart from the nerdy image people had of her and reinvent her personality. She feels that at least Bela would have understood the place she was coming from. Bela empathizes with her and lets her stay there and enjoy having sex and making others jealous back in their town.
Later, Priya returns to Bela’s party and mentions wanting to spend the rest of her time in Essex with her. Meanwhile, Leighton goes out to speak with her father. While she thinks he is shocked by the revelation, he is rather shocked that he did not realize this part of his daughter’s life before. Leighton jokingly mentions being great at being closeted, and they share a laugh. Kimberly, who is conflicted about being shallow, speaks with Jackson about it. He mentions loving relationships where he can learn new things daily. That puts her mind at rest.
While Leighton returns to her room with Tatum and has sex with her, she gets texts from Alicia after so long, asking her about her whereabouts. This new development would be interesting to navigate in the next episode for Leighton to choose between Alicia and Tatum to be with. The writing certainly handles the aspect of coming out with the required carefulness and conveys an important aspect about it – how there is no time limit to when a person should come out.
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