Still Up (Season 1) Episodes 1, 2 & 3: Still Up is a new British comedy series streaming on Apple TV+. It follows two best friends – Lisa and Danny, as they try to stay connected to each other late at nights. Due to their strange sleeping schedules, they become like soul companions to each other during those hours. Starring Antonia Thomas and Craig Roberts in these central roles, the first three episodes give a delightful introduction to their wonderfully heartwarming dynamic. Lisa is a free-spirited illustrator, whereas Danny is a socially anxious journalist.
While Craig is widely known for his role in Richard Ayoade’s Submarine, Antonia is known for her work in Netflix’s Lovesick. Besides them, this comedy-drama also stars Blake Harrison, Rich Fulcher, and Samantha Spiro in important roles.
Spoilers ahead.
Still Up (Season 1) Episode 1 “The Pharmacy” Recap:
The Cat Man
Daniel Gibson, aka Danny (Craig Roberts), is introduced as a homebody who has trouble falling asleep. At an odd hour at night, he calls his fellow insomniac friend Lisa (Antonia Thomas) to check if she is awake. They discuss their sleeping troubles and the solutions he has been trying. She notices that his room is fairly dark. He explains the scenario – his neighbor (Rich Fulcher) wanted him to celebrate his cat’s birthday. To bail on it, Danny made up a reason that he would be taking a month-long sabbatical to stay at every Disneyland in the world. That’s why he currently hides in his own apartment.
Danny’s Pizza Order
If Danny turns on the lights or orders any food, the cat man will realize that he lied. Danny jokes about how he is saving on bulbs in retrospect. But it becomes an issue when he starts running out of food. So, he plans to order a pizza for himself, with anchovies and pineapple. Carl, the pizza guy (David Alade), shows up at Danny’s building and rings the buzzer to his apartment. Danny assumes that Carl can just walk up to his apartment to hand it over. But Carl needs to get Danny’s photo with the pizza – to confirm he received it.
In the middle of their dialogue, the cat man comes there. He tells Carl that Danny is out on a trip to Disneyland. Carl rings the buzzer to Danny’s apartment over and over. But there’s no response. Once the cat man leaves, he buzzes his neighbor Adam’s (Luke Fetherston) apartment, who says the same about Danny. So, Carl buzzes Danny’s apartment again to check. This time, Danny agrees that he is in Disneyland. Since the cat man returns and Danny stops responding, Carl ends up giving him the pizza. Danny orders another pizza and decides to take it during a specific window of time when the cat man is not around. Eventually, he pays Carl extra cash to give it piece by piece through his window.
Lisa’s Pharmacy Visit
While speaking with Danny, Lisa walks into a late-night chemist’s pharmacy to get medication for her daughter, Poppy’s chicken pox. Apparently, she hid its symptoms from other parents by taking Poppy to school with a sheep mask. But Zach’s mother kept suspecting that Lisa was hiding something. Eventually, Zach also starts showing symptoms of chicken pox. As a result, his mother ends up at the same late-night chemist’s store to buy medication. Lisa tries hiding herself but fails miserably. Zach’s mother sees chicken pox medication in her hand. So, to avoid any blame for spreading the disease, Lisa hands it over to her.
Once Zach’s mother leaves, Lisa starts speaking with Danny again. Since there is still no chemist behind the counter, he suggests she pay the bill herself. But she adds an extra zero to her bill and ends up charging herself extra. So, she stays back and waits for the chemist to arrive. During that time, she tells Danny that he needs to go out to meet someone and not be single. While he works on his pizza delivery problem, she opens his dating account and tries to find a match. She asks for his dating history and what to put on his profile. Lisa thinks of him as a kindly milkman, and Danny agrees to put it in the description.
Danny’s Match
Eventually, Lisa finds someone more than 90% compatible with him. But turns out Lisa is that person. She does not tell Danny that it was her. But it makes her contemplate her relationship with Veggie (Blake Harrison), who was only 50-something percent compatible with her. At the time, he is at her place, taking care of her daughter. So, she also feels bad for even the thought of betraying him. At the end of the night, she learns that the chemist had been dead for over three hours.
Still Up (Season 1) Episode 2 “The Dress” Recap:
Lisa hides the fact that she was Danny’s 90%+ compatible match. She deletes her dating profile and goes back to her routine. In her absence, Veggie takes care of Poppy. During her late-night bus ride, she starts watching an unboxing video Veggie made. A group of teenagers walk into the bus. She gets a call from Danny and senses that he wants to share something personal. Instead, he asks her why she is riding on a bus that late. That is when she shares her story.
Why was Lisa riding a bus at half-eleven?
Lisa had a hard time at school dealing with her bullies. Once, one of them stole her shoes and refused to return them. So, her aunt Em (Linda Hargreaves) showed up at school to teach that bully a lesson. Since then, she has become her hero. For Lisa’s graduation, Aunt Em also lent her a green dress, which was Lisa’s favorite. But unfortunately, Lisa forgot to return it. That is why she plans to sneak into her aunt’s house before her funeral and hide that same dress in her house. She believes someone will find it and save her from the guilt.
On the other hand, Danny is worried about his match on the dating app – Amy (Lois Chimimba). Lisa gives him enough confidence to send her a text. He does that, and Amy responds within moments. But he finds it embarrassing that he spent his entire day working on a bust of Michael Fassbender with blue tack. While he talks about it, Lisa cannot tolerate the noise from the teenagers on her bus. So, she shushes them. Instantly, she regrets being the shusher. Since Veggie sends her a text about being proud of his new video, she resumes watching the same. Eventually, she falls asleep and wakes up at another stop. She cannot find her bag with the dress.
Who steals Lisa’s Aunt Em’s dress?
Lisa looks around on the bus for her bag. That’s when she notices one of the teenagers, Tyler (Albert Magashi), wearing the green dress. So, Lisa confronts him about it. But he claims that it is his dress. Right after, he and his friends start shushing her. Even her apologies do not work. So, she returns to her seat and gets back on her call with Danny. He reveals that Amy wants to meet him. Lisa suggests he should go out with her. But Danny is afraid of going out and also of inviting Amy to his place. His fear has another reason. He had noticed a mound on his penis and thought it was cancerous. Even his doctor refused to see him because he kept sending her pictures of the same!
So, Lisa agrees to take a look at it. He sends her the photo and then goes back to ask her why she looks upset. She tells him about her stolen dress. Then, she walks up to the group and asks Tyler to get back into his actual outfit. But it ends up making matters worse for her. By that time, Danny realizes that he mistakenly sent the mound photo to Amy instead of Lisa. So, he starts panicking. But Amy tries to relieve his stress. He opens his window to accept ‘the outside’ of his apartment. But a pigeon flies inside and adds to his problems.
Does Lisa get her Aunt Em’s dress back from Tyler?
Suddenly, Lisa recalls what her Aunt Em told her once – ‘Never let the bastards win’. It gives her enough confidence to stand up to these bullies. So, she hands over her phone to a passenger so that Danny can record this conversation. In front of this boy, she starts taking off layers of her outfit to let him do the same. Eventually, Tyler accepts the defeat and returns the dress. She walks up to Aunt Em’s house and sneaks inside to keep the dress. But she cannot find any other clothes in exchange besides a flamboyant outfit.
While Lisa gets on a bus dressed in her aunt’s clothes, Danny receives a response from Amy. She answers that the mound is just an ingrown hair. It takes off Danny’s fear for a moment. During this time, we see the pigeon inside Danny’s house, hit a window, return to life, and fly outside. But once he responds to Amy, the bird hits his window from outside. The scenario signifies Danny’s eternal state of fear of danger – which stops him from taking any action whatsoever.
Still Up (Season 1) Episode 3 “The Date” Recap:
Danny finally plans his date with Amy. Before she comes to his house, he speaks with Lisa. At the time, Lisa was waiting for Veggie to return home from his trip. So, she plans to prepare a meal. Anyhow, she and Danny contemplate a not-so-serious question – which body part are they okay to live without? They both speak about it with genuine interest. Their discussion comes to the topic of their bad dates. Amy is a personal trainer and is supposed to come to Danny’s house after the last client’s appointment for the day. So, Amy recalls her date with a trainer. She also recounts her worst date, where her date made her join a bike ride for hours (more on this later).
At Danny’s house, Adam helps him with all he needs for his date with Amy. Lisa reminds Danny how helpful Adam has been to him and feels sorry for this helping hand. Sensing Danny’s anxieties, she tries to stop him from his self-destructive behavior, where he tries to sabotage his date by needless overthinking. Eventually, Amy shows up at his doorstep. He cuts his call with Lisa and invites her in. Their night starts off on a strange note since Danny projects his fear of failing their date. She senses it and calms his nerves.
How is Danny’s experience dating Amy?
While Lisa keeps watching something on television, Veggie’s flight gets delayed. So, he waits at the airport, playing some games with his friend. Lisa spends her extra time by herself working on her illustrations. Danny calls her to tell her that his date with Amy is going great. He praises Amy and mentions that she is the ‘funniest person he has met.’ Lisa gets a little jealous hearing that. It does not come from a place of bitterness but a place of insecurity. So, Lisa logs into Danny’s dating profile (which she created when she was in the pharmacy) to check their previous chats.
In the middle of Danny’s conversation with Amy, Lisa calls him to talk. She speaks about a reset link to change his dating profile password. It seems like her way to find out more details on how the date is going. Since she learns that Danny is doing well with Amy, she decides to shift her focus to cooking a meal. By the time she can see a video, Veggie returns home. While he hopes to order as usual, she says she will cook them a meal. Although she rarely cooks, she attempts it this time. She fakes laughs at his jokes, and it almost feels like she is pretending to be genuinely happy with him. It’s not like she hates him. But her interest in Danny keeps her away from being truly connected with Veggie.
Still Up (Season 1) Episode 3 Ending Explained
Danny and Lisa both decide to play a ‘spice talk’ card game with their partners. While Danny bonds with Amy surprisingly well, Lisa can hardly find anything to connect with Veggie. It makes Lisa realize how unlike Veggie is whereas Danny feels less weird about himself after being honest with Amy. Later, Veggie abandons a funny exchange with Amy for the sake of going to sleep so that he can go for a run the next morning. In bed, Lisa asks him the ‘body part’ question. He says he will answer in the morning. It ruins her mood. That’s when we learn that her worst date was actually with Veggie.
How does Danny’s date with Amy end?
Lisa calls her mother to get some things out of her head. She tries to see if her mother thinks she is funny. Angela senses there is something else Lisa actually wants to ask. Lisa talks about her doubts about Veggie. Angela considers Veggie reliable, even if he lacks an interesting personality. Nevertheless, she tells her daughter not to consider anything as a burden to do what is right for her. On the other hand, Danny ends his date and assumes there will be another one, considering how much he enjoyed it. But she says she doesn’t want that. Reason? Because he kept talking about Lisa so much that Amy thought Lisa was his ex-girlfriend.
Moments later, Amy returns to tell him something else. But he accidentally ends up cutting a part of her finger. Then, he puts this part in his mouth, which adds to his overall weirdness in Amy’s eyes. Why does he do this? Because he heard a scenario where Adam’s relative lost a part of his nose. The man’s colleague also decided to put the cut-out part in his mouth. Anyhow, Danny’s date with Amy date ends on this awkward, silly, and strange note. Later that night, he texts Lisa. Her face lights up the moment she sees his text.
