The season premiere of the British comedy-drama series – Still Up on Apple TV+ built a foundation for the characters of Lisa and Danny. These two insomniac best friends stayed connected through calls overnight. However, the thought of love never occurred to either until Lisa saw a sign. After creating a dating profile for socially anxious Danny, she found out that she is his 90+ % match. However, she hid this information from Danny and went back to her life with her reliable partner – Veggie. In short, the plot of this dramedy largely revolves around the ‘will they or won’t they’ tension between Lisa & Danny. Now, episode 4 of Still Up (Season 1) shows Lisa going to a clinic to change her present relationship with sleep. On the other hand, Danny prepares for an important interview while taking care of his neighbor’s dog.
Spoilers ahead!
Still Up (Season 1) Episode 4 “The Sleep Clinic” Recap:
Lisa’s Sleep Clinic Visit
The fourth episode begins at about half past ten on a night. Veggie (Blake Harrison) drives Lisa (Antonia Thomas) to a sleep clinic. It looks like she finally decided to work on her sleep-related concerns. Or maybe she is doing it because of Veggie. But during their ride to the clinic, she starts having second thoughts about this entire plan. What if it doesn’t work for her? What if she cannot relax? Veggies shares some logical responses and also makes her laugh a little. As her mother said to her, he is reliable.
Finally, at the Vitality sleep clinic, Lisa enters for her treatment. Kat walks her to her room and just closes the door on her before she can ask any question. Before the doctor arrives, she speaks with Danny (Craig Roberts) on a call. Neither of them is confident that this treatment can cure a person. In the middle of their conversation, she hears a dog barking in the background. Upon inquiring about it, she learns about a new development in Danny’s life.
Danny’s Job Opportunity
Danny’s neighbor – Adam (Luke Fetherston), has to go out on a date. So, he asks Danny to look after his dog Daisy till the time he returns home. Firstly, Danny gets confused by his request. Why would Adam expect him to take care of his pet? It particularly feels like an intrusion for him since he has another thing on his mind. In his journalistic career, he just received an opportunity to interview for Rolling Stone magazine. He has thoroughly prepped for this interview and wishes for it to go well. But now, there’s another stress on his mind – taking care of Daisy.
Before leaving her with Danny, Adam reveals that Daisy is particularly sensitive to negative remarks. So, he warns Danny to be careful what he says to her. Danny, who is bad at taking responsibility for anyone besides himself, is not thrilled by this extra work. Still, his social anxiety stops him from directly refusing to help his neighbor. Once Daisy comes into his apartment, Danny faces another problem. She ends up deleting all his preparations for the interview. He cannot even get upset at her because of her mental health issues.
Lisa’s Treatment
Lisa realizes that Danny did not tell her about his Rolling Stones interview. He says he did not want to jinx it by telling her. Still, she raises his confidence about this position. In the middle of their dialogue, doctor Stafford walks in to begin her treatment. Kat attaches some polysomnographic magnets to her body to assess her sleep patterns. They can help her formulate her sleep routine. Lisa shares these details, which irritates the doctor a bit.
Before leaving the room, the doctor asks Lisa whether she has any stimulants on her, like caffeinated drinks or electronic devices. Lisa lies. Once Kat and the doctor have left, Lisa gets restless. Around that time, Daisy deletes Danny’s interview prep. So, he calls Lisa to vent his anger, as he always does. She picks up the call even if the doctor has told her otherwise. With all his prep gone and his general lack of self-esteem, Danny starts panicking. Lisa tries to calm him down. But it gets difficult to hide her phone under the blanket. So, she decides to go out to the toilet.
The Way Out
On her way to the toilet, Lisa bumps into another patient – Clyde. He is there because of his night terrors. Although Lisa wants to get back to her conversation with Danny, Clyde goes on and on about his favorite movies. Eventually, Lisa finds a moment to bail on him. She walks inside a compartment and gets back to her usual duty of making Danny feel confident about himself. With the interview prep gone, she suggests he can be spontaneous. But he cannot help but feel stressed out in such times.
Danny recalls his driving license exams when the examiner’s orders panicked him. He does not want something similar repeated in his interview. Lisa advises him to project confidence and hide his nervousness. She suggests he use her technique – to imagine the interviewers have an egg in the shoe. That strange advice baffles him even more. On the other hand, he cannot find Daisy. Eventually, he notices her under his bed. Considering her poor mental state, he prepares an omelet for her.
Still Up (Season 1) Episode 4 “The Sleep Clinic” Ending Explained:
Does the sleep treatment help Lisa?
During their conversation, Lisa learns that Danny will need to move to L.A. if he gets the job at Rolling Stone magazine. She worries that they may not have the late-night conversations they are used to. By then, Doctor Stafford arrives outside Lisa’s cubicle to bring her back to the room. So, Lisa video calls Danny from under her blanket. She almost tries to make him consider not pursuing his opportunity because it would mean she might lose his friendship. ‘What would you even do in Los Angeles?’ she asks him. He mentions that his ex, Chloe, also stays there. Suddenly, Lisa ends up blurting out something that Danny had no idea of – Chloe cheated on him with three people, not just ‘one’ as he knew until then.
Danny also learns that several other people knew about Chloe’s cheating besides him. So, he gets angry and cuts Lisa’s call. While Lisa tries to make him stay for longer, Doctor Stafford arrives in her room with Kat and confiscates her phone. To get her phone back, Lisa walks out of her room and goes up to the doctor’s cabin. She finds her phone, but on her way back, she bumps into a sleepwalking Clyde. Suddenly, he holds her hand and brings her outside the clinic. As a result, the clinic’s alarm goes off, which alerts the doctor of their escape. As a punishment for not following their rules, the doctor escorts Lisa out of the property and bans her from visiting again.
What happens during Danny’s Rolling Stone magazine interview?
On her cab ride back home, Lisa calls Danny to speak about her problem at the sleep clinic. She suddenly realizes that it is time for Danny’s interview and hopes it is going well. But Danny had fallen asleep by then. So, even though the Zoom interview begins, the interviewers cannot see him. Instead, they see Daisy peeking and barking at them. Even when they call out Danny’s name, he does not wake up from his deep sleep. So, unfortunately, Danny misses his shot at being in the Rolling Stone magazine team for the time being.
