‘Firefly Lane’ Recap: Everything You Need to Remember Before Watching Season 2
Netflix is headed back to Firefly Lane. Season 2 of the Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke drama arrives on the streaming service on Dec. 2. Given that it’s been nearly two years since the show debuted, here’s a refresher on where we left things with Tully (Heigl) and her bestie Kate (Chalke) at the end of the first season.
‘Firefly Lane’ recap: Cloud was arrested in the season 1 finale
Firefly Lane unfolds across multiple timelines, from the 1970s, when Tully and Kate are teenagers, to the early 2000s, when they’re in their early 40s.
When we last saw teenage Tully (Ali Skovbye) and Kate (Roan Curtis) in the ‘70s part of the story, the Firefly Lane girls were facing their first-ever separation. Tully’s mother Cloud (Beau Garrett) had been arrested for selling drugs. That meant Tully had to go live with her grandmother, taking her away from Firefly Lane – and from Tully. We can expect season 2 to follow how the girls deal with a long-distance friendship.
Johnny and Kate finally act on their feelings for each other
Because of Firefly Lane’s timeline hopping, we knew that Kate eventually ended up married to her boss at KPOC, Johnny Ryan (Ben Lawson). In the season 1 finale’s ‘80s-set storyline, we finally saw Kate and Johnny act on their feelings for each other. After Kate’s dad had a heart attack, Johnny ended up taking her back to her parent’s house. Kate kissed him, and at first, he pulled away, insisting that he didn’t want to ruin their friendship. But Johnny later came to Kate’s room and admitted he was in love with her, and the two had sex.
Johnny was seriously injured in Iraq
In the 2003 timeline, Kate spent much of the season dealing with the breakdown of her marriage to Johnny and the stresses of raising her teenage daughter, Marah (Yael Yurman). She’d poured herself into her life as a wife and a mother. But with her marriage over, she wasn’t sure what the future held for her.
Though Kate had started to explore dating other men, she couldn’t shake her feelings for her ex. The two seemed to be heading toward reconciliation, but Johnny’s decision to return to his previous career as a war correspondent could destroy any hope of a new star. At the end of the season, he headed to Iraq, where he was seriously injured by an IED. His fate was left up in the air, though a trailer for the new season indicates he survives the accident.
Tully lost her TV show
In another 2003 storyline, Tully was dealing with a major career setback. Predatory producer Wilson King (Martin Donovan) gained control of her hit daytime TV talk show The Girlfriend Hour. Rather than accept the changes he wanted to make to the program, Tully walked away from the show.
At the same time, Tully was dealing with some serious drama in her personal life. After unexpectedly finding herself pregnant, she married the baby’s father, Max (Jon Ecker). Though Tully had never planned on having a family, she had just started to embrace the idea of being a mother when she had a miscarriage. Not only did she lose the baby, but the tragic event also led to the end of her brief marriage. In the finale, she tried to rekindle things with Max. But when she invited him to meet her at the gazebo where they got hitched, he was a no-show.
Tully and Kate’s friendship is over
By far the biggest moment in the Firefly Lane finale came in the episode’s last moments. A two-year time jump took viewers to the funeral for Kate’s father, Bud (Paul McGillion), an event that had been teased throughout the season. Tully showed up for the service, leading to the jaw-dropping reveal that the two had apparently had a major falling out.
“No one wants you here,” Kate told her former friend.
“Don’t you think you’ve punished me enough?” Tully asked.
“When I said I could never forgive you for what you did, what did you think that meant?” Kate replied.
What could have ended Tully and Kate’s 30-year friendship? Heigl and Chalke have promised that we’ll find out in season 2.
The first nine episodes of Firefly Lane Season 2 premiere Dec. 2 on Netflix. The second half of season 2 will release sometime in 2023.
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