Jane By Design Recap: "The Second Chance"

This week’s Jane By Design episode, “Second Chances,” picked up the morning after last week’s left off. Jane had agreed to let their mother, Kate, stay with them after she’d shown up at Jane’s birthday party and Ben was not happy about it. He remembers Kate and her antics a lot more clearly than Jane and he doesn’t want to see his sister get hurt. This wasn’t my favorite episode, but there were some important developments.

Kate is the worst mother ever

She dodged Jane’s questions about why she’d left them and instead, told her daughter stories about all the fabulous things she did while she was away. Then she showed up at school in the middle of the day, wanting to have lunch with Ben and Jane. Ben told her no and explained that Jane left for her internship. Kate questioned if that was a good idea and Ben did not appreciate her giving him a hard time about his parenting skills, considering she had left them. Kate then decided to go to Donovan Decker and visit Jane and nearly blew her cover when she was chatting with Gray. Jane filled her mother in on what she was really doing and Kate was outraged that anyone would believe she was old enough to be the mother of a 25-year-old. Jane pointed out that she was and reminded her about Ben. If all that wasn’t bad enough, Kate took center stage at the Donovan Decker design party, sang a song and then took credit for how awesome Jane turned out. Jane was not impressed.

Zoe is a liar, but Billy doesn’t mind

In order to keep up the charade from the last episode, Zoe waited on the front porch of the house where Billy had dropped her off after Jane’s party. At school, Zoe and Jane talked about how much they love thrift stores, but Zoe clammed up when Jane admired her bracelet. Once she walked away, Jane told Billy the bracelet was real and cost over $1,000. Billy got mad and asked Jane if she was suggesting Zoe was a thief. Jane told him that it wasn’t her business how Zoe got the bracelet, but she knew it was real. Later, Billy and Zoe were playing darts at The Rack and Billy couldn’t stop staring at the bracelet. Things were awkward when he dropped her off at her fake house, only to realize she’d left her purse in the car. He went to bring it back to her and followed her as she took the shortcut back to her real house. Since she didn’t have her keys, Zoe climbed into a window. Billy assumed she was breaking and entering and followed her into the house, told her to return the bracelet and then was dumbfounded to see a picture of her on the wall riding a horse. (Seriously, Billy had a moment where his brain disconnected. It’s the only explanation). Zoe told him that she was rich and she’d been afraid to tell him because of the comments she made about Lulu. She admitted she liked him and liked the idea of them being an ‘us.’ Billy kissed her, apparently totally okay with her lies and her money all of a sudden.

Jeremy is a coward

After his drunken ranting, India ordered Jeremy to fix things. He tried to explain to Jane why he’d lied, but she wasn’t interested. She told him to tell Gray or she was going to. Instead of doing either, Jeremy left town with his designs and the patterns so they couldn’t be replicated right before the first presentation to Harrods. Jane panicked and asked Eli for help, but he’d been out of the loop for a while since Jeremy didn’t trust him. Jane had no choice but to go to India. She told her that she knew the truth and she needed her help. India had no interest in helping until Jane pointed out that her job was on the line too since she was supposed to be supervising the line for Harrods. Jane, Eli and India worked together to recreate the patterns and actually had a good time doing it. Gray wanted to know where Jeremy was and Jane and India covered for him. They managed to get everything done and Jane told India they made a good team. India agreed and then she said she was going to go and take credit for everything. Jane told Gray the truth about Jeremy leaving and that he was the mole. She apologized and told Gray she’d understand if she wanted to fire her.

All characters named Amanda Clarke are the worst

Rita was not happy to learn that Amanda had been hired to be the new drama teacher. She was even less thrilled to find out that Amanda was clearly making a play for Ben. I’m very much Team Ben and Rita, but even if I wasn’t, I still think I’d hate Amanda. She seems to be stuck in high school mean girl mode and her ‘over the top’ personality is too much to take. Amanda invited Ben out to have drinks with some people they went to school with. Ben went mainly to avoid his mother and he admitted to Amanda that he still wasn’t over his last relationship. Rita showed up and once Ben went to get the ladies drinks, she made it clear to Amanda that Ben was hers. (It was awesome). Unfortunately, Amanda told her that she’d had her chance and she was going to fight for Ben.

Miscellaneous Shenanigans

There was a random, two second scene where Nick showed up at baseball practice with his arm in a sling and told Ben he tore a ligament and may never pitch again. Jane and Eli continue to get cuter each week. Kate actually gave Jane one good piece of advice when she told her to ask Eli out, but Jane wasn’t ready to do that yet. Unfortunately, Jane and Billy’s friendship continues to hit snags. I’m not sure if the show is going for a ‘growing apart’ thing or what, but I want it to stop. Their closeness is one of my favorite things about the show and I miss it. At the end of the episode, Kate sat down with Jane and Ben and told them that she didn’t want to make excuses. She more or less said that she’d left because she hadn’t been ready to be a mom and thought their dad was a better parent. She asked for a second chance and promised that she would stick around and earn it when they called her ‘Mom.’ Jane tearfully told her that she wanted her to stay. Ben started to walk away and then changed his mind and said it was fine. It’s obvious he just doesn’t want to be hurt again. He went to his room while Kate hugged Jane and promised to be there from now on.

There’s no new episode next week due to the holiday, but the previews for the episode in two weeks showed more drama with Kate and another fight between Jane and Billy. Until then, feel free to hit the comments below with your thoughts on the episode.

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