Sara
Addiction can be destructive. It can rip apart the core of your life, leaving a moldy, gnarled remnant of what was once a bright, hopeful future. It can destroy your friendships, your family and change your entire personality into something wholly unrecognizable in the mirror. As someone who’s been there, done that and had professional help to stop, Love Life captures this beautifully across its latest episode. Episode 8 of Love Life begins with a look at Darby and Sara’s divergent fates. A split screen focus between Darby and Sara sees Darby enjoying her time at work and more level-headed than she’s been before. Six months after Claudia’s visit however, Sara is off the rails, sleeping with random men and continuing to throw her receipts out after suffering from financial woes. Mallory’s wedding sees the girls invited up to the cabin to celebrate but Sara starts doing coke before dinner, prompting Darby to speak to her privately and remind her that this is Mallory’s day. At dinner, Sara’s speech ends in tears and the aftermath of this sees a wild party finish with Sara unable to sleep and heading out in her car, drunk and clearly still high. In the morning, Darby finds Sara in her car and immediately lays into her for what happened, recklessly driving drunk. While the group head out hiking, Sara stays behind and cleans. Only, nothing stops her ill feelings and heartbreak she’s been dealing with for so long and it doesn’t stop her from swigging wine from the bottle. That evening, they head to a strip bar for Mallory’s bachelorette party but Sara winds up drinking the bottles along the bar-top, eventually leading her into the toilets. Once there, she finds a purse and steals cash out of it. Unfortunately this bring security into the fold and she’s forced out. Darby makes a decision and goes after Sara, confronting her over her life choices. Back at the cabin, Darby suggests Sara should go to rehab for her addiction and tells her outright she’s legitimately worried she’s going to die. It’s just enough for Sara to open up and eventually she decides to take her up on the offer and go. Only, in the morning Sara doesn’t remember anything and it leads Darby to beg her friend to get up. Instead, she watches in disappointment as Sara rolls over and remains in bed, prompting Darby to make a decision and leave, shutting the door behind her. While there’s no outright romance here, Love Life does a great job depicting how destructive addiction can be and how all of this can spiral out from a single decision. Seeing Darby standing by her friend through thick and thin perfectly captures her loyalty toward her friends no matter what, and this really helps add another layer to Darby’s personality. Given how this series started, Love Life has certainly turned things around during its later run of episodes and done a great job capturing little slices of life in a compelling way. Quite what the previous two episodes have in store for us however, remains to be seen.
