A Million Little Things season 1, episode 12 recap: The Day Before…

What happened the day before Jon’s suicide? This week’s A Million Little Things answers all, well some, of our burning questions.

A Million Little Things has done a good job keeping us in the dark about Jon’s suicide and all the shady things Ashley has been up to since then. However, this week’s episode, “The Day Before…”, has cleared up some of the confusion and lingering mystery we’ve been caught up in. Instead of focusing on the present, the episode spends most of its time in the past.

We see Maggie moving to Boston and trying to settle into her apartment as she tries to deal with her cancer returning. It had been six months since she was told she was in remission, but now it’s back and she’s planning to get chemo. As we know later, she decides not to do it for a while until Gary’s love pushes her to do so. In the midst of unpacking, Maggie’s dad shows up offering his help.

We haven’t really seen Maggie interact with anyone outside of Gary and the group so it’s a pleasant surprise to see her relationship with her father. Based on their conversation, it is obvious that she and her mother don’t get along. However, she and her dad appear to be very close and it’s cute to see them put on some music and just dance around.

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While unpacking, her dad notices the stuffed panda bear that Maggie’s brother Chad once won for her at the carnival as kids. Memories come rushing back as they both get emotional and sad about losing Chad so early. During all this, Maggie is unable to tell her father that the cancer is back.

A Million Little Things finally gives us some answers regarding Jon in “The Day Before…”. It was sort of obvious that Jon had been preparing to kill himself for some time, but to what extent is revealed in this episode.

We don’t know much about whoever Constance Zimmer is playing (presumably this Barbara Morgan we keep hearing about). In a voicemail she left for Jon, she asks him to stop calling because she can’t do whatever it is that he wants her to.

There is an obvious tension and friction between Jon and Delilah as they make plans to meet for dinner later that night. It turns out this dinner is for Delilah to come clean about her and Eddie’s affair, and Eddie plans to do the same with Katherine. They are finally deciding to pursue their relationship which starts with coming clean to their spouses.

Later on that day, the boys meet up for a game of basketball which goes south really quick. Jon is frustrated that Gary keeps breaking up with women and not taking life seriously. He wants him to acknowledge the fact that he was battling cancer for such a long time and with his screening taking place the next day, he wants him to stop acting immature.

Perhaps Jon’s anger was displaced because back at work things are going from worse to horrendous. A subway vote that was supposedly supposed to solve all his problems doesn’t pan out, and he has exhausted all his options. He’s upset and Ashley happens to be there to help him through it. Fast forward to the apartment scene we’ve been seeing over and over again in every A Million Little Things promo.

Credit: ABC

Jon and Ashley do indeed share a kiss inside this mystery apartment, but that’s as far as it goes. Jon pulls away and says he can’t do this, even if Ashley is beautiful and worth it. They don’t really get hung up on this moment and soon begin looking through his old pictures. It turns out that this apartment is the one Jon lived in during college. It’s special to him and that is why he has held onto it all these years. No one but Ashley even knows about it.

During their conversation, Regina calls Jon to vent about her day at work during which some dude groped her. When she tried to tell her boss, he said to ignore it and suck it up. Thus she called Jon to get some composure and support. After their phone conversation, things get a bit cryptic. Jon hands her an envelope that says Rutledge on it (we’ve seen it before), and claims he has made her his trustee.

As they leave the apartment, he makes her promise that no one else will hear about this apartment. During one of their hugs, he slips in the apartment keys into her bag and we also see him labeling another envelope labeled “Barbara Morgan”. Who is this chick, though?! A friend? A lover? A sibling?

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All the while, Delilah is at the restaurant waiting for Jon, who never shows up. On the other end, Katherine doesn’t either as she gets caught up at work. Eddie ends up surprising Delilah and shows up at dinner to keep her company. Little do they know, Jon sees them from the outside holding hands. So…he did know! Side note: Ashley knew as well because she saw a traffic ticket photo with Eddie and Delilah.

We learn more about Rome’s past leading up to the moment he almost killed himself via overdose. Things seemed to appear seemingly great as he secured a pitch he made for a Super Bowl commercial. But despite the happiness he should have been feeling, he was feeling quite the opposite.

The next morning, Jon and Delilah don’t speak to one another about the night before, and Jon leaves before they can even do so. This ends up being the final straw and we’re taken back to the phone conversation between Eddie and Delilah. They’re both fed up and they want to just be with each other. However, Delilah is caught off guard when she realizes that the smoke alarm batteries she’s been asking for are sitting in a bag that Jon brought.

And all of this takes up us to the moment that Jon decides to end his life. We know how these moments play out as we see Jon on the phone, then him telling Ashley to go for lunch, and then stepping off the balcony. The final call he makes is to Eddie in which he leaves a voicemail saying to “love each other.” We’re not crying, you’re crying.

Moments before Ashley notices what Jon is doing, she gets a package with tickets to Spain inside of it. The night before she told Jon that was the one thing she wanted to do in life–and before he left, he wanted to give her at least that.

A Million Little Things airs every Thursday on ABC at 10 PM EST!