Love & Anarchy Season 1 recap: Episode 2, ‘Surprise Me’

In Love & Anarchy Episode 2, Max challenges Sofie to scold someone that isn’t him, and it doesn’t end well for Sofie and the company.

When Love & Anarchy Episode 2 begins, it would appear that Max has yet to give Sofie a new challenge, which is driving her a little crazy. Then she’s saddled with a new problem when she walks into the break room and hears them discussing a new manuscript. They gave an author named Lena Endre a two million dollar advance for a novel supposed to anchor their fall release slate.

Unfortunately, the writing is not up to par. In the background, the group hears some intense power drilling that makes the building vibrate. This time, it’s not Max’s fault.

When Sofie returns to her office, she finally gets her next challenge from Max. “Yell at someone other than me.” When she walks out, she immediately sees the receptionist, Caroline, leaving for a dentist appointment and tries to yell at her, but then she remembers she had already given Caroline permission to go to her appointment earlier that morning.

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Next, Sofie tries to find an excuse to yell at Friedrich regarding the pricey advances. He’s already mostly handled the Lena thing. Then he gets a phone call in the middle of the conversation and Sofie loses her nerve. The camera pans to the guys doing construction outside the window — I have a feeling they’re going to be how Sofie nails her challenge.

At home, Sofie is totally distracted during dinner. Her daughter Isabell wants to write a controversial paper about her grandfather, the communist party and alternative societies. Her dad, Johan, doesn’t want her doing a paper like that and asks Sofie to back him up. She hastily pretends to have been paying attention and tells Isabell not to listen to her father regarding things from the past.

Love & Anarchy Episode 2 recap: Max gives Sofie a new challenge.

“Scold someone. You have 30 minutes!” says a sticky note on Sofie’s computer the second she arrives at work the next day. Sofie sets her sights on Tom (Ruben Lopez), but when she opens her mouth, he starts blabbering, begging her not to fire him. Not wanting to be heartless, Sofie backs down.

When the author, Lena, arrives for the meeting to discuss her manuscript, Freidrich tries to detail their text issues. He wants more filthy regarding her relationship with the woman Ingmar, and in general, he thinks that some assets of the book are too generic and poorly-written. Lena is shocked that he thinks she and Ingmar were ever intimate.

Sofie tries to pitch in regarding the pricey advance. Here’s a chance for her to scold Lena because she missed her deadline! But before she can get into it with her, Lena storms out in a huff. This leads Sofie to take her lunch break, and the moment she walks out of the building, she accidentally runs into a bicyclist and drops her papers everywhere.

It’s the perfect opportunity, and Sofie jumps at the bait. She screams at him for disrupting her. Everyone in the street stops to watch her, including the drilling guys —  which gives Sofie a chance to yell at them, too. Max witnesses the entire thing and returns her lipstick. As luck would have it, though, Sofie soon learns the guy she screamed at was none other than Lena’s agent. Now they can’t really negotiate and make things right. Freidrich had to agree to publish Lena’s book, unedited.

We pivot to Max, finally getting a chance to learn a little more about his life outside of work. He lives with two roommates in a cramped apartment space. One, Alex, is a bicyclist delivery boy with a propensity for getting into accidents. The other is a telemarket who works from home. Alex, apparently, has quite the green thumb with a multitude of plants growing in his bedroom.

After work, Sofie gets all dolled up to go out to a work event with Johan. He’s a director, although he’s mostly just doing commercials and is clearly bitter about that.

Max goes to the gym to work out and hooks up with another woman, right there at the gym. This time, a blonde.

Things grow a little tense between Sofie and her husband while they’re at the party. He insists on bringing up her past dream to become a writer. At one point, she was working on a novel aptly titled Love & Anarchy. Though Johan claims he “made” her go to business school, Sofie says nothing ever came to fruition regarding the novel. Still, it’s obviously a sore subject for her.

Love & Anarchy Episode 2: Sofie instructs Max to cause some anarchy.

She later excuses herself to the restroom and befriends Max on social media. “Create some anarchy at the meeting tomorrow,” she messages him.

During the meeting, in which Sofie instructs the employees on areas they need to work on, the construction workers who have been drilling outside suddenly show up. They received an invitation to “a cultural cup of coffee!”

Everyone is incredibly confused about who invited them and why as a large group of men go to town on the pastries and drinks laid out for employees. Max and Sofie smile at each other from across the room. I’m not sure that counts as anarchy. It’s more or less, just commotion, but I digress.

Love & Anarchy Episode 2: Final thoughts

Love & Anarchy Episode 2 starts to tell us more about who these characters are. It’s important to learn more about Johan and why the relationship between him and Sofie is not fulfilling her.

I’m not sure if we need to see Max hook up with a  random woman every episode, though. We get it. He’s a womanizer. Let’s see how that plays into his relationship with Sofie. As for the challenges, right now, they’re both still playing things pretty safe. It’ll be interesting to see if they start to escalate as the season continues.

• Grading Love & Anarchy Episode 2: B

What did you think about Love & Anarchy Episode 2? Let us know your thoughts and opinions in the comments below.

All eight episodes of Love & Anarchy Season 1 are now available on streaming.