Firefly Lane Season 1, Episode 6 recap: Kimber writes a Tully hit piece

In Firefly Lane Season 1, Episode 6, Kate and Tully deal with a bully both in the past and present. In the 1980s, Johnny struggles after witnessing several traumatic events while on assignment in El Salvador.

Caution: The following article contains spoilers for Firefly Lane Season 1, Episode 6.

This episode of Firefly Lane, titled “Dirty Laundry,” is one of the more somber episodes of the bunch thus far, especially for characters like Johnny. We haven’t seen much focus on Johnny that doesn’t revolve around Tully or Kate, so this episode was a welcome change of pace for his storyline.

We know he’s a war correspondent intending to travel to Iraq in the present, but this episode helps explain why Johnny is so intent on doing work that matters. In El Salvador, he gets held at gunpoint and witnesses the death of his childhood friend Ramon. He’s haunted by his trip when he returns to Seattle and can’t get anyone to report on what happened there.

Meanwhile, Tully and Kate deal with a mean-spirited schoolgirl bully in high school, and in the present, they have to contend with Kate’s boss, Kimber, who publishes a scathing article about Tully and her relationship with Cloud.

Firefly Lane Season 1, Episode 6 recap: Kate & Tully face-off against a school bully.

In the ’70s, teenage Kate starts her period for the first time and bleeds through a pair of white pants. Most of us have been there at least once! Tully sacrifices her jeans and turns her shirt into a barely-there dress, so Kate doesn’t have to walk through the halls with bloodied pants. Before they can leave the bathroom, Kate’s old-friend-turned-enemy Marnie Stevens (Lizzie Boys) barges in and notices the bloody pants before Tully has the chance to dispose of them.

Marnie also tries to invite Tully to a party while insulting Kate in the same breath. Tully doesn’t hesitate to give Marnie a verbal beatdown. Jealous and spiteful, Marnie escalates her attacks against the best friends, spreading a rumor that they’re lesbians and calling Tully, a s**t after her “hook-up” with Pat at the party.

Since Kate knows what really happened that night, she steps up to the plate decks Marnie in the face! Marnie still tries to attack the two friends by spray painting that they’re “lezzies” together outside of the school, but neither Kate nor Tully is the least bit phased. Strangely, no teachers are present during any of these occurrences.

Firefly Lane Season 1, Episode 6 recap: Johnny reels over the loss of his childhood friend.

The KCPO-TV station is rife with drama upon Johnny’s return from an assignment in El Salvador. Johnny is haunted by what he saw there, including politically-motivated murders and bodies deposited in mass graves, his best friend Ramon among the fallen. Even Johnny has a close brush with death, and as he later drunkenly reveals, all he could think about in his final seconds was Kate.

Throughout the hour, Tully is insistent that she get better treatment at the station. She’s tired of doing Carol’s bidding, and she wants air time. But Johnny isn’t in the mood to deal with Tully’s drama, especially when he’s desperately trying to get the networks to run coverage on the El Salvador situation and hitting dead-ends every way he turns.

Outside of work, Tully and Chad seem to be doing great. He received a job offer for a tenured position at a North Carolina university, and he wants Tully to join him out there. It’s a big decision for her to make. Then at a work party, Chad breaks things off with Tully after getting fed up with her constantly talking about Johnny and obsessing over her job and Carol.

During a quiet night at the station, Kate visits Johnny after hearing what happened to Ramon. He’s three sheets to the wind as he starts to ramble to her about Ramon and his secret feelings for her. Johnny tries to kiss Kate, but at this point, she’s dating Mutt. Plus, she’s wanted Johnny for so long, and starting something while he’s drunk doesn’t feel right. She tells him to try again tomorrow when he isn’t wasted. He promises her he won’t forget.

But he does, or at least he pretends to. The next morning, Kate is disappointed when Johnny says he’d rather forget the whole night happened since he supposedly can’t remember much anyway, and he was in a bad headspace over Ramon’s death. To make matters worse, Carol takes a bad spill and has to be hospitalized for a month with a leg injury, meaning Tully will finally get some on-air time. Ecstatic, she kisses Johnny on the lips to celebrate, which Kate happens to see.

Firefly Lane Season 1, Episode 6 recap: Kimber writes a hit piece about Tully.

We don’t get to see what happens during Kimber and Cloud’s meeting, but at the end of Firefly Lane Season 1, Episode 6, Kate finds out her boss’s real intentions for interviewing Tully. At first, it looks like Kimber is starting to take Kate more seriously, fighting for her to get her own byline in their magazine as a thank-you gift for setting up the Tully Hart interview. Kate is ecstatic that she’s getting a chance to prove her writing prowess at work.

Even better, she gets another shot with Travis, and the two have a date night. The only downside is when Kate realizes she’s forgotten something at the office. Luckily for her, Travis is more than happy to accompany her. Kate and Travis get what they came for and then start getting hot and heavy on Kate’s desk, only for her to notice Tully on the cover of the latest issue with a tagline calling Tully “Hart-less,” uh-oh.

Kate reads the beginning of the piece, and it starts horribly, claiming Tully slept her way to the top and forced her mother to live in a rundown trailer park despite all of her money.

On the other side of town, Tully has just spent a fantastic day with Max meeting his family when she notices a copy of the magazine at a local newsstand. She reads the blurb under her picture and doesn’t look too happy.

Firefly Lane Season 1 is now streaming on Netflix.