Firefly Lane Season 1, Episode 7 recap: Tully finally confronts Cloud

In Firefly Lane Season 1, Episode 7, “Total Eclipse of the Hart,” Tully and Johnny sleep together in the past and teenage Tully struggles to connect to her mother.

Caution: The following article contains spoilers for Firefly Lane Season 1, Episode 7.

The bulk of this episode revolves around Tully’s complicated relationship with her mother, Cloud. Teenage Tully and young adult Tully are desperate for Cloud’s attention, while present-day Tully just wants to know why her mother has treated her so horrifically throughout her life.

As we know, Kimber found Cloud and juiced her for information on her daughter to compile a scathing hit piece. The article is enough to motivate Kate into quitting her job, and who could blame her? Kimber sucks.

In the present, Kate also finally gets to go all the way with Travis, and I think it’s the first time Kate has actually managed to have sex on this show without it being interrupted or something embarrassing happening! Well, sort of. Johnny does walk in the house at the last second and sees the two of them canoodling. But he has a good reason.

After getting her first ultrasound, Tully starts unraveling due to stress over the baby and the terrible things said about her in Kimber’s article. Despite claiming that it doesn’t phase her, Tully abruptly runs out of the taping for her show and vanishes, leaving a desperate Kate and Johnny frantically trying to hunt her down.

Firefly Lane Season 1, Episode 7 recap: Johnny & Tully sleep together in the past.

It was inevitable that Johnny and Tully would eventually hook up, and it finally happens in this episode,  albeit in the past. One night after a raucous day of celebrating Tully’s first day on-air, the gang heads out to the bar. Kate and Mutt leave early to have sex for the first time, leaving Tully and Johnny alone with several tequila shots.

Kate and Mutt’s night of romance doesn’t go as planned. Mutt’s dog has an accident on his bed, sending them to Kate’s house instead. And then Mutt doesn’t even last long enough for them to start having sex. All in all, it’s a bust.

To make matters worse, Tully, thinking Kate is at Mutt’s, brings Johnny home with her, and they have loud, rabid sex that Kate is forced to listen to through the walls. It’s extra painful for her after the drunken incident she and Johnny shared that he seems to have completely forgotten.

Firefly Lane Season 1, Episode 7 recap: Tully gets shot during a robbery.

But Kate doesn’t get to stay mad at Tully for long. Getting shot tends to work as a great way to end all potential conflicts and arguments. At work the day after the crazy night out, Mutt and Tully nurse wicked hangovers, to the point Tully asks Johnny to stop at a gas station so she can load up on Alka-seltzer and aspirin. Kate gives her the cold shoulder all morning. When Tully confronts her, Kate tells her what happened when Johnny was drunk at the office.

She accuses Tully of hooking up with Johnny just because Kate is in love with him. Tully is shocked Kate would think so low of her. Before they can continue fighting, Tully goes into the convenience store to get sustenance when a random man barges in and holds the clerk at gunpoint while demanding all of the money in his cash register.

For some reason, Johnny decides now is the time for Tully to report. He hooks up her radio so she can literally do a live report on the armed robbery. Of course, the burglar sees her talking to someone and shoots her, nailing her right in the arm. Tully winds up being fine, and the cops arrest the robber. It’s a really random, kinda ridiculous sequence of events, but that’s why I love this show. Give me more crazy drama!

Her ability to stay calm under pressure is seen as a strength by Johnny, and he mentions it in the present when he and Kate are out searching for Tully. Kate calls him out for caring more about the job than the people and thinks the robbery incident was the perfect example of that.

Firefly Lane Season 1, Episode 7 recap: Tully finally confronts Cloud.

Cloud hangs over this episode like, well, a dark cloud. In the 1970s, Tully has the lead part in a play, and she’s desperate for her mother to attend. All teenage Tully wants is for Cloud to approve of her and be proud of something she’s achieved. But come opening night, Cloud is nowhere to be seen. When Tully gets home, she finds her mother hanging out with one of her old boyfriends, having completely forgotten about her daughter’s play.

Fast-forward to the 1980s, when Tully is finally starting to get somewhere as a reporter. She visits Cloud at the trailer park where she’s living, and her mom can’t even muster the faintest glimmer of adoration for Tully. Instead, she cuts her down to size and asks for drug money.

In the present, Tully is stressed and overwhelmed by her pregnancy and the hit piece written by Kimber. Fed up, she visits Cloud at the diner where she works and demands to know what she ever did to make her mother hate her so much that she would deliberately t try to sabotage her career. For the first time, Cloud apologizes to Tully for being such a bad mother.

She admits she was an addict and that she completely failed her daughter. Cloud says she’s clean now and that Kimber twisted her words because she actually said Tully was “exceptional,” with a fire inside her that lights up everyone around her.  Basically, Cloud says everything that Tully has always been desperate to hear and asks to be part of Tully’s life again. But it’s too little too late. Tully doesn’t want anything to do with her.

Seeing Cloud does achieve one good thing, though. In the final seconds of the episode, Tully tells Kate that she wants to have her baby, perhaps to prove she can be a better mother than her mom ever was.

Firefly Lane Season 1, Episode 7 recap: Do Tully and Kate stay friends until the end?

We get another flash-forward in this episode that confirms the funeral is not Tully’s. It’s starting to look more and more like Johnny might be the one to bite the dust. However, even though Tully isn’t the one in the coffin, it doesn’t look like she and Kate are friends anymore either. When Marah and Kate see Tully show up, they both immediately turn away and head into the church without her. Are the Firefly Lane girls done?!

Firefly Lane Season 1 is now streaming on Netflix.