Shrill Season 3, Episode 3 recap: Retreat

Shrill Season 3, Episode 3 begins with the Thorn employees preparing for their annual retreat; only this year, an actual “retreat” isn’t in the budget, so instead, they’ll just be staying in the office and doing all of their usual retreat activities there.

Before they start, Annie clears the air with Amadi about the whole Will thing. She apologizes for lashing out at him and admits that the dating stuff is bringing up her weight issues, confessing that all she saw when she looked at Will was the fact they were both fat.

Just as things get underway, Glenn arrives with good news. Two of their employees have been selected on a rising list of 29 writers under 29 to watch. But Annie notices that everything in the passage written about her relates to her weight. Since most of her popular pieces have been about body positivity, that seems to be all she’s known for, which is frustrating.

Eager to get more hard-hitting assignments, Annie jumps at the chance to cover a separatist group when Glenn offers it to someone else in the circle. He agrees to give her a chance at trying it.

Annie hangs out with Maureen and Ruthie for the rest of the retreat, discussing their dating lives. They decide to get all dressed up and enjoy a girl’s night out on the town to get Annie’s mind off Nick and her complicated feelings toward him.

Shrill Season 3, Episode 2 recap: Ruthie, Maureen, Annie & Fran enjoy a girl’s night out.

Together with her ladies, Annie and the others go to some old crusty bar filled with “older gentlemen who wear hats showing the wars they fought in” and realize their night out not exactly going to be the rousing success they thought it would be. There definitely aren’t any cute guys to flirt with at this bar, anyway. Well, there is one who approaches them while they’re dancing and compares them to a Dove ad, which is an instant mood-killer.

Instead, the women go to a nearby fair and order a bunch of salty goodness, linking off with a random pair of dudes who ordered something similar. By this point in the night, everyone is super drunk, especially Annie.

Nick randomly texts her a screenshotted image of one of her photos, to which he’s added a little heart-eyes emoji, and Annie turns to mush. Then he invites her over. Despite being drunk, Annie goes to Nick’s anyway and almost immediately passes out on his couch. He leaves a note to let her know what happened in the morning and texts her soon after she’s gone home.

“Are you hiding under the couch or did you leave? Dinner this week?”

Annie can’t help but smile when she reads his text. It looks like things are going well for her and Nick. Will she take the next step and get into a new relationship with him?

Shrill Season 3, Episode 3 recap: Fran struggles to make friends at work.

Fran struggles to adjust to life working at Shave since she’s so accustomed to working from her home office. She’s also used to make friends with everyone instantly, so when one of her co-workers, a standoffish type named India, won’t even give her the time of day, Fran makes it her mission to befriend her.

It actually seems to work because, by the end of Fran’s first shift, India has volunteered to assist her in helping to finish one of her clients, and India even smiles at her! Fran’s charms are just impossible to resist.

Shrill Season 3 is now streaming on Hulu.