Russo and Katie’s chaos continues to tangle as we learn more about their lives at Ludlow College. Along with father-daughter drama, there’s also lots of side character drama to get wrapped up in. Between Archie’s mistakes and President Walt’s pushy tone, Rooster season 1 hasn’t been boring.
Little by little, Russo is finding his teaching groove while Katie teaches as if she were never suspended. Rooster episode 4 showed us Russo’s inner Rooster and Katie’s romantic mistakes coming back to haunt her. There’s no telling what’s in store for the rest of the season.
Russo’s morning after
Russo ends another successful class and finds out that he gave his watch to one of Tommy’s friends. He didn’t believe him until his student showed him the video. Unfortunately, he did give his watch away. He also confirms he doesn’t know where Tommy is after all that hard work he did on his story. Then, the female student he accidentally called a white whale in his first class admitted that she didn’t hate class. Ava’s comment was the funniest because she was totally right. Russo did in fact get some last night and not a solid eight hours.
He runs into Tommy after class, and he tells him he had an emergency. But, you can tell he’s lying when Tommy thinks he won't ask a follow-up question. Of course, he would ask; he’s your teacher and concerned about you missing class.
He brings Crystal a hot chocolate, and she denies it, not wanting people to know they fooled around last night. He lies and says they’re both his as he walks into a meeting with Walt and Dylan where he’s asked about how to introduce his ex-spouse. They’re planning a dedication ceremony for her and want to nail down how to introduce her. Russo reveals he and his ex-wife haven’t been in contact, but people don’t need to know the details.
Then, Crystal comes in and comments on Russo having two hot chocolates and if he is hiding anything. This show isn’t subtle in the least.
Family Affair at Ludlow College
Katie asks to have a word with Archie as he’s wrapping up his class. Their conversation reveals he’s been sending her sexy texts and that she doesn’t want to make love again with him. Them sleeping together gave her clarity on her being over him. Yet, as soon as she says that, she starts making out with him, taking him by surprise. Before the scene cuts out, she completely ruins her stance on being over him and feeling nothing while they were together.
Walter talks Elizabeth up at the dedication for the student center (Elizabeth Stoddard Student Center). She reveals that she’ll be on campus a lot more. Russo’s phone starts ringing in the middle of Elizabeth’s speech. They walk the campus as a family. Elizabeth finds out that Russo is sort of a big shot on campus, with his students calling him Rooster.
Russo and Elizabeth meet with Walt and Dylan as Crystal flirts with Russo before he walks in with a scan for him to sign. Elizabeth loves that Dylan is in a position of power and wonders if a woman will ever sit in Walt’s chair instead of him. He quickly changes the subject to babysitting the drunk hockey coach, and Elizabeth suggests Russo for the job. He’s hesitant, but he agrees to helping. Dylan and Elizabeth leave to walk around the campus as Walt stares at Russo. He feels betrayed and needs some lunch. Walt is a very weird man.
Elizabeth, Dylan, and Russo meet up for wine and a charcuterie board when she mistakes Dylan for the one nightstand Russo had. They both deny it, with Dylan revealing she’s seeing someone even though he’s not that great. Elizabeth gets a take from Katie saying she’s having a bad day and needing her mom, but Katie doesn’t want to come there with everyone. Russo starts freaking out about the change of plans. As Elizabeth compliments Dylan’s friendship with Russo, she throws his lack of friends under the bus. So he throws it back, saying he ends up with one friend after the divorce because she slept with the other one. He tries to break the tension and fails.
After Dylan leaves, Elizabeth and Russo rehash why they broke up and whether they can be friends. He begs for another chance, but she wants to cut their losses and know that they did the best they could. She leaves to go meet up with Katie. Katie feels guilty for seeing Archie, but her mom says she’s not the best person to ask because she was Archie at one point in her life. But Katie just wants her mom to tell her what to do, even though Russo is the more emotional parent. Honestly, she nails the emotional talk even though they joke about asking Russo.
Russo skates onto the ice and introduces himself to the hockey coach who doesn’t seem too happy that Walt sent him. Then, he surprises me when his expression doesn’t match his upbeat attitude about going to meetings, and he's glad that Russo is there to support him. Russo is 100 percent honest that he thinks the coach can turn things around. Katie and Elizabeth cheer Russo on from the stands as he skates into the middle of warmups. He immediately ends up with a hockey puck in his mouth and quickly says he’s okay.
They do some family bonding after the hockey accident where Elizabeth tells Russo that Katie called him Mrs. Doubtfire since he’s the emotional parent. Elizabeth cuts the night short after a few too many awkward moments. Katie apologizes for making it a little harder as Russo congratulates her for doing divorce right and making a clean break. Little does he know she isn’t doing that at all. He ruins their father-daughter moment when he tells her she was conceived after that photo that he loves so much.
The Katie and Archie incidents
Sunny returns home from New York to Mo’s welcome home and questions. Of course, Mo and Archie butt heads from the second he starts talking about himself. Sunny steers it back to her by asking him to help her unpack. He declines, saying he has office hours in 20 minutes. To cheer her up, Mo suggests they have time to change the locks even though Sunny will still see him on campus.
While chasing the person who wrote on his whiteboard, Archie runs past Katie, who thinks he’s looking for her. He responds with "Meet me in my office." As she’s smiling at her phone, Sunny walks over to her. She apologizes to Katie for Archie because she realizes Katie and Archie still have feelings for each other. Katie agrees she should blame Archie for most of the things that happened. Before she walks off, Sunny reveals that she’s scared but is waiting to see how it goes. Katie’s concerned about how she’s doing.
Archie sits in the hot house with Walt for a chat about the person writing “For Katie” around campus and on his whiteboard. He comes around his female students, who laugh at all his jokes, when he notices Liv has pink Converse shoes like he saw on the person he was chasing. He has to kick her out of his office because she misreads the situation when the light goes out but blames it on his mixed signals. He runs into another woman outside his office who also has pink Converse shoes on as we see “For Katie” written on the whiteboard again.
Archie ends up in a meeting with Walt and Russo about his mishap with his female student and how he should have left the situation alone. Dylan agrees that Archie isn’t at fault, but the lights going out in the building is a major liability. Before Archie can ramble himself into his own grave, he leaves the meeting.
The next episode of Rooster airs on HBO and HBO Max on April 12 at 10 p.m. ET.