Lessons in Chemistry Series-Finale Recap: Chain Reaction

Lessons in Chemistry has very much been a show about people asking questions. Its finale, though, is an episode for the rest of us — those who like to know the answers. The series doesn’t exactly tie everything up in a neat little bow, but for better or worse, it comes awfully close. Lessons in Chemistry, although rooted in the real world, has always felt like it dips into fairytale territory from time to time (remember when a dog narrated an episode?). Its conclusion, with seemingly random elements coming together so neatly the way they do, certainly veers that way. Although maybe Elizabeth’s right when she waxes poetic on how science and life are similar — things might seem random at the time, but when you look back at the entire chain (of events, of atoms), you see how everything is connected. That’s science, baby. Okay, well, that’s TV science, baby.

That Remsen Foundation stamp Elizabeth finds in the copy of Great Expectations in the St. Luke’s library is more than a lead — it’s the key to everything when it comes to learning Calvin’s full story. It’s not long before Elizabeth and Mad are invited to meet with Wilson — Beau Bridges has a name! — at the foundation, who, yes, has tons of Calvin memorabilia up on his office walls and also seems pretty excited to learn that Mad is Calvin’s daughter. But he isn’t Calvin’s father. He isn’t even the person Elizabeth and Mad should be talking to. Instead, he sends the Zotts off and alerts a very fancy lady working on her backswing on a golf course. She, too, looks pleasantly shocked to hear the news of Mad’s existence.

This is Avery Parker. The woman who had been sending Calvin all of those letters that he had Harriet write cease and desists for. The woman who runs the Remsen Foundation. And she is Calvin’s very much not dead mother. Mad’s a little skeptical of her new grandmother when she comes over to meet her and Elizabeth, but Avery isn’t withholding when it comes to the truth. She tells them her — and Calvin’s — tragic story. She had Calvin when she was just sixteen. Her very rich parents immediately took the baby away from her, and she never knew where they placed him. The moment she turned 25 and her trust fund kicked in, she used the money first to hire a lawyer — enter Wilson — to help her look for her child, and second to start the Remsen Foundation and use it to donate money to boys’ homes within a 300-mile radius, in hopes of still being able to help her son, wherever he might be. Both decisions proved to be good ones. The money did, in fact, help Calvin in some ways, and Wilson eventually tracked Calvin down. Unfortunately, no amount of money in the world can stop dicks from being dicks, and when Wilson goes to St. Luke’s, as we watched last week, our favorite priest tells him that Calvin died from tuberculosis months ago in order to keep Calvin around and assist him with his bootleg booze business and, probably, also to make sure the Remsen Foundation continued to donate to the home where Calvin lived. We know how this turns out for little Calvin — he’s told he’s broken and his terrible parents are dead, and that’s how he lives the rest of his life.

Wilson and Avery, however, learn the truth about Calvin thanks to his first appearance on a magazine cover. Avery writes letter after letter to try and convince Calvin to meet her, but he rejects them repeatedly. Avery starts the grant to continue helping her son, even if he won’t meet her. She believes he hates her — she has no idea he simply believes his real mother is dead. She tells Elizabeth that she did come by the house one time, and she caught a glimpse of Elizabeth and Calvin together. They were so happy, she said, she didn’t want to ruin it. She had to let him go.

With tears in her eyes, Elizabeth tells Avery about Calvin. How he believed she was dead this entire time, that he was smart and kind. Mad tells her that he was a funny dancer, too. Still, when Avery asks if she can get to know Mad better, Mad’s not so sure. Elizabeth asks for some time.

These are pretty much all the answers to Mad’s questions about her dad, and yet, she still doesn’t feel satisfied. Of course, this is because Mad wasn’t just hoping to find out about who her dad was; she was, on some level, hoping to find him. She misses her dad. No amount of details about his life can change that. Elizabeth can’t fix that for her, but she tells her all about how she reminds her of him and that for the rest of her life, the people she’ll meet who knew Calvin, the places she’ll go where went, the things she’ll read about him will all fill in this picture of her father. It’s a pretty cheesy sentiment for Elizabeth Zott, and Mad rightly calls her out on it. Someone had to.

While Elizabeth might feel a little bit at a loss in how to solve her daughter’s problem, after some thinking on it, she does not have the same problem in solving her own — all she really wants to do is be a chemist. That’s who she is. It’s not that great things haven’t come from Supper at Six. She’s been able to reach an audience that was in need of smart content that respected them. She’s made meaningful friendships with both Walter (when he says it’s his “professional duty and personal choice to have [her] back?” I got a little choked up! Walter!) and Fran Frask — and even facilitates getting those two dingdongs to admit their feelings for one another! And she’s been able to use her platform in meaningful ways. But when she hears from an audience member who she encouraged to go after her dreams of being a doctor that she’s done just that, and she’s never been happier, followed by Mad reminding her mother that “chemists do chemistry,” Elizabeth knows she needs to move forward, even if it’s scary.

She makes sure not to leave Supper at Six without one last surprise for ol’ Phil, though — and with a reminder to her audience that what they’ve done here is important. Once Swift & Crisp drops the show because Elizabeth is vocally … uh, against racism, Phil threatens to cancel the show if they don’t find a new sponsor. On Elizabeth’s last episode, in her most festive holiday lab coat turned apron (honestly, where can I buy that? It’s gorgeous), she makes the surprise announcement that she’s leaving the show and that while Swift & Crisp was vile in so many ways, the show has a new sponsor that “aligns with our values” — Tampax. By the time Elizabeth is telling her audience they all have a box of tampons under their seats and explaining to any men who might be watching what exactly menstruation is, Phil is apoplectic. When Kenneth, the head of the network, arrives, well, I’m surprised the guy doesn’t pass out in the middle of the taping. Elizabeth had called Kenneth ahead of time and struck a deal — she would announce on air that she was leaving, which would surely get an audience boost for the show for the next few weeks, and she’d secured a new sponsor, but only if Kenneth agreed to make some changes. Mainly, he needs to fire Phil and give Walter his job. Kenneth does this with seemingly very few questions asked. Elizabeth apparently has a lot of power! With that, Elizabeth thanks her audience, announces an open casting call for the next host — they’re looking for someone who maybe feels like they have a voice that’s not being heard — and then she teaches them how to glaze a ham. And that’s Supper at Six.

So what does Elizabeth do next? Well, encouraged by Harriet to let Avery into her and Mad’s life because you can never have too much love, Elizabeth does just that. And wouldn’t you know, Avery has a foundation that supports the work of scientists just like Elizabeth. Three years later, we learn that not only is Elizabeth finally going to finish her PhD, but she’s a chemistry professor.

Like I said, it’s a lot of clear-cut answers — about Calvin, about what happens to Elizabeth — that’s why it’s disappointing to watch what Lessons does with Harriet. Yes, we of course learn that after believing she had swayed enough council members to vote against the freeway, one of those members changes his vote at the last minute, and in a crushing moment, Harriet realizes that after seven years of giving her all to saving her community, she’s lost. It’s not that everyone needed a happy ending or everything tied up in that neat bow — in fact, it’s definitely more realistic that the council would vote against her — but after a scene in which she cries into Elizabeth’s arms, we don’t get any information as to what she’s going to do next. There’s no way she’s done fighting — earlier in the episode, she calls herself a “one-woman bullhorn.” It would’ve been nice for Harriet to get some more attention throughout the entire series, but most especially here in the end.
Still, the series ends on a pretty joyful note. In class, Elizabeth is teaching her students about the randomness of atoms bonding together and how it really only seems random until you look backward and can “see how it was all connected.” It’s like life that way. Also in that way that the only thing you can truly count on is change. She busts out Calvin’s copy of Great Expectations, and she reads aloud from the page he had dog-eared. It’s a passage that echoes these sentiments. A passage about having a memorable day because it was a day that changed the narrator. A passage about how everything is built upon each other and how losing one day, any day, would change everything. “[…]Think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”

At home, back before Elizabeth becomes a professor, we watch as she looks at her own chain of atoms. She’s throwing a holiday party — she’s made lasagna, naturally — and all of her people (and dogs) are there together. Mad and all the Sloanes, Six-Thirty, Dr. Mason, Walter and Fran and Amanda, Wakely, Avery and Wilson. And yes, she sees Calvin standing there in the next room — the piece of her chain that makes everything else make sense. She thinks about all the memorable days that got her here, that changed her sometimes for the worse but mostly for the better, that maybe seemed random at one time but don’t anymore. Has chemistry always been as emotionally stirring as this montage? Had I known, I would’ve paid much closer attention in high school chem class.