Summary
Easy Season 3, Episode 6, “Blank Pages” is an important chapter, as Jacob learns that the woman’s perspective is equally vital despite his self-absorbed attitude.
This review of Easy Season 3, Episode 6, “Blank Pages” contains spoilers. The third season of Easy is going to be the final to land on Netflix. You can read our recap of the previous episode by clicking these words.
The self-absorbed Jacob (Marc Maron) is back with his best friend in Episode 6, “Blank Pages”, with Easy Season 3 giving him some cold truths and closure to his story. Episode 6 lines a story with the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, with Jacob fretting over a pending graphic novel by one of his former students. His agent has seen the pages that discuss him, and apparently, it frames him in a bad light.
Jacob spends most of “Blank Pages” being Jacob, talking incessantly to his best friend who has always stood by him, drinking away his problems, but keeping the subject of the conversation about him. The episode takes an unexpected turn as they end up sleeping together, but the next day, he is so consumed about this graphic novel, that he does not consider his friend at all.
He meets the author of the graphic novel, Beth, to understand what light it puts him under after one of his conferences is canceled. He meets her at a coffee shop, and it doesn’t start well as he asks how far gone she is – Beth is not pregnant. Jacob is frustrated in the conversation, trying to remember when he was her graduate teacher. Episode 6, “Blank Pages” offers Jacob the woman’s perspective; how he was in the position of power, promising her the world, and then as soon as they slept together, their relationship suddenly stopped.
The most telling moment of “Blank Pages” is when Beth goes to the bathroom so Jacob can read the pages from her novel. When she returns, he is surprisingly complementary and admits he can now see it from her point of view. He also explains that when he has sex with a woman, he always skews his feelings and avoids the conversation – bringing this full circle, this is why his best friend is annoyed with him after they had sex. But Jacob completely understands Beth’s story, and his anger turns to listening to her and appreciating the novel’s message.
“Blank Pages” ends with Jacob showing some genuine time for his best friend as they embark on their new relationship. But putting Jacob’s new life aside, where he will lose his career and undoubtedly face some bad press, Episode 6 is solely about listening to and understanding the woman’s perspective. And with plenty of the men in the media failing to understand the movements and its messages, they could take a leaf out of “Blank Pages”.
You can read the review of the seventh episode by clicking these words.
