Summary
“The Present, Eternity and the Action Plan” hardly ties things up neatly, but it’s a fittingly messy end to a messy story about messy characters.
This recap of Love & Anarchy season 1, episode 8, “The Present, Eternity and the Action Plan”, contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
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After an admittedly bizarre penultimate episode that split all the core characters up, the Love & Anarchy finale brings everyone back together for a culmination of this season’s events. Max is on a bus back to Stockholm. Isabell is doing much better after her visit with Lars. Johan is still a pr*ck. My partner said during the opening scene of “The Present, Eternity and the Action Plan”: “Get rid. Divorce.”
Lund & Lagerstedt is facing the reversal of StreamUs’s acquisition, which is a much bigger deal since Sofie isn’t coming into work. She’s instead stuck at home with Johan and the kids, and his latest idea is a “fresh start” in London, which he pitches to the kids before his wife. Call me crazy, but I don’t think this relationship is going to last.
When Sofie finally turns up at work, it’s to hand over a file of information so that Ronny can conduct the presentation since she’s moving to London and will have to terminate her employment there early. Max overhears this news and confronts her in earshot of everyone, which is awkward. When they go outside to speak, she says that everything that happened between them was just a childish game and that none of it was real, although Max obviously feels differently. She tosses away the lipstick and says that Max is just a kid, that none of it means anything to her. Do we believe her? Of course not, but this is just the way of things in season finales, and Love & Anarchy season 1, episode 8 is nothing if not a season finale.
When Max goes back inside, he has a panic attack and collapses. He eventually breaks down sobbing and Friedrich helps him through it, having obviously accumulated a great deal of patience and wisdom during his ayahuasca trip. He’ll need it since Ronny typically chickens out of giving the presentation and leaves it to Friedrich and Denise, with Max providing technical support.
Still faced with the decision of either leaving her entire life for a new one in London with a man she clearly doesn’t love or abandoning her whole family for a man young enough to be her son, Sofie goes to see Lars. She’s terrified of becoming him, of living the life she saw him live as a child, but he reminds her of the words she wrote in Love & Anarchy all those years ago. Later, at a spa day with friends organized by — who else? — Johan, she’s recommended a therapist. Eventually, Johan becomes so absurdly patronizing that she just has quite enough, snarling at her friends and husband in a jacuzzi filled with rose petals and just leaving, walking out into the street still soaking wet and wearing a dressing gown.
Michelle and the other StreamUs representatives arrive at Lund & Lagerstedt to be greeted by Tom, Ronny’s stand-in, and the whole thing is embarrassing from the start. Michelle immediately asks after Ronny and Sofie and doesn’t like what she hears. But Friedrich’s pitch is a little more palatable since he explains how the company’s new direction is to be more focused on social politics and women. Michelle is concerned about how this approach will be profitable, though. Out of nowhere, Sofie arrives, still in a robe, to give the presentation herself, which is enough to give Michelle a minor breakdown. She announces she’ll definitely be terminating the acquisition and causes quite a commotion before leaving.
Friedrich is pretty happy about being a pure publishing house again. And their salvation might well come in the form of the manuscript that the meek, softspoken girl has been trying to hand in all season, which Caroline has been trying to get people to read for the entirety of the Love & Anarchy finale. On the roof of the building, Sofie and Max stand together as the camera lifts away from them, leaving them there. I wonder if we’ll see them again.
Thanks for reading our recap of Love & Anarchy season 1, episode 8, “The Present, Eternity and the Action Plan”.
