When he comes back from a ten-day trip away from New York, all Mia wants to do is spend time with him, but he’s too occupied with a flashy work party. Namely, that he’s too busy to be there for Mia. Financial security, sure, but Marcus’s new career as a hotshot author has its own set of road bumps. Not a mature hook-up or a carefree friends with benefits kind of guy, but “a complicated softie prone to fuckups.” Trae’s advice sends him into a rut, but after some encouraging words from Mia, he finishes the book (with all of him in its pages) in three months, and it’s published to roaring success the following year.īut money and success don’t guarantee happiness. That’s not the guy he wants to portray in his novel - but that’s the real him. He’s an early achiever that had big dreams but ended up settling for less out of a fear of failure. Marcus has been projecting false versions of himself his entire life, and he’s trying to do the same thing in his writing.
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“I wrote a character that I wanted to be, and it just didn’t ring true,” Marcus later admits to Mia, and so we return full circle to that idea of facades that was introduced at the very beginning.
It’s a promising first draft, Trae says, but the words don’t feel like Marcus. Sick of the racist publishing industry, he decides to write a novel about a Black man retaliating against his white workspace (“Very Kanye at the TMZ office”) and asks for feedback from the one person who isn’t afraid to be brutally honest: Trae Lang. It’s not until he gives up his freelance editing gigs and takes the terrifying leap into writing his own book that he can’t ignore his identity any longer. Marcus knows himself deep down but is just scared to admit it. The saga of Marcus has continually prodded at the question of who this man is. He just has to put in the effort to light the fire. It’s not all flowers and chocolates (or a Christmas trip to the Bahamas), but that spark he’s been looking for will always be there.
Now that they’re past the cautious flirting and circling around each other, their conversations can be both direct and lovingly tender. There’s an emphasis that Marcus and Mia aren’t just a couple in love, but a team that supports each other. Happily ever after for Marcus involves those exciting major milestones - marriage, baby Audrey, and a bigger apartment - but it’s also those boring monetary steps, like saving enough money to hire a nanny and worrying whether it’s worth pursuing your dreams while Mia is carrying the weight. And just because it takes work, that doesn’t mean it has to be draining - there’s joy and wonder to be found in the plain and ordinary. He’s learned from his mistakes and knows for certain now that love takes work and constant commitment. Not that it’s all smooth sailing, but this final chapter provides reassurance that they won’t go down like his first marriage.
But this episode instead promises a thrilling new beginning that sets Marcus and Mia on the course for happiness for the rest of their lives. “Epilogue” suggests finality - a neat bow to be wrapped on Love Life’s gift of a season.