It's Not Like That Episode 2 Review: Everyone Wants a New Life Without Moving Too Fast

By Mira Vance · Editor & Lead Reviewer

Episode 2 turns one kiss into a week of bad timing, brave half-confessions, school-hallway damage control, and adults who keep saying "new" while their kids are still trying to survive yesterday.

Spoiler warning: This review discusses the events of It’s Not Like That Season 1 Episode 2.

Sunday dinner makes normal look suspicious

The episode starts with the exact kind of family dinner that should feel comforting: kids everywhere, food being passed around, hands held for grace, everyone talking over everyone else. Instead, the scene plays like a group project where every person has been assigned a different version of normal.

Malcolm and Lori are hosting the routines they promised to protect. Penelope is still navigating the Casey problem in public. Casey is trying to accept an invitation to get boba at the Halidom without looking like she needs one. David arrives with a very David request: more pick-ups, more one-on-one time with Merritt and Casey, more “whatnot.”

Lori does not turn the schedule talk into a custody fight, but she does tell him the extended-stay hotel is making the kids think the split might not be permanent. David hears “bachelor pad.” Lori corrects it into a second home for his children. It is funny because he catches himself half a second too late, and painful because the kids are already living inside that half-second.

Then Malcolm and Lori almost talk about the kiss. Almost. Justin’s cupcakes interrupt them.

Malcolm and Lori try to make the kiss smaller than it is

The smartest thing Episode 2 does is refuse to treat the kiss like either a clean romantic launch or a shame spiral. Lori tells Gail what happened, and even the vocabulary is a mess. Malcolm is her friend. He is also her pastor. He is also the widower of Jenny, whose absence is sitting in every corner of this relationship.

Lori knows the kiss was amazing. She also knows it may have been a terrible mistake. The chemistry is obvious. The problem is that it grew out of grief, divorce, late-night dependence, and two fragile families.

When Lori comes to see Malcolm, she is not cold. She is careful. She says risking the friendship would risk their routines, their children, and the whole arrangement that has kept everybody upright since Jenny died and David left. Malcolm agrees because he has to. Then Virginia announces men’s prayer group, and the show finds the perfect awkward punch line: there are many reasons they cannot do this, and one of them is literally waiting down the hall.

The obstacle is not a contrivance. It is a calendar invite.

Flora and Merritt choose the walk instead of the script

David’s attempt to bond with his kids lands hardest in the truck. He wants Casey to call Trevor out. Merritt agrees, then shuts down when David starts brainstorming replacement sports. Basketball. Cross country. Anything that lets David keep imagining his son through a competitive template.

Merritt sees Flora walking and escapes. Their walk is small, but it becomes one of the episode’s most useful pressure valves. Flora teases him about making her carry his backpack in fourth grade. Merritt admits he needed to get out of the truck. They complain about Watson, then slowly stop performing.

Flora skipping therapy is not framed as simple rebellion. She does not want the same appointment again that week. She wants one afternoon where she gets to be a person before she is a case file, a pastor’s daughter, or a grief-management problem.

Merritt, meanwhile, is sick of hearing everything twice now that his parents live in separate emotional weather systems. His later drum set is ridiculous, loud, and exactly the kind of choice he warned Flora he wanted: something to annoy his dad. It is also the first replacement for wrestling that actually belongs to him.

Lori’s date works because Joe lets it be weird

Lori’s IRL Match date with Joe is the episode’s cleanest comedy, mostly because nobody in the scene is cool. Lori arrives nervous. Joe introduces himself as Cuppa Joe, then immediately admits the handle has been haunting him. She compliments him by saying he looks younger than his profile pictures, then explains that it is usually supposed to go the other way.

The date could have been an easy triangle device, but Joe is too decent for that. He sends Lori the end-of-night text at the beginning so the pressure has somewhere to go. Lori is not trying to become “new Lori” in one night. She is trying to sit across from a man who is not her ex-husband, not her pastor, and not part of the house fire of obligations waiting at home.

Their dancing works because it is just fun. Joe talks about Drukus, the dog his nieces dress up, and Lori gets to laugh at something that does not require a moral committee.

Then Casey texts, and Lori leaves. Joe does not sulk. He says kids come first, then adds dogs. He understands the seriousness and refuses to make it heavy.

Casey stops shrinking, but Penelope is still choosing the room

Casey’s school week is brutal in a very ordinary way. Trevor turns her wrestling choice into a rumor, saying she only joined because she wants him. Dakota repeats the joke at the Halidom, with Mika and the other girls orbiting the cruelty. Penelope tells them to stop, but she also laughs for a second, and Casey catches it.

That second matters. Penelope is not the architect of this humiliation, but she is still choosing where to stand. She wants Dakota’s world badly enough to keep hesitating when Casey needs her to be solid.

Casey finds the answer on the mat. She pins Trevor and says, in front of everyone, that if anyone wants to make it about hooking up, he is the one who wants her. It is messy, satisfying, and just barely inside the boundaries before Coach H shuts it down. Casey does not become invulnerable. She just stops letting Trevor narrate her.

The later fight scene gives the episode its clearest sibling test. Hannigan goes after Justin, and Penelope freezes. Casey does not. She checks on Justin and warns Hannigan off. Penelope’s apology afterward is not enough, but it is honest: Flora says they have to stick together, and Penelope got scared.

Flora tells the truth Malcolm keeps trying to organize

Malcolm’s fight with Flora is the episode’s hardest scene because both of them are scared, and both of them are making sense. He finds scissors under her bed after she skips therapy. She explains the AP Euro timeline, then names what he cannot stop seeing: the time she cut herself a few years ago.

Flora is careful with him even while she is furious. She understands why he panicked. She says she would not do it again. She also says church makes things worse right now and asks him to stop pushing. Malcolm hears danger. Flora hears surveillance.

Her later conversation with Merritt sharpens the wound. She tells him about middle-school panic attacks, the online wormhole, and the therapist’s read that she was looking for control. Malcolm wants everything nice and neat because he is terrified. Flora is trying to tell him she is not neat, and she should not have to become neat to be loved safely.

The sermon-practice compromise is progress without a fake cure. Flora will keep seeing Dr. Collins, but every other week. She still will not come to church on Sunday. Malcolm accepts more than he would have earlier, and Flora lets writing become an outlet instead of another assignment.

Malcolm finds his new voice, then says the quiet part out loud

The church thread keeps mirroring the family thread without turning into a lecture. The prayer cards from Malcolm’s first sermon are humiliating in very specific ways: unsteady, teetering, raw, plus one request to bring back Pastor Harris. Pastor Harris and the men in prayer group understand the pastoral problem. Malcolm asked the congregation to lean back. That scared people who come to church wanting him to be the steady thing.

In men’s prayer group, Malcolm finally admits what is really vibrating under all that sermon anxiety: he kissed Lori, or she kissed him, or they kissed. He says it will not happen again, then admits he cannot stop thinking about her. Yousef’s advice is blunt and funny enough to sting. Moving forward may be good, but maybe choose someone from another church.

Malcolm’s Sunday sermon is stronger because he stops pretending the old version can simply be restored. He tells the congregation he is fine, but different. His voice may be quieter and unfamiliar, even to him, but it is new.

Then he goes to Lori’s door and uses Flora’s idea about not letting a feeling pass. He does not ask Lori to restart the kiss. He says he hears her reasons. He says they cannot be together. But he also tells her that kissing her made him feel alive in a way he has not in a long time. It is the worst possible boundary maintenance and the most honest thing he has said all episode.

Tiny details worth clocking

Justin offering cupcakes for breakfast is a sweet, doomed social bid.

David calling his apartment move-in pitch “Cone Zone” explains why his kids can love him and still want to run.

Watson’s pen-and-paper assignment gives Flora, Merritt, and Malcolm the same prompt: write the thing that is actually yours.

Casey warning Hannigan off Justin is the cleanest sibling loyalty beat so far.

Penelope telling Casey they do not have to be friends just because their parents want it is harsh, but honest.

Final verdict

Episode 2 is sharper than the premiere because every “new” thing carries a cost. Lori can enjoy a date and still leave when Casey needs her. David can find an apartment and still watch his kids resist the permanence of it. Malcolm can preach a better sermon and still show up at Lori’s door with feelings he promised not to feed.

The teen material is especially strong. Casey, Flora, Merritt, Penelope, and Justin prove every adult choice echoes through lockers, mats, therapy appointments, and kitchen arguments.

The comedy stays useful: Joe’s pre-written good-night text, David’s dad-duty rebrand, men’s prayer group as romantic roadblock, Merritt declaring himself a drummer. Under it, the show keeps asking how someone becomes new without making everyone who depends on the old version feel abandoned.

Rating: 8.5/10 - A warmer, more confident second episode that turns one kiss into a full-family stress test without losing its awkward comic pulse.

More episodes from It's Not Like That — Messy romance and timing, episode by episode. Jump to any episode in the season:

Reviewed by Mira Vance · QuizFandom Editor & Lead Reviewer. Every rating is an honest per-watch assessment from the desk that also writes the quizzes — not a press release rehash.

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