Off Campus Episode 2 Review: "The Practice" - Garrett and Hannah sell the lie, then start telling the truth

By Mira Vance · Editor & Lead Reviewer

Off Campus* Episode 2 turns the fake-dating bargain into a full campus campaign: phones swapped, schedules attacked, Fifth Line targeted, and one very loaded kiss negotiated on Hannah's terms. The hour keeps the hockey swagger loud and silly, then lets the bedroom quiet down enough for Garrett and Hannah to admit what pressure has actually done to them.

Garrett builds the fake-dating playbook, and Hannah draws the first hard line

The episode opens with the least romantic version of intimacy: calendars. Hannah has rehearsal, class, work, and the pop showcase eating her week; Garrett has morning practices and a philosophy grade that will not save itself. He solves the scheduling problem by taking her phone, adding himself, and folding their deal into a hockey plan before she has even agreed to the terms.

Garrett treats fake dating like a power play. They need Justin jealous, Jules convinced, and Fifth Line broadcasting it. He calls it “classic first period strategy,” complete with possession, rhythm, offensive zone pressure, and a breakup where Hannah fake-cries so Justin can pick up the pieces.

Hannah laughs until Garrett kisses her out of nowhere for a selfie. Then she stops the whole bit cold: he cannot just kiss her, and actually he cannot kiss her at all. The fake relationship may need performance, but Hannah gets to say where the performance stops.

Hannah meets the hockey house, Jules clocks everything, and tutoring turns into actual chemistry

The hockey house is exactly the chaos Hannah expects: video games, trash talk, Simms arguing that goalies never pause, Dean failing to shut his door, and Jules appearing like a gossip-account lie detector. Garrett wants Hannah upstairs. Hannah would rather study downstairs until Jules is watching.

The tutoring session gives Garrett a little more than jock confidence. He knows Nietzsche and Kant well enough to ask the real question: how can two philosophers say different things and both be right? Hannah came in expecting a rescue job; what she gets is a guy who memorizes easily but needs help thinking through contradiction.

The flirty snap interruption is juvenile; Hannah turns it into her first clean win in his world. She sends a message as “Garrett’s tutor” telling the puck bunnies to leave him alone, then lands the Kant joke when he says he now has to follow through later.

Allie and Sean try to fix a rut with a sex calendar, while Hannah gets cut open by music critique

Allie and Sean are stuck in a different kind of performance. She wants to shake up the routine with a sex-position calendar, dance-floor hookups, and Uber makeouts. Sean hears that as a judgment on their sex life, then retreats to the comfort of what they already know.

Hannah’s music problem is sharper. In class, her composition gets polite notes until one critique lands too close: it sounds like background music for someone else’s story, like she is afraid to get under the surface of what the song wants to be about. Garrett’s plan, Justin’s attention, the hockey house, the pop showcase pressure - everyone has a use for Hannah before she has finished the song.

Then Garrett storms into class late with coffee “for my girl,” calls her baby, and manages to make the jealousy stunt both useful and inconvenient. Hannah cannot drink the coffee because she is lactose intolerant, cannot take notes because he is draped on her, and cannot get Justin to look until the fake couple becomes a literal disruption. Subtle? Absolutely not. Effective? Unfortunately, yes.

The Cape Cod party plan pulls Hannah into hockey life, and practice becomes a consent test

Dean and Bo announce the annual Maxwell Di Laurentis birthday festivities like two rich boys with a kazoo and no indoor voice: Cape Cod, twofers, a party bus after the team bus, no option to skip. Hannah spots the useful detail immediately. Justin is in Bo’s frat, which makes the party the perfect hard launch.

The costume planning lets Hannah’s friend group push back and still play. Hannah bristles when Garrett talks about dressing for the male gaze; her friend backs her on principle, then immediately points out that if they want Justin’s attention, they need to be “boy hot.” Messy compromise, clean laugh.

The better scene comes at hockey practice. Hannah watches Garrett under the coach’s eye, hears that his father’s name carries weight, and learns why he refuses special favors. When Garrett makes her wait through the weight room, she calls him on it. He tries to turn teasing into another drill. She reminds him of her no-kissing term. Then, after he backs off, she chooses to step in.

Garrett says, plainly, “I’m gonna kiss you.” Hannah gives a hesitant okay. The whole fake-girlfriend premise could have gotten lazy here; instead, the scene knows the difference between being flustered and being overridden.

Briar wins at Chatham, Jules narrates the madness, and Hannah survives her first hockey party

The Chatham game throws Hannah into Briar hockey culture at full volume. Jules gives play-by-play with filth and precision, Garrett scores after taking the puck alone, and the crowd chants like the sport is a contact religion. Hannah’s read is simple and correct: Garrett is good, and the problem is that he knows it.

After the win, the party starts with costumes, hockey shots, and Jules testing the story. Hannah and Garrett arrive as Elle Woods and a not-quite-vampire, which becomes a whole interrogation because Garrett Graham “doesn’t do girlfriends.” Hannah improvises well enough, but the lie gets more convincing when Garrett does something small: he looks for something non-alcoholic, brings her a closed can, and says there is no pressure.

The grand gestures are ridiculous, but the real evidence sneaks in sideways. Garrett remembers the boundary. Hannah notices. Jules notices too.

The dance gets Justin watching, but the bedroom makes Garrett and Hannah listen

The party’s loudest stretch is pure fake-dating machinery. Garrett gets Dean to help with the music, JLo hits, Hannah lights up, and Justin finally appears. Garrett tells her to be cool because she is with him, then pulls her away when Justin has seen enough: watch the player, not the puck.

Then he leans close and tells her this is the part where he lists what he wants to do when they are alone. Hannah blushes. Justin sees it. Mission accomplished.

The best scene happens after the music cuts out. Hannah and Garrett fight over the bed like stubborn freshmen pretending not to care, then end up on the floor laughing at a dog video. She sees the bruises he has been ignoring. He tells her about being put on skates as soon as he could walk, being measured weekly, protein shakes, weights, missed birthday parties, and his father’s whistle whenever he made a mistake.

Hannah does not fix it. She just names it: it seems like he never really had a choice. That is enough to let him say the quiet part back. “Fuck that.”

Garrett hears Hannah’s old song, and the fake couple becomes Fifth Line official

The vulnerability trades sides after that. Garrett finds one of Hannah’s old songs, and she is embarrassed until he actually listens. He tells her it is incredible, then admits the truth about the Eastwood game: he was struggling, heard her singing Elton John, followed her voice through the tunnels, and saw her in the green room. She centered him.

That confession is the hour’s real hard launch, even before Jules posts them. Garrett has spent the episode using attention as strategy. Here, he talks about attention as rescue. Hannah answers with her own fear: she does not write like that anymore because telling the world something she is not ready for it to know is scary. If she does not win the pop showcase scholarship, she cannot afford Briar.

Garrett’s solution is hilariously Garrett: if lyrics are hard and collaboration is allowed, ask Justin for help, because pretentious douches love that. By the time Justin sits beside Hannah, the plan has technically worked. The mess is that Hannah and Garrett have started working too.

Tiny details worth clocking

• Hannah’s first boundary is plain text. Garrett kisses her without warning, and she immediately says no more kissing.
• Garrett remembers the difference between Hannah not drinking at parties and not drinking at all, then chooses a closed can because Logan points out it is safer.
• Jules calling Hannah “Garrett’s tutor” keeps the lie unstable even after the party starts believing it.
• Allie’s “more” and Hannah’s pop showcase problem both carry the same fear: wanting a bigger life without knowing how to ask for it cleanly.
• The episode uses hockey language twice: first as Garrett’s fake-dating strategy, later as a mask for actual care when he tells Hannah to trust him.

Final verdict

“The Practice” is a strong second episode when the fake parts brush against real wants. The public beats are broad by design: class disruption, Cape Cod birthday chaos, hockey shots, JLo, Justin watching from across the room. The private beats are quieter and better: consent, a closed can, the shared floor, and the parts of themselves that do not fit their campus reputations.

The weakest stretch is the Allie and Sean material. Their rut is clear before the calendar bit ends, and the show circles it longer than it needs to. Still, it gives the hour a useful counterpoint: routine can be comforting, but it can also become a place to hide.

Garrett and Hannah are fun when they needle each other. They are better when they stop performing. His hockey life is not all confidence. Her music dream is not all talent. The fake relationship gets onto Fifth Line, sure, but the real story is their off-camera safety.

Rating: 8.4/10 - A funny, consent-aware fake-dating episode with a great bedroom vulnerability turn, even if the secondary couple’s rut plays a little thin.

More episodes from Off Campus — College romance and team pressure, 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.

← All Off Campus reviews