The Four Seasons Season 2 Episode 4 Review: "On the Boardwalk" — a high night, a baby question, and a marriage that finally admits it is tired
What happens — the short version (spoilers)
- Jack's private vaping habit explains why he has seemed off.
- The Brenda surrogate email pushes Danny and Anne into a real decision.
- Jack's Mark obsession becomes a public embarrassment on the boardwalk.
- Ginny and Anne both admit they are scared of being left with a life they did not choose.
- Danny and Anne finally say their marriage cannot fix everything.
Jack is secretly getting high and acting like he is just vaguely off. Anne and Danny are still carrying the baby decision like it is a referendum on their whole future. Ginny is trying to hold down the present while everybody around her keeps turning her life into a group project. The boardwalk, the beer, and the bad lighting strip the polish off everybody until the only thing left is what they actually want.
Jack’s hidden vaping habit finally explains why he has been so off
Jack has been sneaking confiscated vapes at night, which explains the vague offness everybody has been reacting to. He is not magically fine; he is using a private escape hatch, and the house can feel something is wrong even before anyone knows why.
That keeps the episode’s whole mood honest. Jack is trying to act normal, but everybody is handling pressure in private. Anne is restless. Danny is defensive. Ginny is exhausted. Nobody is lying exactly, but nobody is telling the full truth either.
Brenda, the surrogate, and Claude’s warning push the baby plot into the open
Brenda emails back, so Danny and Anne have to decide whether they are actually doing this. The answer is no, then maybe, then no again. Claude pushes back because he is the only one willing to say that a baby might not be the fix they keep pretending it is.
Anne worries they are too old. Danny pretends the concern is outrageous until it is obviously not. The surrogate decision gets treated like a college application, but the real issue is whether these two can still imagine themselves differently.
Jack’s Mark obsession becomes a public embarrassment on the boardwalk
The Mark thread is Jack’s problem once he spots Mark on the boardwalk and starts yelling his name like the answer is in the yelling. It is absurd, but it is also exactly what the episode needs: one person making a private awkwardness impossible to ignore.
That embarrassment fits the setting. The boardwalk is already a place where everybody is half performing for strangers. Jack just happens to be the loudest one in the crowd.
Ginny and Anne both say what they want, and neither of them enjoys hearing it
Ginny wants the money situation to stop being vague. Anne wants to believe she is being careful, not evasive. By the end they admit they are both scared of being left with a life they did not choose. Cove also works because it turns a private wish into a shared reality.
Neither woman is trying to win. Both are tired of carrying the same fear in different forms, and the bluntness fits the room.
The boardwalk night ends with a marriage admitting what it cannot fix
Danny and Anne’s last argument starts with the baby and ends with the rest of the marriage. White suede, years of defaulting to one person’s preferences, and the fear of reaching the end and realizing they fucked up all come out at once. The answer is not glossy, but it is honest: maybe they do not need to fix each other.
That is the right ending here. They can keep loving each other without pretending love is the same thing as agreement. The episode finally says that out loud instead of circling it.
Tiny details worth clocking
- Jack’s “I did a drug” line is the exact level of embarrassed honesty the episode needs.
- The boardwalk live-music song becomes a running joke because it keeps interrupting the bigger emotional mess.
- Mark’s “it’s going nowhere, baby” energy is perfect summer-fling material.
- The book-reading questions in the final act are the kind of pseudo-spiritual nonsense this show likes to mock.
- The freeballing idea is a surprisingly good shorthand for a marriage that wants to stop overengineering itself.
Final verdict
Anne and Danny stop treating adulthood like control and start admitting that not every problem can be managed into submission. That realization lands best on a boardwalk night after drinks, a little weed, and a lot of accumulated resentment. The hour is funniest when it is casually humiliating and strongest when Anne and Danny admit that their marriage has been running on overcorrection for years.
The boardwalk gives the whole thing just enough noise to keep the confession from feeling staged. That makes the ending land harder, because nobody is sober enough to pretend this was easy.
I like that the ending does not hand out a tidy emotional award. It gives the couple something more believable: a truce, a new name for the problem, and a way to keep going without pretending the question is settled forever.
Rating: 8.6/10 — a sharp, slightly chaotic boardwalk episode that finally gives the season’s marriage plot the honesty it has been waiting for.
More episodes from The Four Seasons — Season 2 — Friend-group grief comedy, trips, holidays, and second chances. Jump to any episode in the season:
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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.