Every Year After Season 1 Episode 7 picks up right where the fallout left off, and honestly, it doesn’t waste a second easing us back in. Charlie is furious with Percy for spilling the truth and wrecking his shot at fixing things with Sam, and he doesn’t hold back. He tells her, flat out, to get on a plane back to Seattle. It’s a tense opener, and it sets the tone for an episode that spends just as much time digging through the past as it does sitting with the wreckage of the present.
The Lake, the Boat, and the Summer That Changed Everything
From there, the episode rewinds to the summer of 2016. Percy, Sam, and Charlie head out on their father’s motorboat for a day on the lake, and Charlie insists he’s already fixed whatever was wrong with it. Of course, it breaks down anyway, a small moment, but one that quietly hints at how often Charlie overpromises and underdelivers when it comes to the people he loves.
Later that day, Percy gets Sam alone and brings up the idea of squeezing in one last great summer together before they both head off to college. It’s a sweet, hopeful pitch. Sam, though, has been sitting on something. He finally admits he’s gotten into a summer intensive program, which means he’ll be gone for most of the season. Percy is hurt, and not just by the news itself, she’s upset that he let her keep making plans around a summer he already knew he wouldn’t be there for. The night before he leaves, the two of them say their goodbyes and promise, the way young couples always do, that they’ll make the distance and the time difference work somehow.
Percy’s Ultimatum and the Cracks in the Present Day
Back in the present, Percy tells Chantal she’s planning to skip the funeral entirely because of Charlie’s ultimatum. It’s a heavy admission, and Chantal doesn’t let it slide without circling back to her own situation, she asks Percy point-blank about her feelings for Jordie. Chantal admits she likes him, but Percy, ever the voice of caution, tells her to think hard before she acts on it. Chantal, in turn, pushes Percy to go confront Charlie before she leaves town, and Percy agrees.
Meanwhile, Chantal checks in on Delilah and is thrown by how breezily Delilah seems to be handling her divorce, a calm that feels less like peace and more like a warning sign. Elsewhere, Charlie tries to bring up the funeral with Sam, only for Sam to announce he’s moving out. Charlie backs off and gives him the space, but you can feel how much that decision costs him.
A Restaurant Conversation and a Painful Comparison
At the restaurant, Sam notices Delilah is clearly overwhelmed and tries to offer some comfort, opening up about the heartbreak he went through after losing Percy. Delilah, not one to soften a hard truth, points out that Percy went through just as much pain after their breakup. It’s a small line, but it lands, a reminder that nobody in this love triangle walked away unscathed.
Flashback: Percy Leans on Charlie While Sam Disappears Into His Program
The episode dips back into 2016, where Percy is clearly struggling with Sam gone. Charlie steps in to keep her company, and there’s a Skype movie night that goes sideways when Sam cuts the call short because he’s too busy with the program. As the summer drags on, Percy and Charlie start spending more and more time together, at the boathouse, at The Tavern, while Sam stays buried in his work. Charlie, in one of his more telling observations, tells Percy that Sam has a habit of shutting down the moment things get difficult. It’s a comment that reads very differently once you know where this story is headed.
Locked In: Charlie and Percy’s Boathouse Showdown
Back in the present, Charlie retreats to the boathouse specifically because there’s no phone signal there, he wants to disappear for a while. Percy tracks him down to talk, and in a moment that’s almost darkly comic given everything else going on, the two of them accidentally get locked inside a storage room after leaving their phones outside.
While they’re stuck, the rest of Barry’s Bay keeps moving. Chantal tells Jordie she’s heading back to Seattle, and tries to bring up their almost-kiss, but he sidesteps the conversation entirely. Instead, he dares her to take a swim in the lake, one last push to get her to loosen up before she goes. Chantal invites Delilah along too, which clearly annoys Jordie, who probably wanted that moment to himself. Elsewhere, Sam is dealing with his anger the only way he seems to know how lately: he takes a baseball bat to a chair.
Back in that storage room, Percy has a panic attack, and Charlie talks her through it until she calms down.
The Lake Swim, Delilah’s Breakdown, and a Night That Doesn’t Go as Planned
At the lake, both Delilah and Chantal hesitate before getting in the water, but Jordie eventually talks them into it. The swim doesn’t bring the lighthearted release anyone was hoping for, Delilah breaks down emotionally, and the group heads back to the motel early. Jordie later asks Chantal to grab drinks, but he ends up bailing on those plans to stay behind and comfort Delilah through another rough moment. It’s a quiet but pointed beat: whatever Jordie says about moving on, his attention keeps snapping back to Delilah the second she needs him.
The Confession That’s Been Building All Season
Back at the boathouse, Charlie and Percy finally start talking honestly about her panic attacks, and Charlie puts together that they started right after the two of them slept together and broke Sam’s trust. He tells Percy she’s the coolest person he knows, and admits it was unfair of him to have blamed her for what happened between them.
That admission opens the door to the flashback the whole episode has been building toward. Sam ends things with Percy through an email, telling her the distance has made the relationship impossible to sustain. Percy calls him to make the breakup final and official, then turns to Charlie for comfort. What follows is the moment that’s haunted this entire story: in an attempt to hurt Sam back, Percy sleeps with Charlie.
Returning to the present, Percy admits she had a pattern of acting out whenever things got rocky with Sam. Charlie, for his part, confesses his own role came from jealousy, watching Sam have someone like Percy in his life ate at him. He explains that after it happened, he left Barry’s Bay and cut himself off from both Sam and Sue, too consumed by guilt to face either of them.
Then comes the heaviest reveal of the episode: Percy tells Charlie that, in the aftermath, she swallowed a handful of pills trying to escape the guilt. Her parents grew so worried about her that they eventually sold the summer house altogether. Charlie tells her it’s time to forgive herself and pulls her into a hug. And right on cue, in the kind of timing this show seems to love, Sam walks in and finds the two of them embracing in the cabin.
My Take: Can Every Year After Actually Land This Ending in One Episode?
I’ll be honest, I’m genuinely unsure how this show plans to give Sam and Percy’s relationship the closure it deserves with only one episode left, especially after a penultimate hour that ends on an image this loaded. Instead of trying to make things right with Sam directly, Percy spends the episode confronting Charlie, which, emotionally satisfying as it might be for her, does absolutely nothing to address the betrayal Sam is still reeling from. She finally says out loud how deeply the affair affected her, and that’s important for her own healing, sure. But it doesn’t soften the blow for the person who just found out the truth.
I keep wondering who Sam called after his breakdown with the bat, my gut says it’s Taylor, and that she might be circling back into his life at exactly the wrong (or right) moment. There’s also a real chance the show flips the expected ending entirely, with the finale built around Sam and Percy actually getting a proper goodbye instead of a reconciliation.
The Jordie and Delilah dynamic is the other thread I can’t stop picking at. It’s a little frustrating, honestly, watching Jordie treat Delilah’s breakdowns as the one thing that always takes priority, no matter what else is happening or who else might need him. It really does feel like there’s lingering love there on his end, why else would he drop everything, including plans with Chantal, the instant Delilah shows cracks?
That worries me a bit for where everyone lands. My read going into the finale: Chantal ends up heading back to Seattle solo while Jordie and Delilah find their way back to each other, Percy stays behind to run the restaurant alongside Charlie, and Sam, the one person who got blindsided by all of this, ends up the one who actually leaves Barry’s Bay.
Every Year After Season 1 Episode 6 | Every Year After Season 1 Episode 8
