Spoilers

“Forks”

Episode seven of the second season focuses in on Richie and his ‘punishment’ from Carmy, who got him to work/observe at one of the best restaurants in Chicago for one week. Richie saw it as a punishment, but as he kept going, things began to shine brighter for him.

Olivia Colman made a cameo appearance here as the owner of the restaurant and I love her so much. She was easily the best part of the Secret Invasion series and she brings a natural energy and charisma to whatever she is working on. This is no exception as Colman just filled up the one scene she had with Richie.

Watching this episode, I felt more connected to Richie than I have in this entire series. He was not just a loud, blowhard like he is portrayed as, but he was shown as someone who was capable of great thing. The whole ‘respect’ speech given to Richie when he was questioning some of the minute details that made the restaurant such a success was fantastic and you could see it get through the stubbornness that Richie has always shown.

The whole deep dish pizza bit was awesome as well. I kept waiting for Richie to screw it up, because he is someone who has shown us before that his attitude or his stubbornness would get in his way, but he did not. He was successful, even going as far as winning over the staff of the restaurant who were in charge of helping him during this mini-internship.

Watching the way the staff carried out their orders and going above board to ‘make someone’s day.’ was astounding. I wonder if this is the way a real three-star restaurant would execute their service. It was an amazing scene.

We still see the sadness of Richie’s world as Tiffany called him to let him know that she had received a marriage proposal. Richie’s pain was real and popped off the screen.

This whole episode was dedicated to Richie, without much else (just a few moments) from any of the other cast mates. It was really solid of an episode and I am excited to see where Richie’s character goes from here.