Cougar Town - Episode 2.02 - Let Yourself Go - recap

This is the story of a woman who overcomes family crisis. A story of a woman losing her only son. No, I'm not referring to the sudden fake death of baby Stan, but to Jules' loss of Travis for college. Jules thinks she has a week before Travis is leaving to college, and she thinks that it is enough time for her to cope with it without having to board the crazy train. However, when Travis decides to move to his dorms a few days earlier, she fails.

The first stop on the crazy train, includes a drive down the infancy memory lane, where Jules remembers the macaroni necklace she used Travis' hands to make, at the tender age of one. Or how she used to make Travis' cry on demand by pinching him lightly (depends on who you are asking) to make the annoying people go away.

At the next stop, Jules is taking some actions as she walks into Travis in the shower and grabs him out so they could do “fun” things together. The chosen activities include sifting through a box with Travis' old body parts, getting matching toe rings, and Jules favorite: scaring Travis to death so he'll grab her very very tight.

In the meantime, other things are happening in Cougar Town. Bobby and Andy prove that their bromance overcomes cynicism, and they are as strong in love as Eric and Bentz.
Laurie (now known as Jelly Bean) is recalling her happy memories of pretending to go to college, and her love for drinking games that hasn't changed since. Later she also finds herself drawn to Jules' wonderful cleavage (which once Travis ate from!), but really, who can blame her?

Ellie (now known as Satan, because she hasn't told her neighbor, Peeping Tom, that baby Stan wasn't really dead, just so he'll keep doing stuff for her), explains to Grayson that the reason she never talks about baby Stan is because according to Andy, moms who talk about their children all the time are not sexy.

Andy however, rebels against Ellie, and tells a story about baby Stan despite Ellie's death stare. As a punishment for Andy's misbehavior, Ellie withdrawals all eye contact from him. To win Ellie's eyes back, Andy thinks he should get Ellie to talk about baby Stan as well. He thinks that in order for that to happen, baby Stan has to do something big, like walk. So he raises baby Stan up in the air but the cunning plan fails when Ellie walks into the room and sees him doing it.
Finally Ellie explains to Andy that the reason she never talks about baby Stan is because of him. So Andy, Jelly Bean and Grayson reassure Ellie that she'd never be like those neglected type of mothers who only talk about their children, because she is too evil and self absorbed for that.

Bobby as apposed to Jules is having an easier time coping with Travis' leave. But when Travis gives him his old computer, he tries to learn how to use it (with Jelly Bean's help), just so he can keep in touch with him.

On board to the last crazy train stop, Jules tries to have one last family dinner with Travis and Bobby. Only Bobby never shows up, and Jules and Travis end up fighting. Travis leaves home as soon as he can after the fight, leaving Jules sleeping creepily in his bed wearing his lavender and self doubt smelling “stud” t-shirt.

In the end Jules realizes she is a bad mother, and the change isn't just hard for her but for Travis too (it's still harder for her, though), so she and Bobby drive a whole twenty minutes to make up with Travis and get her proper meaningful glance goodbye from him.