Firefly Lane season 2 part 1 recap guide: All 9 episodes explained

It’s been more than a year since Firefly Lane debuted on Netflix and now season 2 of the romantic drama is here! Firefly Lane season 2 part 1 is the first half of the show’s supersized second and final season. Part 1 features nine episodes, and part 2 will have six.

Season 2 addresses why Tully and Kate fall out and much more. If you need a quick season 1 refresher, check out our handy guide.

Without further ado, let’s get into recapping all nine episodes of Firefly Lane season 2 part 1. Major spoilers ahead!

Firefly Lane season 2, episode 1 recap: Wish You Were Here

When we last left off with teen Tully (Ali Skovbye) and teen Kate (Roan Curtis) in the 1970s, Tully moved in with her grandmother after Cloud (Beau Garrett) got arrested on charges of drug possession. Since moving in with her grandma, Tully has spent time learning to crochet and struggling to fit in at her new school.

Visiting Cloud in prison does little to improve her mood. Not only is she less than impressed with Tully’s handmade handkerchief, but she dismisses her daughter the second she starts asking questions about her father.

Meanwhile, Kate is doing everything she can to stay afloat without Tully to guide her. Desperate to get her first kiss from the boy she likes, Kate throws a party complete with a game of spin the bottle. But things quickly go awry when she loses one of her contacts and decides to brave the party sans glasses.

Unable to see clearly, Kate accidentally headbutts her crush, leaving him with a bloody nose. The night ends in serious embarrassment. But things aren’t going much better for Tully. During a party, she gets drunk and experiences deja vu from the night of her assault when one of the guys tries to help her after she falls over in the grass. Luckily, it’s not a repeat of that incident, but it’s enough to send Tully spiraling.

Her grandmother immediately recognizes that Tully is drunk and makes unfavorable comparisons to Cloud, resulting in a nasty argument between the two of them that ends with Tully’s grandmother slapping her across the face. Reaching her breaking point, Tully takes off and returns to Firefly Lane to find Kate. Tully proposes that Kate run away with her to help find her biological father.

1980s

Things are getting hot and heavy between Kate (Sarah Chalke) and Johnny (Ben Lawson) now that they’re finally together, although Kate claims they aren’t “official” yet. We pick up in 1985 with Kate, Johnny, and Tully (Katherine Heigl) still working together at the KPOC news station.

The 1985 segment introduces us to several new characters that will become important to the storyline this season, including Lottie (India de Beaufort), the KPOC intern with a huge crush on Johnny, manipulative governor Benedict Binswanger (Greg Germann), and a rival reporter Dan, or Danny, the sportsman (Ignacio Serricchio), a new handsome recruit at KPOC who has the hots for Tully.

Lottie’s introduction is interesting, to say the least. She runs into Kate in the bathroom and gives her a speech about how Kate is like a legend among mousy wallflowers for landing Johnny Ryan after he spent years pining for Tully. Everything Lottie says is a backhanded compliment that makes Kate feel bad about herself as if she’s been chasing after Tully’s sloppy seconds, waiting in the background for her chance with Johnny.

But surely that’s not true. Johnny is clearly crazy about her. That’s evidenced throughout the 1980s segment in this episode since Kate and Johnny can’t keep their hands off of each other, to the detriment of Kate and Tully’s friendship.

The KPOC crew heads to a big environmental protest against Benedict Binswanger’s logging company Binscorp to sneak under the police tape so Tully can get an exclusive scoop. While there, Tully notices Cloud at the protest and watches her get arrested. Since Cloud going to jail is par for the course, Tully goes to bail her mom out of jail and set her up in a hotel room.

Cloud being Cloud, takes her first opportunity when Tully isn’t in the room to steal her daughter’s cash and take off. An upset Tully tries to contact Kate for support, but she’s too busy fooling around with Johnny.

The final straw comes when Tully returns to their apartment and sees Kate dressed up to attend the premiere of a Madonna movie with Johnny, something she and Tully had been planning to do together. Tully is tired of Kate constantly blowing her off for Johnny. To Kate’s credit, when she realizes how badly Tully her needs her, she tells Johnny she can’t go to the movie and stays in with her best friend instead.

2000s

Things go from bad to worse for Tully in the aftermath of her quitting The Girlfriend Hour due to Wilson King’s (Martin Donovan) harassment. He serves her with a $10 million lawsuit for backing out of her contract. Tully gets a new agent, Justine Jordan (Jolene Purdy), who vows to get the lawsuit thrown out. But if Tully wants to work again, she might have to settle for crappy non-TV jobs, like hosting a reality show called I’d Hit That. Her contract has a non-compete clause for at least one year, so she doesn’t have many options at the moment.

Kate is dealing with the aftermath of Johnny’s accident in Iraq. The good news is that Johnny survived, though he’s pretty banged up. In the aftermath of getting caught in an IED explosion, Johnny’s team flew him to a German hospital to recover. Kate and Tully visit him there, and it’s clear that it’s going to take him some time to recover.

But the biggest surprise comes when Charlotte, formerly little nerdy Lottie from KPOC, shows up in the hospital room looking quite glamorous. Kate and Tully are stunned to see her there, and since Kate and Johnny are divorced, we have to wonder if Charlotte bided her time all these years just like she accused Kate of doing for her chance to finally date Johnny Ryan.

2005

The episode opens with a brief segment taking place in the “future” storyline in 2005, but for the sake of chronological order, I’m putting it here at the bottom.

We still don’t know what event led to Kate and Tully’s falling out, but Kate is pissed that Tully showed up at Bud’s (Paul McGillion) wake. The small snippet we see also tells us that Sean (Jason McKinnon) has since come out as gay to his family since his aunt makes a remark about it. Other than that, the scene we get of Bud’s wake doesn’t shed too much light on where things stand with all of the main characters in 2005, but I’m sure that will change as the season progresses.