TV Recap: ‘Accidentally on Purpose,’ “The Third Man”

Image courtesy of TV Guide

Zack’s brought home plenty of girls since he moved in with Billie (anyone remember crazy Sasha?). But when she brings home a guy, he gets a little jealous.

David Sutcliffe is back as Brian, Billie’s co-worker. They’ve been dating for a few weeks, and it’s heating up – much to Zack’s annoyance. Billie is happy that the stars are all aligning and that she’s finally happy, but Zack thinks there’s something fishy going on.

After Davis scares him into thinking he could lose Billie and the baby, Zack insists that the three of them go out to lunch, where he tries to get to know Brian. Things take a turn for the worse when Brian reveals that he bought Billie a crib – which is something Zack thought was his responsibility and right.

He storms off and runs into James, who isn’t very happy to see Billie with Brian either (despite sleeping with EVERYONE lately, James still seems a bit hung up). James takes Zack to the bar, and buys Zack and his friends drinks. After a few too many, Zack decides to take out his feelings for Brian – on the guy’s car.

With crab.

The car alarm goes off right at a bad moment – especially from Billie’s perspective. James, who’s taking photos, ducks out of the way, but Brian sees Zack and his friends putting crabs in his car. Luckily, he’s not mad at Billie, though Billie’s plenty mad at Zack – he gets to date whoever he wants, but she’s having some trouble finding a guy because of the baby and doesn’t want to screw this up.

The newspaper runs a retrospective of Brian’s work and Billie attends, but she’s not the only guest – Brian’s ex-wife comes to show her support, and makes Billie uncomfortable by being clingy with Brian. Billie and Brian finally have a talk, and she learns that they divorced because Brian wanted a family – and sees Billie and her baby as a ready-made one. Billie reminds him that it’s not that simple, and Brian seems surprised when he learns that she’s “keeping” Zack.

They decide to cool it for a while, so Billie ends up at home with Zack, Olivia, Abby, and Zack’s crazy friends.

And the crab.

I’m not a huge fan of Brian – waaaaay too much time watching Gilmore Girls on DVD (thanks for letting me borrow them for a year and a half, sis!) is making me just see Chris every time Sutcliffe comes on screen, and it kind of ruins the character for me. However, I am liking Zack’s jealousy – they’re obviously going to end up together at the end of the show, but it’s nice to see that he’s not comfortable seeing her with someone else, even if he’s not sure why.

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