So I saw the episode and oddly, I actually liked it. The Juliette and Avery parts of course. I don't know why, but Juliette's parts before the whole indiscretion made me chuckle and I stilly sympathsized with her. Juliette's that type of character that acts a certain way to avoid showing the truth. It's like she reaches for exaggeration on things to hide the small things that she feels she can't show people. Reviews are already saying that she's jealous and insanely insecure like its a bad thing, but that's who she's always been. Her character has always been that way from day one because she hasn't had a reason to believe anything else. She's jealous because she doesn't value herself to believe she's good enough, if not better. She's insecure because she always feels like someone else will come around the corner to be the better version of her or that happiness is short lived for her because then the other shoe will drop and she'll be alone as she's always been.

I felt like everyone was handling Scarlett with kid gloves tonight. Again, the story feels too forced on me. It doesn't feel like I got to experience this with Scarlett but am being told that you should like her again because she was abused by a mean mother. Mind you, this is just two episodes of this, with this episode supposed to lead to us completely falling for Scarlett again. I hate when I'm being told to like a character or the character is hogging screen time or being talked about so because you're not allowing me as a viewer to make up my own mind. I just don't find this storyline believable because again, it doesn't take her being in an institution to confront her mother. I've seen powerful episodes of kids facing their parents about what they've done to them growing up without institutions being brought in. Then it irks me that they have to lessen Juliette as a character to build Scarlett up. I don't understand why they couldn't have kept the same integrity.

Sadly, I don't blame Juliette for turning elsewhere. Do I agree with the decision, no, but she felt like Avery was on Scarlett's side. Then overhearing what she heard, she felt like the other shoe was about to drop for her. I got that and understood that because she's just an insecure character, there is no getting around that. As great as Avery is for Juliette, she needs to validate herself and be good enough for herself. I think she looks to Avery to define who she is in some sense. It was like she was acting out with others but expected Avery to cut to the crap with her as he's always done, so that she could vent and be vulnerable but he just didn't pick up on it, and when he couldn't do that for her she panicked. She went to him, to open up and save face but then heard something that only validated her fears. Avery is Juliette’s safe place that she thought she never had or could find, problem is, she can’t be co-dependent on someone like that.
I don’t blame Juliette for feeling the way she felt after overhearing Avery and Scarlett because at this point, Juliette has no real clue as to what she means to Avery. Yes, you can be someone’s girlfriend but doesn’t mean they feel the same as you do in the course of the relationship. For what we’ve seen, Juliette has always made it known to Avery how she felt about him and Avery hasn’t done so much with her in the course of the relationship and even prior.
Example:
“There is one thing I need. That I have to have….you” Juliette
“As far as I’m concerned, you’re my best offer” Juliette
“You have the potential to ruin me. You have my heart” Juliette
“I want to be able to say I love you to someone and really mean it. So…” Juliette

In all those cases, Juliette has pretty much said I love you in so many ways that I’m surprised it’s taken Avery so long to say it. So of course if she has no real idea of if Avery is in the relationship as she is, she’d be quick to be jealous and insecure because she genuinely loves him and that’s a constant I see in every episode, even when she tries to be the bitch or brat.
I actually thought the hook up wasn’t that bad because she had to zone out to even go through with it. Like she did it as a means to say screw you to Avery but again like Charlie was, Avery is the catalyst for her to be good and bad. Then the person she hooked up with, I think it just pointed moreso to the issues with her than the average cheating storyline. Sometimes you cheat and hook up with someone to avoid feeling, then sometimes you cheat and hook up with someone because you want to. I think she hooked up with Jeff because there was no like or emotion involved, she knew afterwards she’d still hate him and it was a means to numb the pain she may have felt. They had little to no conversation before the hook up, so it wasn’t like she set out to cheat.
As far as the reason why I like the episode, I thought it was cute that both Juliette and Avery have keys to each other’s place. She went to his place to make up and even slept there, let herself in and everything. Then he clearly crashes at her place a lot with his want to take a shower and nap. Then I found their arguing or bickering to be funny because JJ/HP play off each other so well. I laughed when he called her crazy and she had this whole “I know his ass didn’t just call me crazy”. I don’t know, I just love the acting between JJ/HP because it feels so authentic and natural. Then I liked the Juliette line “This is insane” with the whole wrong choice of words, but I would’ve said the same thing too
If they’re trying to pump S/A, I’m sorry but even when they tried to ruin Juliette, I still saw more in her character that didn’t have to be told or mentioned in every characters conversation like Scarlett. Hayden plays her character well and goes good with Johnathen in their style of acting. There’s a reason why HP/JJ were getting recognized, and as a writer, I would love to write Juliette because she’s organically complex. She’s still that under dog that you root for.