TV Recap: “Fleishman is in Trouble” Episode 4 – “God, What An Idiot He Was”

Toby Fleishman came to the realization that his missing ex-wife Rachel is likely off with her free pass Sam Rothberg in the last episode of Fleishman is in Trouble. The new FX original series, streaming exclusively on Hulu, returned today with episode 4, titled “God, What An Idiot He Was." As always, Libby is our narrator, and in this episode, she adapts Kubler Ross’ stages of grief into something a little more specific to Toby, the stages of realizing that your wife has left you for a school dad. Let’s recap.

Stage 1 – Shock

Toby Fleishman (Jesse Eisenberg) had avoided social media since his divorce, but after logging into Facebook and seeing that Sam Rothberg (Josh Stamberg) posted that he was at the same yoga retreat as Rachel (Claire Danes), he went back down the rabbit hole. As Toby looks through Rachel’s past photos, he realizes that she had been attracted to Sam for a long time and feels like a fool for not seeing it. Toby snaps his laptop closed in disgust.

Stage 2 – Attempted Indifference

Toby watches a news report about the heat wave that has hit New York City, fantasizing that the newscaster (Azia Celestino) changes from the weather to reporting on Toby’s personal turmoil. As Toby’s life literally falls apart, so too does his apartment. His air conditioner sputters, unable to keep up with the heatwave, and his blinds begin to break. Toby tries everything in his power to get to sleep, but he just can’t. He wonders if Miriam Rothberg knows about her husband and his ex-wife. Are they getting divorced? After cooling his head in the freezer, Toby calls Libby Epstein (Lizzy Caplan) and catches her up to speed on everything he found out. Libby takes the call from her bedroom balcony, secretly smoking a cigarette while her husband Adam (Josh Radnor) sleeps alone in their bed. Libby speculates that Rachel may have been sleeping with Sam before she agreed to the divorce. Toby remembers their weekend at Paniquil (Sam Rothberg’s second home named after a drug that made him a lot of money) and recalls how delighted Rachel was as Sam bragged about his 5-figure watch. By the morning, Toby has reached the third stage.

Stage 3 – Masturbation

In which Toby discovers that he’s too stressed to finish. Moving on.

Stage 4 – Confrontation

Toby decides he will pay Rachel a visit at her apartment in The Golden. On his way, he has an awkward moment with a woman (Katy Copeland) he recognizes, but can’t recall where from. Her face shows a similar level of uncomfortable familiarity and they go their separate ways as they realize they met on the dating app and had a video session one night. Toby feels like all of the turmoil in his life right now is some form of punishment for finally having fun.

“Long time no see, Dr. Fleishman,” The Golden doorman (Charles Everett) greets Toby as he enters the lobby. He goes up the elevator, gets to Rachel’s door, and is just about to knock when his phone rings. It’s the hospital and his high-priority patient, Karen Cooper, is going into liver failure.

Toby arrives at the hospital and finds David Cooper (John Patrick Hayden) in shock as he tells him about the process of finding a liver donor for his wife. The wealthy Mr. Cooper offers money to bypass a waitlist, but Toby tells him that’s not how this works. However, he provides comfort by stating that since Karen has kids, she will get high priority. Toby encourages David to go be with his kids, watching them through the lobby window and wishing he had a normal marriage like this.

Back to his quest to confront Rachel, Toby calls the elevator to go down, but when the doors open, his boss Dr. Janice Wong (Pearl Sun) steps out. She tells Toby that they’re short a hepatologist for surgery and asks him to help. Toby reluctantly agrees. “It won’t take that long, I truly appreciate it,” Dr. Wong assures him.

A rush of disorienting heat hits Toby in the face as he leaves the hospital, marching right back to The Golden. “Long time no see, Dr. Fleishman,” the doorman repeats, as if he hadn’t just seen Toby a few hours ago. Toby knocks on Rachel’s door. No answer. He pulls out his key and unlocks the door. “Hello?” No answer. Toby hasn’t been inside since he moved out and is overwhelmed by little vignettes of his life there. He and Rachel helping Solly (Maxim Swinton) with homework; Toby on the balcony consoling Hannah (Meara Mahoney Gross) over something that upset her. Back to reality, Toby finds one of Rachel’s workout shirts on the floor, picks it up, and smells it to assess if it’s clean or worn. Toby pokes through Rachel’s open duffel bag and opens a tin, which contains edibles, something very uncharacteristic of Rachel. The kitchen counter contains multiple boxes of tea. Rachel hates tea. Inside the refrigerator, there are three containers of beef lo mein. Rachel hates beef lo mein. In a memory of the family having take out, she always ordered dishes with shrimp or lobster.

Toby suddenly starts to imagine Rachel’s life alone in this apartment accompanied by Sam Rothberg. Rachel is unlike herself in these hallucinations. Toby’s day terror is interrupted by a phone call from Libby, and he tells her he’s looking for confirmation that Sam Rothberg has been in Rachel’s apartment. Toby eventually finds it in the medicine cabinet. A prescription for Ambien with a name on the bottle – Sam Rothberg. Toby goes to the kitchen and grabs the toaster, pulling the chord out of the wall and taking it with him. On his way out of the apartment, Toby sees more hallucinations of Rachel’s wild life with Sam. He calls her phone. It goes straight to voice mail. He leaves a message threatening that she will never see their kids again.

Stage 5 – Reclamation

Toby calls his lawyer’s office and begs the assistant to get him an emergency meeting. He will have to wait two hours. He passes The Corner Bookstore and goes inside to wait for his appointment.

Stage 6 – Distraction

Toby sits on a bench reading Decoupling by Archer Sylvan, a book about the dissolution of a marriage published in the 1970s which blames women's liberation for the rise in divorce rates. It was a guilty pleasure for both Toby and Libby, but is also a book that hasn’t aged well. Toby glances up and makes eyes with a woman who seems attracted to him. Then she sees what he’s reading, makes a disgusted face, and turns away from him.

Toby and his toaster wait for his lawyer, Barbara (J. Smith-Cameron), outside of her brownstone. She returns in a tennis outfit holding a racket, telling Toby she was busy. Inside her home office, Toby tells his lawyer that Rachel has been absent for two weeks and he’s like to adjust his custody agreement. “I want to make sure she has no access to the kids, like none, like forever,” he declares. “It sounds like you already have that,” Barbara responds. Barbara is hazy on some of the details of Toby’s case, needing him to remind her what his ex-wife does (she quotes a lyric from Presidentrix! when he reminds her) and says “Good for you” when Toby says he’s a doctor. Barbara confirms that Rachel is still paying child support, but Toby says that’s not the point. Barbara reminds him that custody laws are typically freighted for the husbands. “It doesn’t exactly feel very freighted,” Toby scoffs. “It feels like pretty much the opposite here.” Barbara looks up from her paperwork. “No, in this case, you’re the wife,” she reveals.

Stage 7 – Humiliation

Feeling emasculated, Toby goes directly to visit Nahid (Mozhan Marnò). She opens the door, glances at the toaster, but decides not to ask about it. “Let’s do this,” Toby says as he is invited in.

Stage 8 – Fornication

“That was interesting,” Nahid comments postcoitus. “Is there something you wanna talk about?” Toby declines, saying he can’t go home tonight. Nahid invites him to spend the night.

In the morning, Nahid brings Toby a cup of coffee as he looks outside at the beautiful sunny (and hot) day. He wants to take her out for breakfast, but she says she can’t. She doesn’t want to explain why, she simply can’t go out with him. Toby feels like she doesn’t want to be seen with him. Nahid asks if he’s mad and Toby says no.

Toby goes for a walk in Central Park, disgusted by a young couple exhibiting PDA. He sits on a bench near a smug man in a suit (Matt Hopkins) who lights up a cigarette right in front of a “No Smoking” sign. “Hey, excuse me, you can’t smoke here,” Toby tells the man.

Stage 9 – Misdirected Aggression

The man ignores Toby. “Hey, buddy, there’s a sign, you can’t smoke here.” Toby has snapped, rattling on about how there are societies have rules and you can’t just do whatever you want. The stranger remains calm as he gets up. “You’re a crazy little guy,” he says as he walks away, still smoking.

Toby calls Libby, interrupting her cardio class to invite her to the city to hang out with him. She promised her kids an afternoon at the pool but compromises by inviting Toby to New Jersey to join her family. Toby takes the train, where a woman asks to sit in the toaster’s seat, so he holds it in his lap the entire way. “Do you want some toast?”, Libby asks in confusion when she opens her front door to see Toby with a Toaster. He tells her it’s a gift and she points out that it’s used. Adam is confused to see Toby and it turns out Libby forgot to tell him her friend was coming. The house is chaotic, with Libby’s daughter Sasha (Lucinda Lee Dawson Gray) arguing about her one-piece bathing suit, Adam getting frustrated that Libby is talking to Toby instead of helping pack up for the pool, and Libby flustered by a freezer door that seemingly opens by itself. Adam loans Toby a pair of swim trunks.

Libby changes into her tankini at the country club changing room while Toby tries to make conversation with Adam, who is reading a novel and giving short answers. Libby has to take her son Miles (Oscar Bennett) to a swim lesson, leaving Toby and Adam alone together even longer. Adam naps while Toby scrolls through his dating app. Libby worries about what Toby must think of her, having known her in her youth when she was full of promise and potential, now seeing her in suburbia wearing a variation of the same swimsuit as all the other housewives, talking to other mothers about plans for their kids to get together. “It’s been really nice hanging out with you guys again,” Toby tells Adam, trying to have a conversation. “Well, Libby,” Adam corrects Toby before adding “It’s been nice to see her interested in something again.” Toby watches all of the other dads in the pool with their kids, longing for this simpler life.

Adam, Sasha, Miles, and Toby hold down a table while Libby balances two treys full of food for lunch. Libby is surprised to see that Toby has changed out of Adam’s swim trunks and he tells her he has to go. Libby is confused, she thought he was going to join them for a barbeque later. Toby tells her he has plans to go to some underground restaurant with Seth. In front of Adam, Libby suggests that she join him so she can help Toby buy replacement blinds for his apartment. Adam reminds Libby that they had plans to watch Ratatouille tonight and that another family is coming over for it. Adam looks frustrated with Libby as she tells him she is going to walk Toby out. As they walk away from her family, Toby tells her that the club is amazing and that she’s lucky to have this life. She offers to drive Toby to the train station and he snaps. “Libby, please, take the hint, I don’t want you to come.” Toby walks away and Libby is stunned. In her voice-over, Libby says “This stage is called being a dick.”

“He couldn’t bare the families anymore,” Libby’s narration continues as we see Toby riding the train back to the city, sandwiched between a family. He has a memory of the last few months of his marriage after Rachel had agreed to divorce but before he moved out. Things were mostly civil, but on a visit to see Toby’s family in L.A., they had an argument. Rachel was talking to Toby about her plans to remain friends after they separate and that they could even have more kids. “Rachel, if you’re interested in parenting, I know two kids who would love a mother,” Toby coldly replied. They began to fight, and Toby’s mom Sharon (Anne L. Nathan) had to ask them not to ruin the holiday.

Toby enters Chelsea Laundromat and Drycleaners, looking a little lost as he follows the sound of a party through a door marked “Employee’s Only” to find the secret Asian restaurant. He finds Seth Morris (Adam Brody) already seated at a table with his girlfriend Vanessa (Francis Li), who is in public relations and handles this spot. Seth already ordered an appetizer of fugu, pufferfish liver that is potentially lethal if not prepared correctly. Vanessa steps away and in private, Seth tells Toby that he lost his job. His boss is being investigated for insider trading and he is freaking out that his reputation is tarnished and will have to start at the bottom again. Seth asks Toby to keep this a secret from Vanessa as Toby wonders if Seth had the right approach to dating, never settling down. Toby looks around the restaurant and starts to feel like every man there is just like Seth Rothberg. He is saved by a phone call from the hospital. A liver has arrived for Karen Cooper, which feels like a sign from the universe. He tells Seth he has to leave.

Stage 10 – Constant Motion

Dr. Marco Lintz (Kwabena Ampofo) leads the surgery as Toby comforts David Cooper. “She’s in very good hands,” he says as David leaves the room to return to his children. Another woman is at Karen’s bedside, who introduces herself as Karen’s best friend Amy (Tara Westwood). She shows Toby photos of Karen on their girls' trip to Las Vegas right before she ended up in the hospital. Toby has always tried to imagine his unconscious patients as smart, important people. But here are photos of Karen Cooper at a strip club posing with a scantly clad cowboy. He realizes he made Karen Cooper into something she isn’t and wonders if he did the same thing to Rachel.

Toby moves through the hospital hallways, passing Janice, who recognizes that he is distraught. “Everything okay?”, she asks. “Her kids are my kids age, it just got me thinking,” Toby responds. He sees his residents – Phillip (Ralph Adriel Johnson), Clay (Brian Miskell), and Joanie (Ava Yaghmaie) – who tell Toby he should go home and sleep. “I want to stay; just wake me if anything happens.” Toby goes to his office and lies on his couch.

Stage 11 – Exhaustion

Toby has a dream that Karen Cooper (Julie Tolivar) wakes him up. “I made it through surgery,” she smiles. “My new liver is amazing. You saved my life. You’re an amazing doctor. I’m an amazing wife. Do you want to marry me next?” Toby asks Karen Cooper not to die. “I’m not here to play God,” she says as she climbs on top of Toby, sitting in his lap and beginning to make love to him. He tells her to stop, and that she will open her incision if she doesn’t. Karen doesn’t stop.

Joanie wakes Toby from his nightmare, telling him it’s time to do rounds. He walks through the hallways groggy as Joanie gets an alert that Karen Cooper is being awoken from her surgery. “You know, we’re here for the bad parts, we should also be here for the good,” Toby says as they go to Karen’s room. They look through the windows at David holding his wife’s hands, relieved that she’s awake. Karen cries. Toby’s eyes become misty. “I have to go check on someone else,” he lies to Joana as he goes back to his office and sits at his desk.

Stage 12 – Acceptance

Toby sits at his desk, having a total breakdown. He’s not just crying, he’s sobbing. The camera inverts and begins to back out of his office. New York City, Toby’s world, is once again upside down.

Episode 5 of FX’s Fleishman is in Trouble will be released on Thursday, December 8th, on Hulu. Titled “Vantablack," here’s what we have to look forward to next week.

Toby uses every resource he has — from a night out with Seth to a visit to the American Museum of Natural History — to combat his loneliness.