The Ex

The Ex continues to stalk Joel and his new girlfriend, whom she nicknames Olive because of her olive-colored skin. While following Olive, the Ex learns that she owns a struggling business and that she visits the same coffee shop around lunch most days. She is secretly grateful that Lydia is refusing to see her, knowing that she’d admit her stalking and that Lydia would tell Pete, who would tell Joel. Despite her grandmother’s attempts to set her up with other men, the Ex remains obsessed with Joel.

While on a date at the Central Park Zoo, Cassie and Joel run into Joel’s friends Pete and Con and their wives, Lydia and Anna. Pete and Lydia’s daughter Violet comments that Cassie looks exactly like Francesca, embarrassing Cassie and Joel. Lydia and Anna suggest that Joel is looking to settle down and have kids soon, worrying Cassie. They also reveal that Francesca is an excellent chef and owns an Italian restaurant. Cassie wonders if that is why Joel wanted to avoid Italian food on their first date.

The Ex follows Joel to Central Park using the WhereAmI app. She suspects that Joel is falling in love with the woman she has nicknamed Olive, but cannot bring herself to stop following him. She watches him playing football with Pete and another man she does not recognize. When the man approaches a hot dog stand near her, she gets in line behind him to study him more closely. After she stops the stand owner from scamming him, the man introduces himself as Dean and asks her out. She declines.

While on a date at a comedy club, Cassie begins to question her feelings for Joel. She compares their relationship to that of her grandparents and realizes that if Joel died, she wouldn’t want him to haunt her, the way her grandmother believed her grandfather did. She decides that the best way to test her feelings is to have sex with Joel, and she asks him to take her home. At Joel’s apartment, she can’t shake the feeling that they are being watched and insists that he close his blinds.

The Ex is devastated as she watches Joel and “Olive” disappear into his apartment, presumably to have sex. She sits in a coffee shop across the street from Joel’s building waiting for Olive to leave and knowing that she is likely to spend the night. When the 20-something waiter at the coffee shop flirts with her, she briefly considers going home with him. However, when the man actually propositions her, she can’t bring herself to be with anyone but Joel. She decides she needs to do something about the new girl or get over it.

The next morning, Cassie rides the subway back to her apartment, which she owns outright, having inherited it from her grandparents Bea and Marv. Cassie worries that she will have to sell the apartment soon in order to pay Bookland’s bills. When she arrives at the apartment, she finds that someone has written the word “SLUT” in the same red paint that was used to vandalize Bookland. She decides not to report it, worried that police will enter her apartment and find an unnamed item left in the apartment by her grandfather.

The Ex wakes up feeling hungover and regretting her decision to go to Olive’s apartment late the night before. She is shocked to find Joel’s friend Dean outside of her work, but agrees to let him buy her peanuts from a street vendor. Dean reveals that Joel saw him talking to her on the day they met. Joel told Dean where she worked. Dean asks her out again, and she rejects him. However, she does take his card and promises not to throw it away. As she leaves, she feels confident that she won’t call him.

Three days after her home is vandalized, Cassie goes out of her way to walk past Francesca’s restaurant, Angela’s Ristorante, in order to spy on her. She doesn’t see Francesca inside, and she is walking away when she runs into Joel. She asks him to dinner to see if he’ll suggest Angela’s Ristorante, but he says he doesn’t know any good restaurants nearby. Cassie realizes that Joel was likely in the area to see Francesca, and she worries that he is still in love with her.

While at Starbucks, the Ex fields a phone call from her mother, who chastises her for not being over Joel and encourages her to find a new man to date and eventually marry. She is shocked when Olive walks into the café, and she worries that Olive will recognize her from Joel’s social media. She steals Olive’s keys and goes to a hardware store next door to the cafe to have them copied. Although she knows she is crossing a line, she feels that having Olive’s keys will make it easier to break her and Joel up.

Cassie receives a text from Joel’s friend Lydia inviting her to a Halloween party with a note that costumes are mandatory. Cassie worries that her usual Halloween costumes are too revealing for the type of party she thinks Lydia will host, and she asks for costume ideas. Lydia suggests that she dress as Cleopatra, and Cassie’s coworker Zoe offers to help Cassie construct an appropriate costume. When a police officer enters, Cassie worries that he has come to arrest her. She is relieved when he asks for a book for his daughter.

While window shopping, the Ex runs into Melissa, the partner of Joel’s medical school classmate Greg. Melissa asks for updates about her life, and the Ex tells her that she has opened an Italian restaurant and that she and Joel are engaged. The Ex panics when Melissa suggests that the four of them go out for dinner. When her card is declined at checkout, the Ex realizes her story is falling apart, and that Melissa knows everything she said has been a lie. She leaves the store embarrassed.

After Zoe finishes Cassie’s makeup and puts together her costume, Cassie feels sexy and sophisticated. When Joel sees her, he looks shocked and displeased but won’t offer Cassie an explanation. He treats her coldly during the ride to the party and pulls away violently when she tries to hold his hand in the elevator. As soon as they arrive at the party, Joel disappears and begins drinking heavily. His friend Pete also acts coldly to Cassie throughout the party. Pete’s wife Lydia shows off their expensive apartment and brags about the cost of her champagne, suggesting that Cassie is too unsophisticated to appreciate it. Cassie attempts to ignore her and focuses on finding Joel.

On the night of Lydia’s Halloween party, the Ex is at home, disappointed that she wasn’t invited for the first time in years. She knows that Lydia has probably invited Joel and his new girlfriend. The Ex has elaborate fantasies about trashing Olive’s apartment. She knows that she has been acting out of character lately but feels powerless to change her behavior. When her grandmother insists that she go out rather than spend a Saturday night at home, the Ex grabs the keys she stole and copied from Olive’s purse and leaves.