Out of Kevin Can F himself and A league of its own to dead to me, College Girls Sex Life, and more, 2022 was a stellar year for TV shows with a focus on female friendships. With less than a month to 2023, Netflix‘s Firefly Lane — a series that follows the 30-year friendship of Kate Mularkey (Sarah Chalke) and Tully Hart (Katherine Heigl) — returned to remind us how powerful and priceless a best friend can be. But by showing a rift between Kate and Tully, the second and final season also effectively captured the heartbreak of a broken friendship.
Based on the novel of the same name by Kristin Hannah Firefly Lane uses flashbacks and frequent timeline hopping to build and flesh out an inseparable friendship that has endured for decades. In scenes from the ’70s, teenagers Kate (Roan Curtis) and Tully (Ali Skovbye) accompany each other through their formative years. In throwbacks to the ’80s, Chalke and Heigl wear wigs, power suits, and shoulder pads to navigate their characters’ 20s. And the early 2000s check-ins offer a glimpse of the 40-something duo in the present day. We see Kate and Tully support each other through romantic relationships, family drama, personal trauma, small wins and big milestones over the years. But after Tully drives drunk and is involved in an accident with Kate’s daughter in the passenger seat, Kate loses all faith in her.
After days apart, the two try to work out their issues in Episode 8, only for Kate to realize she can’t forgive Tully’s latest misstep. “I’m not me without you,” Tully tells her, finding the strength to apologize despite her firm belief in the power love story Line: “Love means you never have to apologize.” Kate appreciates and acknowledges the effort, but knows it was too late. “I’m done bending over to clean up your mess. I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I’m sick of it,” she says. When Tully asks if their three-decade friendship is just…Above, Kate apologizes and walks away. It’s a tough moment to witness, especially since their connection is at the core of the show. But for anyone who has ever lost a friend, the argument is an even bigger blow to the heart.
The last episode in Firefly Lane‘s Season 2, Part 1 paints a poignant picture of two people struggling to pick up the pieces and come to terms with their broken bond. Beyond their friendship purgatory lies the harsh reality that keeps the world spinning after Kate and Tully’s split, whether they’re ready to move on or not. Season 2 Episode 9, “Hart Shaped Box” shows the women who take each day as it comes and train themselves to live without each other. Tully reunites with an old flame, reconnects with her mother, buys and renovates her childhood home, and gains a new career opportunity. Kate loses her father, goes back to school, gets engaged and finds a new boyfriend. As their year apart progresses, the distance between them shrinks and the blow softens. But just like in real life, memories, regrets, and what-ifs inevitably resurface when major milestones appear, or in moments as small as watching a movie, updating an emergency contact, or finding an old photo booth strips in a desk drawer.
When Kate’s father dies, Tully turns up at his funeral uninvited, even though they haven’t spoken in months. She wants to pay respect to the man she considered a father figure, but she also feels an obligation and a deep desire to support her old ride or death from tragedy. Kate wasn’t ready to forgive Tully at the moment, but she later admits, “I miss her. I think about calling her sometimes… all the time. But I can not. I need a new friend without 30 years of baggage between us.” She eventually meets a new friend in her writing class, but quickly learns that all the baggage she was about to give up was the foundation of her and Tully’s intimate, irreplaceable bond.
In a series of silly but purposeful ’80s throwbacks, Tully lets Kate borrow her tanning lamp, under which Kate falls asleep and burns her butt. Without hesitation, Tully comes to the rescue, willingly assessing the damage and helping Kate heal her galley. The plot at first seems like nothing more than fun filler, but as we jump back to the 2000s and see Kate’s new friend horrified when she thinks about examining a worrying rash on Kate’s chest, it becomes clear that her friendship with Tully cannot be replaced. In the final minutes of the episode, Kate learns that the same rash is a rare, aggressive form of inflammatory breast cancer and leaves the doctor’s office in a trance. Tears well up as her legs carry her across town, and after the devastating, life-changing diagnosis, all she can think about is Tully. Coldplay’s The Scientist plays while Kate conjures a supercut from Tully’s memories of the past 30 years. When she finally gets out of her head, she finds herself standing in front of Tully’s apartment building. She takes the elevator up to Tully’s floor, begins with a gentle knock on her door, and after receiving no answer, begins pounding, sobbing, and screaming her name. Kate sinks to the ground, defeated. And in that terrifying moment, she knows that her old best friend — the chosen sister who has been by her side through thick and thin for three decades — is the person who needs her most.
The fact that Kate and Tully’s argument is so heartbreaking is a testament to the performances of Chalke, Heigl, Curtis and Skovbye throughout the series. They made a believable, intimate bond and then sold their destruction with reduced, vulnerable acting and understandable grief. Episode 9’s structure also offered a rare, devastating perspective on both the rift and the healing process. Showing Tully and Kate living their lives apart over the span of a year lets viewers see how each character is coping, struggling to reinvent themselves and longing for the days when they are still together could lean.
Firefly Lanes The second season tests the promise of unconditional love by pushing Kate to her breaking point. And once she breaks down, she can look in the rearview mirror with newfound clarity and see all of Tully’s past transgressions stacked up. The hard realization that she and Tully must break up, and the pain that follows, will resonate with anyone who has been on either side of a broken friendship. But after Kate receives the ultimate reminder that tomorrow is not promised, she and other viewers who have lost touch with a loved one must reflect on how much the hard feelings, pride and differences really matter in the end.
Season 2 Part 1 of Firefly Lane is currently streaming on Netflix.