Is she just replacing one addiction with another? We see no bulimic activity in this episode, but we do see some slight OCD tendencies in how she can’t stop repeating aerobics instructions to herself, and she is doing that thing where you get obsessively into something and all you think about is how to check out of the rest of your life and get back to that thing.
Maybe what it’ll take is transitioning from student to teacher.
If Sheila wishes she could be more like Bunny in the studio, someone else seems to be sliding into Sheila’s turf at home: Simone, whose presence leading Danny’s latest campaign meeting makes me laugh.
In true antiheroine fashion, Sheila reacts to being rebuffed by Abigail by stealing the address book she wielded like a treasure map , and as we listen in on Sheila’s end of all those phone calls, we get even more confirmation that aerobics has become as much a salvation for her as it is a compulsion.
It’s a great interaction that crackles with uncertainty as Sheila and Breem each try to size up the other, but just as Breem seems like he’s about to want something from her, Sheila tells him she’s running late and leaves.
Sheila is, at last, emanating all the parts of herself, the healthy and the not-as-healthy: She’s doing her phrase-repetition thing in her head while also berating Greta in her head while also encouraging her students to use “every ugly thought you’ve ever had about yourself to fuel you,” which could be her talking or could be Jack from the TV talking.
None of this is yours.” Even more surprising, she offers to teach Greta private, in-home lessons so she can avoid the shame she felt in class.