The following recap contains spoilers for Somebody Somewhere S3E4, “What if It Spreads?” (written by Hannah Bos & Paul Thureen & Bridget Everett and directed by Jay Duplass)
Somebody Somewhere S3E4 cuts back and forth between two plotlines. Sam (Bridget Everett) accompanies Tricia (Mary Catherine Garrison) to an expo in Kansas City. Meanwhile, Joel (Jeff Hiller) has to go to a men’s Bible book club with Brad (Tim Bagley).
Joel is nervous about the book club because there won’t be any women there, and he’s never been good at hanging with the guys. Brad assures Joel that everything will be fine, but Joel clearly feels uncomfortable the whole time they’re there. He can’t pass like Brad can, and even if he’s OK with that, he just can’t relate to the other men in the group. One gets the sense that he’d prefer not to try.
Things get a step more uncomfortable for Joel when he notices Brett (David Folsom) in attendance. They make eye contact during the session, but Joel’s body language makes it clear that he wishes they hadn’t.
After the group finishes their discussion of Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God, Brett approaches Joel to apologize for how he treated him when they were in high school. Joel tries to shrug it off, but Brett insists that his behavior was wrong. Joel doesn’t offer forgiveness. He just feels awkward.
Later, Brad suggests that it’s good to know that people can change, and Joel says he isn’t so sure that they can. We’re left to imagine how Brett bullied Joel when they were younger, but I don’t think that Joel is holding a grudge or anything like that. He’d just prefer not to think about it and has no interest in making friends with this guy who was mean to him when they were kids. I am curious as to whether we’ll see Brett again before Somebody Somewhere is over, but I won’t be surprised if we don’t.

At the expo, Tricia is excited to network. She musters the confidence to talk to Cathleen (Cindy Felonk), who is apparently a big deal, and tells Sam that she’s made plans to have breakfast with Cathleen the next morning.
Back in their hotel room, however, a wrench is thrown into that plan when Tricia discovers that she has chlamydia. When Sam pushes the question of who could have given it to her, Tricia lands on Rick (her ex-husband, who we haven’t seen since Season 1). Sam gives Tricia a hard time about this, of course, but it barely lands before Tricia begins yelling about what she’s going to do to Rick. Some of her threats are pretty funny, and I’ll admit I wouldn’t mind seeing her confront Rick (Danny McCarthy) in a future episode.
Anyway, this means that the next morning involves a trip to Urgent Care, and I assume that Tricia cancelled her breakfast plans with Cathleen. I suppose we don’t know that for sure, but I’d be surprised if Sam and Tricia are still in Kansas City for next week’s episode.

The most significant moments of Somebody Somewhere S3E4 happen in the margins of the plot. Joel and Brad talk about loading the dishwasher and putting pictures on the fridge, but the point lies in them figuring out how to live together. Tricia and Sam bond as they deal with Tricia’s STI, and Sam lets on that she has a crush on a guy, though she won’t tell her sister who he is.
Of course, it’s Iceland (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), and Tricia figures that out by the end of the episode. It seems clear that she’ll pressure Sam to ask him out, and given the way he brought a rent check to the bar Sam works at last week, I expect he’ll say yes, though I’m beginning to suspect this will be the endgame for the season.
See you next week.