Previously: E.L. James tries to convince us that nothing is Grey’s fault.
—
Marines: Look, there’s two more “chapters” left in this book, but one is two pages long and I’m just going to finally put this whole thing out of it’s misery. So, hooray, welcome to the last Grey recap! (A: For real , this time!)(J: Huzzah!)
Grey is having a nightmare of finding his mother dead. I think we’ve read about his having this nightmare before so it doesn’t even seem very evil to be like, “moving right along” about it.
Alex: The nightmare ends with Baby Grey saying ‘I have no words’. That’s basically been me for the past five or six recaps.
Mari: Grey wakes up from his nightmare and realizes he’s in bed and tries to calm down. “I’m twenty-seven, not four. This shit has to stop.” That’s not how it really works, Grey, but OKAY. Command your nightmares!
Oh, wait, I was joking but Grey actually says that he used to have his nightmares “under control” but now that Ana is gone everything is the worst and his nightmares are out of control.
Jessica: Again feeling kinda blame-y toward Ana. 🙁
Mari: Remember back in the beginning of these recaps, like 87 years ago or whatever, when we couldn’t decide why E.L. James only put certain things in italics? All of these are Grey’s thoughts, but for some reason, some of his thoughts are in italics and we decided they were the disembodied thoughts of Grey’s penis. Okay, well, now this is happening:
“”Have you thought about trying a relationship her way?””
The quotations aren’t me! The quotations are in the text! I definitely can’t remember who the hell Grey is quoting TO HIMSELF but I think it’s HIMSELF? He’s quoting Dick de Grey to himself???
Alex: Or… he’s quoting Dr Flynn from the previous chapter, which makes sense if you actually, you know… read the previous chapter (sorry again, Mari).
J: Bahaha! That’s ok Mari, we don’t blame you. We didn’t super want to read that chapter either.
Mari: Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I’m leaving this all in here even though I wrote it weeks ago and I have editing powers. JUST LAUGH IT UP.
Grey wonders if he can be romantic and frowns at the idea. He’s only ever been romantic with Ana and he lists those times: the gliding, and IHOP, and taking her up in Charlie Tango.
IHOP.
I guess these pancakes are pretty sexy.
J: Romance – hearts and flowers and pancakes, amirite? No seriously though, pancakes are awesome. The restaurant IHOP itself … meh.
Mari: Grey falls back to sleep by chanting “she’s mine, she’s mine” to himself. He has sexy dreams, not nightmares, until he wakes up with a tingly scalp…? And he’s like, “maybe something external is making my scalp tingle?” But he gets up and looks around and notices that nothing is there making his scalp tingle? And also he’s proud of himself for not having an erection after his erotic dreams? And we’re moving on from the scalp tingles, but the mystery of why it was tingling has not yet been solved.
Grey thinks that Elena would be real proud of him for not waking up with morning wood (??).
Alex: Wow, isn’t it just great that this book encourages such a healthy attitude towards sexuality? Grey continually scolding himself for getting aroused is so, so weird in a book which is supposed to be erotic and sexually liberating.
Mari: E.L. James wants you to have sex but just feel very, very bad about it.
Elena texted him the previous day, but Grey doesn’t want to talk to her. There is only one thing he wants. He puts on his running gear and tells us, “I’m going to check on Ana.” Please note that he says “check on” so that we can pretend it has something to do with Ana’s wellbeing and safety and not Grey’s perpetual need to stalk the poo out of his love interested.
We cut to Grey on her quiet street as he stands there and just stares at her window “from my stalker’s hide.” Not his hide out, just his stalker HIDE, which makes me think he’s dressed in some kind of animal carcass. Oh, wait:
#Americanisms
Alex: #SupposedBritishismsThatNoOneInBritainUses
Mari: #ELJamesisms
Anyway, Grey decides he needs a plan to win her back and runs home. (A: Didn’t I just recap pretty much this exact same scene in the previous chapter? Not only is E. L. dragging this out, she’s dragging it out by repeating the same material over and over). (J: He’s gone to stalk her apartment at least three different times now. It’s probably copy and paste, but don’t bet on any of us going back to double check it.) (M: THIS IS WHY I ACCIDENTALLY SKIPPED A CHAPTER, OKAY?)
Back at Escala, he asks Mrs. Jones for a croissant and she’s completely taken aback by this development. He didn’t eat for a WHOLE DAY so obviously, it’s like she thought he’d never eat again. Mrs. Jones smiles a lot at Grey and he’s like, “damn. Croissants make her happy. I should have more of them.” Or maybe you shouldn’t be a giant dick every other day, so that she’s beaming with joy whenever you act like a normal human being. Maybe.
J: I definitely had to laugh when he decided that croissants were the reason behind Mrs. Jones’ happiness. Maybe he’d even take her to IHOP if he didn’t think it would make her husband jealous.
Mari: We cut to Grey being driven in his Audi, trying to think of a game plan to win Ana back. Step one is to call Andrea’s desk and leave a message asking her to review his schedule with him for the next few days as soon as she’s in.
“There– step one in my offensive is to make time in my schedule for Ana.”
Absolute mastermind, this one.
We cut to the office. Andrea tells Grey that she cancelled all of social engagements except for one the next day that just says, “Portland.” “Yes!” Grey thinks. “The fucking photographer.” He’s so happy about the photographer he hates. He orders a coffee (a latte, in case you were desperately curious) and head back into his office.
We cut to the end of the morning and I’m wondering why I didn’t decide to drink for every cut. (J: Liver failure?) (M: Oh.) It’s lunch time and Grey tells us that his whole staff is looking at him pretty much like a bomb set to explode. He’s like, “well, okay. That’s how I’ve been behaving for the last few days…” Also, like, that’s part of why your girlfriend left you. Just FYI.
Olivia brings him in a chicken sandwich but it has no mayo and he asked for mayo so he snaps at her. Once she’s gone, Grey calls Andrea into the office and tells her to fire the girl. Probably Andrea shouldn’t be the one firing her, dick, but okay. Sure. Andrea can fire the girl and find someone new to replace her and I’m not actually surprised that Grey’s Empire of Domestic Violence Emporiums probably doesn’t have an HR department. (A: Hmm, what do you do for a living again, Mari?) (M: *cough*)
Grey is left alone to his mayoless sandwich and decides to write an email to Anastasia. He tries out “Dear Ana,” “Dear Anastasia” and “Dear Miss Steele” as possible openings but we thankfully cut away from this misery before Grey takes us through a million drafts of what are already painfully dull emails.
Oh! But wait! We actually cut to him still trying to figure out what to write. IDK why we cut from him struggling to write an email to him struggling to write an email. I want to cry.
The email he ends up with basically hopes work is going well, asks if she got his flowers, and then notes that she probably hasn’t bought a new car yet. Grey offers to drive her to Portland for Josecob’s photography show. He sends and starts pacing the office, waiting for a response. We get exciting moments like:
“Back at my desk, I check my e-mail yet again.
Nothing.”
And:
“I check my watch… 14:09.
Four minutes!
Still nothing.”
But then hark! An email!
But it’s just from Ros.
But Hark Part 2! Another email!
It’s from Ana! I’m just adding exclamation points now even though none of this is exciting! Ana is in for a lift from her ex-boyfriend who’s been spending his morning watching her window. They exchange more emails to set a pick-up time and Grey happily thinks thank his campaign to win Ana back is underway.
Alex: This is SO STUPID. They had this huge, dramatic break-up just a few days ago and now they’re suddenly exchanging these formal emails and agreeing to drive to Portland together. None of this makes any sense.
Mari: From the emails, Grey now knows that Ana is working for Jack Hyde and immediately starts making calls to get info on him and probably samples of his DNA and access to his bank account or whatever the shit creepy stalker billionaires do. Grey has a meeting with Ros but…
We cut away from it. Grey gives Andrea instructions about Charlie Tango for the next day. He asks if Olivia is gone and apparently Andrea got her transferred into finance. Excellent. Never have to worry about mayo for a living scrotum wrinkle again, Olivia. Be free!
Grey tells Andrea to cancel all his meetings for the rest of the day. I think 87% of Andrea’s job is just canceling meetings. (A: And finding blank notecards. Don’t forget the blank notecards).
We cut to Tyler driving Grey to the Mac store because he’s going to buy Ana an iPad. It’s cool because we know that Ana has reacted really badly to his gifts before, so the fact that he’s like, “I know! I’ll get her a gift!!” is a wonderful example of why Grey doesn’t actually give a damn about Ana, apart from her having some holes he can play with.
“Leaning back in my seat, I close my eyes and contemplate which apps and songs I’m going to download and install for her. I could choose “Toxic.” I smirk at the thought. No, I don’t think that would be popular with her. She’d be mad as hell– and for the first time in a while the thought of her mad makes me smile.”
Grey does clarify that he means mad like she was in Georgia, back when she said, “please let me have some space from you to spend time with my mother” and he followed her anyway, and not mad like last Saturday when he repeatedly hit her so hard, she broke up with him. Gotta make that distinction!
But he won’t dwell there. Gotta think some more about those song choices, you know! Important relationship stuff. Grey gets a text from Elliot, simply so he can blow Elliot off, I guess, because then we cut away from there.
J: There are so many pointless details in this chapter – lattes, chicken and mayo, random texts. It’s just a ton of filler around a skeletal “plot” that’s about as interesting as watching paint dry.
Mari: I’d pick the paint at this point.
Grey finishes his playlist and thinks about when Ana was dancing in his kitchen after the first time they had sex. He sighs at the memory of her wanting to touch him, but that’s still a hard limit for him. That’s something he’s going to have to make her understand, but first, he must continue his evil plan to get her back. He hopes this iPad and it’s dedication (“Anastasia– this is for you. I know what you want to hear. This music on here says it for me. Christian.”) is romantic enough. Grey dares to hope and then heads to bed. (J: P.S. When you’re ready, let’s go back to IHOP.)
That’s the end of that chapter and then OH MY GOD GUYS. THE LAST ONE.
THE LAAAAST ONE.
Mother f… it starts with a nightmare. This time it’s Grace examining Grey, but I think this is after she’s already adopted him. Grey dreams of squirreling food away, of punching Elliot and of piano lessons. In his dream, the piano teacher morphs into Ana. Dream!Ana says she loves Christian.
Christian wakes with a start and we end this waste of paper with, “Today, I win her back.”
BUT WE DON’T HAVE TO READ ABOUT IT.
WE MADE IT!
There’s so much and so little left to say!
- Yeah, this was awful. We knew it would be. It was. At it’s very, very worst it actually revealed new and deeper levels of Grey’s total criminal behavior. Most of the time, IT WAS JUST THE SAME EXACT BOOK I ALREADY RECAPPED.
- But thank you so much for reading! We fell off pace and took breaks and just… it was kind of a mess. But! You read along with us and left lovely comments and offered hugs and gifs and support and for that we are forever grateful.
- NO– I will not recap another goddamn book from Grey’s perspective. NOT SORRY. I almost feel it’s safe to say that I would never recap another book in this universe, but I’ve been weak before. Time and brain bleach help me forget. It just isn’t worth it to do Grey perspective things because have I mentioned that IT WAS JUST THE SAME EXACT BOOK I ALREADY RECAPPED?
- On that note, since we always try to do something to “celebrate” the end of books, I figured we could finally, finally #snarkathon Fifty Shades of Grey. I ran a poll on Twitter and over half of you said you’d never watch it in a million years, but that still left like 15 people who were like, “yes, I’d watch that with booze and lovely people to snark it with.” So, that’s enough for me. If this interests you, please join me on May 28th at 4pm GMT (12pm EST) to snark this movie and say goodbye to this franchise for a very good, long while, maybe forever.
- I am going to be picking a new book to recap. Chances are it’ll be After by Anna Todd, which was on deck before we got news that Grey was dropping. There is a chance it might be Darkfever and I’m always open to suggestions. That’ll probably be all announced by #snarkathon time.
Thank you again! Hope to see you around the site and the comments, especially since we’ll be back with book 3 in the Twilight Saga in July.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a thirty-year-old postgrad living in Scotland. When I'm not writing (which, between my degree and Snark Squad, is almost never) I watch entirely too much TV, and live in constant fear of the day that I run out of things to watch.
I'm a chronic book nerd and love storytelling in all forms. I'm particularly excited by the rise of the television show as an art form with long, cinematically beautiful plots and complex character arcs (I also watch cartoons). My travels in the past handful of years have led me through three continents and most recently landed me among the majestic mountains of Colorado. Some day I will compile all my travel journals/blogs into one place. Some day. Until then, you can find me with craft beer in hand, ready at any moment to deeply and passionately discuss survival tactics for the zombie apocalypse.
