Homesickness

Homesickness is a breaking point in Brendan Fletcher’s college experience, turning a private sense of displacement into a need he can finally say aloud. When his usual contacts are unavailable, he tells Sanjay that he hates college and wants to go home; Sanjay responds not with pressure to explain himself but with a drive to Haddington. The episode gives homesickness both an emotional and a physical shape: Brendan is stranded in his room, then buckled into a car headed toward the place he misses.

Context and Background

Brendan’s longing for home sits within a family history made less simple by divorce. His parents’ separation disrupted the stable childhood he had expected, and Eve Fletcher’s later reflection recognizes how deeply the rupture affected him. She feels guilty about easing up on him, believing that the life he had trusted was replaced by a smaller, less secure one. That account belongs to Eve’s perspective, but it helps explain why home carries more emotional weight for Brendan than a familiar address alone.

Brendan’s relationship with his father, Ted, had already been distant after the divorce. He recalls being in high school when Jon-Jon was born and not getting along with either Ted or Bethany. At first, he blamed Bethany for the family’s breakup; later, he accepted Ted’s insistence that Ted himself had chosen to leave and that Bethany was not responsible. Their custody arrangement allowed Ted two weekends a month, but Brendan sometimes stayed away for sports or schoolwork. Much of their contact became a routine of Ted attending Brendan’s games and taking him to dinner afterward, both of them acting as if the arrangement were ordinary.

The family history also complicates any simple contrast between a safe home and a hostile campus. Brendan had felt excluded from the close care Ted gave Jon-Jon: during one of Jon-Jon’s violent episodes, Ted held him from behind while trying to stop him from hurting himself, continuing to reassure him even as Jon-Jon struggled and Ted was injured. Brendan felt compassion for his family, but also jealousy that Ted held his younger son so tightly and would not let go. His longing for home therefore coexists with old hurt and a sense of unequal attachment; it does not erase them.

The College Crisis

The immediate episode begins with Brendan alone in his room, drinking and scrolling through contacts. He leaves two messages for Ted, but Ted appears to have gone to bed; Eve does not answer either. Brendan tries Becca, but she ignores his invitation to Skype. Wade is studying for a midterm, and another friend’s phone is nearly out of battery; other attempts also fail to produce a conversation. The sequence narrows his options until he calls Sanjay, not because they are especially close, but because he cannot think of anyone else.

Sanjay is working when Brendan reaches him. Brendan asks what he is doing and then urges him to come over for pizza, insisting on just one slice even after Sanjay says he is not hungry. The ordinary invitation becomes a way to keep someone present. Sanjay notices that Brendan’s mood is not ordinary and asks, “Brendan, are you okay?” Brendan tries to laugh before admitting, “No, dude. I am not okay.”

Sanjay suggests that Brendan find his resident adviser or go to Health Services, and says talking to someone might help. Brendan does not want to talk to anyone. Instead, he names the need beneath his distress: “I hate this fucking place. I just want to go home.” Saying it aloud feels good, but it also releases the emotion he has been holding back; he starts crying and takes time to regain control. He apologizes for being a mess, even though Sanjay has not withdrawn his concern.

Sanjay’s Response and the Journey Home

Ten minutes later, the two are in Student Lot C, fastening their seat belts in a Subaru wagon belonging to Sanjay’s parents. Brendan tells Sanjay that he does not have to make the trip. Sanjay answers, “It’s okay. I know how it feels. I get homesick all the time.” That recognition changes the exchange: Sanjay is not merely granting a favor but responding from his own experience of missing home.

They drive toward Haddington on a highway that is mostly clear, with large trucks moving in the right lane. Brendan finds Sanjay a more capable driver than he expected and easier to talk to than he had assumed. Their conversation ranges over sports and music, helping the miles pass and occupying Brendan’s attention. The drive does not solve the larger pressures of college, but it gives him company and a destination at the moment he feels unable to remain where he is.

Sanjay also tells Brendan about Esther, his Korean-American girlfriend, a high-school senior applying early decision to Harvard. Sanjay hopes she will be rejected and attend the Honors College at BSU so they can be together. The detail extends the conversation beyond Brendan’s immediate distress: both young men are living with separation and uncertain plans, though Sanjay’s account is not presented as identical to Brendan’s. Their shared road trip makes room for each of them to speak.

Meaning and Consequences

The episode distinguishes practical advice from the kind of help Brendan can accept in the moment. Sanjay offers campus resources, but Brendan refuses the prospect of talking to an adviser or Health Services. What reaches him instead is being heard, having his homesickness acknowledged, and being taken toward Haddington. The scene does not establish that the drive cures his distress; it shows a crisis becoming manageable through immediate companionship rather than a sudden resolution.

Brendan’s emotional dependence on home is sharpened by the fact that his family ties are strained and uneven. He has tried his parents and Becca before turning to Sanjay, yet the unanswered calls do not amount to a final rejection by those people; the evidence gives practical reasons for some of their unavailability and no explanation for Eve’s missed call or Becca’s silence. What matters in the scene is Brendan’s experience of being unable to reach anyone, followed by Sanjay’s willingness to answer. Homesickness thus appears not as simple nostalgia but as a collision between the college life Brendan is trying to inhabit and a family past that remains both painful and desired.