Off Campus Recap Season 1 Episode 6 ‘The Breakaway’

I grumbled on the past recap about the Hannah-Garrett story feeling a bit rushed – and I stand by that, I still think the show could have used one or two more middle episodes – but Mika Abdalla and Stephen Kalyn are just delightful as Allie and Dean. Here we got a montage that was funny and sexy, yes, but also undeniably sweet, about how the two of them ended up in Dean’s bedroom at Thanksgiving.

It was on the night that Garrett took a very drunk Allie and an equally drunk Hannah back to the house he shared with Dean, Logan, and Tucker. He left Allie on the couch after thoughtfully putting a blanket over her, then headed upstairs, following the trail of clothing Hannah left on the stairs. Dean later arrived with two women, and his bickering with the suddenly awakened Allie led the girls to leave. 

Dean may have lost out on a fun night with two beautiful women, but he was not a jerk to Allie when she joined him outside. He knew all about Sean, since Allie drunkenly overshared at karaoke. Allie spoke of how her father gave up so much for her mother, especially when she got sick, and that she wanted that kind of relationship. She wanted to be in love, but she did not want that to make it impossible for her to do everything, including acting. Dean encouraged her to go after what she wanted, because the people who cared for her would understand.

Dean claimed to be a casual sex guy, and has never had a girlfriend. He typed in his phone number on Allie’s phone, and said that when she broke up with Sean, she would want a fun ride to distract her. Allie changed the name to Do Not Call, and this was a pretty good way of connecting that earlier scene following Drunk Shakespeare, when Allie called this number. Since Allie has been trying not to backslide into Sean again, it was reasonable to think Do Not Call was him. But nope, it was Dean. 

And so we had that montage of Allie and Dean’s secret trysts, with Allie declaring on multiple occasions that it was the last time, only for the two of them to fall into each other’s arms again. The punctuation to that montage was hilarious, with Tucker walking in on Dean at the bath holding a pink dildo, because Allie had slid underwater to hide. 

Then came Thanksgiving. Allie lied to Hannah about taking the bus, but she actually carpooled with Dean and his best friend Beau. Beau happened to be Joanna Maxwell’s brother; Joanna was an up and coming actress whom Allie idolised. Allie and Beau were both theatre geeks who hit it off immediately and well. Poor Dean had to sit there and take it whilst Allie and Beau happily sang together through the trip. They were supposed to drive back together again on Friday, but Dean, whose name on Allie’s phone had notably been changed to Maverick, texted her and told her Friday seemed far away.

It was Dean with whom Allie was texting whilst on the phone with Hannah on Thanksgiving, and it was to Dean’s massive family flat that Allie went to. Dean’s family was clearly very wealthy, and his move when he brought home a girl as Allie figured out was to give a home tour, then, as he admitted, finish off by showing the piano and playing the one song he knew how to play. Allie wanted him to just be normal, and so they ended up playing sexy chess before moving to his bedroom.

The call with their friends went off fine, but it led Allie to start putting her clothes on. She worried that Sean would find out and that it would hurt him. She felt guilty about sleeping with Dean less than 48 hours after breaking up with Sean. She left Dean, and at a later conversation with Allie, she spoke of the same hope and fear she spoke with Dean the first night they hung out outside the guys’ off campus house. Allie was fairly certain that Sean would love her the way her father loved her mother. She was frightened that she had given up on love.

Allie considered having a fling, a distraction, but Hannah gently pointed out that was not her, she gravitated toward relationships. At the fund raiser at Malone’s that Logan threw (we will get to this later), Allie tried to remain firm with Dean that they were over. The whole night, however, their eyes kept finding each other. Even Tucker and Beau noticed that Dean was weird that night. Hannah notably advised Allie to have a fling, pick a guy who would not catch feelings, but even if fun was all Dean thought he wanted, his desperation to be with Allie whilst surrounded by beautiful puck bunnies spoke of a deeper if yet unacknowledged connection.

Dean’s last minute plea about the broken photo booth worked; Allie eventually joined him. She tried to emphasise that what they had was not a relationship, just sex, but Dean just hungrily kissed her. Later, Dean went to Allie and Hannah’s place; Allie thought Hannah was spending the night with Garrett. Their night together was interrupted by Hannah’s text that she was on her way home. Allie hurriedly shooed Dean away; Dean returning for one more look at Allie was cute. When there was another knock on the door, Allie thought it was Dean returning for his forgotten jacket, but it was Sean, whom Allie did not intend to hurt, who saw that she moved on, really moved on, so soon after the breakup that he did not even treat as real.

As Allie’s guilt ate on her over a guy she loved and who loved her back, in his own way, in a way that was not quite enough for her, Hannah was having a shattering breakdown on the road home. After Garrett left to go home, him to rest before the big game tomorrow, her to continue working on her showcase song and later have a girl’s night with Allie, a casual remark by one of Garrett’s teammates led Hannah to the realisation that her rapist, Aaron Delaney, was playing against her boyfriend the next day.

Hannah was already not having a great night. When the venue for Logan’s fundraiser fell through, it was Hannah who suggested Malone’s. Based on Dean’s charming pleas and Logan asking for Hannah’s help to tear his teammates away from the game-focused Garrett and sell tickets, it looked like it was a struggle to meet their financial goals that night. Hannah was still stressing over how to tell Justin that the showcase song was not working when Justin, without telling her, played the song at the party.

Justin thought it went well, the crowd was into it, but Hannah disagreed. She told Justin the song was not ready, that the lyrics (that Justin wrote) did not make sense. Justin was done. He called Hannah out for not putting herself into the writing and told her that if she wanted to feel something, she should write her own lyrics. The creative collaboration felt like a breakup, and that was how Hannah later characterised it when she told Garrett. Now, Hannah only had two weeks to write a new song.

Garrett, too, was stressed. Their next opponent was St. Anthony’s, the team gunning for the top spot. Garrett kept trying to talk hockey with the rest of the team. His mood got worse when he realised that Logan reached out to his abusive father Phil for a donation – box seats to a New York Rangers game and a meet and greet with Phil himself. 

Logan reasoned out that Phil donated every year. The fundraiser was for a hockey program that was the very reason Logan had been able to play hockey when his family did not have the money for it. When he first asked Garrett if Phil could sign a jersey, Garrett, who had just come from a traumatic Thanksgiving, offered to sign one himself. Logan pointed out that Garrett was not in the pros yet. Logan knew that Phil was a difficult father but he did not know about the abuse. They were two good friends who were coming from two different sides – Garrett, who knew that not everything was about money, and Logan, who was all too aware of how life was without it. 

An episode that started with the thrilling beginning of a fresh romance ended with heartbreak, with many of the well-meaning characters upset with each other, with Hannah breaking down sobbing. There was this shot of Hannah walking home alone interspersed with shots of the hockey team entering the ice, and Garrett facing off against Delaney. Earlier in the episode, Garrett told Hannah he loved her, and she said it back. When she hit the depth of her pain, she did not call or text Garrett. She did not ask for his support. That solitary walk was a choice of love. She knew how important the game was to the man she loved, and she would rather be alone in her pain than share it with him, and possibly distract him from the goal he set for himself.      

Rating: B

Strays

🌸Dean’s face when Allie asked a quiet, ‘Is it?’ after he claimed he was fine with being a come for a good time not a long time guy was the face of a man who has been wanting a relationship but had simply not yet found the right girl. 

🌸Hannah and Garrett’s handholding scenes were really sweet. 

🌸Hannah encouraged Garrett to tell someone about his father (I think she specifically was thinking Logan) but Garrett was content with only Hannah knowing about the abuse.

You can access Recap Lab's full coverage of Off Campus via this link.

Episode Title: The Breakaway

Episode Teleplay: Liv Coron and Emmy St. Pierre

Episode Director: Erica Dunton

Original Release Date: May 13, 2026

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