Off Campus Recap Season 1 Episode 7 ‘The Faceoff’
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- 9 min read
‘My bike is wrong’, Hannah told her mother when she called following her breakup with Garrett, and her faithful bicycle giving up on her as she made her way home in tears. There are times when I’m watching a show and it just hits me, the writers are good. They know what they’re doing. The penultimate episode of Off Campus’s maiden season was written by Cheech Manohar, who also penned the fourth episode, the series high point. With just one line, we are reminded of the journey Hannah went through before she became the Hannah we met at the beginning of the show. Hannah worked hard at therapy. She worked hard to manage her triggers. When she was overwhelmed with pain, it made sense that her brain went to the simplest problem, the bike breaking down. ‘My bike is wrong’, and it started a few minutes of comforting talk with her mother. By the time we got to, ‘What did you do wrong?’ I was full on sobbing on my desk.
But, let’s trace how we got here. Back in the first episode, there was this small moment when Hannah caught a glimpse of a guy outside a hockey game, and it seemed to have triggered her trauma. She found a room where she played music, and later sang and danced, to calm herself. Garrett heard the music from the hall and followed it; he watched her from outside the door, and it was the vision of her that centred him, calmed him, took him out of his own troubles and gave him the focus to return to the game as the captain his team needed.
It turned out that the guy she saw that day was indeed Aaron Delaney, her rapist and abuser who was now the new centre for Briar’s rival school St. Anthony’s. They had been on a 10-game winning streak; should Briar lose this game, St. Anthony’s would take the top spot. Garrett was already stressed about the game, even before his father showed up with his fiancee whom Garrett knew he was abusing. He needed Hannah’s calming presence, the only person who truly knew what the deal was with his father. But, Hannah could not be there for him because she needed to focus on holding herself together.
It was one of Off Campus’s subtle hits to the heart, this realisation of the cost of emotionally leaning on one person, and one person only. To the outside world, Garrett Graham was a very privileged young man. His father was wealthy, and a hockey legend. Everyone anticipated that he would follow in Phil’s footsteps and become a legend himself. Girls were throwing themselves at him. There was one person whom he allowed inside his turbulent home life, and that was Hannah. On the surface, it seemed romantic, to have found that one person with whom he could completely be himself, to be vulnerable with, to confess his deepest fears, a hand to hold whenever he was in danger of spiraling. Hannah had encouraged him to share the truth about his father, when she witnessed how Logan being unaware of the abuse affected their heretofore strong friendship. As emotionally progressive as Garrett was in general, the wound inflicted by his father was not really something that he has taken the time to process in therapy. He was comfortable with Hannah, and that was enough for him. Until it wasn’t.
Before the game, Garrett already knew he was not in a good place mentally, and he texted Hannah, hoping he could see her before he went to the ice. He sent multiple messages and even left a voice mail before and after the first two periods, when St. Anthony’s and Delaney in particular put on a beating. Garrett knew he was playing badly. He was also playing as though he was the only man on the ice, refusing to pass, turning the puck over. Logan called him out in the locker room, and the two of them got into each other’s face, again.
Hannah’s struggles brought her to the auditorium, where her teacher and advisor Daveed was playing a piece he composed about his son. She told him she would not do the showcase; she did not think she could write a piece like that, could not allow people in. Daveed gently told her that allowing people into her truth could be healing. Hannah said that in her experience, whenever she told someone her truth, it ended badly. Daveed was able to comfort Hannah enough so that she went to the game, and to Garrett.
When Garrett left her a phone message, he started with, ‘Are you okay?’ because even through his stress, he still worried about her. They reunited in the same room where Garrett first saw Hannah singing and dancing, and Hannah controlled her own pain enough to encourage Garrett, to make the day about him and what he needed. The moment Garrett mentioned Delaney, however, Hannah’s face changed, and he asked again if she were okay. She reached for his hand. There were I love yous and a kiss before Garrett returned to the ice. It was the beginning of the third period, and Delaney, who was skating nearby, saw and recognised Hannah.
Garrett had said that Hannah centred him, and with her nearby, he was a different player on the ice. He was confident and relaxed. He was playing as part of the team again. He and Logan were having a blast. Tucker scored. The tide had turned, and St. Anthony’s, who had spent the first two periods in control of the game, was seriously in danger of losing.
In general, I don’t approve of violence. But do I understand Garrett’s impulse to beat on Delaney when he called Hannah a ‘lying slut’ and Garrett realised that he was face to face with a rapist. Delaney had been a bully on ice throughout the game – he even seriously injured Bertie – but there was little he could do in the face of Garrett’s rage. Garrett was escorted out of the ice, and he ended up in the locker room, where his coach told him he was suspended for four games.
Of course Phil totally approved of the violence. He told Garrett he was proud of him. He called it part of the game, and promised he could call the Bruins and take care of his likely issues with the NCAA. Bear in mind that Garrett would not even allow his coach to intervene with his teacher when his Philosophy grade threatened to keep him off hockey. He was sick at the thought that he could just beat people up without consequences. He called his father out for physically abusing him as a child; his bruises were written off as hockey injuries. He swore he would never be like him. Phil pointed out that he already was.
Garrett was in the worst possible mood when Hannah confronted him at the parking lot. Hannah was furious, because she knew what that outburst could cost Garrett and his entire team. She told him that people in her hometown not only turned on her, they turned on her family too. Her parents lost friends and her father was fired from his job. Every time she told her truth, it ruined people’s lives. Hannah was yelling at Garrett, but she was speaking out of fear for him and guilt over what her parents went through. Now pause a moment and recall what Garrett told her back at Thanksgiving. If he woke up one morning and could not play hockey anymore, he would be relieved.
The game was clearly important to Garrett, but there was no way he would ever think to put it above Hannah. From his point of view, he was, rightly and righteously, defending the woman he loved. He would do it again. When Hannah said that scared her, that was just about the worst thing she could have said at that moment.
Go back again to the Thanksgiving episode. What bothered Garrett so much as he and Hannah drove home? It was the look on Cindy’s face when he suddenly stood up at dinner. Cindy was frightened, and Garrett interpreted that as Cindy being frightened of him, though I think it was more likely that she tended to be nervous in general due to the abuse and was frightened of how Phil would react. Garrett feared so strongly that he would become like his father. Now, with Hannah expressing her fear, what Garrett heard was that she feared him. Hannah tried to communicate as clearly as she could – what frightened her was that Garrett would risk everything for her when she was already telling him that was not what she wanted – but all Garrett could hear was that he scared her. Phil’s words were still in his head. He thought his father was right. He told Hannah he was not good for her, and that they were over.
Intense, intelligent, seamlessly connected to the show’s past storytelling – it was not easy to watch, but it was a very good dramatic scene. Hannah cried in the locker room, and was still crying as she biked home. Then she called her mother and confessed – that she lost her scholarship, that she did not tell her parents because she thought she could get another one via the pop showcase, and she and Garrett broke up because he got into a fight and it was all her fault. Hannah was probably not the only one who went into therapy; outside of her warm and loving relationship with her parents that we saw in flashbacks, her mother also knew how to talk her out of feeling overwhelmed. Her mother told her to start with the small stuff and work their way up. Her mother also assured her that she and her father would figure out the money she needed to stay in college.
Hannah cried that it was her fault that her parents could not afford college, what with the lawyer and therapy bills. She sobbed that she ruined their lives. And that was when her mother asked, in a soft, reasonable voice, ‘What did you do wrong?’
It was the most healing thing to ask, at that moment when Hannah was emotionally shattered. Her mother pointed out that if she were feeling guilty, then it must mean that she did something wrong. It forced her to focus through the fog of her pain as her mother gently told her that all she did was go to a party as other high school kids did. It was not that Hannah’s problems were solved, but she could go on knowing that she was loved and supported. Later at home, as she watched Dirty Dancing whilst eating chips, Allie came home, took one look at her face, and quickly hugged her.
This was a fairly pain-filled episode, so it was notable that at the end of it, I still view the show as a journey of open communication, generous love, and healing. When I think back of those first few minutes of the first episode, when a naked Garrett in the shower turned around and faced the startled and embarrassed (and curious) Hannah, well, let’s just say that Off Campus has been a very pleasant surprise. See you on the season finale recap, everyone!
Rating: A-
Strays
🌸The words ‘just write’ repeatedly flashed into Hannah’s mind as she tried to calm herself. The last time she wrote a song, with lyrics that bared her heart, was in high school. Writing her own experience was traumatic to her, as she hand wrote her statement at the police station which led to community-wide abuse that she and her parents endured. It looked like her therapist may have encouraged her to write as well. Eventually, she decided she could not do it, not even for the pop showcase that could save her college stay.
🌸Allie’s tender ‘Love you’ from outside Hannah’s locked bedroom door was so sweet.
🌸From my notes: This is an episode where two good people who loved each other and who have, in the past, managed to keep their trauma under control so they could show up for each other and be gentle with each other suddenly find themselves overwhelmed with their own issues. It’s trauma versus trauma blowing up at the same time.
🌸Hannah was Wellsy on Garrett’s phone, whilst he was Garrett Graham on hers. I am writing this pretty late at night; it I were not already very sleepy, I would have written something longer about their phone names being indicative of how they saw each other in the initial stages of their relationship, with Hannah mostly seeing the entity that was Garrett Graham (full name) and Garrett viewing Hannah far more affectionately.
🌸Garrett’s lockscreen was a photo he took of him and Hannah when she was still crushing on Justin, and Garrett was the guy trying to help her get his attention.
🌸After Allie spent some time leaving a message for Sean and apologising, Beau introduced her to his sister and her idol Joanna, who happened to need a reader that day. Allie and Jo ended up hanging out, and Jo made Allie realise that she was in a relationship with Dean.
🌸At an off campus bar, Allie met a guy using a fake ID with the name Carter St. James V, with whom Jo encouraged her to have meaningless sex. Allie could not do it, but they kissed, because Allie was worried that Jo would think she was no fun.
🌸Jules, after the Briar hockey team started playing well at third period: ‘Okay Briar, it looks like we’ve decided to get off our knees and stop sucking.’ Lol.
🌸Dean was staring at his phone with no reply from Allie, and the second to the last message was him asking her if she could bring his jacket, because Off Campus was a show that remembered little details like that – like the last time Allie and Dean were together, he left his jacket at her place.
Episode Title: The Faceoff
Episode Teleplay: Cheech Manohar
Episode Director: Dawn Wilkinson
Original Release Date: May 13, 2026