The Spencer Sisters Season 1 Episode 3 Review: The Coder's Calamity
Laura Nowak
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It's become predictable that this series features cases that Darby and Victoria need to learn from.
While doing that, these cases provide humor and entertainment.
The Spencer Sisters Season 1 Episode 3 explored the difficulties of three friends creating a healthcare app and the secrets they kept, leading to their servers being vulnerable.
Family, friends, or roommates working together is tricky, and "The Coder's Calamity" quickly demonstrated that since both Lee and Clark liked Esme, the roommates had different goals about launching their healthcare app.
Everything fell apart when their server was stolen, and their backup server was hidden in the pool.
Clark: Can you help us get our stolen server back?
Victoria: Of course. Any friends of Alistair’s are friends of ours.
Health apps have become the rage, and Triage sounded promising if it could detect issues ahead of time. The question remained as to why the intruder would attack Esme to steal the server.
As The Spencer Sisters investigated, secrets and lies piled up. One rival, Parker, wanted to take his competition down and hired an influencer, Candy, to spy on Lee.
Candy never learned much because Lee never paid enough attention to her and was hyper-focused on the app succeeding. That's when the roommates turned on each other and shifted the blame on one another.
That should have made the Spencers more suspicious, especially when an internet troll mentioned that Lee threatened him for making a harassing comment toward Esme.
Lee's secrets flooded out, and the Spencers learned about the complicated love triangle among the roommates.
Lee tried to impress everyone because his family lost all their money, and he had hoped this app would rebuild some cash.
I suspect Esme learned about Lee's money troubles because she tried to prevent the app launch, and when she couldn't, she made a deal with the devil.
All Esme wanted was a safe healthcare app or money for all three partners. Essentially, she was a decent person, unlike Monica, who tried to steal all the retinol scan data for her own benefit.
Victoria's consultant and hacker friend, Alastair, was essential to solving this case. It was refreshing to see one of the supporting characters utilized so well.
Since he understood coding, he could spot fraud and notice photoshopped versus authentic photos quicker than the Spencers.
More importantly, he proved his worth to Darby by deciphering that the app wasn't reliable when it diagnosed 296 out of 300 people with birthmarks to have melanoma potentially.
It was difficult for Alastair since those were his friends, but he wanted the app to be safe and to help solve the case. He was a stand-up guy to pay the Spencers' fee since his friends lost everything, and he didn't want it to affect Victoria and Darby, too.
The Spencers also struggled with growing pains in their new business and sharing space. Putting two grown women with their own ideas and routines back under the same roof is challenging.
I'm not a morning person either, so I wouldn't appreciate waking up to hear cheerful singing either.
On the other hand, Darby should have been more careful in Victoria's spa-like bathroom, even if she thought expensive face cream was a waste.
In many ways, I empathized with Victoria. She longed to connect with her daughter and celebrate their working together, but Darby kept acting like the teenager who wanted to live far away from her mother.
Darby: Wait a minute. You’re going to change my bedroom into an office.
Victoria: It’s an ideal space.
Darby: For me to sleep in.
Victoria: There are plenty of other rooms in the house, honey.
Darby acted so passive-aggressive and nearly threw a tantrum about sharing her mom with her friends. What young adult does that?
Victoria was so excited and wanted to announce their business to the community, yet Darby resented that Zane and Antonio knew before she did. It's a shame those two always play referee, but at least this time, they didn't cater to Darby.
Zane: I didn’t know you didn’t know.
Darby: So you’re pals with my mom now?
Antonio actually catered the party and kept Victoria supplied with wine when Darby had yet another tantrum at the party. Victoria is a big part of the community and probably thought leaving Lucas off the guest list would be rude.
Besides, she's obviously trying to reunite him with her daughter.
Victoria's heart was in the right place, and her ideas kept making Darby and Lucas talk. No one forced her, and she had no reason to initiate a war. Both women needed to speak calmly about their boundaries.
Darby: I’m not just your kid moving back into the house. I’m a grown woman with my own life. It’s about you not respecting my boundaries.
Victoria: If we’re talking about boundaries, I need you to respect my writing time. I need peace and quiet to concentrate. After all, Bryn Martel still pays the bills around here.
The main problem with these two is they bicker in front of everyone, making it uncomfortable for their friends or bystanders. They couldn't even agree on what to charge their clients.
Even though it was a spacious house, it felt like they were working on top of each other, and Rory, Victoria's designer, tried to help them. It took several arguments before Victoria listened and surprised Darby with the ideal space.
Will Darby meet her mother halfway and compromise on some of her demands?
Closing Thoughts
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I've noticed that most of the cases are from friends of the Spencers or mutual friends. I'm curious if they'll be helping strangers and how that will go.
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Lucas and Darby's talk in the gazebo seemed important, but how long will it be until Lindsay senses something is off? I'm not pro-affair, but Lucas and Darby still have a strong connection, and there has to be a reason they keep bumping into each other.
- Each episode of The Spencer Sisters has ended with Victoria and Darby progressing in their relationship, yet in the next episode, they are bickering again. Can we keep their progress?
"The Coder's Calamity" was another interesting episode of The Spencer Sisters that examined family dynamics, secrets, and lies.
Over to you. What were your favorite parts of the episode? Would you like to see more of Alastair and Rory?
Let us know in the comments.
Laura Nowak is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on X.
