On the Edge

Jules Kendall and Gunner Martin, bandmates who have just made their dating official, storm out of rehearsal after Gunner gets into a shouting match with their bandmate Razz over who wrote the lyrics to a song. Gunner has been dreaming big ever since a fan at a barbecue gig told him that he and Jules could make it on their own, and he keeps pushing the idea of striking out for Los Angeles. Jules is not interested; she has lived in California before and has no wish to go back.

Meanwhile, at Whit's End, Connie tells Whit that Jules, who moved out to stay with Valerie Swanson, has texted asking to pick up some of her things. Connie hopes the visit might finally open a door between the sisters. But Jules never shows up. Instead, after a snark-filled stop at the Burger World drive-thru, where cashier Bridget Perkins cheerfully embarrasses the couple, Gunner talks Jules into a detour to his favorite overlook above national forest land, a place his brother used to take him hiking. Jules keeps asking to turn around, but Gunner insists it will only take a minute.

On the winding road beside a canyon, Gunner starts driving too fast to prove there is nothing to worry about. Jules begs him to slow down, and moments later the car plunges off the cliff. When they come to, the car is lying on its side on a narrow ledge, with nothing but empty air below the window. They carefully climb out just in time, but one of them has a badly broken arm, both phones are lost in the wreck, and the road is a distant eighty feet above them. When Jules spots a phone on the floor of the backseat, she climbs back into the teetering car to reach it, but the car begins to slide, and they barely scramble clear before it tumbles the rest of the way into the canyon, taking their last hope of being spotted with it.

Back in Odyssey, Connie stews over how self-centered Jules always seems to be, while Whit gently reminds her that God has a different story for each of us. When Valerie mentions that Jules is probably on her way to California, Connie files a missing persons report with Detective Polehaus, who suspects the teens will wander home once the thrill wears off. Whit is not so sure. He and Connie check security footage at a gas station near Highway 40 and discover that Gunner's car never headed toward the interstate at all; it turned down McMillan Road instead. The two set off to search that route themselves.

On the ledge, the heat is stifling and there is no water. Jules pours out old wounds, blaming her parents for pawning her off on Connie and insisting she does not need any of them. Gunner, growing dizzy and weak, wonders aloud whether they should pray, admitting he has never believed in God, "but now might be a good time to start." Jules doubts God would want to help people who got themselves into this mess. As Gunner rests, Jules remembers a disastrous camping trip when she misheard "sleeping bags" and packed her designer purse collection instead, and how Connie never made her feel foolish, just laughed it off and took her to get their nails done. Finally Gunner asks the question neither wants to face: if they die out here, what would she want to tell her family? Jules admits she would tell her parents how angry she is that they never seemed to love her. And to Connie? "I'd say, please come help me."