Becky and Rachelle are back for part two of season two—only about “87 years” later—and Labor Day finds them wondering where summer went. Between back-to-school exhaustion, a historic school building with an all-or-nothing air-conditioning system, and the special misery of heat plus menopause, the Boathouse Girls quickly establish that everyone is tired, sweaty, and fiercely protective of the thermostat. Rachelle did manage a blissfully agenda-free Wisconsin lake week with University of Kansas friends Amy, Cheryl, and Courtney, while Becky started a full-time ministry position and moved without ever quite getting a summer.
A Bananarama “Cruel Summer” earworm sends them into peak Gen-X nostalgia: farm evenings, cassette recorders, college dorms, homemade curtains, discount carpet, posters, and the modern mystery of professionally decorated dorm rooms. That opens the floodgates for college stories, including a bathrobe-clad boyfriend fleeing a girls’ bathroom past Becky’s visiting mom, and Ned evolving from the half-dressed, beer-offering apartment greeter into the suited manager of Rachelle’s wedding reception venue.
The conversation bounces through honest talk about divorce and pastoral empathy, Grandma’s bicycle, energetic cousin Trent, sugary cereal eaten straight from the bag, vitamin B, mouth guards, Pilates, hot flashes, and dressing for joy—preferably in bright colors, fabulous jewelry, and perhaps a Frida Kahlo duster with a leopard collar. They celebrate Rachelle’s daughter buying a first home and her son making sergeant, trade hilarious parenting stories, meet Gen Alpha’s favorite explanation—“Why not?”—and end with Ted Lasso, The West Wing, the luxury of silence, and one final demand: somebody please turn on the AC.