Looking for Alaska episode 4 review: The Thanksgiving episode

Thanksgiving at Culver Creek means more characters’ backstories are getting a spotlight — but still not the one we’re waiting for.

This review contains spoilers from episode 4 of Looking for Alaska. Come back after you’ve watched the episode if you don’t want to know what happens!

If Friends taught us anything, it’s that the Thanksgiving Episode is never not worth watching.

Looking For Alaska‘s “Thanksgiving episode” did what most of them tend to do regardless of the show you’re watching. It took characters out of their normal routines and settings and placed them in situations we likely haven’t seen them in before, showcasing how they act in more intimate settings.

This is the perfect opportunity to get to know characters’ deeper layers through the kinds of conversations that often occur in the presence of fried turkey and wine. But this isn’t your typical half-hour sitcom, where everyone leaves the Thanksgiving table thankful and forgiven. The Colonel won’t forget Alaska’s betrayal and likely won’t forgive her easily. Pudge didn’t think with his head (as instructed) and very much ruined any chance at romance he may have had with her.

And somehow we know so much more about Alaska without actually learning anything new.

But just because this episode didn’t have a happy ending doesn’t mean there weren’t tender moments. In addition to getting to know The Colonel through his mother and visiting his home, we got to see more of “off duty” Dr. Hyde after he catches Pudge and Alaska drinking in the woods but decides not to report them.

The inclusion of Dr. Hyde’s backstory creates a unique teacher-student connection you don’t get to see in most dramas featuring teenagers in high school. The boarding school setting allows for a deeper intimacy between the adults and students on campus, blurring that line between “adult and youth” which will become much more significant later on. Except later on is not too far off at this point.

We’re officially halfway through now — just 21 days to go before we circle back around to the glimpse of the climax we witnessed at the beginning of the first episode. And if you’re already starting to feel a growing sense of dread and despair, proceed with Kleenex.

After a while, something starts to happen to you when you spend a lot of hours watching the events of a book you love play out on the screen in front of you. And that something is that you start to feel very in love and very sad, like you need to know what happens next even though you already know.

And if this is your first time experiencing this story, my hope is that you are starting to truly fall in love with these characters. It’s no accident that the first half of Looking for Alaska focuses heavily on developing each one of them three dimensionally. John Green was extremely purposeful about this in his book, and the technique has been carried over brilliantly in the show thus far.

Pretty soon, knowing what we know now about Pudge and the rest of the students and teachers at Culver Creek, we’re going to witness how grief impacts and changes each one of them. It’s one thing to experience this in a book. I think it’s safe to assume it’s something entirely different experiencing it in live-action — even if it’s still fictional.

That’s something important about this story, and it’s what makes it so powerful. It’s not a true story. But it sure makes you feel like you’re in one.

Hug your friends. Tell them you love them. It’s almost time for That Day — and everything that happens After.

All eight episodes of Looking for Alaska are available for streaming on Hulu now.