Parallax Chronology

The chronology in this episode was a bit of a logic puzzle. I tried my hand at figuring out the order of events. Let me know if you spot something wrong!

Events of season one and 1x12. Bill shows up on Gini’s doorstep. Gini’s hair and bangs magically grow 3 inches on the walk upstairs to her bedroom. Bill remains stoic in the face of this veritable miracle and the implications it has on the nature of reality itself. Bill and Gini have passionate sex, Gini breaks up with Ethan over the phone. The next night, Bill and Gini meet for the first time in the Chancery Park Hotel to talk about what to do next. At first, things go smoothly, but then Bill is crestfallen to realize that Gini doesn’t feel the same way he does, and defensively reframes things to seem more detached. Gini is quietly upset. Regardless, Bill takes a room for them under the name Holden. A couple of weeks later, Bill accompanies Barton to his ECT appointment while wearing a red bow tie. While in the recovery room, Barton vomits on Bill’s lapel. Bill checks into the hotel where he is told “welcome back”. He showers and flashes back to the night of 1x12 extensively. After Bill changes his clothes, Gini enters the room wearing a green dress with a black collar (but without the celadon scarf) and addresses him as “Dr. Holden” as if it’s her first time calling him that. Simultaneously, Gini goes about her day wearing the green dress. She is almost sexually assaulted in the bathroom and then has lunch with Austin in the cafeteria. He tells her to leave the study in her past and try selling diet pills to supplement her income. Austin says that his wandering ways are done and gone. Later that evening, while Bill is at Barton’s ECT appointment, Gini visits Flo to talk about becoming a diet pill sales representative. Presumably she then goes on to the hotel to meet Bill, but this isn’t shown from her perspective. The next day, Gini tries her hand at selling the diet pills in the cafeteria but is unsuccessful. She’s wearing a black dress with a white Peter Pan collar and white sleeve ends. Libby comes to visit after John’s 3-week check up and asks Gini for advice on encouraging Bill to find another job. Gini tells her to take care of herself first. That evening, Libby convinces Bill to go to the St. Louis Community Chest gala so that he can meet and beg a job from Dr. Greathouse. Essie babysits for them. Betty and Gene are there, and Gene talks to Greathouse on Bill’s behalf. Barton wants to know if the ECT treatments have begun to take effect. He tries to have sex with Margaret after looking at gay pornography, but she refuses to pretend to be a boy. They’re both very frustrated and upset. Also that evening, Gini enters the hotel and is greeted by Thomas at the desk, who comments on her green scarf, which she wears over the Peter Pan collar. Her sleeves are visible inside her coat. While riding in the elevator, she flashes back to having sex with Bill and her phone conversation with Ethan on the night of 1x12. She gets off the elevator and goes to Room 412, but we don’t see Bill inside. The next day, Bill stays at home. Libby has lunch with Tatti Greathouse to plead their case and asks Bill to babysit John for her. He talks with Dr. Greathouse over the phone, apologizes for not talking more with Greathouse the night before, and arranges a meeting for that afternoon. He tries to ignore the baby crying, tells Essie that he has sex with Virginia regularly, sends Essie back to Ohio permanently, and tells Libby to begin calling nannies while he’s out. Bill either goes out for a run at the track or meets with Greathouse. That same morning, Barton watches Vivian and Margaret leave to go shopping with tears in his eyes. Margaret is wearing a greenish linen dress with a gold brooch. When they return, they hear a noise downstairs, and have to cut Barton down from the basement rafters where he’s tried to hang himself. They revive him and are shaken by the experience. That evening, Bill and Libby have dinner with the Greathouses, the deal for Bill to have tenure at Memorial Hospital having gone through. Greathouse lets slip that Bill’s study will continue. Libby seems concerned. Greathouse tells Bill that he will want to know everything that goes on behind closed doors. After dinner, Bill drops by the Scully’s house and says that he’s been trying to reach Barton for days without answer. Margaret, still wearing the green linen dress, says that Barton is very busy and can’t see Bill. Bill gives the message that he’s starting a new job—the first time in 20 years that he and Barton aren’t working together. It’s a reasonable assumption that Gini spends this day wearing the gray dress with a tiny geometric print with white dots and large white collar. She has lunch with Jane, who is leaving for California. Jane tells her that the study is over, Dr. Masters is gone, and that Ethan has been calling her to try to push Gini to take him back. Jane mentions that Gini has been selling diet pills recently. Dr. Ditmer calls out to Gini in the parking lot and asks for advice about his grant on cold-light illumination. Inside the hospital, Lillian, who has a black eye, admonishes Gini for hawking dangerous off-market medication. Gini’s desk is full of bottles of pills, implying that she hasn’t sold any. Austin rushes in to hide from his wife Elsie, who grabs the PA microphone to announce to the whole hospital that he’s been sleeping with her sister for the last two months. Gini ends her day having a drink with Lillian in the office and ruminating on the idea of “being careful”. She has a double flashback: first to when she ends her phone conversation with Ethan before asking Bill what they do next, then to their first meeting at the hotel when they both lie to each other and take out a room for the first time.

What I’m getting from the chronology is that both of them have repeating flashbacks to the night of 1x12 at around the same time: the first is when both of them are separate in the hotel, but on different nights. They both focus on the intensity of the sex and the immediate aftermath of Gini’s breakup with Ethan.

The second time is what we might call “currently,” which for Bill is while he’s watching the test screen at the start of the episode. For Gini, that’s when she’s talking to Lillian while having a drink after work. What’s notable is that Bill’s flashback is condensed but still entirely about the sex, while Gini remembers only the aftermath.