‘A Million Little Things’ Continues to Slowly Unravel the Mystery of Eric (RECAP)

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 2, Episode 11 of A Million Little Things, “We’re the Howards.”]

Remember when Eric (Jason Ritter) seemed like such a nice guy? Well, A Million Little Things has had us questioning everything we thought we knew about him ever since that mysterious phone call at the end of the fall finale.

The fact that he doesn’t have a scar on his chest meaning he didn’t have a heart transplant? Now we don’t know if we can trust anything he’s said. (Does he even have a dead fiancée named Chloe? Well, that one we know is true, thanks to information one of the group digs up in “We’re the Howards.”)

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It looks like we’re one step closer to finding out the truth about his past, all thanks to Gary (James Roday). He may be a bit of a mess right now when it comes to his personal life, but at least he found himself at a bar with a bartender who offered him some great advice about social-stalking his ex-girlfriend’s friend.

First, Gary finds himself on the street with a dead phone, but to use a charger in a coffee shop, he needs to buy something — and they can only take cash at the moment. Eric comes to his rescue, and Gary almost immediately gets defensive. Yes, he’s had a rough morning because, “We can’t all be Mr. Perfect. Look at you exercising with another man’s heart.” (Or, you know, not. Wait until Gary finds that out. Imagine how he’ll treat Eric then.) Eric follows him away from the counter and apologizes for what happened with Gary’s relationship, but the other man assures him that he didn’t have anything to do with the breakup. “You split up Maggie and her mom,” Gary reminds him. Ouch.

(ABC/Jack Rowand)

Gary then heads to a bar and accidentally likes (and quickly un-likes) a photo of Maggie and Eric on the show’s Instagram-equivalent. The bartender assures him that the person will only know if they were online at the time. “He’s too nice, like a smiley face emoji took human form,” Gary says of Eric. His social media accounts are private, he adds, and nothing’s come up in an online search. But the bartender asks if he checked the results on Page 1 or 9 and shows him what he finds. “What the hell?” Gary asks about whatever he reads.

And it’s when Gary goes to Eric’s music store and confronts him that we find out the reason for that reaction: There’s a wrongful death suit against Eric, from Chloe’s family. “Does Maggie know what you did?” Gary asks, but figures she doesn’t because “describing how you murdered your fiancée is probably not the best foreplay.”

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“You don’t know anything!” Eric insists, but Gary surmises, “Based on how angry you’re getting, I think maybe I do.” The two get into a scuffle — with Eric obviously making sure his shirt stays closed — before Max comes out from the back and breaks it up.

But it seems like that interaction has just made Gary all the more suspicious of the man who supposedly has Maggie’s brother’s heart. “There’s something off about that guy. I don’t trust him and you shouldn’t either,” he tells Maggie near the end of the episode, but she’s more focused on his recent behavior.

(ABC/Jack Rowand)

But while she’s right to be worried about Gary, the truth about Eric does have to come out sooner rather than later, and Maggie and her mother are the two who deserve to hear it the most. Why is Chloe’s family suing Eric? Do they know something he’s not saying about the “accident” that killed his fiancée? Can Maggie even trust Eric to tell her the whole truth (and nothing but the truth)?

A Million Little Things, Thursdays, 10/9c, ABC