Younger, preparing for a seventh season on TV Land, has its characters dealing with competition in the publishing industry.
Liza (Sutton Foster) is the main character who had been lying about her age to get into the industry, but most of the people close to her in and out of the office has known she’s over 40 and is not a millennial. She’s dating Charles (Peter Hermann), who still owns her imprint, Millennial, though he started a new venture, Mercury. Liza is telling her friend/roommate Maggie (Debi Mazar) about the dilemma, and Maggie suggests the imprints should have a merger.
At the office, Liza and her colleagues, Millennial CEO Kelsey (Hilary Duff) and editor Diana (Miriam Shor), are listening to a proposal for a book on microdosing. As they listen about how ingesting mushrooms in small amounts can reset your body, the author invites Liza to a medically supervised retreat.
With the promise of a book deal, the Millennial team moves onto finding someone to read the audiobook for their baby boomer erotica auditions for The Seasoned Slut. The auditions are not going well until Diana plays around with the words. Then she nabs the job, which puts a spotlight on a newer element of the publishing industry with audiobooks and finding the right voices for those books.
Later, Liza tells Charles to merge the two competing imprints. Charles doesn’t believe Mercury can merge with Millennial because Mercury hasn’t made money yet. Charles reminds Liza that she’s been invited to join Mercury to squash the competition. Liza says she has a retreat in the morning; Charles is going to the same microdosing retreat. Liza gets up to head home without sharing a cab ride with Charles.
At the retreat, Charles sees Liza at the reception desk and asks to share rooms. Liza says no after learning they’re still competing for the book deal. Josh (Nico Tortorella), Liza’s ex who’s still in the circle, soon appears, with the goal of meeting venture capitalists to expand his tattoo business.
During the audiobook recording sessions back in New York City, Kelsey and her competitive ex-lover/Mercury editor Zane (Charles Michael Davis) connect over believing the formerly accused serial killer who has a book deal with Mercury really was a killer as she puts too much emotion in her recording. Kelsey and Zane talk about the competition between Millennial and Mercury.
Meanwhile at the retreat, Liza is tripping. She keeps confusing Charles and Josh with even believing she’s making out with Josh when she’s with Charles. The trip continues until she sees a “nurse,” who tells her to dance it out. In her imagination, Liza is dancing between Charles and Josh on a Broadway stage when in actuality she’s dancing with a plant and taking selfies with it.
After the retreat, Charles visits the Millennial office with Kelsey, Diana, and Liza. Charles says he has a proposal. Kelsey asks if he’s closing Mercury, but Charles says he doesn’t want to fight with family and that he wants Millennial to buy into Mercury. He proposes one dollar and reminds them his grandfather had mortgaged everything to start the business. Charles says he would like to return as an editor, not to threaten Kelsey’s CEO status, and work alongside Liza, where their romantic relationship would not interfere with business.
Last year, TV Land said Younger would be ending its run on the channel and move to Paramount Network, but the show stayed on TV Land this season and now will see the seventh one next year. This season feels like storylines were being tied up together with Liza and Charles finally finding a way to be with each other while working in the industry. But with the show preparing for another run probably next summer, it would be interesting to see how the merger will pan out and affect the romantic and working relationship between Liza and Charles. They act like it’s an ideal situation, but it probably won’t be… again.