(Lifetime)
On Tuesday’s finale of “True Tori,” Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott agreed to go their separate ways — at least temporarily for work.
The episode began with Spelling continuing their tradition of documenting their wedding anniversary with a professional family photo shoot, but the prospect of McDermott leaving to film “Chopped Canada” in Toronto was “looming in the background.”
At a dinner with their friends, with just seven days until the actor would return to Toronto, Spelling complained that the job feels “too soon,” but McDermott worried about the future of his career if he passed on the opportunity.
Spelling was set to start shooting “Mystery Girls,” and said their crisis had taken away all her excitement.
“All I can think about his how I’m going to be a single mom again for two months,” she told their pals.
Friend Wolf even lashed out at McDermott, telling him, “This whole situation is just f*cked up.”
And Spelling told the camera, “We need time to heal this family, and I feel disrupting that — I just feel the momentum will be gone.”
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Two days later, Spelling and McDermott tried explaining to their kids that “it’s very important for mommies and daddies to sleep together,” leaving their three eldest children in their own room for the first time in months and months.
Just as the couple began actually cuddling in bed, Liam, Stella and Hattie knocked on their bedroom door.
“This was the best three minutes of my life,” McDermott joked.
The following night, Spelling and McDermott headed out for their first date in more than six months, and he was “very excited” to have her “all to myself.”
The actress acknowledged to the camera that while she hasn’t forgiven him, she would still miss him if he went away, and told McDermott that it was recommended she check his phone from now on, but she didn’t want to.
McDermott told her, “I don’t ever want to hurt you or betray you ever again.”
During their private dinner, he admitted, “It feels like a first date,” and the two reflected on their anniversary and discussed the state of their relationship.
“I feel like we’ve come a long way,” Spelling told him as he thanked her giving him a chance to redeem himself.
She went on to cry as they discussed McDermott leaving, and he told her, “I don’t want to go, but I think we both know that I have to.”
The Canadian star insisted it wasn’t “impossible” to survive this new hurdle.
“Going away to do a show is not as big as what we just went through,” he said. “If we can get through that, we can get through anything.”
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Spelling’s heart still wanted McDermott to stay, though, and at a girlfriends-only lunch, a friend even suggested she make him sign a legal document about the consequences of cheating or drinking again.
The “90210” star pointed out that McDermott previously getting a tattoo above his penis clearly didn’t stop him from fooling around.
“It says ‘Tori’s.’ And months later he cheated on me,” she said matter-of-factly to her friends.
One pal questioned whether Spelling has genuinely dealt with McDermott’s betrayas, telling her, “I feel like the cameras make it feel less real to you.”
She understood, and confessed that she resented that “Dean gets to do what Dean wants to do whenever Dean wants to do it.”
During a joint therapy session, the couple’s doctor, however, told her, “Had we not filmed all of this, I don’t think you would’ve found your voice.”
Spelling agreed, but still expressed reservations about McDermott going to Canada.
“If he goes, I don’t see how we have a chance,” she said.
McDermott disagreed, and explained that he wanted to prove he can hold up “my end of the bargain,” but Spelling said “constant contact” wouldn’t be enough.
“I need him here. That’s what I need,” she said tearing up. “We finally found each other again.”
Spelling cried as she feared McDermott would return to old patterns, and said bluntly that if he did, “I think I would just check out, and I would be gone this time. I wouldn’t come back. You would come home and I wouldn’t be here.”
“I want to you to stay because you want to stay, because this outweighs everything else,” she told him.
For McDermott, though, staying would more be about giving Spelling “what she wants,” and their therapist thought that was telling.
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He texted his manager to find out about potentially quitting the show, and found out there’s a possible $5 million lawsuit if he backed out.
“I’m mad at myself. This was the biggest f*ck-up of my life. I jeopardized everything — my wife, my family, my career, everything,” he told the camera.
The new twist added to both of their frustrations, and McDermott questioned whether Spelling was being “true” with him during their romantic dinner.
She told the camera, “I got hurt on such a severe level, and I feel he should be right in there of feeling the pain of leaving us.”
The show then skipped to the day before McDermott would be leaving — and he told her, “I can’t go.”
But for her part, Spelling said she’s been going back and forth “between what my heart wants and what my head knows is right… and my heart lost.”
She told McDermott that he has to go.
“It means everything to me that you wouldn’t go,” she said. “We can’t let one huge mistake define us.”
They both pledged their love for each other, and vowed to make it through the new challenge.
The next day, the family all went together to bring McDermott to the airport, where the couple shared a passionate kiss and emotional goodbye.
“I know what’s at stake here. My relationship with my wife, my relationship with my children. It’s tough. We’ve gone through a lot. But I will not let them down,” he told the camera.
Spelling got the final word.
She said in a confessional, “It’s [when] things are really bad that you are able to see how powerful you really are. And I’ve seen that now. I’ve seen how much I can change and grow and how powerful I am as a woman, as a mom, as a wife.”
“Going forward, I know how much I deserve,” she went on. “At this point in my life, I won’t accept anything less.”
Spelling continued:
“I’d be lying if I didn’t say there’s a little part of me that still [wanted] the love story, that happy ending, where we get to the airport and he doesn’t get on the plane. And I still wanted the fairytale ending. But the little girl in me has to grow up at some point, and realize life’s not a fairytale. Life’s not a movie. And I might not get the happy ending. Then he was gone.”
Driving home, the star said she was back to being just a “mom” with four little ones planning to sleep in her bed.
Next week, Lifetime will air a special interview with Spelling and McDermott called “The Reunion: All Questions Answered.”
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