Friendship isn’t a big thing, it’s a million little things. That’s how the highly-anticipated drama series open up. The friends of A Million Little Things are going to have to remember that in the wake of tragedy. The show introduces us to Jon Dixon, a normal businessman with family and friends. He’s on the phone trying to make a deal. He tells his assistant, Ashley, to take a long lunch. “I always say everyting happens for a reason,” Jon says on the call. Once the call is over, he puts his phone down and jumps off the balcony. Jon Dixon is dead.
Meanwhile, Eddie is desperate to get out of his marriage. “I can’t be in this marriage anymore,” he tells someone over the phone. “I want to be with you.” Eddie is packing up his things. He’s serious about this. Gary is at the doctor’s office waiting to hear about whether or not his breast cancer is back. Yes, guys can get breast cancer, too.
Rome is writing his suicide note. He pours the pills onto the table and stuffs them in his mouth. Before he can swallow them, he answers a call from Gary, who tells him that Jon killed himself. That stops Rome from going through with committing suicide.
Jon’s friends are absolutely shell-shocked at what’s happened. They want to know why he’s done this. Jon didn’t leave a note. Gary had to be the one to tell Jon’s wife, Delilah, the devastating news. Jon’s assistant says it was just a normal day. He was even making jokes. What she doesn’t tell police is that Jon left a blue folder on the balcony with Delilah’s name on it. Ashley grabbed it and put it in his desk.
Gary goes to a breast cancer support group and meets Maggie. They wind up hooking up in the bathroom. It’s only episode one, and I’m a full-on Gary stan. He’s a delight. Rome looks back at old videos of Jon to make a video for the service. Jon was always the one who stressed that friendship was a million little things.
Eddie gives the eulogy at Jon’s service. He reveals how the crew all met — while trapped in an elevator. Over the past decade, many of them have gotten married, had kids, beat cancer, and gotten sober. Eddie admits that Jon was the one who pulled him aside after his son was born to tell him to stop drinking. Eddie hasn’t had a drink in 7 years. Gary barges in late with Maggie in tow. Yes, he brought her on a date to a funeral. Jon’s daughter also performs a song at the service.
At the house, a broken Delilah asks Ashley if she has any idea why Jon took his own life. Ashley just shakes her head. Gary walks up to Delilah and says, “You are stronger than all of us combined.”
At Delilah’s place, Maggie hits it off with all of Gary’s friends. They learn she’s a clinical psychologist specializing in depression. Jon’s friends are still trying to make sense of his death. Maggie says that he “maybe lost site of the horizon.”
The boys decide to go to the Boston Bruins game after the funeral, just like old times. There’s just one thing: the tickets are in Jon’s office. When they arrive, Ashley is there “tying up odds and ends.” Ashley claims she didn’t know that much about Jon, but she knows the passcode to Jon’s phone. When Gary gets a hold of it, he discovers that the business call was not the last call Jon made. Just before he jumped off the balcony, he called Eddie.
This throws the guys for a loop. Gary doesn’t think they’ve ever been truly honest with one another. “The very sad truth is that we don’t really know each other,” he says. That’s when Eddie blurts out that he’s in love with someone else, the mom of one of his students, and he wants to leave Katherine. Rome confesses that he was about to kill himself when Gary called to tell him about Jon. “Sometimes I feel so hopeless,” Rome says. Gary and Eddie are shocked at what Rome has told them.
Meanwhile, Delilah talks to Regina and Maggie. She is feeling so incredibly guilty. She doesn’t know how she missed that he was struggling. To take her mind off the pain, she takes Regina and Maggie to the last thing Jon did before he died — a restaurant space for Regina.
Eddie sends a text to his other woman, who just so happens to be Delilah! They were in bed when Jon called Eddie. Eddie goes to see Delilah after the game. “We can’t do this,” Delilah says. She’s terrified that Jon knew about them. “Maybe that’s why he did it,” she says.
Eddie replies, “Tell me you don’t love me, and I will leave here right now.” Delilah tells him, “If you love me, you’ll leave right now.” The episode ends with Ashley deleting files from Jon’s computer, Maggie continuing to avoid chemo because her cancer is back, and Eddie avoiding Jon’s final voicemail. “As bad as this seems, there is good, and you will find it,” Jon said on the elevator. “I promise.”