HappyBerry

He's lazy and self-centered and also is willing to show up and help. And he's charismatic and good with kids. He's not perfect, but he's not "bad guy" either. He's the guy that in most other shows the female star would end up with because "he's got his flaws but he's got a good heart". Everyone would talk about how lucky she is because be likes kids or sometimes tries to do nice things. Instead these shoes are starting to show that "nah, women deserve better than 'a good heart'".

It's such a great contrast to the common trope of women om tv (and in real life) staying with guys like that because "he's a good guy"; you don't need a 'bad guy' for a relationship to just not work. I hope it becomes more common. The only other example I can think of off the top of my head is Ryan in Shrill. Nice guy, clearly loved Annie...and was also really immature and needed to get his shit together.

I really liked the Janine and Ayesha thing because, even as the comments here show, there isn't really a good guy and a bad guy. People might project that one one or the other of them because of their own personal experiences, but I think the argument really just showed they are hurt and damaged in their own, valid, ways. I about cried at the end with Janine and "it kind of felt like you left me too"....now that the real issue is out there, I am hoping to see some growth in that area. The show has done a great job of showing how she has both grown and stayed stuck, it feels very real. I like Mr. Johnson, but this episode was definitely one where I went "oh no, he's been Flanderized".

Physics. From a height, especially a fairly high height like that one, they would flip to heavy side down anyway.

It's what I like about this and I liked about 'Shrill', where the guy the main character breaks up with isn't "bad", he just isn't quite where she needs him to be, and are in fact guys that could be pretty great if they spent some time doing a little introspection. I feel like for a long time tv was dominated by the trope of the guy that is a man child being dragged to success by the women in his life, but is treated as a catch because he's "nice". I'm glad that it is being recognized that strong, self-sufficient female characters deserve partners who have more good qualities beyond "charming".

Few things on this show have made me laugh as hard as Ava going "Would you describe this person as someone who might have difficulty getting a loan?" and Jacob basically running away. I feel like it's one of those times where you can really tell it's a largely Black writers room, where they lean into making fun of White Guilt rather than going the White Savior route. (I can definitely recognize when I'm being called out) But, even when making Jacob the butt of the joke also recognize the way he is a good teacher and how he can connect with the kids. For all the ridiculousness the show has been displaying lately, like all that turmoil over 2 oz of juice, it is still killing it in so many other ways.

I was feeling optimistic when she had a half-Japanese guy as the love interest. But Mindy gotta Mindy.

I took the vagueness to be about John McEnroe appearing in it physically again, not whether or not he'd be narrating it.

Not so sure how I feel about a lot of the stuff in that article. Some of the things they mention seem very much a step backwards, as much as they want to pretend it's forward progress.

I think this show does a really good job of showing that sometimes things don't work out, and that's okay, especially since they are just in high school. I feel like so many teen movies and tv shows treat high school relationships the same way they do adult relationships and don't reflect the relatively low stakes. They are allowed to express strong emotion over it, as teens do, but it isnt built up in the same way.

I just want an episode where we follow Nirmala around for a week. Not sure who I want to narrate it though. Also, what's the over-under than Ben and Devi actually do the deed? Based on the fact we only saw kissing and not more, I'm guessing that either be was showering before heading out on the date or that something else interrupts them.

Oh 100%, she was very willing to let Nalini be the bad guy and was quite disappointed when it didn't work. Im sad for Des and Devi, but I have a hard time getting too sad about teenagers breaking up, it's sad for them but unlikely to have lasted anyway. But, I feel really bad for Nalini; making friends as an adult is hard and losing one sucks! She has shown as much growth as Devi has and I just want her to catch a break and get a good friend or a happy romance.

They established pretty early on that her dad was a big McEnroe fan. The racket was a continuation of that, not new information.

The hardest part for me was believing that Ben would allow their debate team to have such terrible resources. The fact he's very rich is brought up often, and clearly driven to succeed, so there is no way he'd go "eh, the Sherman Oaks Tootler all we have, but whatever".

That was a friendship I didn't know I needed to see more of, but I loved it. I did die laughing at "I'm not condescending, I just get annoyed when people don't know how to do things" because I know I've said similar things in my life (also why I have faith Ben can grow out of it, especially if he has friends that will call him out).