AuntieMame

I tried the pilot episode of this when it came up as a recommendation. Ouch. The contrast between the competent acting and the bad acting is hard to watch. Then there is the dialogue. All of the dialogue feels like the bastard stepchild of exposition and an eighties night time soap and none of it feels like something even a high camp cliche would say. I came to see if anyone else felt the same.

I’m so glad this show is back! The premiere was okay setting up the continuations of tensions that existed in the first season but I found myself a little underwhelmed. I hate saying that, I really do. 1. I loved the scene between Keyshawn and Diamond. I honestly don’t know where Keyshawn’s head is. Diamond went to the mat for her. I don’t blame him for being angry. 2. I liked Mercedes and Hailey as reluctant allies way better than I like them as fighting siblings. It isn’t like there aren’t enough problems they need to solve, preferably together, that they have the luxury of sniping at each other. 3. I hope that Lil’ Murder and Keyshawn go on tour and do well. I hope that this is enough to get things to the breaking point with ridiculous, jealous, controlling baby daddy. That man is just a waste of space. 4. I don’t like that they made Andre’s wife borderline crazy. Andre’s ambition and sleaziness always shines through but this felt a little bit like giving him an excuse. Hailey and Andre always sell the sexual tension beneath the surface, along with their anger and dislike. The scene with Hailey and Andre in the rain had noir vibes and I liked that homage to American cinema. 5. I hope that Gidget comes back soon. 6. Shallow note, I loved Uncle Clifford’s pay his respects and pick up some chitlins combo funeral outfit. The costume designer must have had a wonderful time with that. Seeing Andre conservatively dressed for the funeral in a way that was all wrong was some fabulous show it don’t tell it storytelling. It conveyed that he was a son, not a son especially with him giving the eulogy. I liked the kindness of the woman giving him a pocket handkerchief. 7. The casino storyline continuing to be a problem feels organic to me. There are outside powers and principalities that want that casino. They might have to regroup with the loss of the mayor as their inside man, but those casinos bring a lot of money for anyone who can keep the $ rolling their way with construction and operation. Those casinos ruin small towns so the conflict of this could be interesting if written right. I said I was underwhelmed and ended up writing everything I liked, lol. Bottom line fear? I want PValley to continue to be the poetic glimpse into a real world, not turn into a night time soap with the quirks of the characters emphasized just because they’re quirks. I feel like we’re on the knife’s edge because the execs have taken notice of the success of what was supposed to be a throw away show.

Hey Everyone! Just jumping in to say two days and counting till Season 2!! I’m lucky in that I discovered this show not long ago so haven’t had to wait too long for Season 2. Looking forward to discussing it!

I’d say puritanical, pleasure hating, self righteous and just down right creepy. That scene was great but it cemented the idea of food as social bonding and alcohol as a social lubricant. If I was forced to sit through that nonsense I would definitely need a drink and I don’t even drink. I’m two episodes in and I’m definitely intrigued. The show is very creepy. I’m convinced that they aren’t actually working at all but part of an experiment. I can understand Mark’s desire to erase crippling grief for even part of the day.

And it makes it more difficult to know and appreciate a genuine face. I like Jane Fonda but I have real issues with all of her talk against eating disorders and weight obsession and the use of cosmetic surgeries while she blithely continues to do more of both than even the average actress. It just screams rules for thee but not for me hypocrisy. And just one more way that this show ultimately reinforced ageism and misogyny while pretending to do the opposite.

Pretty much in agreement with everyone else. This episode was easier to watch without the bizarre casting and acting choices. Plus I love Betty Ford. Who knew? I should note that I watched this accidentally just because I happened across it while surfing whereas the first episodes I watched on purpose and then decided to quit. Somehow this show isn’t doing what it hoped to do.

Except that the inconsistencies in the actor’s and character’s ages and the ages of the characters in relation to each other in fact highlights the very ageism that the show loudly proclaimed they were successfully fighting. I first noticed this in the arc where it was seen as ridiculous that Grace and Frankie would be anywhere near a nursing home. Really? Or that everyone was blessedly free of any but the most treatable health problems and quickly recovered from any nod to the reality of aging. Roberts heart attack was neutralized by the fun of a hospital bed wedding. At the end of the day Grace and Frankie showed us that we can only write for people in their seventies if they act like they’re in their fifties. No ageism to see here.

Thank you for that @TakomaSnark. That helps. Those ages make more sense for the writing and characters, but all of the actors seemed their actual ages and that made the viewer sense the big age spread instinctively. But if the guys are supposed to be 72 and we’re in their sixties when they show started that makes a lot more sense. Thanks for tracking that down.

So glad to see another Generations/Strauss and Howe fan here. The actresses are definitely Silent generation and I thought the characters were supposed to be pretty close to the age of the actresses. The kids seemed to be at best very late GenX or early Millennials. I don’t know anyone late sixties to early eighties in birthdates that has Silent Generation parents. And no millennials. Id be willing to completely ignore it except that this lines right up with the elephant in the room of not addressing death and decay and ultimately pretending that Grace and Frankie would live forever. The show has been running for seven years, shouldn’t all of the characters have gotten older?

It’s not impossible but it’s pretty rare. Yes people get surprised with change of life babies but even that is more common in the 45 to 48 range and it’s rare enough that it causes comment. I’m happy to watch Jane and Lily but the fact that the kids should have been older was a bit jarring in places. I didn’t feel like either Brianna or Mallory was written like they were forty. Nor Bud and Coyote either. And infant adoption does have an upper age limit for the adopters generally. Its a comedy and its nice to see Jane and Lily but this was a weakness in the writing.

This is why the character of Brianna is subversive misogyny and propaganda for being the “right” kind of woman. By making Brianna nasty, vulgar, emotionally abusive and just plain mean they blacken the very idea of a child free by choice woman. Or an ambitious woman. The mismatch with Barry was part of this too. It was to make Brianna and by extension a straight woman making non traditional choices a monster. She was a caricature but a successful one. In the ecosystem of this show, it’s okay to have a job or a career as long as your main job of child rearing and marriage get your first and fullest attention. I’m not even certain it was conscious on the part of the writers its just woven into the fabric of our social beliefs.

You’re right. The ages of the girls and actresses really don’t work compared to Grace and Frankie’s ages. All of the kids are kind of portrayed in the second half of their thirties which should make their parents in their sixties. Parents in their eighties doesn’t work. Plus the kids haven’t changed at all in terms of age or development, very static characters.

Thank you everyone! I was wondering if I was off in not enjoying this. Michele Pfeiffer’s is the only performance with any humanity (I loved her dancing in her robe and mixing drinks in her first scene) but she can’t carry the other two segments. I normally like Gillian Anderson and Viola Davis but I feel like I’m watching them doing dramatized re-enactments in low budget true crime rather than playing people. Kudos to the poster above who termed the actor playing Obama a doofus; I couldn’t agree more. The casting and the performance are way off. Especially for a man whose defining personality traits are charisma, intellectual curiosity and self-containment sometimes to the point of coldness. The actor playing him didn’t read any of that and seemed too young besides. Its a disappointment because there is a lot of potential gold to mine here, not just the demands of the role of First Lady but the demands of being married to a man with the outsized ambition and personality to be president. Does the woman he marries have the big personality as well? Or does she at least appear to be the perfect helpmate? E.G. Eleanor Roosevelt gave incredible service to the American people but in her own time she was arguably hated as much or more than Hillary Clinton. There are other parallels too. Roosevelt and Clinton were habitual philanderers and both women had whispers of lesbianism and criticism regarding inappropriate ambitions. Ford found himself President rather than winning election, how does that change things? The comparisons and contrasts in different personalities could be very interesting. How does all of this affect marriages? Instead there was nothing even remotely interesting and casting and acting ranging from the jarring to the just plain strange. The writing was Lifetime level too, worse Lifetime on a bad day. Again with the sole exception of Pfeiffer. Put the lime in the coconut girl and dance, dance dance. I’m pretty certain that I’m out.

Quick thinking on Frankie’s part on how to get everyone past border patrol.

Well, I binged all of the episodes today and have mixed feelings. I did and do love that the show unapologetically shows Grace and Frankie to be best friends in the deepest possible way. Not just in death but in life. Their relationship makes both of them more than the sum of their parts. The Brianna character remains a caricature to beat women with despite the glimmers of humanity Brianna shows in her relationship with Mallory. Brianna is depicted as a monster as a woman who doesn’t want children. The depiction of Barry having to father children elsewhere and Brianna not even tolerant of conversation about said child is a stick to beat women who might not want children. The breakup with Barry is the final twist of the knife. Barry is depicted as better off without a mean, vulgar woman like Brianna who has doubts about the marriage and motherhood track. She must be a monster! Shock and horror. And what happens to monstrous women? Nobody loves them. Not even their families like them much. They end up alone with their monstrousness exposed. I’ve never seen a character so obviously designed to push women towards traditional female life paths. I loved that Frankie tried to give Bud permission and that his wife finally did. And more tried to make the permission Bud’s to own. I was happy to see Dolly even for such a short time. I’m always a fan of magical realism and loved the strength of Grace and Frankie’s friendship but wished that the writers had figured out how to address some of the real issues of aging and death. They snuck up on them, but couldn’t seem to look them square in the face. And who wants to? These are tough, but that would have elevated Grace and Frankie to art. Instead we got the milquetoast of Grace and Frankie going on in permanent state of late middle age or early old age. Physical decline won’t really cause any problems and death is just a bureaucratic error. Final thought: In contrast to Brianna as the gorgon cautionary tale, Mallory’s children sure don’t seem to take much time out of her day. Comedy doesn’t and shouldn’t mean unrealistic. In fact the most brilliant comedy makes us laugh at the tragedy and farce of our existence. At the end of the day, despite the brilliance of so many people involved, Grace and Frankie devolved into a sitcom. Once the original situation of two elderly women left because their husbands were lovers was resolved, Grace and Frankie as a show never found all of its footing thematically.

Agree, it sure looks too dark to be Fonda’s natural color, too dark. I thought the white roots we saw in the first episode were probably Jane’s natural hair and color. I doubt that she would still be salt and pepper at this point.

I thought the vial looked like white powder. But I missed the syringe so what do I know, lol. If it was indeed liquid it could be morphine in solution which addicts like but is difficult to obtain.

Thanks. I looked but couldn’t see the syringe but assumed it was heroin especially with Lenny’s reaction.

I thought of that episode too. One wonders just how the doctor would know if Peggy was ‘abusing’ the pill. As I recall the doctor also advised Peggy not to feel she had to become the town pump in order to get her money’s worth. That doctor was lovely. /s Poor Peggy. That guy date raped her and she got pregnant before she had taken the pill long enough for it to be effective. As badly as I thought Mad Men handled that storyline, Peggy’s life was essentially ruined by her unplanned pregnancy. I’m wondering if other posters are right and Mei was conflicted about her pregnancy and Midge’s dose of reality put Mei into full fledged panic about just what that pregnancy is going to mean for Mei. Medical school is over. She’s a wife, mother and stepmother now. I’m not certain Mei’s parents will be overjoyed about this news either. I hope she doesn’t get hurt having an illegal abortion. I remember my dad telling me that he could remember reading in the Chicago papers of a woman dying almost weekly from complications of illegal abortion. It turned my dad (not generally one to think about women’s issues it just wouldn’t occur to him) into a lifelong pro-life guy. But yeah, poor Mei was horrified about a life in the Midge clan.

Chekhovian hookup made me giggle. An entirely different interpretation of his gun. I for one hope that they don’t have Midge get pregnant. Even though Luke Kirby as Lenny Bruce is my favorite new tv boyfriend. My predictions: 1. Midge is going to take Lenny’s advice and start taking herself seriously. We might see Midge get the show on the billboard or strategize with Susie how to do it. 2. Susie will have problems with the mob guys who want a taste. The new secretary will help Susie get away from them by connecting her with more black clients. And please god not in a forced way or a savior way or a woke way. In a “it’s good business at the dawn of the civil rights era for everyone involved way”. AA performers were often either under represented or cheated by representation. Susie is an odd duck woman trying to build a business. She’d have to get over the gambling and dipping into the clients money thing though. This would be a great storyline to do realistically. High maintenance women ala Midge and Sophie and black performers could be Susie’s boutique break in to the business and then the niche that makes her successful. The new secretary ultimately becomes a partner. 3. I’d love to see Lenny and Midge’s doomed romance continue. 4. I do want to see how they handle Mei’s pregnancy even if it’s completely unrealistic. 5. I want to see Abe and Moishe as BFFs as heartwarming comic relief. 6. Dropped subplot, but someone needs to go rescue Susie’s sister from her BJ indentured servitude at the insurance company.

The medical causes of first trimester spontaneous abortion usually aren’t known. Sometimes nature just culls a pregnancy that isn’t viable for whatever reason. It’s more common than people realize but because it’s so often a source of emotional pain and sometimes shame, people don’t really talk about it.

I think it was supposed to be a vial of heroin and that the scene and shape of the bag was meant to suggest a syringe without blatantly showing us the syringe as a reference to Bruce’s heroin addiction. As for the club being raided, I thought that it was the success that Midge brought to the club that sparked the raid. It’s customary for quasi legal venues to pay the police off to look the other way. The raid is probably an attempt to increase the amount the police are paid based on the increase in receipts. Or a warning to tone it back down to a dark, mediocre burlesque house which could be ignored. Midge bringing in upscale clientele including women means the club can’t just be ignored. Just my take.

The best part of this episode was Rian (?) and Wags talking about young stress versus middle aged stress. People really do forget just how stressful being young is. Not only do you not know anything, most of the time you don’t know you don’t know anything and youthful hubris and verve convinces you that the opposite is true. I’ve thought this for a long time but it’s not a popular opinion and I was thrilled to see it addressed. Plus Wags has always been one of the most watchable characters on this shitshow. Even when he’s ridiculously twirled his mustache he’s fun to watch. I wish I could say the same for the other characters. Just what is the point of this show? It’s like they tried for both biting social satire/commentary and melodramatic evening soap opera and missed wildly at both. Too bad because those two genres done well together can be pretty fabulous at times. See both versions of House of Cards or early seasons of Weeds or Six Feet Under for examples.

Yes people were still sexual beings and as such could still be guilty of sexual TMI. I remember a great aunt (born in 1918) once telling me that people had sex but didn’t talk about it as much. But she also stressed, stressed how catastrophic unplanned pregnancy was and how easy it was for a woman’s life to be ruined not only with pregnancy but with a few well chosen words. It floors me that the very short time that this hasn’t been as true leads people to say it was never true. The social deaths/criticisms for women are still the same: You’re a slut. You’re a bad mother/you’re selfish or you’re fat/ugly. Still the ways women are judged. Still the way women are hurt individually and socially. Still the ways women are controlled. How different is it really if a woman is having her labia surgically altered to look like a porn star’s or having her feet bound? Therefore I don’t think that Mei as a medical student would have had an easier time finding the Pill, a highly experimental drug not yet fully approved, considered scandalous and at the time very dangerous. Early formulations of the pill gave women blood clots and strokes and several other life threatening side effects. At this time, birth control was only prescribed to married women and even then the woman and her motives were scrutinized with the prescribing physician deciding whether her reasons were good enough. Had she provided “enough” children”? Did her husband agree to the use of birth control? Mei as a single medical student would have been held to an even higher standard as one of the few women with a seat in a medical school. Add second generation immigrant to that and Asian and she gets even more scrutiny. What is she supposed to do? Ask one of her professors? A random attending physician if she’s far enough along in medical school to be doing her clinical clerkships in the hospital? And why would some random professor or doctor have access to a controversial drug that didn’t have full approval or wide distribution? Because in 1960 people went out of their way to make sure that single women had a consequence free sex life? That hasn’t even been true in my lifetime. For that matter, a pregnancy is the kind of thing that would get a woman thrown out of medical school. Even if the guy was willing to marry her as Joel is. Then the comments would all be about how admitting Mei and other women to medical school was a waste because they would just get pregnant/married anyway so admitting women was a waste of a seat that could go to a man. Things were very different and even now the veneer is very thin. Look at the recent hullabaloo about the fact that when it’s based on grades and test scores and quality of the candidates women are filling more than 50% of med school seats. Even when all indicators of sex are stripped from applications. Japan has had a scandal because they inflated men’s scores and deflated women’s scores and still can’t get enough male candidates. Mei is an incredibly annoying character and I don’t think she’s been written so much as caricatured but her pregnancy is a disaster for her entire life. Her medical school career is over. She would be quietly expelled/dismissed. Nor were there any laws to protect her against pregnancy discrimination. If she wants to be a doctor she has to find an abortionist. Good grief even Midge’s divorce would be shocking in the actual time period depicted. Yes there were ambitious trailblazers but this isn’t easy. I suspend disbelief because it’s a television show but the idea that Midge could easily be a comedienne at all much less doing it “her own way” is ridiculous. Trailblazing women generally have to be singleminded and obsessed. In reality Midge would have to do as Lenny said and work wherever she had the chance. Midge would also have to avoid getting a reputation for being difficult. Mei wouldn’t be dating Joel because she would have her hands full with 8 to 12 hours a day of classroom and hospital time not including study time or her clearly heavy responsibilities to her family. This is a fantasy confection of the late fifties and sixties seen through our current lens. Who after all wants to watch an obsessed woman work like a coolie to achieve her goals? But please don’t mistake it for reality in terms of birth control or women’s available life options. I loved Abe’s eulogy to Moishe. It was lovely and heartfelt and Moishe thanking Abe was wonderful too. I’m hoping that Moishe and Abe become closer and it’s to Abe’s credit that he finally noticed. I agree with others here that the show’s shortcomings of character and story really show this season. Too bad because there are so many fantastic elements and rich material to mine. All wasted and this dramedy is ultimately neither. A cheap Easter basket of a show filled with beckoning colors and chemical candy.

You weren’t the only one who melted with Lenny and Midge in the blue hotel room @Sarah 103. It made me remember what a primal attraction is like. I will definitely be looking for Luke Kirby’s other work. Not only did he look at her with the perfect look of desire, he proved his love for her as a person by calling her out on her professional cowardice. And that her purposeful failure would break his heart. I always lived Lenny and Midge as colleagues and friends but the bittersweet of a love that can never be has awakened my heart. I liked some of Susie’s growth this season and wish we’d seen more of it and more of Susie and Midge the odd couple. They were the central relationship of the show and I missed that. Even with Susie trying to grow and Midge temporarily punting, the conflict of that could have been explored. The Mei thing would have been a much bigger deal than portrayed. Unplanned pregnancy was catastrophic for most women for most of history. It still can be, even in American society. Joel is standing by her so that’s a help but it’s still an issue and so is the fact that Mei isn’t Jewish. I wish we’d seen her parents reaction too. Traditional Chinese society is pretty conservative too and a premarital pregnancy even with the man willing to marry wouldn’t exactly be a laugh riot. I know this is a comedy, but this entire storyline is just so anachronistic and written with the changes of the last twenty years assumed. I did love Mei’s surprise and horror when she realized that she was taking on Midge’s kids and Midge and the entire circus act that is the extended family. Mei didn’t really think this through it seems. I would love to see Midge take Lenny’s advice and start taking herself seriously. I loved the little meta nod to Lenny’s tragic end. It made me sad but I loved it.