S05.E08: Episode 8

[chabelisaywow]

I actually feel sorry for Noah. WTF.

[AngelaHunter]

16 hours ago, chabelisaywow said:

I actually feel sorry for Noah. WTF

I do too. He may have fucked up a lot, but I've never seen him be intentionally cruel to anyone and I don't think he deserves all the abuse heaped on him.

[MamaMax]

On 10/14/2019 at 7:11 AM, stormy weather said:

This has been bothering me since episode 1 this season. Why has the relationship between Vik's parents and Eddie never been clarified? I am 100% sure that, if she had been given the chance, Priya would've come round and happily helped out with Eddie. 
Also, I might be biased about the subject because I've worked with children for many years and I have very little tolerance for negligent parents, but I don't think Helen did a good thing covering up for Sierra with the social worker. That baby is not safe with her. If she really wanted to help, she could've probably talked to the social worker and work out a plan where she (Helen) takes temporary custody of Eddie and makes sure Sierra attends post-partum depression therapy sessions while living with her. I don't know if that's feasible but it would've still been better than leaving Eddie alone with drowsy Sierra and her kitchen utensils. 

May I say that, 3 episodes from the finale, I am ZERO interested in Noah's #metoo lawsuit? There's not enough time to approach the topic in a decent manner, they are digging up a plethora of characters I can't even remember and I don't care about in the least (Noah's blond friend, his lawyer, the publisher, the publisher's attorney, Eden, Audrey - who is she, btw? -, the Vanity Fair lady...), and we already know none of the things he's accused of happened. And now he has to explain everything to Helen and how the accusations are not true and Helen, who might have been thinking about getting back together with Noah, is gonna think again, but then in the last episode he's going to be proven innocent and the series is going to end with both of them smiling at each other which leaves a glimmer of hope for their future. Booooring! 

I really do wish they would have spent more time on relationship we already know existed, like Joanie's relationship through the years with the Lockharts, with Noah, with Cole (how did he die? Were he and Joanie close until then?) and with Luisa, or Noah's attempt to rebuild his relationship with Helen, if that's where the show is going to end, Helen's parents and her role in helping out, and so on. I'm also (hardly ever, but still) wondering what happened to Martin, the one that got away. He's just off to school forever somewhere? I think this season he's been mentioned fewer times than Eden (or Audrey).

but... do we know that? i am not so into it as to go back and re-watch episodes, but just stay with me a minute. didn't we see all of those now resurrected interactions with women through Noah's POV? what if noah really is such a total selfish dick that he has been running around harassing and sexually victimizing women, and its only in his own narcissistic recollection that these women pursued him? i have some recollection of snarking on noah's unicorn dick...no women could seem to resist his negligible charms.  and i KNOW we discussed a scene with alison against the tree that seemed pretty clearly to be rape.  i wonder: DID he take advantage of his influence over women, especially those trying to make a career in publishing (which, like Hollywood is a pretty difficult community driven by big personalities and connections) like Eden, his PR person, and whats-her-name, the student?  I do recall him saying stuff at that student dinner that made me say "whoa".... perhaps it was not all so "here we are discussing our art in our Salon like Papa Hemingway and Fitzgerald and then get drunk and jump into bed with each other."  maybe it was a little more "omg my teacher is a creeper and i have to humor him so he wont torpedo my career."

On 10/14/2019 at 3:04 PM, ScoobieDoobs said:

Seriously, was that overkill much? OK, Treem, we get that Sierra is a crap mother!  We don’t have to be knocked over the head.  Was expecting Sierra to accidentally almost dump a bucket of acid on poor Eddie.  Jeez, Treem, enough!

And yeah, the cliches are coming fast & furious this season, but we got a bunch just in the first few minutes of this ep.  Eye-rolling, annoying millennials who think they invented social media & the dumb shit that anyone over 40 has never used social media & needs their kids to navigate it.  Ugh, why perpetuate this dumb shit, Treem?

Really, all she had to do was lean over the boiling water w Eddie on her hip and have him reach toward the pan... 

2 hours ago, AngelaHunter said:

I do too. He may have fucked up a lot, but I've never seen him be intentionally cruel to anyone and I don't think he deserves all the abuse heaped on him.

maybe.... but does he get to go careening through life accidentally (or even shall we say negligently) traumatizing people with his thoughtlessness and selfishness, and never have to accept responsibility or experience any repercussions?

[AngelaHunter]

1 hour ago, MamaMax said:

but does he get to go careening through life accidentally (or even shall we say negligently) traumatizing people with his thoughtlessness and selfishness, and never have to accept responsibility or experience any repercussions?

At this point, I think "Why not?" since that's everybody else on this show is doing. But as for him traumatizing people: Well, yes - kids are definitely hurt when their parents divorce (although not always. I used to wish my parents would divorce) but what's the alternative? To stay in a marriage where don't want to be and where both parties are miserable? Personally, I don't think so. "We stayed together for the kids" is so often used to avoid making decisions, as though the kids aren't fully aware of what's going on and are suffering for it.

[stormy weather]

On 10/16/2019 at 4:34 PM, cardigirl said:

We don't know how much Helen would know in the future, or if E.J. will get to know Noah and the rest of the family as he grows up.

And those are things it would've been very interesting to learn in this 5th and final season of the show instead of spending time with all these new(ish) characters and storylines I honestly couldn't care less about.
In any case, if EJ really is Eddie, I understand it would be sort of the writers' way for the story to "come full circle" somehow, but I'll still think it's too random and, in the end, also pretty unnecessary.

1 hour ago, MamaMax said:

but... do we know that? i am not so into it as to go back and re-watch episodes, but just stay with me a minute. didn't we see all of those now resurrected interactions with women through Noah's POV?

Okay, if that turns out to be the case, which means that for five seasons we got to know a character only to find out, three episodes from the end of the show, that he was actually a completely different person, that would be one of the most extreme cases of retconning I've ever seen on TV. Because 1. we did get to see Noah through Helen and Allison's POV several times, and sure, he did come across as many bad things, but violent sex predator was never one of them and 2. at that point we'd have to doubt every. single. thing that ever happened on the show. And although I do believe Treem and her team wrote this season during a creative writing workshop for first graders, I think this would be too much of a stretch even for them. 

[Razzberry]

3 hours ago, MamaMax said:

didn't we see all of those now resurrected interactions with women through Noah's POV? what if noah really is such a total selfish dick that he has been running around harassing and sexually victimizing women, and its only in his own narcissistic recollection that these women pursued him?

Oh man, this would explain so much.  I like it, but it seems to me that the writing and others' POVs have confirmed the unexplainable sexual magnetism that's surrounded Noah since college.  I really think we're supposed to believe that, but suspending disbelief to that extent has always been a challenge for me.

[T Summer]

1 hour ago, stormy weather said:

And those are things it would've been very interesting to learn in this 5th and final season of the show instead of spending time with all these new(ish) characters and storylines I honestly couldn't care less about.
In any case, if EJ really is Eddie, I understand it would be sort of the writers' way for the story to "come full circle" somehow, but I'll still think it's too random and, in the end, also pretty unnecessary.

Okay, if that turns out to be the case, which means that for five seasons we got to know a character only to find out, three episodes from the end of the show, that he was actually a completely different person, that would be one of the most extreme cases of retconning I've ever seen on TV. Because 1. we did get to see Noah through Helen and Allison's POV several times, and sure, he did come across as many bad things, but violent sex predator was never one of them and 2. at that point we'd have to doubt every. single. thing that ever happened on the show. And although I do believe Treem and her team wrote this season during a creative writing workshop for first graders, I think this would be too much of a stretch even for them. 

I very much agree with what you've written here, as well as in your post quoted above that where you point out Eddie's grandparents having no  involvement  is a glaring oversight on the part of the writers.

In  ep1  s2  during the time he's working on Desent in the rubber room we see Noah being with woman after woman, and they all seem to be half his age. I think it's the one where  they try to give their marriage another try and   it comes out Helen's mother's P.I. compiled  a dossier of all the women he'd been sleeping with. Now this episode we learned he was there in the first place because he was being punished for his "liaison"  with a student teacher.

When he  took  young  Daisy's number  on the book tour it seemed  he was taking advantage of   opportunities his newfound  success with Desent afforded him.  Near the end of s2 he told the therapist (when Alison didn't show) that he wanted to sleep with his best student Lucy. So there's that element that Noah, a man around 50  was perpetually going after  women he had  30+ years   life experience on. Doesn't make him a rapist, but it does make him  kind of creepy. The only age appropriate women we saw him  with were the French professor and Janelle. That age difference  was one of the  objections Helen and Noah had to Furcat being with Whitney and Scotty before that.
 

Eden was very intrusive and overbearing in her role as his publicist  whether we were seeing  Noah's, Alison's or Helen's point of view. So this act of hers where she's suddenly frightened by the very sight of Noah is total BS! When he pulled her into his hotel room and starting kissing her even though it went into making out on the floor (her on top),  he stopped when she objected. If  something different happened with Eden or if Noah was coercing  or pressuring  any of those  other  women into sex,  then the  writers needed to show that by including their viewpoints.

In this ep we learned Noah even wrote about overpowering Alison by the  tree at that retreat in his book and discussed  it with his students. Noah told them  he didn't consider it to be a scene of rape, and that "sex didn't need to be  consensual in order for a woman to enjoy it"!  Audrey was horrified at the time, and she's even written about it in her novel that's coming out amid the Eden allegations.

Gottlieb said these matters are decided in the court of public opinion, so he's screwed. It looks as if  it's going to be used as the reason for Sasha (and the studio?) to demand that Noah's name not be attached to the movie. Will he still be paid? He's  been looking to this  movie  version of Desent to improve his precarious financial position. Could this, and whether Helen  will support Noah  really be  the whole point of introducing these sexual misconduct allegations at this late date when the series is almost over?

What are the chances of the Whitney Furcat interactions in a very public place getting back to Colin? [sarcasm]

The scene from next ep they showed between Whitney and Furcat looks quite cringeworthy, doesn't it?

It will be interesting to see how  fold  the long list  extraneous characters and unresolved  story lines   into just 3  more episodes.

[AngelaHunter]

12 hours ago, T Summer said:

Gottlieb said these matters are decided in the court of public opinion, so he's screwed.

This is a new court where the accused is guilty until proven innocent, so yeah - Noah is definitely screwed.

[PrincessPurrsALot]

The one discrepancy between stories that I keep thinking about it whether Noah brought a homemade lasagna to Helen's house (Helen) or he brought a small bag of food (Noah) which was clearly not enough for a family.  Is there leftover lasagna or not?  I need to know!

[Razzberry]

Good question, Princess.  My first thought was if he was wearing an oven mitt and where did he get take-out in a glass dish?  I'm pretty sure he lives in his car.

[Lemons]

This has become a bad parody of a nighttime soap opera.  There are no characters to root for.

 I hated how Helen chimes in about the next door neighbor, can’t remember her name, not needing hospitalization or rehab.  Yea, actually she did.  Up all night doing coke and having sex in public bathrooms after you left your baby with a 12 year old.  Not being able to get up in the morning and take care of the baby.  She did need the break it would provide and the treatment for drug use and depression. Helen is just too annoying a character and there’s no way so many guys would be interested.  

[endure]

Is all this me too stuff going on just from the two women, one who has written a novel and the other one is a publisher? Neither woman had much of a part in the series and I really barely remember their characters. 

At first i thought maybe Sacha was behind it but don’t know, it is just that he is so full of contempt for Noah and seems generally pretty deranged.

[AngelaHunter]

2 hours ago, Lemons said:

 Up all night doing coke and having sex in public bathrooms after you left your baby with a 12 year old.

And left him alone in a car, then crashed the car with him in it, leaves him to cry for who knows how long (probably hungry and wet)while she zones out on the sofa, sits him down on the kitchen counter next to a knife to either cut himself or topple off the counter - and may have done both if Helen hadn't grabbed him -  and is out having sex with some guy in exchange for a job or a auditon or whatever maybe with no precautions this time either. The baby needs to be placed with somone else, maybe his grandparents, until Sierra gets her shit together. Butt out, Helen. when did YOU become Earth Mother?

Edited October 19, 2019 by AngelaHunter

[LoveLeigh]

Seriously, how does Treem introduce new plots about Noah and sexual misconduct in the last season with only 3 episodes to go? How did the Joanie thing get wrapped up so fast with a Ben monologue and a Hitchcockian trap? Why divert the whole show to be about Sierra? Who cares about Whitney and her life? 

What a waste of a season. I suppose Treem wants to leave many plots open and dangling. This show should have been three seasons: 1, 2 and 4. 

Edited October 19, 2019 by DakotaLavender

[T Summer]

right?

I really hated s3 and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like s5 when it's all said and done.

If Noah and Helen were ever going to get back together it should have happened after that talk they had outside the hospital in s4 where Noah said the person he would most want to be with  when he died was Helen. (after a respectable amount of time spent mourning Vik, of course).

Now? after Noah has been seemingly nothing more than an irritant to Helen AND the kids. The kids absolutely shunned him at Vik's funeral. Basically since he moved out to California. Stacy uttered her first kind word toward him the night of Sasha's costume party. Now she's all the way to writing stories about them being on a course back to each other? Helen has NOT been checking for Noah like that! What was it last ep 8? or 7? where he came to where she was working  on someone's house to plead for her back, and she had zero interest. She was completely put off. Don't ruin this  too, she said. Helen only had a smile for Noah the day of her birthday because  Whitney said he helped so much with the wedding plans.

So naturally Treem and the team are going to put them back together. Makes no sense.

Some times I think about listing characters and plot lines from most to least cared about, but honestly I can't be bothered.

[AngelaHunter]

11 hours ago, T Summer said:

Now? after Noah has been seemingly nothing more than an irritant to Helen AND the kids.

He's nothing more than an irritant and  a whipping boy to everyone. How tiresome. It makes me think of old movies where the woman who got pregnant without benefit of marriage or who had an affair must be severely punished, often by death.

[LoveLeigh]

And come to think of it, how were Noah's hallucinations from his jail experience in season 3 resolved? 

[AngelaHunter]

1 hour ago, DakotaLavender said:

how were Noah's hallucinations from his jail experience in season 3 resolved? 

IIRC. he found out where the guard lived (and IMO, Brendan Fraser was one of the best parts of that season, or maybe of the whole series) and saw he was just a regular person/family man who seemed to see Noah was having some sort of breakdown, calmed him down and sent him on his way. I could be wrong since most of that season seemed like some sort of drug-fueled trip to me.

Edited October 19, 2019 by AngelaHunter

[T Summer]

7 hours ago, AngelaHunter said:

IIRC. he found out where the guard lived (and IMO, Brendan Fraser was one of the best parts of that season, or maybe of the whole series) and saw he was just a regular person/family man who seemed to see Noah was having some sort of breakdown, calmed him down and sent him on his way. I could be wrong since most of that season seemed like some sort of drug-fueled trip to me.

This mess has never made sense to me. After this ^  which occurred with no cut on Noah's neck in s3 ep9 pt2 Noah's POV...

They then showed more of Noah's hallucinations in jail, at his dad's place and then in front of his sink... where he envisioned cutting  his own neck.

So if Noah's neck was never cut, and he was never  addicted to painkillers, Why would he be in such a terrible state that Helen was hiding him in the basement? If that never happened...

How could  Vik  have found out, gotten angry and left because of it? In s3 ep 9 pt1 Helen's POV   concludes w/ her  tracking Vik down, confessing   she hid Noah in the basement because she felt she owed him and not because she still loved him.

S3 ep10 pt 1Juliette's POV begins with uninjured Noah in her bed in Paris.

Can anyone explain why Vik left and that whole Helen-Vik conversation took place if it (Noah's neck injury-painkillers- being hidden  in basement) was all in Noah's mind?

[T Summer]

9 hours ago, AngelaHunter said:

He's nothing more than an irritant and  a whipping boy to everyone. How tiresome. It makes me think of old movies where the woman who got pregnant without benefit of marriage or who had an affair must be severely punished, often by death.

[sorry, haven't gotten the hang of multi-quotes yet]

When I said this...

Now? after Noah has been seemingly nothing more than an irritant to Helen AND the kids.

It was meant as an indictment of the writers, rather than a judgment against Noah.

I went and looked for a thread discussing Noah's character  and didn't see one. There are threads like that for Helen, Cole and Alison.

[AngelaHunter]

6 hours ago, T Summer said:

It was meant as an indictment of the writers, rather than a judgment against Noah.

Yes, exactly what I meant. Noah no longer has a character. He just goes from place to place being dissed and insulted by all. I think he's been punished enough for the terrible crime of falling in love outside his marriage all those years ago.

6 hours ago, T Summer said:

This mess has never made sense to me. After this ^  which occurred with no cut on Noah's neck in s3 ep9 pt2 Noah's POV...

Made no sense to me either. It was like watching closed captions in a foreign language. You can see them, but they make no sense to you. That's how I felt watching the whole "Noah is crazy" stuff.

[Aqua]

On 10/15/2019 at 1:04 AM, ScoobieDoobs said:

Well, I'm not gonna pull an EJ & start rolling off lines from great JJL parts, but suffice to say she is a proven terrific actress.  And here she has an interesting presence.  She is great at playing creepy & she does it here to the max.  I still say she doesn't quite pull off the supposed aspect that she's a famous hottie.  A former hottie?  Maybe. 

 

I don't think the character is supposed to be considered a famous hottie. It was always presented that she was a quirky, beyond her prime, but still in high demand actress.

[Aqua]

On 10/17/2019 at 9:05 PM, T Summer said:

Now this episode we learned he was there in the first place because he was being punished for his "liaison"  with a student teacher.

 

We learned this actually at the time he was in the rubber room, not just in this episode.