S01.E08: The Race Grows Sweeter Near Its Final Lap

[OtterMommy]

Quote

"Old love is different. In our 70s and 80s, we had been through enough of life's ups and downs to know who we were, and we had learned to compromise. The finish line was drawing closer."

[BobH]

Well, I didn't expect that. Figured it was just a straight anthology, but I guess the style these days is to have a season finale that ties everything together...

Spoiler

like Jordon Peele's TWILIGHT ZONE.

The new story in here was... okay. Not really given a lot of room to do anything innovative, and mostly standard rom-com tropes. Then it turns out that this was all an extended version of one of those Garry Marshall holiday movies, RAINY DAY IN NEW YORK or something. I did wonder what that scene in the window was with the manic pixie straight girl was, so that explained that. That one worked, and the extra scene for the doorman episode was okay. The rest of them were pretty superflous, increasingly so as they went along, kind of robbed the power of the ending of a few of the episodes.  Don't think the show needed it. I guess it does justify using New York as a setting for everything, but I think it might have been a better show if they moved it around a bit. It's a bigger world than just New York, which has had enough TV shows and movies set in it for a hundred lifetimes.

I'm not sorry I watched it, but I doubt I'd be back for another season unless I hear really good things.

Edited October 20, 2019 by BobH

[buttersister]

Enjoyed the extra scene of the Learys still together—meant they hadn’t split up and subsequently, individually, ruined two other lives.

[twoods]

This one hit me like a ton of bricks and was so incredibly sad. Even though their scenes were short I felt their love and it had a lot of heart. 

I liked all the storylines tying together somehow and we got to sort of see how it ends.

[loki310]

I could have done without the montage. I thought the old love story was fine on its own. The first and last episode were the best by far for me. 

[TheOtherOne]

For those interested, the original story:

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/style/modern-love-the-race-grows-sweeter-near-its-final-lap.html

Edited October 22, 2019 by TheOtherOne

[Jade Foxx]

14 hours ago, loki310 said:

I could have done without the montage. I thought the old love story was fine on its own. The first and last episode were the best by far for me. 

Agree, the old love story was lovely. The montage was heavy-handed and cornball-ish. 

Get off my lawn. 

[Jillybean]

I didn't mind the montage, but I was invested in Margot and Ken's story and we were cheated out of a full episode devoted to it.

Jane Alexander is stunning!

[Julia67]

Looks like I'm in the minority but I loved every episode and the finale!  I thought every story was sweet and believable and I loved the sound tracks too!

[Crs97]

I think the montage made me like some episodes more and some less.  I loved that Karla heard them bickering and told her ride to leave.  I hated that Guzmin followed girl to the women’s clinic; that felt more creepy to me than the “guy old enough to be your father” guy.  Please tell me he grew a beard and was the journalist’s date because I actually liked him, creepy interest in girl too young for him that I can pretend was a mid-life crisis notwithstanding.  I never thought Yazmine was pretty, but clearly others think she is a knockout.  I liked seeing how they met, especially knowing she feels the need to get men to like her and we saw evidence of that in their first date.  Other epilogues weren’t needed at all.

I wanted more from this last episode than I got. 

[tennisgurl]

I thought the montage was sweet if a bit on the pointless side. I would have liked to see more new information about the people we saw, but I am a sucker for those kinds of connection stories. 

The story with Margot and Ken was a great place to end, I really wished we had gotten more time with them, their relationship was so sweet. 

I thought this was a cute series, and I would be interested in seeing more, hopefully with a more diverse number of stories, not only more diversity in characters (ages, races, socio economic backgrounds, gender and sexual orientations) but in the kinds of love that they show, like between family and friends and other connections. 

[Corgi-ears]

On 11/15/2019 at 3:40 AM, tennisgurl said:

I thought this was a cute series, and I would be interested in seeing more, hopefully with a more diverse number of stories, not only more diversity in characters (ages, races, socio economic backgrounds, gender and sexual orientations) but in the kinds of love that they show, like between family and friends and other connections. 

That show is called High Maintenance.