S07.E18: A Judgy Face and Your Grandma's Drawers

[bybrandy]

14 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Also, the problem is that Violet seemed to harbor no ill will towards Bonnie. She seems to have a double standard when it comes to her mother versus her grandmother.

But Christy kept Bonnie away from the kids when Bonnie was drinking so Violet's experience with Bonnie is not the same as Chrsty's.    
 

[bybrandy]

21 hours ago, Blakeston said:

For me, the difference is that Christy hasn't cast Bonnie out of her life, and publicly demonized her the way that Violet is with Christy.

I got the impression (although I could be wrong) that Bonnie was kept pretty far out of the kids life when she was drinking and it was only during times of sobriety that Christy had contact with her or allowed that for the kids.  Yet, too much of Christy's constant chatter is about her crappy childhood with her crappy alcoholic mom to think that Christy didn't tell literally everybody she met about it even before AA.   I mean she does now.   Violet is literally doing everything she was taught to do by her mother only on a podcast.

[eyesopen]

21 hours ago, cmahorror said:

I think we will see that her decision to put her cats well-being over her granddaughters comes back to bite her in the ass. Her son's biggest issue with her was her decision to choose drugs and alcohol over him, choosing her wants and needs over him and his wants and needs. How is her deciding to take care of her cats over her granddaughter going to appear to him?

As we all know, alcoholism/any addiction can't really be controlled by a person alone.  It may seem a person is choosing drugs and alcohol over their marriage to a loved spouse, to loved children, but we know it’s not a choice they can entirely not choose.  It doesn’t wipe out the anger to be felt toward an alcoholic, but it lessens it a little.  Addiction really truly destroys marriages, families, children.

As good as Mom is at times, it’s a typical tv show with sometimes typical lazy tv writing.  Marjorie choosing her cat over granddaughter baby is just plot machinations and resulting bad, sloppy, lazy tv writing.  It isn’t the first tv show being lazy, successful or not, and it won’t be the last.

We’re watching pretty much 22 minute episodes.  Why can’t writers just write a well developed episode instead of doing a bit too much and serving half baked episodes that annoy viewers with their plot problems?

[Amazee-Dayzee]

You know, in the future a part of me is thinking that either Jerry or his wife is gonna end up having some sort of addiction. Marjorie was 20 times worse than Bonnie and Christy still ended up with an addiction so I'm surprised that Jerry is as stable as he seems.

Then it was established before he let Marjorie back into his life (at his wife's behest) that his wife seemed to do most of the childcare and wanted a second pair of hands to help out since she was overworked. Then we had her coming back tipsy after the wedding.

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if Jerry or his wife ended up with something. The signs seem to be there with the wife but they may throw a curveball and it could be Jerry. OR we could have a Roscoe situation where BOTH parents were completely hapless (but Baxter somehow managed to pull himself together a tiny bit.)

[cmahorror]

Let me rephrase - it appeared to Jerry that Marjorie choose drugs and alcohol over him, I understand the addiction is a disease and there are many factors involved in it.

This is, admittedly, a touchy subject for me. My daughters birth mother left them because she didn't want to be tied down and wanted to go out and party (her words during one on her few sporadic visits when they were growing up). Is she an addict? Possibly but it doesn't change how my daughters feel about her or the fact that they want nothing to do with her now. She is not part of any recovery program like Marjorie so maybe that makes the difference but the fact remains that Marjorie made a decision to put her granddaughter after her cats. I cannot see how this would reflect well on her, even though she told Jerry the truth.

I get that this is a 22-minute show but this show has been very good at creating multi-episode storylines. Instead of writing an episode for just 22 minutes, they look at the place the story holds in the overall narrative of the show and do not rely on one-off episodes. To see them do something so sitcom with no repercussions or discussion regarding her decision down the line is something that I do not expect from these writers.

[Sarah 103]

On 3/16/2020 at 3:18 AM, bybrandy said:

I got the impression (although I could be wrong) that Bonnie was kept pretty far out of the kids life when she was drinking and it was only during times of sobriety that Christy had contact with her or allowed that for the kids.  Yet, too much of Christy's constant chatter is about her crappy childhood with her crappy alcoholic mom to think that Christy didn't tell literally everybody she met about it even before AA.   I mean she does now.   Violet is literally doing everything she was taught to do by her mother only on a podcast.

I had not thought about this but it all sounds right to me. Bonnie and Christy had not spoken or had a relationship for years prior to the start of the series. Based on how young Christy's kids were, it is unlikely they would have a relationship with Bonnie if Christy didn't have one. 

[eyesopen]

17 hours ago, cmahorror said:

Let me rephrase - it appeared to Jerry that Marjorie choose drugs and alcohol over him, I understand the addiction is a disease and there are many factors involved in it.

This is, admittedly, a touchy subject for me. My daughters birth mother left them because she didn't want to be tied down and wanted to go out and party (her words during one on her few sporadic visits when they were growing up). Is she an addict? Possibly but it doesn't change how my daughters feel about her or the fact that they want nothing to do with her now. She is not part of any recovery program like Marjorie so maybe that makes the difference but the fact remains that Marjorie made a decision to put her granddaughter after her cats. I cannot see how this would reflect well on her, even though she told Jerry the truth.

I get that this is a 22-minute show but this show has been very good at creating multi-episode storylines. Instead of writing an episode for just 22 minutes, they look at the place the story holds in the overall narrative of the show and do not rely on one-off episodes. To see them do something so sitcom with no repercussions or discussion regarding her decision down the line is something that I do not expect from these writers.

I really get the touchy subject feelings.  My life has been touched by a close one’s addiction, it wasn’t a long ago to have the effects lessen a bit, and it’s very, very difficult to forgive and let go.  I think for some betrayals, when it’s a huge one, the relationship is shattered into tiny pieces and it’s not worth it to forgive, even if the other person is remorseful or addicted.  For the sufferer to go onto a peaceful life, it’s better to walk away and close the door. 

I could not forgive in the situations where a parent abandons a child because he/she is too young/party happy to handle child raising.  This was a storyline in Younger tv show, and I did not like the mother for that abandonment act.  (She did it for a different reason-because she felt she didn’t have an identity anymore as a person, just a mother to 2 young daughters and a wife-still an immensely sucky reason) 

Then don't have kids then.  Know yourself.  Some people feel they don't like kids/want to pay more attention to their career, and so they don't have kids.  Don't have a kid to set them up to suffer tremendously for your selfishness.

Regarding the 22 minute comment, yes, maybe it isn’t that they only have 22 minutes, but they executed a less developed story than they usually do when they have done better jobs of completing a story and character development in multi episodes.

[iMonrey]

Quote

I got the impression (although I could be wrong) that Bonnie was kept pretty far out of the kids life when she was drinking and it was only during times of sobriety that Christy had contact with her or allowed that for the kids

That doesn't change the fact that Violet had an unrealistic warmness to Bonnie. If Bonnie was not a presence during her childhood then why was Violet so warm and fuzzy towards her? She treated her as though she had always been her beloved grandmother and had been there for her when Christy was not. Clearly that wasn't the case. 

On a basic level Violet should understand that Christy grew up with an unreliable alcoholic mother just like she did. I can think of no reason she'd see Bonnie any differently much less more affectionately than she saw her mother. 

I just think it was sloppy writing and we were supposed to think it was funny how frustrated and jealous Christy was with Violet's warm attitude towards Bonnie. 

[Bastet]

53 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

That doesn't change the fact that Violet had an unrealistic warmness to Bonnie. If Bonnie was not a presence during her childhood then why was Violet so warm and fuzzy towards her?

Because when Bonnie turned back up in Christy's life, she made a point of being ultra-helpful with the kids.  Christy wasn't a mess anymore, but Violet was still helping raise Roscoe (and, like Christy said, Violet was a better mother to him than she was).  Then Bonnie comes along, starts taking care of Roscoe (taking that responsibility off Violet) and being cool, non-judgmental Grandma to Violet, and in short order Violet turns up pregnant.  I think it's very natural at that age and circumstances that she clung to Bonnie (and notable she called her Bonnie, not Grandma - she wasn't inventing a pre-existing relationship, she was just enjoying this new one), with whom she didn't share the ugly history she did with Christy, rather than analyzing how what Christy put her through is what Bonnie put Christy through.

[iMonrey]

I don't buy it, Bastet. Mostly because she and Christy were on fairly good terms during her pregnancy (Christy did support her during that time after all). It just smells of retcon. Bonnie wasn't any more of a help to Violet than Christy was, and for a shorter period of time.

[MissLucas]

Christie struggled enormously with Violet's decision to give up her baby. It was Bonnie who made her come around. So that was one instance when Violet felt that Bonnie was more on her side than Christie.

As for the episode: Unless there's some fall-out further down the line I think that one day someone in the writers' room simply pitched the idea of having a plot that requires each of the leading ladies to deal with a baby and hilarity would ensue. How to set-up that scenario was just an afterthought.

Edited March 18, 2020 by MissLucas

[nodorothyparker]

Bonnie is the one who told Christy that Violet thought she was pregnant in the first place, with the suggestion that they had been connecting for some time on social media even before Christy and Bonnie reconciled.  Bonnie was the one who brought Christy around when she was pushing back against the adoption and she was the one stepping in to do a lot of the usual mom duties in the first two seasons when Christy was still sleeping with her married boss and then blowing off responsibilities to date the fireman.   

Christy and Violet fought quite a bit after Violet gave up the baby and also had at least a couple of go rounds after Violet moved in with Gregory.  Bonnie wasn't her mother so Bonnie also didn't have to play the heavy when Violet came back from Lake Tahoe with a wad of cash from her fraudulent green card marriage scheme.  Bonnie got to play the understanding grandmother who listened.  Violet's actually been written fairly consistently over the course of the series as appreciating Bonnie being on her side and confiding in her, even if sometimes it seemed as much about sticking it to Christy when she and Bonnie weren't getting along as anything else.

[bybrandy]

Because Bonnie wasn't a pressence in Violet's life when she was drinking Bonnie hadn't spent years giving Violet reasons not to trust her.  Yes Bonnie and Christy were both sober when we met them but Violet had years and years and years of living with her addict mom.  Addict's are unpredictable.  It is incredibly stressful as a child not knowing how your parent is going to react to pretty much everything.   It takes a long time to fully trust that person again once they've gotten sober.   There is just a visceral fear that what was okay on Monday may or may not be okay on Tuesday.   Violet carries emotional baggage with Christy that she just doesn't have with Bonnie.   Bonnie didn't spend a decade and a half being an inconsistent presence in Violet's life   

[Chaos Theory]

On 3/17/2020 at 10:12 PM, Sarah 103 said:

I had not thought about this but it all sounds right to me. Bonnie and Christy had not spoken or had a relationship for years prior to the start of the series. Based on how young Christy's kids were, it is unlikely they would have a relationship with Bonnie if Christy didn't have one. 

One of the first things on the pilot episode was Christy seeing Bonnie at a meeting and then finding out that Violet has been in touch with her.   I am not sure how long but Violet would only “forgive” Christy if Christy “forgave” Bonnie.   The first season Violet was always quicker to go to Bonnie and take her advice then Christy.   

[proserpina65]

On ‎03‎/‎13‎/‎2020 at 11:57 PM, Amazee-Dayzee said:

Though Infinitis might only be very pricey over here on my end and not pricey in California but still I would never expect Marjorie to drive a mid-sized luxury car even if it was from the mid-to-late 1990s.

As kwnyc says, it was probably Victor's car, and maybe it was a used one.

[proserpina65]

On ‎03‎/‎18‎/‎2020 at 1:40 PM, eyesopen said:

Then don't have kids then.  Know yourself.  Some people feel they don't like kids/want to pay more attention to their career, and so they don't have kids.  Don't have a kid to set them up to suffer tremendously for your selfishness.

To be fair, it's not always a choice.  Pregnancies sometimes happen despite making attempts to prevent them.