S01.E08: Find a Way

[CarobCake]

The scene where they set the fire had me laughing out loud, it was so dumb. If only Lexie had set the fire, without the other 2 kids around, then maybe. The three of them out of the blue? No, that wasn't built up to AT ALL. 

[Adgirl]

On the next printing/airing the title should be Little Karens Everywhere now that we're all better aware of what a microagression is. 

Reese Witherspoon is an amazing actress!

This series is even better when viewed through the lens of what's been happening in the world recently and characterizing her behavior as "aggressive Karen".

[sacrebleu]

I keep going back to the conversation between Mia/Elena in Ep 5 or 6-- when Elena says "I made good choices" and Mia counters with "No, you had good choices." Which I think is the central theme of the story's conflict.

People with money believe they got where they got because of hard work, when really they've had a significant head start over people with lower incomes. There are people like Elena who truly believe that people struggle because they've made bad choices (like Bebe) when as an uneducated immigrant with no support system-- she faced the dilemma of giving up her child to save the child's life. The Richardson's and the McCullough's can't imagine a scenario where they would abandon a child because they've never been in a situation where their child dying could be a consequence of their actions. 

I think the parallels are to what Bebe did vs what Elena did when baby Izzy was too much for her to handle. Bebe didn't have a husband or friends to leave May Lin with. She didn't have an ex-boyfriend to run to for a few hours. Put young mom Elena in Bebe's situation-- and I'm guessing the odds of her leaving Izzy at a fire station go up significantly.

[bmoore4026]

Well, I just finished watching this with my mom.  We both blown away by Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon.  Emmy nominations will be certain.  If they don't give one to Lu Huang for playing Bebe, then the Emmy people are fools.

I see bright futures ahead for Megan Scott and Lexi Underwood.  Hopefully they get some awards, too.  The actors and actress who played the other kids did great, too.

Didn't recognize Joshua Jackson until his named popped up on the second episode and I was all like "what?" and then I saw him and I was "ahhh" and after this episode I was thinking "He'd make a good Philip Marlowe because he just exudes hardboildness".

This was an amazing watch yet at times a frustrating watch, but it was fascinating seeing the facades of "I'm not a racist" crack so easily with the person who's saying that doing the cracking.  But personas fell and the shadows came out (sorry, I've been playing Persona 4 so I've got Jung on the brain), and in Elena's case, her's came out screaming "YES, YOU ARE!!!".  God, I didn't know Reese Witherspoon could scream like that.

I wonder why Mia got out of the car and stood there.  I doubt her parents wanted to see her.  Maybe she just wanted a glimpse at them for closure?  Wonder what Pearl will say to them?  I hope Izzy never goes back to Elena or that horrible homophobic town.  I hope Bill divorces Elena.  I hope Brian tells everyone on campus what a racist skank Lexie is.  I hope Bebe and Mae Ling find happiness in Canada.  I hope Moody and Trip start using their real names.  I hope a lot of things.

[teddysmom]

I don't understand how Bebe got into their house and took Mae Ling.  Now she's a cat burglar too?  That was ridiculous, and I'm pretty sure the cops will catch her.  She in essence kidnapped that baby, the judge had awarded the McCulloughs legal custody to enable them to finalize the adoption, and the US has extradition agreement with Canada.  The correct process would have been an appeal.  The CPS people in Cleveland didn't try very hard to find her when she left her, tho.   The scene where she left the baby by the fire station was heart breaking, but I also felt for the McCullough's, it wasn't like they didn't love her and want her.  Tough terrible situation.   Did she not know she could go to a hospital? They wouldn't call the police.  

The stuff about the fortune cookies at the party was stupid.  To bring it up at trial like that made Linda a bad mother.  Was it a cliche and not politically correct? Yes. but this was also 1997, when no one would have batted an eye at that.  

The fire being set was stupid.  My mother and I had some major issues for a while when I got out of high school, but I never thought about setting our house on fire.  What was that supposed to prove?   

What Mia did to that couple was awful. To just disappear.  I didn't think her parents disowned her. Her mother said she loved her she just didn't want her at the funeral, which was awful in and of itself but come on. How about just say Mia's married, her husband couldn't make it and let it go at that?  Or she was married and he died.  I do not believe for an instance that old car, which was falling apart when Warren had it, made it another 15 years, with the mileage she was putting on it.  

And Lexie. OMG.  She is definitely her mother's daughter. 

I guess the theme is mothers and daughters, bad luck and hard decisions.  

I do wish they would have found actors who even remotely resembled the leads, to play them when they were younger.  AnnaSophia Robb does not look anything like Reese Witherspoon.   And did they make Reese look older with the harsh make up? Good lord. 

 

[Adgirl]

On 7/22/2020 at 7:45 AM, teddysmom said:

Was it a cliche and not politically correct? Yes. but this was also 1997, when no one would have batted an eye at that.  

Another name for politically correct is respect for other people. Ask someone of Italian dissent if they like that their culture is represented as just gangsters in American cultural shorthand. If the McCulloughs were interested in the Mae Lin's culture they could have spoken of what her birth name means but that's too much like giving a fuck about something that's not whiteness.

[candle96]

On 4/24/2020 at 9:57 PM, AnythingCanBe said:

On that note, did they ever explain why the Ryans took such a sketchy route to surrogacy?  I imagine there were surrogacy agencies or other formal ways to make arrangements in NYC by the 90s, but maybe I'm off on that?  I know they wanted someone who looked like Mrs. Ryan, but there are ways for agencies to set that up.  What made following a teenager off the subway and handing her a turkey baster seem like a good idea?  

It wasn't the 90s, it was the early 80s, when Pearl was born, around 1982? (just based on her age in 1997) Surrogacy as we know it today was still in its infancy, although I assume has probably been around informally for a long time. The first big surrogacy court case that I remember was around 1986, with Baby M. Basically the surrogate mother wanted the baby, and went back on the their contract. The couple kept custody of the baby, but the surrogate mother was granted visitation rights.

Edited August 3, 2020 by candle96

[candle96]

On 5/2/2020 at 10:59 PM, Jaclyn88 said:

One of my pet peeves in shows or movies is when someone wants to investigate something about someone , so they wait Exactly one second after the worker leaves the office to log onto their computer , and they instantly find what they need . No password , no hardships.. just finds What they need right away . 

Yes! I work with patients. Even if you get pass my passwords, you can't just jump on my computer and find them. There's a whole system that you have to log into that is not that easy to navigate.

I was also annoyed at the doctor friend in that scene for being so stupid to leave Elena in there. As if she doesn't know Elena well enough to know what she'll do? Not very smart for a doctor! 

[Crs97]

On 4/28/2020 at 11:48 AM, Jess14 said:

100% agree. Does the author of the book have a backstory in relation to adoption, surrogacy, etc.? I thought the framing was odd. Almost like adoption is a bad thing and parents who adopt are akin to thieves.

Late to the party, but I just wanted to respond:  I heard the author speak before I got a chance to read the book.  While she didn’t speak directly about any experience regarding adoption or surrogacy, she did say that she shared her first draft with her writing group, and they told her she came down too heavily on the side of the natural parents. She said she really had to balance things out for her final draft. After I read the book and realized what she considered “balanced,“ I can only assume that in her first draft they were harvesting May Ling’s body parts.

 Wait, is that why people on this forum are so absurdly nasty about Mia? They misunderstood the visual shorthand to mistakenly believe Pearl was biologically Mrs. Ryan's?

 

I cannot stand Mia because Pearl was also biologically Mr. Ryan’s daughter, and she told him Pearl was dead and stole her from him.  He had a right to know his daughter, and Pearl had the right to a stable home growing up.

I hated this book passionately.  Hated it.  I tried a little of the series because I love so many of the actors involved, and I had hoped they would fix some of the awfulness of the book.  Nope.

[SuzieQ]

I got sucked in and kept watching although I didn't really find any of the leads likable or even showing many redeeming qualities.  As an adopted person, I'm really disgusted that she stole Mae Ling/Mirabelle back.  I feel for her but that should not be applauded.  The only ones I liked were Pearl and Izzy.

Edited October 1, 2020 by SuzieQ

[SunnyBeBe]

I'm late to this series.  I just had a marathon of the whole thing.  Parts were good, but, so many things just didn't make sense to me.  The fire was ridiculous and so did the scene where Elena returns to Mia's apartment. I didn't get the work she left there....the bird feather from Izzie....IDK.  Too much symbolism for me. 

Can someone tell me where Izzie went?  Was she hitchhiking?  Was she fantasizing that she got picked up by Mia and Pearl?  

After Elena confessed to arson, how was she free to leave the scene and go to the apartment?

[Juju1455]

On 4/22/2020 at 4:52 PM, Ms Blue Jay said:

And this was my favourite part of the story -- Izzy telling prototypical "Nice Guy" Moody that he doesn't deserve and is not entitled to Pearl simply because he likes her and bought her some shit.  What a great speech.

She lied to him for a month, at least tell him and his brother betrayed him. Also took his brother to the spot he showed her in the stsrt of the show to fuck his brother. Pmao then was ignoring him basically. Lol ofcourse he going to lash out and say something to make her feel bad

[Anela]

On 4/22/2020 at 2:26 PM, archer1267 said:

Yeesh. While I'm glad the arsonist wasn't the obvious choice of Izzy or Mia, it's beyond imagination that three teenaged kids - who lack for nothing - would suddenly set their rooms on fire, destroy their things and render themselves homeless, just to get back at a controlling mom. It would have been one thing if we'd seen them come to the conclusion on their own over time, reaching a simmering boil (and even then it would have stretched credibility). I never saw any of them have any special connection to Izzy, except maybe Moody. And then suddenly Lexie's grabbing the gas container? Lexie, who always hated her sister? Yeah, that came out of nowhere.

It just seemed to be like the writer knew she needed to answer the "who lit the fire" question and just rushed towards a random conclusion. 

I hope Bebe is caught and May-Ling returned to the McCulloughs. And I hope Bill finds a pacifier of his own after all this.

I’m not surprised. I wondered if Elena would be the reason that Pearl left, and that would set off Moody. I wondered if he was the one to set the fire.  These kids are used to having everything, so they aren’t thinking about what they’re doing. They’re angry and impulsive, just like their mother. The one selfless thing she did, was to take responsibility for the fire. I’m surprised that she was free to go, but the officer did say that no other homes were affected. 

i knew that pearl would forgive her mother. Of course she loves her, and can’t imagine another woman as her mother, even if she’s daydreamed about having had a different life. 

I didn’t think that Lexie hated her sister. Siblings fight, but there is usually love there too. I think Lexie came to hate that she was a mini-me of her mother, she understood why she lost her boyfriend, and she hated herself, but turned her anger onto her mother (who had just told her baby sister that she wasn’t wanted). Trip and moody loved their sister, and were both pissed that Elena had been the reason that Pearl had to leave. Both because of the way she treated her mother, and also because she evicted them. I guess that they will live in the rental property now, unless they can find another home, just because they have money. But insurance (if it would even pay out), won’t bring back pictures and anything that was valuable in ways that weren’t financial. 
 

the adoptive couple could have kept her name. They knew it, she didn’t need a new one. Mirabelle - wasn’t that the name of ICQ? The chat program. 

I have an online friend who is an author, and she was a reporter in NE Ohio, years ago. She said that anyone who has lived here (I’m in NE Ohio), would understand, and I think I do. Although I don’t have that kind of lifestyle, and don’t have “friends” like that, who all get together and drink at book club, but really seem to hate each other. Or, I hope I don’t.  Frenemies eventually expose themselves. 

Edited April 11, 2021 by Anela

[Anela]

I don’t understand why people think that Bill is such a great guy. Is it because he was Pacey? He didn’t want to rent the home to Mia in the first place. He joined in with the racist responses re: Bebe, and he wanted Mia evicted, before Elena even said anything to Mia, about having to leave. I don’t like Elena, for the most part, but he gets some of the responsibility, and had her doing everything. She also told him that he knew she didn’t want four children, that she wanted to work, etc. he was a shitty husband at times. In the one episode, he didn’t think it would be the worst thing in the world, if she was a stay-at-home mother, but that wasn’t what she wanted. 

[chediavolo]

I just realized that Pearl‘s father‘s wife was played by the actress from Sleepy Hollow! I loved that show. 

[Inquisitionist]

On 4/22/2020 at 4:17 AM, Sir RaiderDuck OMS said:

What a waste of eight hours. At least I now know an author to avoid in the future.

 

The book wasn't great but this adaptation was awful.  

[Paloma]

On 4/22/2020 at 5:17 AM, Sir RaiderDuck OMS said:

What a waste of eight hours. At least I now know an author to avoid in the future.

I blame the show writers, not the book author (although I don't actually remember this book). But I read Our Missing Hearts by the same author and it was excellent. 

On 4/22/2020 at 8:31 AM, blondiec0332 said:

On 4/22/2020 at 5:17 AM, Sir RaiderDuck OMS said:

So was Pearl going to meet the Ryans,

And Mia just left her there.  She doesn't even know if the Ryan's are still married.

I haven't read all the comments so probably someone else answered this, but I'm sure the house that Pearl went in was Mia's parents (in McKeesport, PA) and not the house of the Ryans in NYC. Even though we only saw Mia's parents' house briefly, I recognized it. Also, the Ryans seemed to live in a more upscale place, though I'm not sure if it was an apartment or condo.