S02.E07: The Shillelagh

[chlban]

On 7/10/2020 at 9:00 AM, Mrs. Hanson said:

It makes perfect sense to me that she was managing her wedding planning with paper and pen. 

Not gonna lie:  I am 100 percent comfy on a computer, and when I remarried in 2017 I used all paper and pencil. First time bride in 1994....computers were not a commonplace thing.

 

I got married in '88, didn't have a computer, wasn't even using a computer at work then and I was in the Financial industry.

[chlban]

On 7/11/2020 at 7:10 AM, Persnickety1 said:

Clara was released in 2018 after serving 15 years.  

She was another unfortunate woman who had a prick for a husband.  

Not as familiar with the Clara Harris story, but wasn't hers more of a "caught hubby in the act and lost it story"? What is usually referred to as a Crime of Passion?

[chlban]

21 hours ago, Persnickety1 said:

I believe Clara was truly remorseful and there was little to no premeditation in her actions that night.

Betty, OTOH, will likely never show remorse because she doesn't have any, and quite a bit of premeditation went into her acts that night.  I don't anticipate her ever being released.  She continues to be her own worst enemy in many ways.

Both of them really tragic situations.  😞  

I wonder if Covid will get her released? If they had an outbreak kind of seems like she might have a good chance of being released. I honestly think that would be awful for her kids. I heard Lee has offered to provide her a home, which I will bet she will regret if it happens. Narcissists like Betty suck the life out of people.

[Starlight925]

59 minutes ago, chlban said:

Not as familiar with the Clara Harris story, but wasn't hers more of a "caught hubby in the act and lost it story"? What is usually referred to as a Crime of Passion?

Clara Harris was a dentist, and her husband was an orthodontist.  He was cheating with his receptionist (sound familiar?), and when Clara found out, he begged her to forgive him and said he'd stop the affair.

Clara had suspicions that the affair was continuing, so she hired a private investigator, who called to tell her that her suspicions were correct, and that her husband and office gal were at a particular hotel at that moment.  To add insult, they were at the same hotel where he & Clara had gotten married.  Clara took his then teenage daughter, drove to the hotel, where she spotted her husband and receptionist.  When they were in the parking lot (Clara was now in the car, and he was on foot), she stepped on the gas and ran him over.  She drove around in circles 3 times, just to make sure she got him, all the while, his daughter begging her to stop.  His daughter testified against Clara. 

As @Persnickety1 pointed out, Clara is now out, and she is penniless.  She obviously lost her dental license, and she owes her lawyers millions.

To your point as to whether Betty will be released due to COVID?  Hmmm.  But yes, narcissists suck the life out of people, and a narcissist with BPD?  Deadly.

Edited July 12, 2020 by Sterling

[geauxaway]

25 minutes ago, Sterling said:

To your point as to whether Betty will be released due to COVID?  Hmmm.  But yes, narcissists suck the life out of people, and a narcissist with BPD?  Deadly.

Betty was selfish and needy prior to prison.  She’s been out of society and normal life for way too long to be independent if she was released.  Can you even imagine having to be her caretaker?  

[Fable]

I don’t really believe Betty wants to be released. I think she enjoys her “celebrity” status and the fanfare of the Free Betty movement, but what does she have to return to on the outside? 

[Mrs. Hanson]

2 hours ago, Fable said:

I don’t really believe Betty wants to be released. I think she enjoys her “celebrity” status and the fanfare of the Free Betty movement, but what does she have to return to on the outside? 

I agree.  Can you imagine living with her?  It would be like having a two year old yet she is 84.  Can't drive anywhere, no money and you get endless reruns of "Why Dan is a Bastard."

[ElectricBoogaloo]

On 7/10/2020 at 9:00 AM, Mrs. Hanson said:

It makes perfect sense to me that she was managing her wedding planning with paper and pen. 

Not gonna lie:  I am 100 percent comfy on a computer, and when I remarried in 2017 I used all paper and pencil. First time bride in 1994....computers were not a commonplace thing.

My parents bought their first computer in the early 1980s. They had a Commodore VIC-20. They definitely had a PC by 1990 when my sister was in first grade. My parents had several educational games for her to play on the computer (but that was considered a treat, not everyday activity). I remember by second grade, she was using the computer to print short stories that she wrote (which I regret - there's something so much more nostalgic/cute about a 7 year old's stories when they're handwritten).

My parents were not rich by any means. We were very middle class (American middle class, not British middle class). They were also not the type to run out to buy the latest tech right away. It took them FOREVER to finally buy a CD player (I think it took until the mid 90s for them to give in and buy one), and the first DVD player was one that I bought for them after college.

But I was willing to believe that Linda just hated typing and never got good enough at it to use it for something as simple as making a list. Even if she didn't have a computer at home, she definitely could have typed that list at work and printed it there. Instead she chose to hand write the list which makes me think she just didn't WANT to use a computer/printer for that.

[Persnickety1]

22 hours ago, Sterling said:

Clara Harris was a dentist, and her husband was an orthodontist.  He was cheating with his receptionist (sound familiar?), and when Clara found out, he begged her to forgive him and said he'd stop the affair.

Clara had suspicions that the affair was continuing, so she hired a private investigator, who called to tell her that her suspicions were correct, and that her husband and office gal were at a particular hotel at that moment.  To add insult, they were at the same hotel where he & Clara had gotten married.  Clara took his then teenage daughter, drove to the hotel, where she spotted her husband and receptionist.  When they were in the parking lot (Clara was now in the car, and he was on foot), she stepped on the gas and ran him over.  She drove around in circles 3 times, just to make sure she got him, all the while, his daughter begging her to stop.  His daughter testified against Clara. 

As @Persnickety1 pointed out, Clara is now out, and she is penniless.  She obviously lost her dental license, and she owes her lawyers millions.

To your point as to whether Betty will be released due to COVID?  Hmmm.  But yes, narcissists suck the life out of people, and a narcissist with BPD?  Deadly.

Oy, and don't forget that fucking list of things she needed to do that David gave to Clara if she wanted him to stay with her, like losing weight, working out, dying her hair, having a boob job.  I believe poor Clara still had the list and was checking off things as she completed them.  What she should have done was shoved that list up his ass, driven him over to his mistress' house, dumped his ass off, and carried on with her life without him.    

Both Dan and David were complete and utter pricks.  

22 hours ago, chlban said:

Not as familiar with the Clara Harris story, but wasn't hers more of a "caught hubby in the act and lost it story"? What is usually referred to as a Crime of Passion?

Yes, it truly was a heat of the moment decision, IMO.  The 10-15 minutes preceding her actions would have had me stomping on the foot pedal, too, and I'm extremely rational.  Everyone has their limits and I can only imagine Clara's state of mind when she ran him over.  They did nail her with predmeditation because she had said she was going to kill him/run him over seconds before she did it.  The prosecution argued that those few seconds indicated premeditation on h er part. 

In many ways I thought David was even worse than Dan.  

I was shocked when Clara received that sentencing.  I think perhaps Clara sticking to her claim that somehow her car malfunctioned and that's why she ran him over an additional 2 times hurt more than helped her, kind of like Betty's embellished story in the second trial did her more harm than good.  

Edited July 13, 2020 by Persnickety1

[poeticlicensed]

On 7/11/2020 at 9:54 AM, Sterling said:

Re:  Betty's vulgar over-talking with the Notre Dame fan at the bar.

It reminds me why sometimes I regret striking up casual conversations with strangers seated next to me at events, on planes, etc. Because you are just trying to make casual conversation and you sometimes get a Betty who wants to unload their problems on you. That poor woman!

[geauxaway]

54 minutes ago, poeticlicensed said:

It reminds me why sometimes I regret striking up casual conversations with strangers seated next to me at events, on planes, etc. Because you are just trying to make casual conversation and you sometimes get a Betty who wants to unload their problems on you. That poor woman!

Right??  🤣🤦🏻‍♀️

[Vivigirl10]

Quote

If you watch her speak on her case in real life at all, she can never contain herself. The anger and rage and justifying and blame starts spewing out like this all just happened last week. 

Exactly.  This is why I have to watch this as a "show" and not try to compare it to real life.  I don't think they jive with one another.  Amanda as Betty is completely soul crushing and you just want to pick her up off the floor and give her a hug.  I think the real life Betty is much more like the one who showed up to the girls lunch uninvited.  Yuck.  Please stop talking you lunatic.  

I keep wishing that Betty would have just stuck up her middle finger, rejected everything and anything that Dan was offering, and moved into a studio apartment that she could pay for with her daycare job.  I wish she could have just cut both of them out of her life, moved on and not asked him for a single thing.  Maybe that's too hard to do once you've had a taste of "the good life".  But it sure would have felt liberating, I'm certain.

Quote

When the ending scene showed Betty laying down on her cot in the cell, my first thought was that was probably the first good night's sleep she'd had in years because the "enemy" was no longer a threat. 

My thought too.  Really, all her burdens had been lifted.  She didn't have to worry about where to live, how her bills would be paid, where her next meal would come from.  Her kids would be free to visit her if they so desired.  I'm in the camp thinking that prison life fits her quite well, compared to the alternative.  

Love the 80's fashion.

I also love that two of her friends really seemed to try to do right by her. 

[Elizzikra]

Quote

I keep wishing that Betty would have just stuck up her middle finger, rejected everything and anything that Dan was offering, and moved into a studio apartment that she could pay for with her daycare job.  I wish she could have just cut both of them out of her life, moved on and not asked him for a single thing.  Maybe that's too hard to do once you've had a taste of "the good life".  But it sure would have felt liberating, I'm certain.

I think that is particularly difficult when you have kids. I think it would be really hard to have them living the lux life at Daddy's and then a subsistence existence (which as a preschool teacher is about what Betty alone would have been able to offer them). I think she was interested in money for her own enjoyment but I also believe that she was bound and determined that her kids were going to have all the material advantages they would have had if Dan had never met Linda, started a new family or divorced Betty. She didn't even want those kids busted back to middle class - they were going to stay in private school, have ski vacations, cars at age 16... and all the other luxuries.

[CraftyHazel]

All this computer talk amuses me.  My ex husband took programming courses before we were married (late 1970s), when a computer took up half a room.  But we had a home computer by 1980!  Our local small town newspaper wrote an article about our two year old daughter playing an alphabet shopping game that my ex had created for her.  Flashing green cursor, dot matrix printer, and all.  Pre-internet, I played computer games, and had high scores published in a computer magazine in 1983 or 1984.  I still have a letter from the magazine, after I protested my Apple Panic (or maybe Babel Terror) score not being published.  You had to take a photo of the computer screen, get the photo printed, and then snail mail it in to get acknowledged.  We were distinctly not wealthy, just middle class.  I can’t imagine a home computer still being such a huge novelty in such a wealthy household by 1989.

[Bulldog]

On 7/12/2020 at 5:48 PM, Mrs. Hanson said:

Can you imagine living with her?  It would be like having a two year old yet she is 84.  Can't drive anywhere, no money and you get endless reruns of "Why Dan is a Bastard."

I bet her cellmate knows the story by heart.  

[stonehaven]

My parents divorced when I was a year old. Watching this makes me realize how lucky I was to be that young and not be put through that. Kids turn into bargaining chips during these situations and the trauma for the kids is years down the road. Dan, Linda and Betty were a bad combo of selfishness and greed.

[oliviabenson]

Betty should never be released 

[Paloma]

On 7/9/2020 at 6:20 PM, Joimiaroxeu said:

Wonder why Linda didn't have the wedding list on a computer instead of on a piece of paper?

According to census data, in 1989 only 15% of homes had personal computers and none of them were connected to the internet. She could have typed the list using carbon paper so she'd have a backup, or just made a Xerox copy. But her typing skills probably never progressed beyond "A quick brown fox" that we saw in an earlier episode.  

On 7/9/2020 at 7:42 PM, lovesnark said:

n the mid to late 80's, computers weren't everywhere like they are now. Some businesses were using them and there were a few homes with them, but home computers were more of a novelty. We saw Linda learning to type on an IBM Selectric typewriter, so I'm thinking the office wasn't using computers either. It wasn't until the mid 90's that you'd find a computer in most homes and those were used for bookkeeping, writing letters and some games. All installed on the hard drive because the world hadn't gone online yet.

I replied to the question before I saw your response, which is much more helpful.

[Joimiaroxeu]

6 hours ago, Paloma said:

According to census data, in 1989 only 15% of homes had personal computers and none of them were connected to the internet. She could have typed the list using carbon paper so she'd have a backup, or just made a Xerox copy. But her typing skills probably never progressed beyond "A quick brown fox" that we saw in an earlier episode.  

I made several follow-on comments to clarify my position and I stand by my opinion. 

This is quite a blast from the past. Wonder why this show got renewed interest?

[Paloma]

1 hour ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

This is quite a blast from the past. Wonder why this show got renewed interest?

I don't know about other people, but I just discovered the Dirty John series (both seasons) last week when looking for something "new" to watch on Netflix. We haven't had cable TV for a few years so mostly watch Netflix, which I guess this series came to in the last year or so.

My husband and I were both immediately addicted, and it has sparked a lot of spirited discussion between us about both seasons, similar to the various opinions in this forum. He was satisfied with just watching the series, but I am eager to learn more about the true stories and will be listening to the podcast for Season 1 (not sure if there is also a podcast for Season 2) and reading the book that several people recommended for Season 2.