S1,E2: Distressed Jean

[statsgirl]

Quote

Jean attempts to hang out with her kids but quickly realizes that they have jobs and lives of their own.

This episode will be shown at 10:30 p.m.

[DanaK]

Somewhat better than the pilot, but I think Kyra could have chosen a better project

[DanaK]

To add to my previous thought, I think they can improve the show by having Kyra's character teach in a way that adds some craziness. They at least are going to have her tutor some people or whatever she signed up for, so that's a start. It just feels like the show needs a bit more than what we are getting. I do like her budding friendship/relationship with the Aussie guy

And I'd like to know how the 2 kids managed to end up in exactly the same area in the big city after coming from Iowa

Edited January 21, 2021 by DanaK

[Snow Apple]

I'm glad Jean got a job and making friends. Hopefully it will give her more interesting stories than being a helicopter mom.

[MaryMitch]

Unless Jean had no idea of her own address, the concern of the kids for their grown mother getting home on her own was way over the top. Calling the police? (And the police CAME?) I live in a small town (under 50K) but even I know about Uber, Lyft, and reading a bus schedule.

[statsgirl]

The whole plot of "Jean, a fiftysomething single mother doesn't know how to use the internet , can't get find her way around town and needs to be babysat by the twentysomethings" is horribly insulting to anyone in that age bracket or older.  We're not in the I Love Lucy age any longer.

7 hours ago, Snow Apple said:

I'm glad Jean got a job and making friends. Hopefully it will give her more interesting stories than being a helicopter mom.

I'd like to think that they figured out that Jean and her problems with her children is the least interesting part of the show and they're branching out. Hopefully the college applications addition will bring some interesting twists.

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, statsgirl said:

The whole plot of "Jean, a fiftysomething single mother doesn't know how to use the internet , can't get find her way around town and needs to be babysat by the twentysomethings" is horribly insulting to anyone in that age bracket or older. 

Yeah, but even as an older, retired web services librarian I was more offended by Jean replacing her Iowan Sassy Black Friend with an LA Sassy Black Friend --and I'm not even a person of color. 
Anyone else?

Nevertheless, this episode was better than the pilot, but that was a really low bar. 

I do agree that the landlord love interest has more chemistry than usual for these types of shows.
Maybe it's his accent -- or is that another offensive, stereotyping comment?

The gay roommate is another stereotyped character, but the actor is just rolling with it, and he's kind of charming. 

[lark37]

13 hours ago, statsgirl said:

The whole plot of "Jean, a fiftysomething single mother doesn't know how to use the internet , can't get find her way around town and needs to be babysat by the twentysomethings" is horribly insulting to anyone in that age bracket or older.  We're not in the I Love Lucy age any longer.

I'd like to think that they figured out that Jean and her problems with her children is the least interesting part of the show and they're branching out. Hopefully the college applications addition will bring some interesting twists.

Iowa is insulted! As someone from an Indiana suburb of Chicago, who is sometimes when in the city asked if I’m from a farm as if Indiana is nothing but farms, this is horribly insulting to anyone from the Midwest! God knows Iowa has a couple of big cities. It’s also insulting to anyone over the age of 50 as said above-this idea that they don’t know anything about social media or the Internet or have smart phones or Google. Dear God, how did Kyra sign off on this awful show? I thought the pilot was bad, but I like Sherri Shepherd I like Kyra Sedgwick so I thought I’d give it another try. But it’s so bad, I’m out.

[Grammy6]

I'm another one who found it somewhat offensive that Jean is replacing her Sassy Black friend in Iowa with a Sassy Black friend in California.  I also am not Black, but it was so overt.  Hoping that Jean will make more friends as she takes her new job, and that they will be diverse. I do like the gay roommate.  He's adorable, and really sells his role.  Is it really true that no one in LA eats bread, cheese, or meat?  I have Facebook friends who live out there, and the photos they've put on don't show that at all, so I guess that's another stereotype being put forth.

[statsgirl]

17 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

I was more offended by Jean replacing her Iowan Sassy Black Friend with an LA Sassy Black Friend --and I'm not even a person of color. 
Anyone else?

Same. The Gay Friend is a bad enough cliche but he's a fun character. The second Sassy Black Friend is too much.

In the interests of diversity, they could have made the son's girlfriend Asian but the actress playing her is good. The actors playing Jean's kids are not, especially the daughter.

The second episode was better than the first but they really need to pick up their pace fast.

[watches2muchtv]

Pretty sure there is a law in place that every comedy must have at least a sassy POC and or an overt LGBTQ friend. If the comedy is led by a POC it must have a stupid white friend.

[Tdoc72]

14 hours ago, statsgirl said:

 

In the interests of diversity, they could have made the son's girlfriend Asian but the actress playing her is good. 

In the first episode, she said she was born in Cuba but I have no idea if the actress is actually Hispanic. 

[shapeshifter]

4 hours ago, Tdoc72 said:

18 hours ago, statsgirl said:

In the interests of diversity, they could have made the son's girlfriend Asian but the actress playing her is good. 

In the first episode, she said she was born in Cuba but I have no idea if the actress is actually Hispanic. 

Emma Caymares (Celia, Mom's son's gf) doesn't have any ancestry or ethnicity information online that I could readily see, but I wouldn't describe her as "white" unless I knew she self-identified as such. Someone else with the same last name has their ancestry listed as being Cuban. 
But Celia is doing the Valley Girl cadence, which I think is typically thought of as a white speech pattern. Now I wonder how the character of Celia was originally described when they were casting.
But @statsgirl, where you just noticing that they didn't (yet) have any Asian cast members? 
 

[statsgirl]

10 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

But @statsgirl, where you just noticing that they didn't (yet) have any Asian cast members?

I live in a very multicultural city so it always strikes me that when American TV shows realize that not everyone is white, they put in some African-American characters and maybe one of Latin background. Isn't this show set in a city with diverse groups of people? Where are the Asians, Southeast Asians, Arabs, Eastern Europeans that I see when I walk out my door?

[JAYJAY1979]

My mom in her 50s designed and ran 2 webpages... so seeing a 50 something woman acting so clueless and needy is an eye opener.

I do think Jean finding a job is a good start with centering her and giving her a purpose outside interfering with her kids.

I think I would scratch the kids, and focus on her starting a new life in LA.  A hot in Cleveland in reverse..if you will.