S05.E15: Jerry 2.0

[Norma Desmond]

2 hours ago, debraran said:

I think it's tacky to have your wife get a starring role on the show

True. It's one of the reasons I cannot stand this Kevin-Madison pairing. Seems like he used it as a way to put wifey on the spotlight. Ugh.

[redpencil]

I'm pretty sure I read at one point that other writers had to convince him to go down the Kevin/Madison road, which he didn't want to do for this exact reason. Whether that's true or not, no way to know for sure, but I could see it (and not sure he would outright lie).

[Dowel Jones]

8 hours ago, qtpye said:

He then runs workshops for men on how "You too...can be like Jack".

And signs an endorsement deal with Jack Daniels (AA be damned) with the tagline "If you care enough about whiskey, you name it after Jack."

[debraran]

5 hours ago, redpencil said:

I'm pretty sure I read at one point that other writers had to convince him to go down the Kevin/Madison road, which he didn't want to do for this exact reason. Whether that's true or not, no way to know for sure, but I could see it (and not sure he would outright lie).

I guess a lot of fans were angry he "lied" and ruined the Sophie/Claire/Funeral episode with him waking up with Madison. It wasn't just they did, it was the twist. Issac I think another writer said they didn't expect the fans memories or something like that and took the heat it was his idea (of course they all agree) Fans said they don't mind hints or twists but lying wasn't cool.  : )  I think that was when the "Kevin has a long path etc" stuff came out to calm down the Madison haters and the ones who thought it was pure nepotism and they had no chemistry or back story. Since the outline was written at the start with minor tweaks, just own it. Fans will be loving and not so loving, if you put out a good show, you'll keep most of them.

I don't think it's a good idea to have someone that close to you and you are writing her scripts (they aren't the best) You see the person differently and who wants to say anything negative? The negative press Dan or she must read along with the good things must be hard on some level because that's my wife they are talking about. It also might make him more stubborn. Also her pay must be touchy too. I didn't realize until I googled it that so many fans were angry at him, lots of articles on not only having him sleep with her, have him "trapped" and then changing her personality trying to have them fit more. He took a lot of flak but he has the last word. A woman writer lamented no matter what they do, even her altercation with the photographer, doesn't change their minds. Hey, this show brings on passion and that move will never be loved by all.

Not my problem, but not something I would do with family unless it was a child maybe and they really fit well in the show and weren't on long. (like Kevin's older son's cameo)

Edited May 25, 2021 by debraran

[qtpye]

11 hours ago, redpencil said:

I'm pretty sure I read at one point that other writers had to convince him to go down the Kevin/Madison road, which he didn't want to do for this exact reason. Whether that's true or not, no way to know for sure, but I could see it (and not sure he would outright lie).

 

6 hours ago, debraran said:

I guess a lot of fans were angry he "lied" and ruined the Sophie/Claire/Funeral episode with him waking up with Madison. It wasn't just they did, it was the twist. Issac I think another writer said they didn't expect the fans memories or something like that and took the heat it was his idea (of course they all agree) Fans said they don't mind hints or twists but lying wasn't cool.  : )  I think that was when the "Kevin has a long path etc" stuff came out to calm down the Madison haters and the ones who thought it was pure nepotism and they had no chemistry or back story. Since the outline was written at the start with minor tweaks, just own it. Fans will be loving and not so loving, if you put out a good show, you'll keep most of them.

I don't think it's a good idea to have someone that close to you and you are writing her scripts (they aren't the best) You see the person differently and who wants to say anything negative? The negative press Dan or she must read along with the good things must be hard on some level because that's my wife they are talking about. It also might make him more stubborn. Also her pay must be touchy too. I didn't realize until I googled it that so many fans were angry at him, lots of articles on not only having him sleep with her, have him "trapped" and then changing her personality trying to have them fit more. He took a lot of flak but he has the last word. A woman writer lamented no matter what they do, even her altercation with the photographer, doesn't change their minds. Hey, this show brings on passion and that move will never be loved by all.

Not my problem, but not something I would do with family unless it was a child maybe and they really fit well in the show and weren't on long. (like Kevin's older son's cameo)

This kind of reminds me of Mathew Wiener casting his son as Glen on Mad Men (which was not nearly as important of a character as the mother of Kevin's babies).

Wiener swore up and down that he never wanted to cast his son for the role but they held auditions and his son was the best and most talented kid for the part.

I do not want to disparage the talents of a child but many of the fans disagreed and found his acting like nails on a chalkboard.

I would say, leave your family out of your casting decisions because it will always look a little suspicious.

The same thing happened to Phil Rosenthal when he cast his wife to play Robert's love interest and future wife on "Everybody Loves Raymond".

I grew to really like Amy but remember that she was torn apart for both her acting ability and looks. People said she would have never been cast if she was not Rosenthal's wife and that is probably true.

[chocolatine]

8 minutes ago, qtpye said:

I would say, leave your family out of your casting decisions because it will always look a little suspicious.

Ken Olin is an executive producer and director on this show, and he's one of the worst offenders in terms of casting his family in his past projects. I'm sure having him as the precedent made it much easier for Dan to hire his own wife, despite any public protestations.

I'm not in the entertainment industry, but I once worked at a company where the CEO had hired two of his family friends into senior-level positions for which they weren't qualified. It was extremely demoralizing to the rest of us. As much as Fogelman and the main cast like to pretend that their set is a permanent love fest, I'm sure the majority of the cast and crew resent the hell out of him and his wife.

[Norma Desmond]

13 hours ago, redpencil said:

I'm pretty sure I read at one point that other writers had to convince him to go down the Kevin/Madison road, which he didn't want to do for this exact reason. Whether that's true or not, no way to know for sure, but I could see it (and not sure he would outright lie).

Yeah, TV execs tell the truth all the time. ;) Just like with Aaron and Tori Spelling, I am sure Tori went through extensive auditions where no one knew she was the boss's daughter. That's how she got the role.

[Jeddah]

It’s not always terrible. Fargo wouldn’t be half as good without Frances McDormand, and Helena Bonham Carter was always good in Tim Burton movies. But then there’s crap like Sofia Coppola in The Godfather III. I feel like Madison is somewhere in the middle of that. Not amazing, but not terrible.

[Dejana]

On 5/24/2021 at 8:00 PM, debraran said:

I think it's tacky to have your wife get a starring role on the show, I'm sure there were other people who could have been more desirable with Kevin but it is his wife. I assume a blind spot. OR he never intended her to be with him but it's still strange.

 

On 5/25/2021 at 5:36 PM, Jeddah said:

It’s not always terrible. Fargo wouldn’t be half as good without Frances McDormand, and Helena Bonham Carter was always good in Tim Burton movies. But then there’s crap like Sofia Coppola in The Godfather III. I feel like Madison is somewhere in the middle of that. Not amazing, but not terrible.

I think it depends. The story goes that a different person was going to be the wife/mom in A Quiet Place until Emily Blunt read the script and asked John Krasinski to cast her. The difference is that she was critically acclaimed before they ever got involved and was well established by 2018. So, Emily Blunt having a starring role in a movie seemed perfectly reasonable to the general public, even if she was married to the director in this case. 

A couple of the "Space Race" movies that I like each feature the director's wife in a small role: Kevin Costner's secretary in Hidden Figures is played by Kimberly Quinn, and Olivia Hamilton plays one of the astronaut wives in First Man. They weren't major characters at all, but were more than cameos, yet they were competent enough not to generate much outcry about nepotism.

I think that's mostly where This Is Us fans were with Madison at first, though even when she was merely Kate's overly perky friend in a handful of episodes, you did see some complaints here (and elsewhere) about her real-life ties to the showrunner. IMO the writing for Madison wasn't designed to make her likeable at first, and she didn't get tons of airtime to redeem herself with fans before being revealed as Kevin's hookup/mother of his children/fiancée.

I think a lot of those issues would have been there even if it weren't Caitlin Thompson in the role. You had fans who didn’t like the character's introduction and wondered why she would want to maintain a friendship, when Kate was so mean to her. To the ardent Kevin/Sophie fans, Madison got in the way of their ship.

OTOH, the character always made sense as someone Kevin would get involved with eventually. She was always "there" for some reason, and on a show with a limited number of characters, of course Kevin ends up with another one of his sister's friends (in real life, a famous guy with his looks would have seemingly endless dating options). Maybe Dan Fogelman was only ever resistant to the idea because he didn't want his wife doing love scenes right under his nose with a hot actor. He might have written Madison a bit differently all along, and in a way that was more palatable to fans, if that hangup wasn't in the back of his mind, or someone else played Madison.

Kevin and Madison don't seem madly in love and that's what comes across onscreen. Is that because the actors are doing their jobs, or are the writers working around a lack of onscreen chemistry? I think it is the former, but the showrunner's relatively obscure actress wife being given a prominent role here muddles the issue somewhat.

 

 

Edited May 27, 2021 by Dejana

[tribeca]

On 5/23/2021 at 12:04 PM, ams1001 said:

Yet still the only thing we know of Annie in the future is...she has a driver's license and possibly her own car..?

 

In flash forward she said she went to Paris.  I think she is going to be a dancer 

[ams1001]

1 minute ago, tribeca said:

In flash forward she said she went to Paris.  I think she is going to be a dancer 

I missed that line, I think. She was in the zoom dance class montage...

[debraran]

On 5/19/2021 at 8:46 AM, ams1001 said:

I don't have a problem with them potentially moving for his job (and like Rootbeer said above, they can't afford for him not to work, and not just because of the money), but the fact that he's talking to a recruiter about a job that far away without even mentioning it to Kate is going to be an issue. (So is her taking a job and telling him after the fact but at least she's not asking him to completely uproot their lives.) And you know she'll have a problem with moving that far away from her mom, now that she's close by (Pearson-faster-than-light travel notwithstanding). Though with the way the pandemic has changed the work world, maybe he'll find something that will let him work fully remote and he'll just have to go up to SF once in a while.

It seems like a lot of people have strong feelings about Sophie, and I just don't get it. (Some of it seems to be that they are fans of the actress, who I am not otherwise familiar with, so there's that.) They were childhood sweethearts who got married too young, tried again later and didn't work...I'm not seeing the grand Pearson love story there, despite his Jerry Maguire "mission statement" at 18 or however old they were.

I have a problem with money on this show, it's fantasy but they NEVER discuss money in, money out. It's always vague. Toby never talks about unemployment, stimulus payments or even SNAP benefits they'd qualify for. I'm sure they have savings but at least mention how they are getting by on a very low teaching job (with no benefits) and other things. Just a few sentences. The kids could be on medicaid. I know it's not about reality but I feel beyond the "Jetson" type traveling they do in half the time, money should at least be somewhat believable. Jack had life insurance also and we never heard much about that. Maybe if a lot, Rebecca gave Kate some.

Sophie has a longer history than most remember. You tend to remember the highlights but even those, I forgot to some degree. When someone made a Sophie calendar with pics and quotes, I'm like "I forgot that!" quite often. I forgot the Princess Bride was for her and he said "I love her" to his parents for the first time. I forget all the references to that movie with them which makes it distasteful with Madison (one way I knew 100% that Kevin wasn't rehearsing for Madison's wedding) I forgot he told her as an adult, she was his arm, without her, he always feels like he's missing it. I didn't forget the impassioned speech at her mom's grave (why did writers do that?) I did forget how they looked at each other when he arrived at her mom's, her inside at window and him out,  how he said they never have to finish sentences with each other. I know he felt she was marrying and that is why he said he'd marry Madison, "I'm not chasing ghosts anymore" but he just couldn't pretend, even with twins. It just wasn't there.  I forgot about the time capsule with her in it, the Jerry mission statement and I didn't forget how the writers 2 years ago said, Kevin will evolve, he will have a long path, Sophie and Kevin were too young, then Kevin had a bad addiction, later you will see him mature and sober."  If the writers really intended for Kevin to have a one night stand without birthcontrol and get Madison pregnant as his love story, an accident that was made good, fine, that's what they want, but I don't think that is what was intended. He was supposed to find himself and I think Alex didn't want to wait and got another job that paid more. She wants to return and fit in what she can but how they do it, will be interesting and I look forward to a good last season.

I just wasn't anti-Madison because I didn't like the character, I thought making Kevin at 40 so impulsive with 3 women and then coming close to ghosting his future bride a long stretch to happily ever after. Let's wait until Kevin can find love with Madison, he'll look at her one day in the garden with the kids and realize he loves her. Maybe but Justin said in interview "You can't force love, you just can't" so it will be interesting how they do it. Maybe he'll realize with Sophie he can move on. If they had him take the phone call and pause the wedding earlier, it might have fit better if he eventually ends up with Madison.

Edited June 9, 2021 by debraran