S02.E08: The Rules of the Game

[paulvdb]

Quote

As the recall petition quickly picks up steam, Maddie and Cal attend a black-tie charity fundraiser and Ronnie presses Dana Sue to make up her mind.

 

[nkotb]

Huge baseball fan here. Nick Swisher, Joanna Garcia Swisher’s real life husband, flirting with her when they first arrive at the St. Jude gala, totally made my day. 
 

I’m super impressed that both of Maddie’s & Bill’s boys look like they could really be Chris Klein’s offspring. Good casting.

[funnygirl]

47 minutes ago, nkotb said:

Nick Swisher, Joanna Garcia Swisher’s real life husband, flirting with her when they first arrive at the St. Jude gala, totally made my day. 

Yeah, I thought that was a cute little cameo. 

[auntiemel]

The actress who played Jodie, Cal's deaf friend from the party...I wonder if she became deaf later in life. She doesn't sign like someone who's been signing her whole life. I mean, it was correct, that's not it...but it was just...I don't know how to really explain it. It was...deliberate. And more on the formal side, vs. the completely comfortable and casual side. And, I don't know...just something about the way she held her shoulders and framed her body was like she was thinking about it instead of just doing it out of muscle memory.

I couldn't really put my finger on it, but it stood out to me. Although maybe she was just stiff in front of the camera? I don't know how experienced an actress she is.

Also, come to think of it, her word order tended more toward English than conceptual, which is what pure ASL would be. Although, that doesn't have to mean anything. Even deaf people who speak to each other in total ASL will sometimes revert to a model more closely resembling pidgin (most simply understood as ASL signs in English word order) when they are talking to a hearing person who either doesn't know sign, or is beginner or intermediate, and the conversation is also voiced simultaneously. It was really more of the way she held her body and her very precise and formal handshape technique that makes me think she's a newer signer.

I don't know. i could be talking out of my ass. LOL. But I used to work as an interpreter, and I've talked with hundreds (if not thousands) of deaf people in my life, and that's how she struck me--as someone who became deaf as an adult and learned to sign as an adult.

[Lebanna]

I don’t know anything about sign language (although I plan to learn to sign one day) but what bugged me about that scene was how the Jodie kept looking over at Cal while Maddie was speaking to her - if she hadn’t know what the other character was saying because of the script, I would think that looking in the wrong direction would have made lip reading very difficult. It was really nice to see a deaf character in a scene where nobody mentioned her being deaf or made a thing about it. A few years ago you never used to see that in shows like this, in the past they always had to make it dramatic or some kind of patronising ‘learning moment’. 

I really like how the rough edges of Helen’s fertility struggles are being shown in this season. The sadness, wild hopes, disappointments which feel so insurmountable and the general constant up-and-down of it all. So far it feels like a fair representation of this frankly quite traumatic part of life. I would still have thought having one of the ladies go with her to look at the follicle count might be more comfortable than a new romantic partner (especially since she would have needed to get fully lower half naked before she got on the table and then the doctor would have to stick a reasonably sized, lubricated probe right up the vagina, so even at a nice clinic with a guy who is a paramedic, it’s… not the most glamorous moment) but their discussion was quite sweet.

Edited February 11, 2022 by Lebanna

[auntiemel]

2 hours ago, Lebanna said:

I don’t know anything about sign language (although I plan to learn to sign one day) but what bugged me about that scene was how the Jodie kept looking over at Cal while Maddie was speaking to her - if she hadn’t know what the other character was saying because of the script, I would think that looking in the wrong direction would have made lip reading very difficult. It was really nice to see a deaf character in a scene where nobody mentioned her being deaf or made a thing about it. A few years ago you never used to see that in shows like this, in the past they always had to make it dramatic or some kind of patronising ‘learning moment’. 

I really like how the rough edges of Helen’s fertility struggles are being shown in this season. The sadness, wild hopes, disappointments which feel so insurmountable and the general constant up-and-down of it all. So far it feels like a fair representation of this frankly quite traumatic part of life. I would still have thought having one of the ladies go with her to look at the follicle count might be more comfortable than a new romantic partner (especially since she would have needed to get fully lower half naked before she got on the table and then the doctor would have to to stick a reasonably sized, lubricated probe right up the vagina, so even at a nice clinic with a guy who is a paramedic, it’s… not the most glamorous moment) but their discussion was quite sweet.

Haha, yeah, that's true. And, also, Maddie would be terribly tough to lipread, anyway. If you watch Joanna Garcia's mouth in that scene, she's talking, but her lips barely move.

[methodwriter85]

I feel like the "teen scene" of the show has vastly improved. It helped a lot that they backed off a bit on the teen angst with Dana Sue's daughter with giving her a bit of actual fun instead of her being a relentless bummer, and I actually think the acting of the elder son got a lot better. Of course, he's getting way more to do this year than he got to do last year. They feel more like actual characters this year instead of cardboard cutouts. So kudos to the show!