Fleishman Is In Trouble - General Discussion

[archer1267]

Hey, Sam Rothenberg? "Why don't we cut to the part where" your wife finds out you cheat on her and takes you for all you've got in court?

[circumvent]

18 hours ago, iMonrey said:

The birthing induction scene was horrifying, and I'm not even sure I understand exactly what happened. AND DON'T EXPLAIN IT TO ME. I don't want to know. 😦

I don't think anything happened. The nurse was in the room, it would be strange that she wouldn't say anything. I think Rachel was hallucinating - she said later that she shouldn't have the edibles because of "a thing" that happened at the hospital when Hannah was born. I think it was medication induced paranoia because she already had this trauma with abandonment and Toby wasn't in the room.

Claire Danes performance was spot on. Just the right balance. The uncontrollable sobbing when trying to not cry, then crying her lungs out, it felt real and having had similar moments in my life, with similar reaction - not wanting to cry but barely able to stop sobbing/waling - I could feel the pain.

The show was just meh to me, not really the type of story that I am interested in. I didn't read the book because it looks like it is just another one that seems like the same, among others. But thais episode might elevate the book.

[PurpleHouse55]

1 hour ago, circumvent said:

I don't think anything happened. The nurse was in the room, it would be strange that she wouldn't say anything. I think Rachel was hallucinating - she said later that she shouldn't have the edibles because of "a thing" that happened at the hospital when Hannah was born. I think it was medication induced paranoia because she already had this trauma with abandonment and Toby wasn't in the room.

The doctor violated her by breaking her water without her consent during the exam. She was being induced because she had high blood pressure (preeclampsia), which is a condition that can become dangerous unless you give birth. So they admit you to the hospital and give you various medications to begin the labor process. But sometimes your symptoms can be borderline, and right before the doctor came in, the nurse mentions that her symptoms are better and her labor is not progressing, so it might be possible for her to go home. (The exact same thing happened to me with my first pregnancy actually, and I was able to go home and wait two weeks before I had to go and be induced again.) Rachel starts to ask the doctor about stopping the labor, but he doesn’t listen and during the exam, he proceeds to break her water. This can *hurt* and involves putting his hand up your vagina and applying a lot of pressure on the “bag of waters” in the area of your cervix. Breaking the water can be a way to make the labor really kick into gear if it’s not progressing from the medication. (The OB broke my water for this reason during my second labor, but I had given consent.) It suddenly makes the contractions about 100 times stronger, and that can feel scary and intense.

If the labor still doesn’t progress, it very commonly turns out that you have to have an emergency c-section, which can also suck. (Happened to me.) My doctors respected my autonomy and included me in the decision-making process and I still found the sequence of events miserable and uncomfortable and frustrating (different than my other child who had a natural birth), so I can only imagine how awful and mad and powerless Rachel felt. Unfortunately, if you read childbirth books, they talk about how it has been really common for some (*cough* male *cough*) doctors to think they know better than the patient and just do whatever they think is best. This can apply to breaking water, and also episiotomies (making incisions to, um, make more room for the baby to pass through the birth canal. An even more horrifying thing to do without consent.). Sometimes doctors made/make these choices because they think they’re making the best medical choice, and other times it’s because they’re impatient to get things over with.

Overall, I found Rachel’s response to her childbirth experience and the early days of motherhood really realistic and relatable. Under the best circumstances is it one of the craziest physical experiences you can have, and it’s shocking how disorienting it can be to suddenly find yourself responsible for a helpless, fragile life, 24 hours a day when you’re recovering from a major medical procedure. To be violated so disrespectfully by someone who was supposed to help guide her through the process, and given the difficulties of her upbringing, it’s not surprising she feels so traumatized.

 

Edited December 23, 2022 by PurpleHouse55

[ahpny]

14 hours ago, chocolatine said:

But there were clues. He's known her for almost two decades and in all that time she never missed a major work event or napped in the park in the middle of the day. His first instinct should have been that something was wrong, not that she was being a bitch.

All true, but I missed those clues too and wasn't expecting abject mental breakdown. (Having watched the full run of Homeland, perhaps I should have been on the outlook for metal breakdown too.) Of course, Toby knew her for almost two decades, so he should have been strongly clued into her. But he was somewhat discombobulated himself and not really perceiving things wholly rationally, so his failure to see what should have been otherwise obvious, or at least strongly suspected, is a bit more understandable. He too seemed to be overwhelmed as well as consumed by anger. That his ex-wise might be unwell wasn't high on his list of concerns, though that still should have been if for no other reason than their continuing "co-parenting" responsibilities.

[chocolatine]

19 minutes ago, ahpny said:

All true, but I missed those clues too and wasn't expecting abject mental breakdown. (Having watched the full run of Homeland, perhaps I should have been on the outlook for metal breakdown too.) Of course, Toby knew her for almost two decades, so he should have been strongly clued into her. But he was somewhat discombobulated himself and not really perceiving things wholly rationally, so his failure to see what should have been otherwise obvious, or at least strongly suspected, is a bit more understandable. He too seemed to be overwhelmed as well as consumed by anger. That his ex-wise might be unwell wasn't high on his list of concerns, though that still should have been if for no other reason than their continuing "co-parenting" responsibilities.

My biggest problem with Toby not realizing it is that he is a doctor who keeps harping on how important "patient interface" is to him - he brings it up every time Rachel wants him to look for a higher-paying job. If he were in any other profession, his ignorance would be more understandable, but this is what he prides himself for and thinks makes him a better person than Rachel and her friends.

[aghst]

Didn’t Danes win an Emmy for Homeland?

To me this episode doesn’t seem that different from her work on Homeland.  Maybe she was cast in this because she proved she could cry and do the sour face thing.

I get that Rachel has intense abandonment issues but even in this episode she does shitty things, like nagging Toby on money, like wanting her kids to meet the right kinds of friends — other children growing up in privilege in Manhattan.

She no doubt pushed for that posh apt. and she tries to justify it by noting that he likes amenities like concierge service.  She wanted Toby to take that pharma job which Sam set up but IIRC, he wanted to make it easy for them to hang out in Colorado or something like that.

And of course she has an affair with Sam, a POS but also a married man.

 

Other minor things like talking down to her employees and the. Said stupid and ugly people are loved so why isn’t she loved.  Ok she was having a breakdown but it betrays how she looks down at certain people, which is consistent with her wanting her children only to have deserving friends.

Maybe to succeed as an agent, you have to be this aggressive, egotistic asshole. Or maybe the writer of the book or the show modeled her character after Ari in Entourage.

[txhorns79]

5 hours ago, chocolatine said:

My biggest problem with Toby not realizing it is that he is a doctor who keeps harping on how important "patient interface" is to him - he brings it up every time Rachel wants him to look for a higher-paying job. If he were in any other profession, his ignorance would be more understandable, but this is what he prides himself for and thinks makes him a better person than Rachel and her friends.

I think this is part of why doctors are told not to treat friends and family.  There's too much baggage between Toby and Rachel for Toby to see her clearly.  He hears what is happening and just presumes she is being selfish and awful, because that is how he now sees her.  

 

4 minutes ago, aghst said:

 

And of course she has an affair with Sam, a POS but also a married man.

Yes, it was interesting that for all her concern about having the right friends, and for her kids to have the right friends, she does something which could have blown things up for all of them pretty quickly. 

[luna1122again]

Tho Libby is sort of novelist Taffy Brodessor-Akner's stand in/doppelganger in this series, what happened to Rachel during her childbirth really happened to Taffy. 

She wrote about the experience here: https://www.salon.com/2010/02/18/ptsd_in_childbirth/

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by luna1122again

[iMonrey]

I get that everyone is the hero/victim of their own story which is why Toby and Rachel's perspectives differ. On the other hand, it seems like they shouldn't since Libby is telling the story rather than either of them. Why does she flip the narrative from Toby being the victim to Rachel being the victim when she's telling Rachel's story? It's an odd narrative device IMO.

[circumvent]

22 hours ago, PurpleHouse55 said:

The doctor violated her by breaking her water without her consent during the exam. She was being induced because she had high blood pressure (preeclampsia), which is a condition that can become dangerous unless you give birth. So they admit you to the hospital and give you various medications to begin the labor process. But sometimes your symptoms can be borderline, and right before the doctor came in, the nurse mentions that her symptoms are better and her labor is not progressing, so it might be possible for her to go home. (The exact same thing happened to me with my first pregnancy actually, and I was able to go home and wait two weeks before I had to go and be induced again.) Rachel starts to ask the doctor about stopping the labor, but he doesn’t listen and during the exam, he proceeds to break her water. This can *hurt* and involves putting his hand up your vagina and applying a lot of pressure on the “bag of waters” in the area of your cervix. Breaking the water can be a way to make the labor really kick into gear if it’s not progressing from the medication. (The OB broke my water for this reason during my second labor, but I had given consent.) It suddenly makes the contractions about 100 times stronger, and that can feel scary and intense.

If the labor still doesn’t progress, it very commonly turns out that you have to have an emergency c-section, which can also suck. (Happened to me.) My doctors respected my autonomy and included me in the decision-making process and I still found the sequence of events miserable and uncomfortable and frustrating (different than my other child who had a natural birth), so I can only imagine how awful and mad and powerless Rachel felt. Unfortunately, if you read childbirth books, they talk about how it has been really common for some (*cough* male *cough*) doctors to think they know better than the patient and just do whatever they think is best. This can apply to breaking water, and also episiotomies (making incisions to, um, make more room for the baby to pass through the birth canal. An even more horrifying thing to do without consent.). Sometimes doctors made/make these choices because they think they’re making the best medical choice, and other times it’s because they’re impatient to get things over with.

Overall, I found Rachel’s response to her childbirth experience and the early days of motherhood really realistic and relatable. Under the best circumstances is it one of the craziest physical experiences you can have, and it’s shocking how disorienting it can be to suddenly find yourself responsible for a helpless, fragile life, 24 hours a day when you’re recovering from a major medical procedure. To be violated so disrespectfully by someone who was supposed to help guide her through the process, and given the difficulties of her upbringing, it’s not surprising she feels so traumatized.

 

I get that there was an induction but to me, it was beyond the violation. The doctor was wrong, the nurse was wrong - nurses (female, mostly) stay in rooms with (mainly) male doctors when they examine (mainly) female patients as a safeguard. It is policy in most places, if not all places.

I think Rachel's experience was terrible, and it would have been to anyone, I believe (I was never on labor). On top of the pain, the disrespect of her bodily autonomy and decision making. But I think that her state of mind, plus the meds (she does mention medication later, so there was more than the "usual" doctor assholism) brought to the surface all her trauma about abandonment. 

In any case, it wasn't a very well directed episode (or badly written book/script) in the sense that it was ambiguous. What happened to her was a serious assault, even if it apparently was something that doctor did on a regular basis, since the nurse just stood that, expressionless. If Rachel realized the seriousness of the event, it should have been a big deal and part of a larger plot within the series.

Are we supposed to believe that Rachel imagine most of it? Are we supposed to accept that this is something that happens and nothing can be done about it? Are we supposed to simply ignore an assault and focus on the rest of the story? 

 

[aghst]

As terrible as it was, that was years ago right, with the pregnancy for the older child?

In the mean time, Rachel acted like boss bitch, both at home and at the office.

Why wouldn't she sue the hell out of that doctor?

And she definitely needed to get counseling, long before the brief marriage counseling scene that they showed.

 

[circumvent]

49 minutes ago, aghst said:

Why wouldn't she sue the hell out of that doctor?

That's where the bad writing/scripting enters.

I can see someone being traumatized and paralyzed, unable to take actin and blame themselves for what happened. There are many ways she could have put this put of her mind after she decided to "be Rachel" because she is strong and doesn't need anyone. The problem is that I think they will just drop the whole story, which is a big part of why she is like she is. It would be interesting to see what happened in her second pregnancy, if anything triggered her memories. But bad writing just throws a story in the mix, doesn't connect with other parts of the  big plot, and expect us to not think about connections

[Milburn Stone]

23 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I get that everyone is the hero/victim of their own story which is why Toby and Rachel's perspectives differ. On the other hand, it seems like they shouldn't since Libby is telling the story rather than either of them. Why does she flip the narrative from Toby being the victim to Rachel being the victim when she's telling Rachel's story? It's an odd narrative device IMO.

Not that odd to me. If it were a written magazine piece (which it well might be!), she could easily accomplish the switch from Toby's POV with a sentence. "Or so it seemed to me, until one day, while sitting in the park..."

[Chaos Theory]

IE Rachel.   I guess because I grew up middle class and have wealthy friends I have a kinder opinion of wealthy people.   Rachel comes off especially in “her” episode as someone who equates money with happiness.  When Toby said something in the line “money doesn’t buy happiness”. Rachel said “yes it does.”  And in her world view the people who had the best life the kind of life she wanted for her kids were the people who didn’t have to work long hours even as doctors and publicists.   But Rachel never fit into this world sho she made herself helpful to it and she resented Toby for not doing the same thing.  He she didn’t understand why and how he was happy working long hours for little pay (as far as she was concerned) when he could do better.  

[Milburn Stone]

On 12/23/2022 at 6:18 AM, sadie said:

When she went to that young playwrights house it seemed obvious this woman wasn’t well and they just seemed so cold hearted, it really shook me.

Thought experiment: I'm the playwright. Truly, I'm this close to having lost the deal of a lifetime, and the entertainment industry deciding I'm persona non grata going forward, all because my agent has flaked. Now the woman who, having catapulted me to success, almost destroyed it all, shows up at my door. Am I thinking about what "good reason" could explain her disappearance from the planet these last 3 weeks? Am I focusing on the fragile state she appears to be in now? I'd like to think my response would be compassion; that would be the righteous answer. But I fear the most I'd be able to muster up would be strained politeness.

Maybe I'm wrong about myself. I hope so.

Edited December 27, 2022 by Milburn Stone

[SomeTameGazelle]

On 12/23/2022 at 7:18 AM, sadie said:

When she went to that young playwrights house it seemed obvious this woman wasn’t well and they just seemed so cold hearted, it really shook me.

I just rewatched this scene in isolation and I think Alejandra does show concern (for Rachel) but Rachel manages to cover by insisting that she's fine and it was a personal problem that caused her to flake on her. 

What I couldn't understand after finding out that Rachel was at home at least some of the time during this breakdown and people were following up with her as a huge deal was falling apart that her assistant didn't take any steps to contact the police or at least the building concierge to find out what was up. Does Rachel have other employees? We saw her in what looked like an enormous office but maybe that was when she worked for Matt?

Edited December 27, 2022 by SomeTameGazelle

[kitkat343]

On 12/27/2022 at 8:42 AM, SomeTameGazelle said:

I just rewatched this scene in isolation and I think Alejandra does show concern (for Rachel) but Rachel manages to cover by insisting that she's fine and it was a personal problem that caused her to flake on her. 

What I couldn't understand after finding out that Rachel was at home at least some of the time during this breakdown and people were following up with her as a huge deal was falling apart that her assistant didn't take any steps to contact the police or at least the building concierge to find out what was up. Does Rachel have other employees? We saw her in what looked like an enormous office but maybe that was when she worked for Matt?

That office was absolutely hers.  She told Sam Rothman that Toby says if medicine was run as efficiently as her office, doctors would be able to treat patients.  It's sad that her employees, the clients who knew how hard she had always worked to help them, and the father of her children didn't  contact the police when she went MIA.  It's also really sad that her "friends" left her on the ground in Central Park when she was sleeping there in the middle of the day.  

Libby who didn't even particularly like her until they ran into each other in the park was the first person to try to help her and make sure she was okay.  But honestly I think a big part of this is that no one (except maybe her Alejandra) really liked her very much prior to her breakdown.  I'd imagine she wasn't the easiest boss to have (we saw her assistant looking very scared as she was trying to stop Sam Rothman from barging into Rachel's office), and Toby clearly hated her before she left, and her friends were merely acquantainces that killed time together as they went to workout classes and held insipid fundraisers and staved off their own unhappiness with mommy juice together while complaining about how hard their lives were.  

The assistant didn't contact anyone initially because Rachel had some limited phone contact with her, snapping at her that she wanted to be left alone for a weekend.  I think if the assistant actually liked her, she would have been worried when she didn't reappear after the weekend, and would have contacted the police.  And because the assistant probably told everyone "Rachel's fine but she's just asking for some time off because of the divorce" most people would accept that.  Alejanadra would assume because the assistant is giving a work excuse that there was no emergency and Rachel was fine.  

In the end, Rachel was all alone as she feared and there was no safety net for her.  

Edited December 29, 2022 by kitkat343

[AnimeMania]

S01.E08: The Liver

(Season Finale)

Seth throws a party.

Premiere Date: December 29, 2022

[HerkyJerky]

I wish I had something profound to say about the ending of this show but all I can say is that I really enjoyed it and it answered all my questions (unlike what Libby was searching for😪)

[surfer]

Lizzy Caplan was outstanding.

The daughter's epiphany and suddenly becoming the smartest person on the show seemed a little unearned given what a pill she was for the first half of the season, but that scene with Toby in the synagogue was lovely.

[Ms Blue Jay]

I loved the show.  It was hard to follow 107, and 108 didn't really live up to it, but it was a nice ending to the season.

108 just had so many monologues and so much narration, it was excruciating to pay attention to.  I prefer story and action.

[DrSpaceman73]

Seth was stuck in the college single life scene at almost 40 and wanted it to end

Libby was married and having a mid life crisis, wanted to be able to go back to her pre marriage days

Toby enjoyed his marriage and his life where it was but really didn't want any growth out of his wife or in their lives, wanted everything to stay the same. 

Toby's lack of compassion for his wife's breakdown was heartless and cruel. 

I enjoyed the show. Solid all around. 

[iMonrey]

Hmm. I don't necessarily need everything tied up in a pretty ribbon, depending on what kind of story I'm watching. But the ending felt somewhat unsatisfying to me. Sort of like Volume 1 of a larger story. I almost expect to see "to be continued" come up before the closing credits. I especially felt like there should have been more to Rachel's story. Possibly because of who played her. It's interesting that Claire Danes would accept what was more or less a supporting role rather than the lead. 

Overall it was an interesting character piece with great performances though.

[BooBear]

This was one of the best things I have seen in a while. I think I will check out the book. 

[chocolatine]

4 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

Toby's lack of compassion for his wife's breakdown was heartless and cruel.

There were hints throughout the season that Toby is a self-involved, self-righteous piece of shit, and his reaction to Libby telling him about Rachel's breakdown confirmed it for me. I really hated that the ending implied that Rachel wanted to reconnect with him. I want her to get better and cultivate a healthy co-parenting relationship with him, but romantically she can do a lot better.

Adam is a saint for putting up with Libby's behavior. I didn't like him just accepting her apology after what looked like months if not years of her neglecting him and their children. He should have insisted on some changes and accountability from her, possibly with the help of a marriage counselor.

The end credits showed Libby mastering the Jazzercise (or whatever class that was) choreography, the one she messed up in an earlier episode. Is that supposed to signify her full acceptance of the suburban mom life? 

[EdnasEdibles]

See, I don’t think Adam is a saint at all. I think he’s just as dismissive as Toby is. He even mentioned in the garage argument that he has been annoyed with Libby for months, but never once does he mention it or try to deal with it? He rolls his eyes a lot and complains a lot and trash talks to her in front of her friends at a party when he made fun of her for complaining so much at Disney World. She may have been neglecting him, but I think he had been neglecting her too for just as long. 
 

I think there are a lot of parallels between Libby and Rachel. Rachel is obviously in a more severe mental health crisis. But I think Libby is clearly depressed. And no one in her life sees her or tries to help her. I think honestly that’s why the moment with her and Rachel was so poignant. But I think both Adam and Toby are the same in the sense that the women in their lives are not doing well, and they can only think of how it affects them and how annoying it is for them to have to deal with that. Both Toby and Adam were playing the victim in my opinion. 
 

In the garage fight, you can kind of see that Adam still cares for her but even then he’s not seeing what’s going on and he’s very much “you have a nice house and you have kids. Why are you so fucking upset?” Which is missing the point. Libby doesn’t have anybody who really see who she is and what she’s going through - just like Rachel didn’t. Libby feels unfulfilled. Libby feels alone. Libby feels pointless. Libby doesn’t feel like she fits in anywhere, unless she’s with her friends from her past because they actually see her. It’s an older version of her, but it’s still seeing her on some level. She’s pretty much invisible in New Jersey. And her husband is just rolling his eyes and saying that she complains too much and she has no reason to complain. 

Edited December 30, 2022 by EdnasEdibles

[SomeTameGazelle]

15 minutes ago, EdnasEdibles said:

I think there are a lot of parallels between Libby and Rachel.

The parallels and the fact that apparently Libby had not been in contact with Toby and Seth for years (i.e. anything she knows about Toby's life she heard from him and with the benefit or detriment of his hindsight) make me lean toward believing that a lot of details in the Fleishman story have been taken from Libby's life and didn't really happen that way for Toby and Rachel.

Libby's kids appear to be similar in age to Hannah and Solly.

One night Libby just doesn't go home without clear communication or explanation to Adam.

Adam withdraws emotionally from her and changes the children's routine so he can handle it on his own.

Adam worries that she is having an affair with Toby.

The big differences are that Rachel was professionally very successful and then because of her breakdown lost the biggest and most meaningful deal of her career, and that Rachel and Toby have divorced. Libby's career was not nearly as high-flying but she let it completely stagnate. And she uses the Fleishman story (or at least her version of it) to try to get her career moving but also to clear her head about her relationship and make the decision to make her marriage work. 

I choose to believe that even though they showed us the silhouette in Toby's doorway Rachel did not actually come back as Libby had foretold. I mean I hope that she got the help she needed and was able to repair her relationship with her children, but there is too much to process in terms of repairing her and Toby's relationship to feel good about a simple "she came back".

I enjoyed Libby dancing over the end credits, especially the contrast with her earlier awkwardness.

[aghst]

I don't feel a lot of sympathy for these characters.

Libby is unfulfilled professionally.  At the end, she looks in on her kids and her husband and I guess we're suppose to get that she came to her senses, decided she had a good thing or at least would try to re-commit to family life.

It just doesn't seem that convincing that she turned around in those brief moments, overcame her malaise.

Seth is leaving the glamorous single life and thinks marriage is the next step into his path of personal growth or whatever.  Like something millions of other people decide to do every day.

Toby is maybe getting over his bitterness and will have a good co-parenting relationship with Rachel.  He may have sounded jaded at Seth's engagement party but he looked out at people living separate lives and he didn't like that view.

Rachel maybe heals, re-establishes her connections to her children.

I forget how Libby as narrator phrased it, the abandonment issues Rachel had all her life but it was a nice turn of the phrase.

But I'm not convinced that she had this breakdown or crisis because Sam fucking Rothenberg abandoned her.

She reacts to being abandoned by abandoning her kids?  You'd think given her absent parents, that would be the last thing she'd do.

I don't want to hand wave the trials these characters go through as first world or "rich people problems" but maybe that's where the lack of empathy comes from.

Rich people also deserve empathy but they or anyone else can endure and survive emotional wounds, especially if they have basic necessities and a supportive network around.

Seth, Libby and Toby had each other, Libby and Toby had children for whom they wanted to put their problems behind, Seth had a significant other.

And if they needed to, they could get professional counseling.

But in the end, there's nothing remarkable about upper middle class  people looking back with regret about unfulfilled dreams or having some difficulties adjusting after a divorce.

Or people breaking up after having a brief affair and having a break down.

[circumvent]

To me, the only good thing of this series was Claire Danes acting in the previous episode. 

There are so many themes that could have been explored and developed, the author/script writer decided to go with "the woes of upper middle class New Yorkers". In the end, nobody really grow up, they continued to be the same selfish people they were before a significant big event happened in their lives. Selfish, that's what they are. Maybe Hannah grew up a little, maybe too soon. But the rest, they only showed an extreme lack of empathy and unwillingness to actually help the people they see needing help. Libby spending the time with Rachel wasn't even real help because she used that only to re-evaluate her own life, never followed up with Rachel. For all we know, Rachel might be in the park bench again, holding a bagel.

I bet the book was on the top of the NY Times list of books. One of the reasons why I don't ever choose books by that list. I can't relate to those character in a human level. They are like fantasy character to me, so far removed they are from real life. I don't expect all books to be all reality, but when it is a complete different life, I wish they were really, really different.

[iMonrey]

Quote

Libby is unfulfilled professionally.  At the end, she looks in on her kids and her husband and I guess we're suppose to get that she came to her senses, decided she had a good thing or at least would try to re-commit to family life.

So much of her closing dialogue was about accepting that she was no longer young and would never be as young again as she was right now. So I got some mixed messages at the end there. Was it about aging or unfulfilled dreams? Could be both, but the emphasis on the aging thing kind of threw me off what her actual issue was.

[DrSpaceman73]

46 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

So much of her closing dialogue was about accepting that she was no longer young and would never be as young again as she was right now. So I got some mixed messages at the end there. Was it about aging or unfulfilled dreams? Could be both, but the emphasis on the aging thing kind of threw me off what her actual issue was.

I think it's both.  They are intertwined. 

And yes it's 'first world problems' in the book but it doesn't make them untrue or unrelatable. 

[circumvent]

53 minutes ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

And yes it's 'first world problems' in the book but it doesn't make them untrue or unrelatable.

I haven't read the book so I don't know how much of it is in the series but the fact that, as far as we know the story ended, Toby showed no empathy at all for Rachel, after Libby told him all about their day together, is 100% not relatable to me. It is sociopathic, almost. She is the mother of his children. Completely ignoring her issues, as hurt, angry or annoyed he is, is hurting his children, preventing them from having a relationship. 

Crisis are totally relatable. The way those people reacted to them was, at times,  a bit too much. It is like believing that living in NY City is a never ending episode of Sex and the City.

[BooBear]

2 minutes ago, circumvent said:

I haven't read the book so I don't know how much of it is in the series but the fact that, as far as we know the story ended, Toby showed no empathy at all for Rachel, after Libby told him all about their day together, is 100% not relatable to me.

It is for me if he didn't *really* believe it. If he had seen Rachel rather than just hear about it second hand I would be lost as to how he could react like that, but I can see him doubting it in his head as most of the time Rachel was always the put together one in the relationship and in the "first world" people do tend to throw such terms around willy nilly. 

[circumvent]

5 minutes ago, BooBear said:

It is for me if he didn't *really* believe it. If he had seen Rachel rather than just hear about it second hand I would be lost as to how he could react like that, but I can see him doubting it in his head as most of the time Rachel was always the put together one in the relationship and in the "first world" people do tend to throw such terms around willy nilly. 

I agree, he didn't really believe, or didn't want to believe. But even the angriest person would (should?) at least raise some doubts in their own minds. Ask questions, even if it is to make Libby say more about what she saw, or even question her judgement. They have children together. Besides, Rachel "disappeared" weeks ago. He could have called for a wellness check, even if it was, in his head, to annoy her. The way the whole thing ended was a cop out. They are all awful, their acts are forgiven because one can decide the ending one wants. Why tell this whole story then? I don't call this a good writing. The kids in the whole thing were just pawns, not real humans with feelings. In real life, those kids are suffering trauma of abandonment, among other things

[DrSpaceman73]

42 minutes ago, circumvent said:

I haven't read the book so I don't know how much of it is in the series but the fact that, as far as we know the story ended, Toby showed no empathy at all for Rachel, after Libby told him all about their day together, is 100% not relatable to me. It is sociopathic, almost. She is the mother of his children. Completely ignoring her issues, as hurt, angry or annoyed he is, is hurting his children, preventing them from having a relationship. 

Crisis are totally relatable. The way those people reacted to them was, at times,  a bit too much. It is like believing that living in NY City is a never ending episode of Sex and the City.

I don't forgive Toby for that either. It's awful. 

I meant the larger issues of divorce, societal expectations, work life balance, middle class suburban life, middle age, parenthood, those are relatable. 

 

But yes i still find the actions of many of them reprehensible. 

[aghst]

When Toby said he makes $300k and Rachel said it wasn't enough, wanted him to take that job Sam was offering for a million, how many viewers relates to that?

Maybe Toby made the whole thing up.

But she also got them to that luxury apt. and then said her kids need to network or only have friends from the right people.

Not too relatable.

Can't imagine how much they paid for that apt. or how much Toby is paying just for that place where things don't even work.

[DrSpaceman73]

5 minutes ago, aghst said:

When Toby said he makes $300k and Rachel said it wasn't enough, wanted him to take that job Sam was offering for a million, how many viewers relates to that?

Maybe Toby made the whole thing up.

But she also got them to that luxury apt. and then said her kids need to network or only have friends from the right people.

Not too relatable.

Can't imagine how much they paid for that apt. or how much Toby is paying just for that place where things don't even work.

Greed and desire for more than you have, no matter your current condition, is a core theme in literature going back thousands of years. 

Maybe relatable isn't the right word though. Maybe I should say believable and common in the circle of people she was trying to infiltrate. 

 

[chocolatine]

1 hour ago, aghst said:

When Toby said he makes $300k and Rachel said it wasn't enough, wanted him to take that job Sam was offering for a million, how many viewers relates to that?

The number may not be relatable, but the mismatch of ambitions is, IMO. Rachel is at the top of the earning potential in her field and thinks Toby should aspire to the same in his. I don't think she necessarily thinks that $300k too little money in general, but it's on the low end for a doctor in Manhattan, so Rachel doesn't understand why Toby won't strive for more.

[aghst]

7 minutes ago, chocolatine said:

The number may not be relatable, but the mismatch of ambitions is, IMO. Rachel is at the top of the earning potential in her field and thinks Toby should aspire to the same in his. I don't think she necessarily thinks that $300k too little money in general, but it's on the low end for a doctor in Manhattan, so Rachel doesn't understand why Toby won't strive for more.

Toby repeatedly talked about how he liked the patient interface, actually treating patients instead of becoming more of an administrator or a consultant like the job she wanted him to take.

Of course, some of that was a rationalization on his part, especially when he didn't get the promotion.

In general, it's regrettable when doctors try to maximize income.  It takes a lot of time and money, not just for doctors but for society as a whole, to train the limited number of doctors produced each year.

With shortages of doctors and sky high health care costs, the idea of doctors getting out of medicine or going into lucrative but narrow specialties, often for elective procedures like cosmetic surgery is hard to defend.  Or becoming consultants in medicine-related sectors, like the pharma consultant job they talked about.

Of course it's a free country and doctors can pursue whatever path they want.  They can live pretty well on Toby's salary, even in Manhattan.  Rachel also has a right to pursue whatever career she wants and use her income to upsize their lifestyle by a lot.

But when she tries to push him into getting out of medicine for a big payday, she seems more concerned with herself rather than him, whether he might like doing the more lucrative job, not even considering that he might feel miserable doing it.

 

[kitkat343]

16 hours ago, EdnasEdibles said:

See, I don’t think Adam is a saint at all. I think he’s just as dismissive as Toby is. He even mentioned in the garage argument that he has been annoyed with Libby for months, but never once does he mention it or try to deal with it? He rolls his eyes a lot and complains a lot and trash talks to her in front of her friends at a party when he made fun of her for complaining so much at Disney World. She may have been neglecting him, but I think he had been neglecting her too for just as long. 
 

I think there are a lot of parallels between Libby and Rachel. Rachel is obviously in a more severe mental health crisis. But I think Libby is clearly depressed. And no one in her life sees her or tries to help her. I think honestly that’s why the moment with her and Rachel was so poignant. But I think both Adam and Toby are the same in the sense that the women in their lives are not doing well, and they can only think of how it affects them and how annoying it is for them to have to deal with that. Both Toby and Adam were playing the victim in my opinion. 
 

In the garage fight, you can kind of see that Adam still cares for her but even then he’s not seeing what’s going on and he’s very much “you have a nice house and you have kids. Why are you so fucking upset?” Which is missing the point. Libby doesn’t have anybody who really see who she is and what she’s going through - just like Rachel didn’t. Libby feels unfulfilled. Libby feels alone. Libby feels pointless. Libby doesn’t feel like she fits in anywhere, unless she’s with her friends from her past because they actually see her. It’s an older version of her, but it’s still seeing her on some level. She’s pretty much invisible in New Jersey. And her husband is just rolling his eyes and saying that she complains too much and she has no reason to complain. 

I'm slightly harder on Libby than this.  It feels like a lot of Libby's problem is that she wasn't able to advance at the men's magazine.  And I really find it hard to be sympathetic about that, because its a men's magazine.  I'd be really sympathetic for her she wrote for Time magazine and they gave all the good assignments to male colleagues, but honestly it feels more like "why did it take her so long to realize that a men's magazine isn't going to support a woman?"  And I also find it hard to believe she was earning so much as a middling writer at a men's magazine that she couldn't have quit a long time ago and found something personally fulfilling that wasn't financially rewarding.  She could become an adjunct professor, teaching classes in journalism, writing or women's studies.  Or she could write for a feminist publication or worked as a freelancer (she didn't earn a salary in the previous year and her family was fine from a financial point of view).  Her kids are old enough they are not completely dependent upon her, so she should have had the ability to at least try to make her life fulfilling.  And if it was depression that prevented her from doing these things, then she should at least have gone into serious therapy to try to work on that.  

 

Adam supported her quitting her job to write a novel.  And her showing up late for the flight to Disney was pretty awful for the kids who might have been worried about her and the trip, and her forgetting to make reservations for that trip was also awful given the fact that she doesn't work outside the home and it seemed from the family scenes like he was both earning money and being the primary caretaker of the children.  He mentioned having planned everything down to the minute, and that kind of planning takes a lot of work.

[shelley1234]

16 hours ago, aghst said:

 

But I'm not convinced that she had this breakdown or crisis because Sam fucking Rothenberg abandoned her.

 

I don't think Sam Rothenberg dumping her was the triggering event, at least not the primary one.

It was Toby telling her to go to LA, but he was keeping the kids and they probably wouldn't even notice she was gone.  As she said, it was the cruelest thing anyone had ever said to her.   I think it broke something in her on a profound level.  And then she did that exact thing....she disappeared from their and everyone's lives.  She kept trying to crawl her way out, but she just couldn't get there.  

[aghst]

She was going to LA for Sam though.

Ridiculous, taking the kids to LA just so she can more easily fuck Sam, away from his wife.

[chocolatine]

1 hour ago, aghst said:

She was going to LA for Sam though.

From what she told Sam, it sounded like the LA office was already in the works. Rachel isn't the kind of woman to plan her career around a man.

[sadie]

Loved this series. Libby’s monologue at the end really got me, that sense of your choices shrinking as you get older and realizing you can’t go back, gut punch.

I am confused though on Toby’s ending. Did Rachel come back, or was that just in Libby’s head? 

[iMonrey]

Quote

Toby showed no empathy at all for Rachel, after Libby told him all about their day together, is 100% not relatable to me. It is sociopathic, almost. She is the mother of his children. Completely ignoring her issues, as hurt, angry or annoyed he is, is hurting his children, preventing them from having a relationship. 

I wouldn't call him sociopathic but he sure seems like an asshole. I can see it from his perspective, he did try to get Rachel help after the first baby and she refused. You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. So being told Rachel had some sort of breakdown doesn't mean it's his responsibility to get her help simply because they have children together. He's just done trying to help her, he has to focus on his children and his own life now. 

Now, from a practical standpoint, yes it would probably be in his children's best interest if he did try to get Rachel help but at the same time I can see why he would dismiss the idea out of hand after having to put up with her behavior though all their years of marriage. 

It's not a great look on him, I agree, but I sort of get it.

Edited December 31, 2022 by iMonrey

[Ms Blue Jay]

On 12/29/2022 at 9:09 PM, chocolatine said:

There were hints throughout the season that Toby is a self-involved, self-righteous piece of shit, and his reaction to Libby telling him about Rachel's breakdown confirmed it for me. I really hated that the ending implied that Rachel wanted to reconnect with him. I want her to get better and cultivate a healthy co-parenting relationship with him, but romantically she can do a lot better.

Adam is a saint for putting up with Libby's behavior. I didn't like him just accepting her apology after what looked like months if not years of her neglecting him and their children. He should have insisted on some changes and accountability from her, possibly with the help of a marriage counselor.

The end credits showed Libby mastering the Jazzercise (or whatever class that was) choreography, the one she messed up in an earlier episode. Is that supposed to signify her full acceptance of the suburban mom life? 

I'm a little more sympathetic to Toby than others.  I think he just said those things in anger.  I understood the reaction more.  He's a lot closer to the situation than Libby and he has some anger about it to deal with that she doesn't.  Yet, I understand people thinking he's a POS.  LOL.

The whole Libby Adam relationship was such a disappointment.  I'm such a big fan of Josh Radnor, and I was so excited to see him on the show, and he's looking so fine.  But man, what a waste of a character.  We only get a tiny sliver of that relationship and just nothing makes sense to me.

Honestly, that end credits Jazzercise scene just felt like fan service to me, like a way to just gush over Lizzy Caplan.  Especially when it seemed like the crew was applauding her at the end. 🙄

Early on in the series I Googled who the narrator was for the series and the first article that popped up had a headline like "Everyone on "Fleishman in Trouble" loved Lizzy Caplan's narration so much that they broke all their rules for her".  Like okay... relax.  So I think that ending scene was all that was.  More gushing.

Edited December 31, 2022 by Ms Blue Jay

[QQQQ]

Seth using the word "fiance" at the party made me laugh thinking about the Seinfeld ep where the woman at a party keeps emphasizing the same word ("I've lost my fiance, the poor baby, has anyone seen my fiance?").

[DrSpaceman73]

40 minutes ago, QQQQ said:

Seth using the word "fiance" at the party made me laugh thinking about the Seinfeld ep where the woman at a party keeps emphasizing the same word ("I've lost my fiance, the poor baby, has anyone seen my fiance?").

Maybe the dingo ate him

[QQQQ]

41 minutes ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

Maybe the dingo ate him

Before the credits rolled on the last episode, I was wishing that fate on all of the characters.

[DrSpaceman73]

58 minutes ago, QQQQ said:

Before the credits rolled on the last episode, I was wishing that fate on all of the characters.

I was hoping it would end with the tag line 'and that, kids, is how I divorced your mother'