S01.E09: The Garveys At Their Best

[RedHackle]

 

whoa there, young grasshopper. Doncha call the Everly Brothers "drippy." I may be old, and I may like some old music, but Everly Brothers still have street cred with today's musicians.

 

You are correct, wise one, and I stand in all humility.  I guess what I meant to say was that the song reminded me of a drippy knock-off of the Everly Brothers sound.  You are correct, EB are awesome.  Please forgive your humble servant.  

[stillshimpy]

^ That's a response made of awesome, RedHackle. 

[Danny Franks]

I think it's much more interesting from a character standpoint to have it turn out that Laurie aborted her baby, choosing to have it "disappear" at a time when the entire world is grieving the random disappearance of millions. This would definitely put the guilt in The Guilty Remnant.

 

 

It would also go some way to explaining just how much Kevin is losing it, and how he feels he failed Laurie as a husband. Not just the cheating, but the idea that him being an asshole and having his little mid-life crisis caused her to get rid of their baby... which then caused her to lose her goddamn mind and all sense of fashion. She knows about him cheating, so I wonder if that's part of some hateful conversation they had, at some point in the two years between the event and her joining those fruitloops. He admits to cheating, she admits to aborting their baby.

 

But I would like to see more of how Jill went from that happy, smiley, absurdly cute girl to the bitch on wheels she is now. Is it just due to her parents' marriage collapsing? Her brother taking off (also something I'd like to know more about)? Did someone else she cared about disappear? A friend or boyfriend?

 

One thing that I'm not keen on is the idea that the GR were forming before the event, because in the pilot episode, they were talking about them as though they were relatively new. The fact that there were now fifty of them seemed to point towards them just becoming prominent. But this is three years down the line, although given that their recruitment methods seem to involve just standing outside someone's house, smoking, I can understand why they have problems getting people to join.

[ganesh]

I could buy the Laurie aborted the baby at a later date. She doesn't immediately join the GR too. I think you can get a lot more story out of this plot than if the fetus immediately vanished, if one was inclined to tell the story of how the family dissolved and half of them ended up in cults post 1014.

I just really despise how the scene was shot. It strikes me as deliberately disingenuous. I think it underscores everything that is wrong with the show.

[Danny Franks]

I just really despise how the scene was shot. It strikes me as deliberately disingenuous. I think it underscores everything that is wrong with the show.

 

I don't really see what's disingenuous about a scene that seems to me to be clearly designed to have people asking, 'wait, did the fetus vanish?' As far as I can tell, they absolutely intended for it to be ambiguous, and to be something that will be answered later. Because the show, whether people like it or not, is slowly dropping hints and clues about the lives of these people, and letting viewers build up an idea of what has happened between the event and now, to put them where they are. 

 

So some people think it vanished, some people think it didn't, and some don't know what they think. That's not the show being disingenuous, it's just them allowing viewers to draw their own conclusions, until they reveal what actually happened. Just like Wayne saying that Christine was special wasn't immediately followed up with, 'because she's carrying my baby, and I'm a lunatic so I think my offspring will be the messiah'. What would be the point?

 

And I don't think much is wrong with the show, either. It's just a style of storytelling that relies on mystery over clarity, which is hardly unknown in fiction. Funnily enough, I see a few similarities between this, and Justin Theroux's first significant movie, Mulholland Drive.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Danny Franks

[ganesh]

I just think the deliberate ambiguity at this point is disingenuous. You have to throw the viewers a bone at some point. I'm not confident answers are forthcoming. I think it's reasonable that many of thr questions asked here and some major character motivations should have been addressed by now. TPTBs are either jerking viewers around, which is an observation I read here, or actually didn't bother to think some of these issues through.

[shapeshifter]

...But I would like to see more of how Jill went from that happy, smiley, absurdly cute girl to the bitch on wheels she is now. Is it just due to her parents' marriage collapsing? Her brother taking off (also something I'd like to know more about)? Did someone else she cared about disappear? A friend or boyfriend...

There's enough in what we've seen so far to account for it: Her parents' separation, her mother cutting off communication, her brother running away, and people inexplicably vanishing. Certainly there may be other reasons yet to be revealed--like what happened to her friend to cause her to come live with them--but all of the above, combined with her age, is enough for me. Until this episode, I thought she might have always tended toward a depressive state--but now we know different.

You are correct, wise one, and I stand in all humility. I guess what I meant to say was that the song reminded me of a drippy knock-off of the Everly Brothers sound. You are correct, EB are awesome. Please forgive your humble servant.

You are forgiven and completely absolved. However, be forewarned: If you diss the Righteous Brothers, "that lovin' feelin' [will be] gone, gone, gone--whoa, whoa woe."

;>)

Edited September 3, 2014 by shapeshifter

[RadiantAerynSun]

 

Now you've got me wondering if that's what this show is all about. Purgatory.

 

Maybe that's why bad people vanished too, maybe the innocent went to heaven, the very bad went to hell, and everyone else is still being judged.

[Danny Franks]

There's enough in what we've seen so far to account for it: Her parents' separation, her mother cutting off communication, her brother running away, and people inexplicably vanishing. Certainly there may be other reasons yet to be revealed--like what happened to her friend to cause her to come live with them--but all of the above, combined with her age, is enough for me. Until this episode, I thought she might have always tended toward a depressive state--but now we know different.

 

 

I suppose there is, especially considering all of that happened as she was going through adolescence. Even kids with completely normal, healthy family lives can turn into horrors, during those years. But I really hope that she starts to improve, because I'd like to see the father/daughter relationship improve. And if Laurie and her chums are planning what I think they're planning in the finale, then hopefully Jill will be disgusted with them, and go right back home.

 

I just think the deliberate ambiguity at this point is disingenuous. You have to throw the viewers a bone at some point. I'm not confident answers are forthcoming. I think it's reasonable that many of thr questions asked here and some major character motivations should have been addressed by now. TPTBs are either jerking viewers around, which is an observation I read here, or actually didn't bother to think some of these issues through.

 

 

They've been throwing bones all season. Just small ones. Prior to this episode, we had no clue why Laurie might have joined her cult of dicks, and we had no clue what caused the rift between her and Kevin. Now we have plenty of clues for both those things. We know Kevin cheated on her, and that their marriage wasn't in a great place, and we know that Laurie was unexpectedly pregnant and either lost the baby, or had it aborted.

 

We still don't know whether it was her choice, or whether it was taken from her by the event. And we don't know if Kevin knew about any of it.

 

Answering all the questions at once just means there's less for them to explore in the second season, if you ask me.

[MrWhyt]

 

Answering all the questions at once just means there's less for them to explore in the second season, if you ask me.

Yes if they tell their entire story in the first season what are they going to do in season 2? Yes they weren't assured of a second season but they had to leave something to write about if they did get it.

[ganesh]

I'm not even remotely complaining or demanding that "everything" be answered in the first season. Obviously, you don't tell completely everything in season 1 because, where do you go from there? However, you can tell a closed, semi-closed narrative over the season, while continuing to unfold the story in the long term, cf. Masters of Sex, Game of Thrones, Black Sails, The Walking Dead, Mad Men, Breaking Bad. I'm talking about balance. It's not you have to tell everything or tell nothing. 

 

I don't think answering something in this season about like how Laurie joined the GR or what led to Tom joining the Wayne cult is giving up the ghost and deflating the entire show. They made a big point of showing Laurie looking at the ultrasound in this episode. Answering what happened to the fetus (vanished or aborted) in the first isn't going to completely end her character arc. I don't think filling in some of the gaps of developing some of the motivations for the main characters is an unreasonable expectation for the first season of a serialized show.

 

There's still a lot to go from there for a second season. Kevin's dad has a whole plot going on that doesn't necessarily need to be wrapped up now. If in fact TPTBs are hinting that this vanishing event occurred in the past, that is something for a second season. If TPTBs aren't providing anything major over the course of the first season because they "don't know where'd they go in a second season" then they're doing a poor job of developing the story properly as a workable tv show. 

[shapeshifter]

I'm fine with the story telling style of this show, but then I love most forms of jazz music, open verse (non-rhyming) poetry, and abstract art too.

[ganesh]

Even jazz music is based on the blues scales though. 

[revbfc]

Quick question about the ultrasound scene. Did the doctor leave the room after the scream, or did she just stay with Laurie holding the wand (?) to Her belly? I ask because it seems as though the doc did react shocked enough to check out the situation. If that's the case, what was Laurie looking at on the screen? No one was holding the ultrasound wand.

[WearyTraveler]

Quick question about the ultrasound scene. Did the doctor leave the room after the scream, or did she just stay with Laurie holding the wand (?) to Her belly? I ask because it seems as though the doc did react shocked enough to check out the situation. If that's the case, what was Laurie looking at on the screen? No one was holding the ultrasound wand.

 

The doctor stayed

[Milburn Stone]

This is the episode we've been missing. I think I could have forgiven the main characters' likability problems if I'd known what had been lost. 

 

And I agree with stillshimpy that this was exactly the right time for it.

 

Pretty much invalidates (I suppose I should add IMO) the supposition that the show's writers didn't know where the show was going. I always knew they did.

[ViewerPDX]

For what it's worth, we got the confirmation that Laurie was Patti's therapist.  But I don't think that was ever revealed.  I'm pretty sure we got book spoiled on that one.

 

I had no idea.  As someone who liked the acting in this show so much I gave it a 9th shot, that surprised me.  It also explains how Kevin is so messed up, too.  Laurie's former patient went to a client's cult, and not only that, became her lackey.  The cabin stuff with Patti makes sense, too, more than it did.  It's why she said the "Dirty Dick" stuff.  It was to show Kevin she was now his wife's shrink.  Sends chills again thinking about it!

[Milburn Stone]

Now, not having a video feed for the hotel where Nora was staying makes less sense, so the show has pulled more than a few "Really? I'm supposed to buy that?" moments, but the fact that the series hasn't shown footage of someone disappearing or referenced it being studied doesn't strike me as one of those gaffes. 

 

In fact, if you try to envision shots in which people disappear, you quickly realize that the effect would have been ordinary in the extreme. We have seen people disappear "through the magic of film" a million times. The second silent movie ever made probably contained an effect like this. A home movie I made with my friends in 1964 contained an effect like this. The show created a terror in the audience far greater by not having people disappear before our eyes than it ever could by showing it. Just one of many shrewd choices the show made.

Edited September 27, 2014 by Milburn Stone