S01.E07: Brenda's Story

[statsgirl]

Quote

When an acerbic fema.le stand-up comic is assaulted by a fellow comic, she uses her platform to try the case in the court of public opinion.

Whitney Cummings, Rhea Perlman, Mary Lynn Rajskub

Airdate March 8, 2023.

[AnimeMania]

Whitney Cummings as Brenda Kramer

Mary Lynn Rajskub as Tess Richards
Rhea Pearlman as Joyce Golden
Sean Kleier as Brian Tanner
Baron Vaughn as Chad
Alisen Down as Ellen Barry, lawyer
Jeff Clarke as ADA Edward Lavigne
Rachael Crawford as Marilyn Kast
René Escobar Jr. as Aaron Amipour
Darlene Cooke as Judge Smith

[Spartan Girl]

Yeah, Brenda shouldn’t have chummed up to that lady so quickly. The red flags were all there.

The ending with her actually apologizing to her rapist for the attack rankled. I get what she told the activists—violence is never the answer—but she didn’t owe him shit.

[gesundheit]

Another hamfisted, overwritten one, but still interesting to see unfold. I was a little distracted and didn't watch terribly closely, though -- what was Cummings doing? I couldn't tell if she was supposed to be drugged/drunk or have a serious mouth injury from the attack for most of the episode (or just a bad fillers incident?). She just kind of stopped moving her mouth after a certain point and always looked dazed.

[Madding crowd]

I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch this because I knew it would make me angry in some ways which it did. It was overworked and ultimately didn’t mean anything. It would have been interesting to explore club owners who back entertainers who commit crimes and the backlash they might face from people who don’t support the criminal.  In this case they had too much to explore in a short episode. And then it all came down to a mentally disturbed person. 

What were we supposed to take from this? That justice was served? Why was the story about the friendship between Brenda and her comic friend ( forgot his name) even part of this? I do like Whitney but she wasn’t a good choice for this part as she has a frozen face that cannot show emotion. The DA was over the top too. I believe he may not press charges, I don’t believe he would come out with verbally suggesting she was a slut in these very charged times.
 

 

[possibilities]

I don't think this show is trying to give us simple answers. I think it's asking us to look at messy situations and see how many ways it's problematic. The solutions are not being offered.

I don't think it's saying justice was served or it wasn't. Clearly it wasn't with regard to the rape. He got away with that.

And the woman who set him on fire-- nobody endorsed that, but you see how people get frustrated and eventually some of them will snap and do something extreme. The show didn't endorse it. They just showed it.

Asking people to sit with the discomfort of how messy and complicated things are is sometimes in itself, I think, a worthwhile endeavor. But it's not easy. It doesn't lave you feeling satisfied because justice was done or things were tied up nicely.

Even the news these days tries to simplify things and tell us "this was good" or "this was bad". But the subtlety of how things happen outside the headlines of the accusation and the verdict is where people live their daily lives. And any actual solutions are going to have to account for all those factors. So I think looking at situations from different angles and seeing how different characters might behave, rightly or wrongly, and realistically or fantastically, all contributes to a thoughtfulness and creativity that is prerequisite, even when it's not enough alone, for even beginning to consider proposed solutions.

[Madding crowd]

I appreciate your point of view and you always have a well thought out response. In this episode I don’t agree they actually gave us something to think about. We know women are raped by famous people and they are not held accountable. We know women lose their jobs over speaking out. In this case Brenda came out a loser because people will still blame her for what happened even though it was ridiculous to charge her with a crime.
 

Having an unwell woman throw acid in Zeke’s face only results in her incarceration; it didn’t speak to Brenda being branded a slut or losing her job at the club. The women who came to the courtroom aren’t going to help her pay her bills. So to me this episode didn’t give me anything new to think about, the acid throwing was just used as a gotcha moment. 

[Snazzy Daisy]

This episode revolved around a serious and delicate subject. In right hands, this could be a really inspiring story that triggers some deep emotions but in this case, it wasn’t. At least, not for me.

Many has complimented Whitney Cummings’ emotional performance on Twitter. I don’t feel the same. She’s looking forward to do more dramatic roles after this.

 

[Chicago Redshirt]

Another week, another episode that bites off more than it can chew.

There was a lot to potentially be developed here: the hypocrisy/complicity of Hollywood and the double standard that allows the rich and powerful to get away with things, the feelings of self-loathing a rape survivor might have, the role other women play in supporting or tearing down survivors, the minefield of things a woman who experienced rape has to navigate in an attempt to get justice,  the unfair stigma that still exists that makes an accuser's sexual past be a factor in how viable a prosecution might be. (You would never get to cross-examine a robbery victim by saying "You've donated a lot of money in the past, haven't you?)

But the nature of the show means that it can just touch on any of these things for a second and then it has to move on.

Again, the courtroom stuff is probably the worst part of the episode because they just don't put adequate time or thought into them after spending all the work setting up the premise. No reasonable prosecutor would try to go after Brenda for the acts of Tess unless they had some sort of evidence that Brenda conspired with Tess to do the attack. Which as far as we saw, they didn't. Even if we agree that it was Brenda's post that gave Tess the idea to douse Rapist with gas and set him on fire, and that Tess was motivated by her twisted loyalty to Brenda, there is no universe where that translates into criminal culpability for Brenda. No judge in their right mind would allow women to attend their court with tape over their mouths in protest. Seems to me the lawyers and judge would not have Rapist just skulking around in the gallery, as it would be unpredictable how the jury would react to his ongoing presence.

The drama again seems underplayed. Suppose someone accused Dave Chappelle of being a rapist, and then a friend of the accuser lit him on fire after nothing was done. That courtroom would be packed with press and people curious about it. OK, maybe Rapist isn't as big a name as Chappelle, but you get the idea.

Other things:

It's good to see Rhea Perlman again even in a not particularly great role. Was it just me, or did one of the exterior shots of the neighborhood bring thoughts of the exterior of Cheers? I thought the cynical attitude of "so you got raped, you might as well benefit from it" was scary and should have been more forcefully rejected by the show.

Also good to see Mary Lynn Rakskub and to have her get a hookup from her 24 producers. Although again, I dislike tying Tess and her crazy as "RBG's Cape," aka Ruth Bader Ginsburg as in liberal icon. Basically it's a dog whistle that these woke women be crazy, you know what I'm saying?

I wish that they swapped Whitney and Mary Lynn's roles. Because having the young hot woman be the attacked and the not-conventionally attractive older one be the crazy plays to stereotypes.

I don't like that to  get to the plot they had Brenda make a bunch of pretty dumb choices even without the benefit of hindsight. We know from the show that she and Rapist have fucked in the past. She presumably has a direct line to him via e-mail or phone and he was at their club. Indeed, we know that she has his number because after the rape, he calls her a couple times and his name comes up on her phone. (Unless we are to believe that he gave it to her only after the rape and she decided to program it in, which would be ridiculous)..

So if she wants to pitch him, she shouldn't need to go to the party at all, let alone go to a private room with him. A party is really about the worst place to go to pitch him, because his focus is going to be distracted by all his other guests and his wanting to have fun and he probably is not going to be in the mood to talk business. She can just call him. But for the rape to happen, she has to go, so she goes.

I think the notion that they had slept together in the past just was done as a check-the-box thing rather than an organic situation where the relationship between the two of them had flesh and bones. Like what is the backstory there? Were they boyfriend and girlfriend before breaking up? Was it just a two-time fling? Were there hard feelings on one side or the other? Is there a reason why she's reluctant to approach Rapist given their prior relationship? 

I hate that the show makes me into that guy, but yeah, it is hard for me to believe that Brenda did not think that Rapist was going to try to fuck her when he got her in a bedroom alone at a party, especially given that they had a history. It would have made way more sense to be like, "Let's talk more on Monday."

I wasn't quite clear as to whether Brenda was supposed to be roofied or if she was just experienced some disassociation or what. I do hate that the episode in my mind does raise the question of why she didn't yell out so that any of the hundred people who were at the party would potentially know what was going on. 

I wish they had given some reason why overt reason why Brenda withheld that she and Rapist had slept together in the past. I can get the notion that she knew that they might take her complaint less seriously if they had known that. But she also had to suspect that they would be able to find out that they slept together and that the omission of that fact would come out worse.

It seems to me that having just been accused of rape, a comedian probably would not joke about it during a set at the club where he met the alleged rape victim. 

Seems to me when someone pours gas on you, you don't stick around to wait for them to get out a lighter and throw that at you too. 

And it seems to me that Brenda was way too forgiving of Rapist. I would have been way better if she was like, "I didn't want for any of this to happen, but you know what? I'm not exactly crying that it did."

[NoReally]

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

(You would never get to cross-examine a robbery victim by saying "You've donated a lot of money in the past, haven't you?)

This! Excellent analogy.  

[circumvent]

2 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I hate that the show makes me into that guy, but yeah, it is hard for me to believe that Brenda did not think that Rapist was going to try to fuck her when he got her in a bedroom alone at a party, especially given that they had a history. It would have made way more sense to be like, "Let's talk more on Monday."

I disagree. She was "lightly drunk", she was eager and "on a mission" to get him to see her act. But even if you want to no consider that, I could tell you of my experience when I completely trusted someone even as, in hindsight I could have paid attention to the signals he was giving. I wasn't raped, but the assault was real and it messed up with my head for a while. It didn't help that my best "friend" did what the D.A.  did in this episode, was to question what I was wearing, why I didn't say anything earlier, all that.

2 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

No reasonable prosecutor would try to go after Brenda for the acts of Tess unless they had some sort of evidence that Brenda conspired with Tess to do the attack. Which as far as we saw, they didn't. Even if we agree that it was Brenda's post that gave Tess the idea to douse Rapist with gas and set him on fire, and that Tess was motivated by her twisted loyalty to Brenda, there is no universe where that translates into criminal culpability for Brenda.

That was the worst part of the episode. It was ridiculous, even for a show that tends to write really awful parts for defense attorneys and prosecutors, plus hire people who cannot act well, so cannot even try to polish the bad writing with good acting. 

20 hours ago, possibilities said:

I don't think this show is trying to give us simple answers. I think it's asking us to look at messy situations and see how many ways it's problematic. The solutions are not being offered.

I more or less agree, but also disagree with that. I can accept the premise that the show is not trying to give us simple answers. But  if this is what they are doing, is not really working for me because the writing is not to the level of nuance they want us to reach. As observed many times, those situations are too complicated for 42 minutes. They would do better if they had a block of episodes for each case. 

As for "the solutions are not being offered" I can agree with that, with an asterix: they are directing us to "go high when they go low" which is one of the worst platitudes I have ever heard.  it is unrealistic and it is an attempt to moralize. The rapist is free, even if his face is messed up. His career probably got a boost. They could have left out the little pep talk Brenda gave in the end. Victims of sexual violence, specially facing the offender, don't simply feel bad for them. I will never accept that as a fact. If anyone says that they do feel bad for their rapist of sexual offender, I say that they are lying. So, while they are not offering solutions, or a clean ending, the moralization is in itself tilted towards the "peaceful resolution and coming clean with the truth". All that is, imo, due to the rushed stories and simplistic writing.

[gesundheit]

20 hours ago, Madding crowd said:

I appreciate your point of view and you always have a well thought out response. In this episode I don’t agree they actually gave us something to think about. We know women are raped by famous people and they are not held accountable. We know women lose their jobs over speaking out. In this case Brenda came out a loser because people will still blame her for what happened even though it was ridiculous to charge her with a crime.
 

Having an unwell woman throw acid in Zeke’s face only results in her incarceration; it didn’t speak to Brenda being branded a slut or losing her job at the club. The women who came to the courtroom aren’t going to help her pay her bills. So to me this episode didn’t give me anything new to think about, the acid throwing was just used as a gotcha moment. 

Full agreement. This episode set up a massive ton of things that could have been interrogated and led to some thought-provoking moments. Instead they provided zero nuance or subtlety to the point that I was repeatedly embarrassed by how old-fashioned it all seemed. Outside of the social media component, this felt like a groundbreaking evening network drama in 1987.

23 minutes ago, circumvent said:

I can accept the premise that the show is not trying to give us simple answers. But  if this is what they are doing, is not really working for me because the writing is not to the level of nuance they want us to reach. 

Agreed. They have the ingredients for raising complicated questions, but for the most part end up presenting it in the most oversimplified, cliched way possible. I do think there have been some exceptions (Scott's Story, Robyn's Story), but I feel like most episode are taking the most obvious and easy angle.

[Madding crowd]

I agree with you that something felt very dated in this episode. I found it hard to believe Rhea Pearlman’s character would fire Brenda in front of a group of people all of whom might have cameras to record the moment. 
To me, only the first episode left me with something to think about: how can society help parents with violent children? How can we help the children? How can we protect society against this violence? I didn’t find anything thought provoking in the other episodes although they had good acting.

Edited March 9, 2023 by Madding crowd

[Starchild]

8 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I wish they had given some reason why overt reason why Brenda withheld that she and Rapist had slept together in the past. I can get the notion that she knew that they might take her complaint less seriously if they had known that. But she also had to suspect that they would be able to find out that they slept together and that the omission of that fact would come out worse.

Every time it came up, the message I got from her body language was "yes, and both of those times I didn't want to, but I let it happen, and I'm ashamed, and can we just not talk about it."

[MicheleinPhilly]

On 3/9/2023 at 11:26 AM, gesundheit said:

Full agreement. This episode set up a massive ton of things that could have been interrogated and led to some thought-provoking moments. Instead they provided zero nuance or subtlety to the point that I was repeatedly embarrassed by how old-fashioned it all seemed. Outside of the social media component, this felt like a groundbreaking evening network drama in 1987.

👆

For me it felt like they were trying so very hard to be current and show the danger with social media and what public figures say and their influence (and co-sign whomever said there is no way a prosecutor would have brought charges about Brenda for what Tess did) and white, male privilege, etc. etc. 

But then they threw in a comic book villian ADA who implied that if she had slept with him before and was drunk, she wasn't raped. I know there are still sadly people who share these beliefs but literally every question out of his mouth felt like it was out of some 80s after school special. 

[Simba122504]

I'm no legal expert, but without evidence, how can they charge Brenda with any crime?  Throughout history victims of various crimes have had supporters who use violence to attack the defendants in those cases. I've never heard of parents of murder victims being charged with anything their supporters did?  It is because the two women knew each other? The DA believes they were working together?  #confused 😕 

Edited March 20, 2023 by Simba122504

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 3/18/2023 at 3:01 PM, Simba122504 said:

I'm no legal expert, but without evidence how can they charge Brenda with any crime?  Through history victims of various crimes have had supporters use violence to attack the defendants in those cases. I've never heard of parents of murder victims being charged with anything their supporters did. It is because the two women knew each other? The DA believes they were working together?  #confused 😕 

We're biased because we know exactly what happened and know that  Brenda didn't have any knowledge of Tess's actions and didn't have the slightest intention that Tess harm Rapist. But if someone looks at the facts, it at least is a plausible case to infer that Brenda and Tess were in cahoots.

1. Brenda is raped, reports it, but justice is not done. In fact, Brenda is banned from the comedy club where she met her rapist. 

2. Brenda talks on social media about the rape and says on social media that the only way Rapist would feel something was if someone doused him with gas and lit him on fire (or whatever the exact wording of that post was)

3. Tess reads Brenda's social media postings and befriends Brenda in real life.

4. Tess confides in Brenda that Tess was also raped but was too timid to speak out.

5. Tess and Brenda become very close to the point of Brenda kicking out and alienating a longtime friend over Tess's creepiness.

6. Tess acts out the specific type of attack that Brenda talked about on social media -- dousing Rapist in gas and setting him on fire.

Given the above, it's reasonable to think that Brenda might have directly worked Tess up to do it. Obviously both Brenda and Tess would deny it, but they would also deny it if they were in cahoots. Yes, it would be a better case if there were texts or e-mails or something planning the attack, but it's not like real life conspirators are always going to do that. And it is also likely that someone can manipulate another into acting while carefully maintaining some plausible deniability.

It is a bad case to try to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, of course, because it is just as likely that Tess is nutso and did this on her own as it is that Brenda and she were working together.  But I could see a civil jury finding Tess liable. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 3/15/2023 at 11:49 AM, MicheleinPhilly said:

👆

For me it felt like they were trying so very hard to be current and show the danger with social media and what public figures say and their influence (and co-sign whomever said there is no way a prosecutor would have brought charges about Brenda for what Tess did) and white, male privilege, etc. etc. 

But then they threw in a comic book villian ADA who implied that if she had slept with him before and was drunk, she wasn't raped. I know there are still sadly people who share these beliefs but literally every question out of his mouth felt like it was out of some 80s after school special. 

I don't think the ADA was denying the rape happened. I think it was more that he did not want to proceed with prosecuting it because either a) the fact that she had consensual sex with Rapist previously and did not disclose it to him meant that he did not trust her to be a good witness b)  because he patronizingly thought that it would be too tough on her to be a witness under these circumstances c) he was worried about his possible inability to get a conviction, d) he was star-struck or otherwise convinced by how smooth Rapist was in his voluntary interview or e) some combination of all of the above.

To me, it is almost worse than straight up disbelief that the rape occurred. If she is willing to testify, then let her testify. Build the best case you can, and hopefully you prevail.