S01.E10: Love Story

[SonofaBiscuit]

Yeah, I have to say that reading this thread some things are coming off almost like personal attacks towards others.  I don't think that's fun for anyone who really just wants to have a civil discussion about the show.  I've never thought that anyone needs to explain why they like or hate characters...there is no wrong answer when it comes to your personal opinion.  I'm allowed to hate David for what others might perceive as a stupid reason (he's an evil cookie smasher).  I like Max and Taylor, but if others hate them, well that's awesome because we all have different opinions and feel connected to different characters based on our own personality, life experiences, etc. 

[Kromm]

Phew. This is one intense thread. A few thoughts:

 

Crash will go down for this, I don't think they can avoid that. But I suspect the surveillance footage will make it clear that the gun went off by accident. So, secondary manslaughter? Hopefully Carter will cut him loose, though.

Max isn't going to die.  The show sent the wrong signals for that.

 

So it's assault with a deadly weapon probably.  I believe some places have a charge called "attempted voluntary manslaughter", but it's not common.

For me, Taylor's Mary Sue behavior rings true. She has likely spent her whole life trying to not upset her parents further so she does everything as exactly right as she can. The flip side is that she's nervous and anxious because she's afraid of upsetting her parents further. It's a very hard way to live. She's very repressed and I think she's shown that tightrope she walks pretty effectively. 

I actually think she's a pretty well realized character, and they've done a good job of showing multiple sides of her (a rare compliment for this show, which goes cartoonish so much of the time).  She may have been the one to most viciously attack Carter, but they also made clear in the previous episode that she was the first to defend her as well.

[Gwen-Stacys]

Unless you wrote, edited, produced, or acted in this show, you really don't have the right to suggest that someone else is watching the show "wrong". My perspective is just as valid as yours and so would anyone else's. We all obviously have different opinions and can agree to disagree, but no one on this board really has any special insight that makes their interpretation of the characters and story more valid than others.

 

But yes, obviously we're just going in circles here, so agree to disagree.

 

You're right. I should have wrote "In my opinion", or YMMV. My entire point was that we don't really have that much of a difference in oppinion and I wasn't really disagreeing with you. Is Carter disrespectful to Elizabeth? Yes. But on the flip side, is Elizabeth acting out of a place of fear and therefore pushing Carter further and further away? Yes.

[Kromm]

I think it's tricky to navigate this show, because it takes a potentially real situation where we'd feel considerable sympathy for both sides (even the girl feeling more attached to the kidnapper is realistic), but then does a melodramatic over the top spin on it.

 

Carter rebelling is fine with me as a plot direction, it's just that the show has done a bad job of pacing that plot.  If they were trying to insist Carter was a bad kid, they could show her going off the rails fast, but they don't want that (and really... ultimately she's not... while individual things she's done are selfish, they've been tempered by the show having her be generous or forgiving at other times).  

 

The hanging out with a bad crowd plots are standard for teen shows, they just come off as so icky here because there's such a pile-on with the stolen-child-returned plotline, and then hammered even harder by the Dad-is-a-scumbag plot.

 

The show needed some space around Carter--some stuff that wasn't about her--so that the viewers don't automatically resent her for being the center of every aspect of the show.  Maybe in large part that was intentional, because it's the basis of Taylor's anger at her and the dysfunction in the family, but as a viewing platform it doesn't work well because we need the protagonist to appeal to viewers, and when a protagonist is the center of everything so many viewers just hate them for that.

 

Taylor could have had a whole plotline totally separate from Carter, for example, quite easily.  There are tons of situations she could have been put into (besides the simple one of having a boyfriend) that would have allowed at least a B-plot for some episodes that didn't revolve around Carter. 

[Op294]

I keep trying to like the character of Carter (I really do), but she has no regard for the people that actually care about her. She has REPEATEDLY made Max an accessory after the fact. I was so angry that she brought Max into her and Crash's getaway plan when she knows he works at a convienence store with security cameras. What was she thinking? I don't blame her for the shooting, but relying on him to pass on a message to Lori was selfish. He already told her he didn't want to be involved, and once again she is putting him in the middle.

 

Even though what Taylor said was harsh (I've said some pretty awful things to my sisters in the heat of the moment), I don't blame her. Carter chose a life with Crash over a life with her siblings. Grant and Taylor told Carter that all the charges against her were dropped. She could've went home, but ultimately decided that being with Crash was more important. I think Taylor's anger stems from being rejected by a sister that she really longs to have a relationship with.  Both her and Carter need some serious counseling.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Op294

[Mabinogia]

Even though what Taylor said was harsh (I've said some pretty awful things to my sisters in the heat of the moment), I don't blame her.

 

I am kind of fascinated by Taylor's character because here is her twin sister, they share a bond whether they like it or not. But Carter is also this ghost that Taylor has spent her entire life in the shadows of. They have actually done a good job of showing that without hitting us to heavily over the head with it. Carter comes back and Taylor probably thought that she would finally get to live without the fear, maybe her mom will finally relax, etc. But Carter is constantly planning to run away again, leaving her, and she is even more disruptive there than she was when she was just a ghost.

 

I think the actress is doing a good job, and the show/writing is as well, of showing this love/hate thing Taylor has going with Carter. She's happy to have her sister back, but this probably isn't even close to what she imagined and she's wrestling with it.

 

The thing with Carter that bothers me, is she is the only one who doesn't really seem to be thinking of what others went through. I get the impression that both Taylor and Grant have sympathy for what happened to her, and Elizabeth and David understand that she is struggling to transition (I think that's a lot of the lenience Elizabeth shows Carter is because she understands this is hard for Carter and she doesn't exactly know how to mother her without chasing her away, another very delicate balancing act to perform) but Carter doesn't seem to give a rats ass how hard life was for Grant the backup baby or Taylor the constant reminder of the child they lost, or Elizabeth who had her child taken away from her (like Lori did, which Carter can't seem to wrap her head around. She's all "OMG you stole me from my mom/Lori" without getting the irony that what Lori is supposedly going through now is what Elizabeth had to go through years ago). I have hope, based on the show so far, that Carter will get there eventually, but until then, she annoys me. Though I will say, the actress is very engaging and I actually had grown to like her until this ep. I'm going to wait and see how she deals with Crash after this ep before writing her off.

 

The thing with the show right now is, for me, half of it, the family stuff, is great, interesting, well acted, and half of the stuff, the friends, Crash, Lori, is annoying, boring and the actors involved are not remotely engaging to me. I could not describe the two guys (who's names I don't know) if you held a gun to my head, nor tell you there names. One runs a gambling ring I think and the other was Taylor's crush forever and the son of Elizabeth's partner/lover, yes? And there's Bird the typical ignored little rich girl. (for the record, I put Max in the family side of the show because I adore him with Taylor and Elizabeth and consider him an honorary member of the family and not part of that group of asshole friends Carter hangs out with).

[dohe]

The reality is that while Carter's real family has felt pain over her disappearance for all these years, Carter, of course, is not going to immediately feel anything for them.  In her mind, they took her away from the only Mom she has ever known.  I posted about the Stephen Fagan case.  To an outsider it is crazy.  How can two women, past their teens, find out their Dad lied, that their Dad was a kidnapper, and their Mom, the caring parent, is alive and...show nothing but hatred towards the Mom and defend the quite scummy Dad.  The media was going what the heck is wrong with these two women when their behavior was consistent with people in those scenarios.    

 

To be fair to Carter, she hasn't acted out near the extreme ways she could.  That she is even talking to her real parents this early on extremely optimistic.

 

I highly recommend reading The Captured by Scott Zesch.  It tells of young children who were kidnapped by native americans.  When these kids were found later and returned home they typically wanted nothing to do with their real parents.  They either became wanderers or went back to the tribes that kidnapped them.  Even persons whose real family members had been killed the people in the tribe were not enthralled about being back home.  Fiction is Debbie of The Searchers ready to come home.  Reality is Cynthia Ann Parker living in despair and wailing day after day of the rest of her life. 

 

Edited September 4, 2014 by dohe

[rubyred]

I got schooled on the fact that Carter is 17, not 16, but to me that's a really fine hair to split. Chronological age is no guarantee of maturity and the fact that she's closer to 18 - which only make it possible for her to vote or join the military - doesn't resonate to me as a good enough reason for her to know damn well every possible bad situation that could arise from her every decision. The fact that she's immature is one of the reasons she makes poor decisions.

 

I like Carter. I don't find her selfishness surprising, I think her bad decisions are pretty consistent and understandable (from her viewpoint). Crash validates her emotional longing for what was, when she could hang out with her CoolMom who wouldn't have been phased by picking up her daughter from the police station after crashing a carousel (except for the whole fugitive bit). If she could turn back time.

 

IMO she just has not bonded tightly enough to her birth family for her to not consider leaving. How long would that bonding take? I have no idea, but not the span of time we've seen so far. But bottom line, this show has always been disengenous about its intent. They've always given the emotional fallout short shrift, from dumping Carter with the Wilsons without massive therapy to totally dropping the family therapy plotpoint. It's a pity because that could be really absorbing drama. But then I remember the channel I'm watching, and I know I have to adjust my expectations. It's weird to me to think that MTV had a better show in terms of character growth in the animated series Daria than I've seen since.

 

That said, I like Carter, and the show, warts and all. Now if they could just find a way to take some tips on how to write parents from Jeff Davis, of all people...

[Kromm]

A lot of that comes down to the show barely acknowledging the idea of therapy at all, other than as a brief one-episode plot device to show Carter being stubborn and Asshole Dad being an Asshole/Liar.

 

In the real world, even the most pathetic Child and Protective Services department would have insisted on some psych eval even before the kid was returned I bet, and ordered mandatory ongoing therapy.  Maybe that's going on in the background on this, but other than us hearing Carter scoff family therapy once (which isn't the ONLY type she'd need to have), it's been made invisible at BEST on the show.  So we don't get any sense at all that Carter has ANY outlet other than hanging out with shithead scumbags, like Crash and Rich Bitch and that other druggie who's name I don't know or give a crap about.

[Madding crowd]

I hope Max makes it and even though he is a stock character, the actor brings a sweetness and gentleness to the part which is endearing. I also like Taylor and Grant a lot. Some kids are kind of goody too shoes, I was that way as a teen. I think both Carter and Elizabeth are acting like people who have been traumatized. I don't fault Elizabeth for setting some rules though. As a mother of a 16 year old myself, it is very hard to walk the line between too many rules and not enough. And if my child had been kidnapped and returned I would want to hold on tight. She will get better in time. I am also a teacher of teens and the kids who brag the most that their parents "don't care what I do" also give off the strongest vibes of "my parents don't care about me". Kids need structure, love and rules. 

 

I do have a bit of the problem with the actress who plays Carter. She doesn't look like a teen to me and she has a constant smirk on her face which is annoying. I also think the actor who plays Crash was miscast; he just looks like a preppy type to me. As far as whether Carter could be held responsible; Mr. Madding Crowd is a police officer and said she could potentially be held responsible because she was with Crash when the attempted robbery/shooting took place. There are plenty of criminals who try the "I didn't know my friend was going to do that while I waited in the car" stuff and they are always held as accomplices.

However, considering Carter's age and the potential testimony of Max should he live, she could get out of it. But not be brought in all by the police? I wouldn't buy it. 

[kat165]

Madding, I agree with you on the casting of Crash. He's very preppy looking to me, too, and doesn't really fit with the character. He has such a baby face. I knew kids like his character when I was growing up and they were much rougher looking & a bit more hard. He looks more like a spoiled popular sporto heartthrob who dates cheerleaders.

 

I was so bored with the Carter/Crash scenes in the beginning. I was relieved when they kept switching over to Taylor and Max. Crash is not appealing at all.

[dohe]

There is no way Carter would be held responsible in this case.  None at all.

 

The two biggest problems with the show I have are that Kathryn Prescott and Cynthia Watros are far superior actors to the rest of the cast which creates an imbalance.  When Carter breaks down it feels real.  When Elizabeth is angry it feels real.   However when Taylor tells off Carter for example, it is never convincing.  The line readings are stiff.  What should be powerful seems more an attempt at providing a segment of the audience a surrogate and a great deal of that has to do with the actress not committing to the sequence. 

 

The 2nd biggest problem is what rubyred brings up.  They are going way too fast.  Carter and that family would be in therapy nonstop.  The likelihood is Carter would feel a complete detachment from her family and quite possibly would want nothing to do with them.  She would also, based on Elizabeth's behavior, be more likely to hate Elizabeth with a passion.  That is where counseling would help.  They would be helpful in explaining to Elizabeth not to talk bad about Lori, not use Carter in any way to capture Lori, and give Carter a great deal of space.  They would be helpful in helping Carter with the unbelievable pain and misery she would feel.  They would work on each relationship. 

 

Of course if they did that, we wouldn't get the silly melodrama. 

 

Here is I hope this show ends (besides the show getting rid of Max - bad acting and a badly written character make for unwatchable).  At some point, Elizabeth and Carter grow accepting of each other.  However Elizabeth realizes Carter just can't ever really accept her as more than an acquaintance she doesn't feel a bond for.  The final episode should be Carter leaving the family to find her way in the world.  Sad yes.  Tragic for Elizabeth and Carter.  Yes.  But that is the way life works.  That multiple people can have their life damaged and bonds hurt by the terrible act of one person and it often is not repairable.   That some times an event leaves what should be the most wonderful of bonds in a state which just can't be fully reversed.

Edited September 5, 2014 by dohe

[grandemocha]

 

Crash is not appealing at all.

Seriously though, was Crash supposed to be on some kind of drugs? He was so twitchy for most of the episode and behaved erratically,

[joanne3482]

There is no way Carter would be held responsible in this case.  None at all.

 

Only if Max survives and can testify to Carter having nothing to do with the shooting or Crash is caught and corroborates Carter's lack of participating in the "hold up". Otherwise just from surveillance video alone you have Carter talking to Max. Carter walking around the store and talking to Max. Carter talking to Max behind the counter. Crash coming in and attempting to hold up the store. Crash shooting Max and then Crash fleeing while Carter goes to help Max. A prosecuting attorney and police officers could twist that evidence around to show Carter was involved in the robbery. As Madding Crowd said, with no Max or Crash, Carter could very well look like an accomplice. With no audio on the surveillance tapes (I am presuming, usually there's no audio on those), there's no way to know what Carter was saying to Max before Crash came in. 

[RachelKM]

I cannot hold Carter responsible for Max's shooting even morally.  (Though I understand why Taylor does.)  Carter is a teenager who went for the bad boy.  And, despite the warnings she got from Elizabeth, I don't think she ever really appreciated that Crash wasn't just a screw up but an actual criminal.  When you are a kid, it is easy to dismiss the gravity of what it means that he was a repeat criminal offender, not just the kid that gets suspended.

 

Crash clearly has some deeply rooted issues that are more complicated and more challenging than wanting to be better for Carter could fix.  And it seems that maybe he did want to be better for her (even though the relationship was rushed and the explanation for his devotion was not really given time to develop), which would also contribute to Carter's lack of understanding how volatile and dangerous the kid actually was.  She was freaked out by the car theft, but since then he made the big gesture of showing up for his hearing and accepting his punishment allegedly for her.  Not only would that feed her romanticized view of him generally and their relationship specifically, but her experience with him was that he could and would change for the better.

 

She was legitimately shocked when he pulled out the gun and told him what a bad idea it was.  But at that point they'd been on the run together for over a day and I agree with the poster above who said that Carter felt a little responsible for his situation since he broke probation for her.  It was a bit naive that she didn't put together the fact that he had no money and a gun.  But he told her it was for protection and to take care of her.  I guess she never thought he intended to take care of her by stealing.

 

Only if Max survives and can testify to Carter having nothing to do with the shooting or Crash is caught and corroborates Carter's lack of participating in the "hold up". Otherwise just from surveillance video alone you have Carter talking to Max. Carter walking around the store and talking to Max. Carter talking to Max behind the counter. Crash coming in and attempting to hold up the store. Crash shooting Max and then Crash fleeing while Carter goes to help Max. A prosecuting attorney and police officers could twist that evidence around to show Carter was involved in the robbery. As Madding Crowd said, with no Max or Crash, Carter could very well look like an accomplice. With no audio on the surveillance tapes (I am presuming, usually there's no audio on those), there's no way to know what Carter was saying to Max before Crash came in. 

It would be very hard to use that video to convict Carter of anything related to the shooting.  She comes in and the conversation is clearly friendly between her and Max.  Crash comes in and Max reacts to him and Carter is visibly distressed by what he is saying.  Then the gun comes out and Carter begins yelling at Crash and then he turns to her and the gun goes off.  She stays to help Max and is screaming and crying and Crash bolts.  

 

The burden is on the prosecution and nothing in that video is more than inconclusive and the parts that are clear are pretty firmly not supportive of Crash's actions.  Everything about the video is consistent with her not being part of the robbery because she actually wasn't.  If she tells the truth, there is nothing on that tape that would contradict it and, thus, reasonable doubt is right there.  

 

The only thing I could see is her refusing to give a statement out of some residual loyalty/guilt related to Crash. But I would hope Max getting shot would be sufficient to scare her out of her delusion. 

Edited September 5, 2014 by RachelKM

[grandemocha]

 

 

And, despite the warnings she got from Elizabeth, I don't think she ever really appreciated that Crash wasn't just a screw up but an actual criminal.  When you are a kid

 

Why? Like did she think Elizabeth was just saying "Hey, stay away from this drug dealing criminal" for shits and giggles? Just to be a big old meanie? Maybe I attended one too many D.A.R.E talks in the 90's, but I always always kept it in my head to not screw with drug dealers, contrived tragic back story or not. I also understand that in the eyes of the law and in America, there is "adultolescence" now, where even physical/legal adults are treated by and behave like teenagers with their parents, but to me, 17 is so close to 18. It's time to grow up. Kids can't stay kids forever, and need to learn the consequences of their actions. Carter overreacting and running away was a bad choice, she makes alot of bad choices that should probably be examined in therapy, but this is MTV....

[RachelKM]

Why? Like did she think Elizabeth was just saying "Hey, stay away from this drug dealing criminal" for shits and giggles? 

At the time that Elizabeth was giving the warning, Carter still viewed her as uptight and overly controlling, so I don't think Carter fully believed Elizabeth o wanted to credit her assertions as more than histrionics.  Add in the fact that Carter's friend group hangs out with him, and she was predisposed to give him a lot of benefit of the doubt. And really, Elizabeth didn't tell her much detail so it would be easy to rationalize away in the midst of her crush.

 

As for the adultoescence, I don't know how you mean that, but biologically it isn't far from the truth.  Studies have shown that the brain doesn't fully develop until around age 25.  Carter isn't an adult and she doesn't have adult experience and emotional tools.  Of course kids need to mature and have consequences, but it is also important to appreciate that it is a process and expecting adult behaviors from teenagers is unrealistic.

 

I'm not suggesting that Carter should get a pass for running away and I totally agree that she need a TON of therapy for a myriad of reasons.  But what happened with Crash and the shooting was well beyond a proportional consequence for her choice to date a bad boy. 

Edited September 5, 2014 by RachelKM

[candall]

--I have to disagree with the moderator about the Amber Alert.  If I hear about a local Amber Alert, I amp up my observation levels to max because it means a child is in imminent physical danger.  Amber alerts for wonky teenagers who run away with their loser boyfriends dilute the entire purpose.  

 

--Gun control!  As soon as Crash said, "I got this to protect you," I thought:  from the cops?  WAY more likely that gun would ultimately cause mayhem than stave off rest stop psychos or mountain cabin cannibals (or the zombie horde.)

 

--If there is one moment in this whole season when Carter showed some guts, it was walking herself back in there and sitting down next to Taylor in the hospital waiting room.  Good girl.

 

--Someone is doing a fabulous job shaping Carter's and Taylor's eyebrows.

[Chechuz]

They better not let Max's hair die, I will be really pissed off if they do.

They'll clearly NOT kill Max off. I'm like 90% sure that they won't. I mean, if they actually kill him off, I don't think that Taylor's and Carter's relationship can be amended