S01.E07: Three and Seven

[Snazzy Daisy]

Synopsis:

Quote

The unfolding trial pushes Rebecca to the brink as she begins to question who she should defend.

Cam's allegiance to the justice system is tested as details from the night of the murder are finally revealed.

Air Date: May 22, 2024

 

[Snazzy Daisy]

[Zaffy]

I have watched a bazillion of TV series, some really bad, but I am not sure I have ever been frustrated as much as I am with this #@%#%@ show.
WTF this is? Why Rebecca has hijacked Reena's story? Why? why? why and why?

How many times are we gonna listen to this psychopath confusing murder with a "mistake"?

This whole sh**show is such an insult to the victim...

p.s.

Why the Reena Virk Murder Page in Wikipedia has been so much heavily edited the last few weeks? Whole parts are missing, if you see the revisions you will understand.  

Edited May 22 by Zaffy

[Madding crowd]

I hate the Rebecca character. All she cares about is being ‘cool’ with the kids and she doesn’t care about Reena at all. I can only hope evil Kelly gets life in prison too. I think Jo is more of a poser but her time in prison will make her harder than she is. I don’t understand this youth detention place letting potential witnesses be in the same space together then again I didn’t understand a group home letting middle school age kids wander around all night.

[tennisgurl]

I really hope that real author Rebecca wasn't like this, show author Rebecca is just insufferable. She doesn't care about Reena or even her book, she wants to make herself feel better about what happened to her brother, even if it means constantly defending a murderer because he happens to be around her brothers age when he died. Even though several people have called her out on it, Cam, Reena's parents, even her own dad, she is just doubling down. 

I cant wait for Kelly to go to jail, she's a monster who needs to be off the streets as fast as possible. So in Canadian juvey, boys and girls are all together just hanging out, including kids who are witnesses in each others trails? Seems like a recipe for disaster, especially in this case. 

[Superb Owl]

I find it so bizarre that 'real life' Rebecca was a significant collaborator for this show and I ~think~ is even credited as Executive Producer. She comes across as really unlikeable and really blasé about Reena. I know she wasn't personally involved with the case IRL the way she is on the show; I'm not sure she even met any of those involved other than following the investigation and trial (I haven't read the book, can somebody who has tell me if that is accurate?) Anyway, we obviously can't get her perspective on it now, but holy smokes I just want to slap the "show Rebecca" at times. Yes, Warren "was a kid" and caught up in something out of his depth, but Rebecca's overprotectiveness completely excuses his, you know, active participation in a brutal murder. It's really kinda icky. 

[Snazzy Daisy]

This is a VERY frustrating episode. I don’t enjoy it at all. There’s too much focus on Rebecca. Give us more Cam, the teens and the Virks.

The courtroom scenes suffer from clunky scripts. The prosecutor keeps leading the defendant with no objection from his defense attorney. There’s no buildup, no tension.

The circumstances surrounding the detention center also don’t make a lot of sense. The defendants and the witnesses are allowed to occupy the same space, mingle and communicate. After being “threatened”, Kelly (who’s facing murder charges) is allowed to go home while waiting for her trial. Isn’t she supposed to be kept in a solitary confinement?

Reena has been left out of her own story. And Rebecca is getting all the attention and airtime for being a parasite in Reena’s story. Stop using her story to undo your past, Rebecca. 

Passionately hugging Warren in the hallway in plain view of others including the Virks is a very unkind and disrespectful thing to do. Rebecca doesn’t seem to be able to differentiate between murder and mistake. Warren doesn’t need her to be his voice, he is not innocent. Her perspectives are irrelevant here.

Suman: “For someone wanting to write a book about my daughter, you don’t really know much, don’t you?”

💥💥💥

Bugger off, Rebecca Godfrey‼️

[Zaffy]

5 hours ago, Snazzy Daisy said:

And Rebecca is getting all the attention and airtime for being a parasite in Reena’s story.

Parasite!!! Best Rebecca description ever! 

[roughing it]

The Rebecca/Warren relationship is completely inappropriate.  It reminds me of a female teacher grooming her student.  

Kelly is a sick psychopath and her parents are clueless.  Skipping away after getting what she wanted SMH.  I can't wait to see her get nailed to the prison system.  She won't be skipping down the hall then.  And it looks like Jo is finally seeing Kelly for the murderer that she is.

[redpencil]

This show would be so much better without the Rebecca character. I feel bad saying this about someone who has passed, but the insertion of her into the story as a character when she really had no involvement in real life feels incredibly self-indulgent to me. Especially with her (or her character's) own unrelated baggage getting so much story time. I think they probably thought it would be a way to get inside the world of these kids, but we didn't need a made-up character to do that. Just show the kids. Use the Cam character as a stand-in for law enforcement who were actually involved in the investigation and spoke to the kids, that's fine. Or the kids' lawyers or whatever. But not this useless writer character who only cares about herself and her story and does drugs with the kids and tries to excuse their actions. Ugh.

On a more positive note, I think all the actors playing the kids are doing a great job. I haven't read anything about the case outside of this yet so I don't know how accurate any of their portrayals are. But within the world of the show, they have really given each character distinct personalities and characteristics that tie in perfectly to their involvement in the murder. I thought the Warren actor was particularly good in this episode.

[TattleTeeny]

I don't know what the real Rebecca was actually like personality-wise, but I can say she was not a good writer -- or maybe it's better to say that this book is not well written.

Edited May 24 by TattleTeeny

[Haleth]

Rebecca is repulsive.  Lying to the Virks and exploiting the kids so she can write a book is vile.  I suppose in some twisted way she cares about Warren, but only as a stand in for her dead brother, so again it's all about herself.  Did the real Rebecca think we'd relate to her or be sympathetic to her pain?

[Zaffy]

On 5/26/2024 at 2:54 PM, Haleth said:

Did the real Rebecca think we'd relate to her or be sympathetic to her pain?

I think the purpose was to see a horrible crime from a non "black or white" perspective, which in our case is a completely stupid approach (and I am very kind with my words here). 
We cannot know what the real Rebecca had in mind when she talked with the show's creators, maybe the later simply failed to execute her idea properly. 

[Superb Owl]

I've actually seen some Reddit comments defending Rebecca; the basic premise of those comments is that she glommed onto Warren due to trauma and guilt about her brother's death. It appears that was truly the case, as per this excerpt from a Vulture interview with the showrunner: 

The character Rebecca’s feelings about her brother are an important part of the show and one of the reasons she’s able to relate to these kids so much, especially Warren, the only boy accused in the crime. Was that something Rebecca was feeling at the time and just didn’t put it in the book because she wasn’t a character herself?
I think Rebecca was processing some of that during our development. In the first conversation we had about how directly the show was linked to her loss of her brother, she said that a lot of people in her life had suggested that Warren must have reminded her of her brother because she lost her brother when he was the exact same age. The final conversations I had with her right before she passed were about the fact that in the end, she realized that it was more about what she saw of herself in him than anything else. She felt that so much of his way of moving through the world would be shaped forever by guilt. I think her quest to make people understand how someone can do a bad thing came from a place of feeling like she had been capable of bad things when she was a kid.

If you want to read the whole interview, it's here: https://www.vulture.com/article/under-the-bridge-rebecca-godfrey-hulu-quinn-shephard.html

At the risk of sounding too harsh, I still have a hard time drumming up sympathy for her. At the very least, I agree that there's way too much emphasis on Rebecca on UTB. I understand the concept of her being there in the script, but there's just too much of her and so much is made up, and just her whole persona is...odd to me (although she apparently did meet 'the kids' , shortly after they were all arrested). I guess I should read the book, but I really do find her character off-putting enough that I'm not enthused about doing so.

[MamaMax]

At the risk of sounding like a know it all - I thought the part about Rebeca seeing HERSELF in Warren was obvious. She's attempting to assuage her own guilt by making everyone see that SHE WAS NOT A BAD KID! I mean, THAT WARREN ISN'T A BAD KID.  Its just not that compelling to me, because she is failing to see the obvious differences b/w the 2 situations.  It may have worked better if she just put a line  in the book that Warren was someone whose life was derailed by the worst thing he ever did...and that, although he got an appropriate punishment, it doesn't necessarily define him as a person.  But the hugging and defending him? The choosing him over Reena? That's a no for me. 

Edited May 28 by MamaMax

[BC4ME]

One thing I'm having a hard time with is Warren, as he's portrayed, just doesn't seem like he's the type to do what he supposedly did. He just seems like a sweet albeit down on his luck kid. I feel like they might've tried a little harder to make what he did believable.

I get that they're trying to say you shouldn't be defined by the worst thing you've done. But you should at least not make it seem so impossible that he would do the bad thing. Even when he's going along with the others, it still doesn't seem like it's in character for him. Maybe it's just the nature of the actual person playing him coming through too much for me.

[MaggieG]

Add me to the list of being frustrated with Rebecca this episode. This whole show was a frustrating watch for me but I'll finish the last episode. 

If the real Kelly is anything like show Kelly, lock her up and throw away the damn key.

I also thought it was super weird that Kelly and Warren were in the same place with all the other teens. They should have been separated, especially since the others had already been sentenced

[AstridM]

On 5/22/2024 at 7:40 AM, Zaffy said:

 

Edited June 22 by AstridM

[AstridM]

On 5/27/2024 at 7:16 PM, Superb Owl said:

I've actually seen some Reddit comments defending Rebecca; the basic premise of those comments is that she glommed onto Warren due to trauma and guilt about her brother's death. It appears that was truly the case, as per this excerpt from a Vulture interview with the showrunner: 

The character Rebecca’s feelings about her brother are an important part of the show and one of the reasons she’s able to relate to these kids so much, especially Warren, the only boy accused in the crime. Was that something Rebecca was feeling at the time and just didn’t put it in the book because she wasn’t a character herself?
I think Rebecca was processing some of that during our development. In the first conversation we had about how directly the show was linked to her loss of her brother, she said that a lot of people in her life had suggested that Warren must have reminded her of her brother because she lost her brother when he was the exact same age. The final conversations I had with her right before she passed were about the fact that in the end, she realized that it was more about what she saw of herself in him than anything else. She felt that so much of his way of moving through the world would be shaped forever by guilt. I think her quest to make people understand how someone can do a bad thing came from a place of feeling like she had been capable of bad things when she was a kid.

If you want to read the whole interview, it's here: https://www.vulture.com/article/under-the-bridge-rebecca-godfrey-hulu-quinn-shephard.html

At the risk of sounding too harsh, I still have a hard time drumming up sympathy for her. At the very least, I agree that there's way too much emphasis on Rebecca on UTB. I understand the concept of her being there in the script, but there's just too much of her and so much is made up, and just her whole persona is...odd to me (although she apparently did meet 'the kids' , shortly after they were all arrested). I guess I should read the book, but I really do find her character off-putting enough that I'm not enthused about doing so.

THANK YOU!!!!