S01.E05: Claws

[Yeah No]

3 hours ago, peachmangosteen said:

I just don't really see how 'What dating apps are you on?' as a follow up to hearing a group of people discussing dating apps is like an overwhelmingly obvious flirtation tbh. We know it was here but only because we already know that this new person will be Sarah's love interest.

Any kind of personal question directed at someone about their dating life by someone that potentially might be interested in them is something sexual harassment training advises against. I didn't make this up, and I've been aware of enough accusations of sexual harassment and comments that made someone feel "uncomfortable" in my position as an executive assistant to know that it most certainly CAN be seen as a flirtation or at the very least an intrusive question about one's romantic life that can make someone uncomfortable. Just because you may not see it that way doesn't mean that I wouldn't or that a lot of women wouldn't.

Imagine if the person asking that question were a man toward a woman. If a strange tech. guy came into my office and asked me that before even introducing himself in front of my coworkers I'd be mortified and think to myself, "who are you, what business is that of yours and why are you asking"? Which is why in the real world no one I have ever known about would ever ask such a question in that context. It's just not realistic nor advised. And should it be any different just because a woman is doing the asking? Because we don't automatically assume that a woman is asking for "those" reasons?

[Yeah No]

Back in the '90s my then boss at a health insurance company was making me feel uncomfortable. He'd innocently send me IMs (which because he was a tech. geek he already had and gave to me) asking me how my weekend was, etc. OK, innocent enough. But then given the way he was making "those eyes" at me I knew there was more to it. Then he started in with asking me to join him on the weekend with a couple of his directors on his boat. Just an innocent little out of office gathering, right? Not in my mind, I knew better. He was trying to get me out of the office so he could continue making moves on me. His directors were as shady as he was and kept encouraging me to go, with that "look" on their face and all that. A lot of what is perceived as sexual harassment is subtle and subjective and that's why anything that could be construed as having a certain intent is not advised.

There was more to this story but I chose to leave out the rest as this was the most relevant to the discussion.

[peachmangosteen]

4 hours ago, Yeah No said:

Imagine if the person asking that question were a man toward a woman.

In general, I don't entertain that game.

To be honest, I'm not really following this discussion so I'm not entirely sure what the issue people are having here is entirely. Like do people think Sarah's love interest should be fired for taking part in a dating apps convo a group of coworkers were having? Or that she's a potential predator?

In any case, I just am not taking this show that seriously. Like it's very stupid and not that deep, which is exactly what I want from it.

Edited November 11 by peachmangosteen

[DearEvette]

Things I liked about this ep:

- Matty's husband awful lying.  This was legitimately funny.  I got a good chuckle when he killed off his grandson's older friend.  LOL. 

- Julian and Olympia. Agreed with everyone who mentioned their amicable divorce. It feels like a re-direct by the writers. In the pilot they were snipe-y and I really thought we'd be seeing the aftermath of a hostile divorce all season long. But I am gratified they decided not to go there.  It is just nice to see divorced people being adult and evolved and working with each other for their kids and not always against each other for drama's sake. 

- I have never seen Olympia (or Sarah) as bad characters. I think they are both women in a workplace that hasn't and still isn't very forgiving of women. I think the writers have been very intentional about this but still managed to give them some layers underneath. As the season has gone on it has been nice for them to peel even farther. It is nice to see Olympia laugh and let her guard down a bit even if it is just with Julian. And it is nice to see Sarah literally let her hair down and I like that her dating profile reads like her LinkedIn profile because that feel like how her character would be. 

- As much as I am not an Alfie fan, I did like that last conversation between him and Matty. He finally sounded like a young boy who has lost his mother and was struggling to understand it.

Things that were meh about this ep

- The case.  It was fine but (cynically) it felt like a vehicle to have us watch Matty go into a drug den and inexplicably dump her entire bag of food and narcan on the first guy she sees.   Also, if Katya had been completely clean until that one day would that random guy in the drug den know who she was?  He didn't seem to be the dealer since he looked high himself.  Maybe they knew her before her prison sentence?

 

Things that make me just sigh.

- I've said it before, I'll say it again.  Matty gets too many wins.  She is able to lie on the fly and people just shrug and let it go. I would have liked it if there had been an assistant or paralegal or office manager or somebody who viewed her with skepticism and wasn't won over by her folksyness all the time.  Someone that would give her some pause and make it a little more suspenseful that she doesn't just get to swan  around the office getting into files and accessing emails because she sways everyone so easily.  There should be the threat of someone discovering her, not just the threat of her discovering her culprit.

- The daughter storyline.  I keep waiting for them to flesh this out.  From what it sounds like the daughter must've gotten a legit prescription for an opioid from a doctor.  Hence the mysterious lawsuit against the unnamed company for the unnamed drug.  Got hooked. And couldn't get anymore of it so began using illegal drugs (because otherwise why would Matty have experience looking for her in a drug den).  Ok.  But the actual real opioids that were at the center of the real opiod crisis (when it started being called a crisis) are still being produced and still being prescribed.  People KNOW they are super addictive and they have not been unilaterally pulled off the market.  So for argument's sake let's say this unnamed company did get sued and there was no cover up...are we expected to believe the daughter would have never been prescribed an opiate at all?  Even if they were prescribed in a smaller dose, if the daughter is pre-disposed to addiction (as Matty intimated in this episode) it is possible she still would have gotten addicted? 

-And then there is the Reddit post (rolls eyes). So someone was so indiscreet as to post such specific details on Reddit?  Someone who was such an insider they had access to a back room cover up by the partners in the firm.  And they chose to do it on Reddit?

This whole thing just feels super wobbly on close scrutiny.

[peachmangosteen]

34 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

It was fine but (cynically) it felt like a vehicle to have us watch Matty go into a drug den and inexplicably dump her entire bag of food and narcan on the first guy she sees.  

That part cracked me up tbh.

[AnimeMania]

54 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

It was fine but (cynically) it felt like a vehicle to have us watch Matty go into a drug den and inexplicably dump her entire bag of food and narcan on the first guy she sees.

Since Matty is so rich, she probably thought he was the doorman for the building.

[Chicago Redshirt]

19 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

Things that were meh about this ep

- The case.  It was fine but (cynically) it felt like a vehicle to have us watch Matty go into a drug den and inexplicably dump her entire bag of food and narcan on the first guy she sees.   Also, if Katya had been completely clean until that one day would that random guy in the drug den know who she was?  He didn't seem to be the dealer since he looked high himself.  Maybe they knew her before her prison sentence?

I don't mind a vehicle to have us watch Matty go into a drug den etc. The problem was IMO the vehicle should have been a Porsche or a Honda or at least a used Ford, and instead it was like a rusted-out Yugo.

In fairness to the show, Katya had been using for a while by the time Matty and co. got involved, and there was some time between the first confrontation with Katya and when she was in the shooting gallery where she continued to use. So it is plausible that Katya had coming long enough for Rando to have noticed her.

26 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

Things that make me just sigh.

- I've said it before, I'll say it again.  Matty gets too many wins.  She is able to lie on the fly and people just shrug and let it go. I would have liked it if there had been an assistant or paralegal or office manager or somebody who viewed her with skepticism and wasn't won over by her folksyness all the time.  Someone that would give her some pause and make it a little more suspenseful that she doesn't just get to swan  around the office getting into files and accessing emails because she sways everyone so easily.  There should be the threat of someone discovering her, not just the threat of her discovering her culprit.

For better or worse, it's a rare network TV show where the protagonist ever loses, and particularly those involving lawyers. At least Team Matty lost the case the other week thanks to the Texas-Two-Step, but even that can't be hung at Matty's doorstep. 

I really liked the human lie detector/jury consultant character from a couple episodes back, and I liked the Mrs. B character as well. Both of them could serve as the sort of foil that you (and I) are hoping for. I hope that they get brought back to keep Matty on her toes and potentially reveal some weaknesses in the persona. Particularly with the lying about the dead dog. (still not over that).

Now I don't know how many of you might be a dog lover/owner/companion. But the several times I have lost a dog, I was just gutted and frankly, I still get sad about them from time to time. There should be some time when Mrs. B asks something about how Matty is dealing with having just lost her dog, and Matty isn't as smooth as she would need to be to carry off the "I just had a long-time dog die" lie.  I especially like Mrs. B being a foil because she's an old woman in her own right who should not buy into the invisibility thing. And I'm assuming that the character, like the actress, is part African-American. Which might lead her to be a little suspicious (no offense) to the folksy white Southerner. 

49 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

- The daughter storyline.  I keep waiting for them to flesh this out.  From what it sounds like the daughter must've gotten a legit prescription for an opioid from a doctor.  Hence the mysterious lawsuit against the unnamed company for the unnamed drug.  Got hooked. And couldn't get anymore of it so began using illegal drugs (because otherwise why would Matty have experience looking for her in a drug den).  Ok.  But the actual real opioids that were at the center of the real opiod crisis (when it started being called a crisis) are still being produced and still being prescribed.  People KNOW they are super addictive and they have not been unilaterally pulled off the market.  So for argument's sake let's say this unnamed company did get sued and there was no cover up...are we expected to believe the daughter would have never been prescribed an opiate at all?  Even if they were prescribed in a smaller dose, if the daughter is pre-disposed to addiction (as Matty intimated in this episode) it is possible she still would have gotten addicted? 

-And then there is the Reddit post (rolls eyes). So someone was so indiscreet as to post such specific details on Reddit?  Someone who was such an insider they had access to a back room cover up by the partners in the firm.  And they chose to do it on Reddit?

This whole thing just feels super wobbly on close scrutiny.

I wish I believed that the powers that be had thought through the backstory of how Daughter got addicted, how Jacobson Moore might have been involved in covering up the addictiveness of opioids, which person at Jacobson Moore is the guilty party, who posted the Reddit thread that Alfie read and why, why Matty decided to embark on this insane subterfuge plot rather than just using the resources she has at her disposal as a rich attorney to investigate Jacobson Moore or its client on the up-and-up, etc.

But it does more and more feel like the people at the Crime Broadcasting System just were like, "Hey, Matlock was a popular series for a while. Got anyone we can throw into a remake? Kathy Bates is in? Cool, we'll just work the details out on the fly."

[Dowel Jones]

31 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I hope that they get brought back to keep Matty on her toes and potentially reveal some weaknesses in the persona.

There was a short scene in her last appearance, which showed her looking at Matty from a distance with a clearly suspicious look.  I think she'll be back for some other purpose, but she definitely knows Matty is shady and that will be a plot point.

[AnimeMania]

2 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I hope that they get brought back to keep Matty on her toes and potentially reveal some weaknesses in the persona.

Shae "Meerkat" Banfield

Spoiler

will be back for at least 3 more episodes. The next seen on December 5, 2024. 

[possibilities]

It just seems like they put all their resources into casting and cheaped out on the writing part of showrunning.

But we're the suckers because we're watching it.

[DearEvette]

6 hours ago, possibilities said:

It just seems like they put all their resources into casting and cheaped out on the writing part of showrunning.

But we're the suckers because we're watching it.

I am at the stage where I will watch almost anything if it is brightly lit and not depressing. 

[peachmangosteen]

I don't feel like a sucker for watching it. I enjoy it. I don't need every TV show to be 'elite.'

Quote

I will watch almost anything if it is brightly lit and not depressing. 

Also this lol.

[Nashville]

1 hour ago, DearEvette said:

I am at the stage where I will watch almost anything if it is brightly lit and not depressing. 

…AND the background music doesn’t drown out the dialogue of the principal characters.

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, DearEvette said:

I am at the stage where I will watch almost anything if it is brightly lit and not depressing. 

Same, but this show is on the verge of depressing.

 

19 minutes ago, Nashville said:

…AND the background music doesn’t drown out the dialogue of the principal characters.

I always have captioning on. I started doing it 25 years ago when I shared a wall with a new mother and didn't want to wake the baby with my TV, so I'm used to it.

[cameron]

On 11/8/2024 at 6:09 PM, eel2178 said:

So far, they haven't shown us this side of the dilemma, and if they don't somewhere in the story, I'm going to be plenty ticked off.

Yes, her daughter may have chosen some other even less safe method of getting high.

Yes, big pharma makes the drugs, but does that really make them responsible for everyone who gets addicted?

Yes, shutting down a pharmaceutical company can interfere with non-addicts getting drugs that they need including opioids.

They seem to be on the high horse of "no one but patients with terminal illnesses should be allowed to have pain meds." As a chronic pain patient, I totally resent that. Not everyone with pain uses his meds irresponsibly. We should not be banned from getting relief from our pain just because of the people who have been irresponsible.

 

I'm so tired of Matty blaming everyone else for her daughter's drug addiction problem.  Put the blame on the daughter, no one held a gun to her head to do drugs.

[peachmangosteen]

.

Edited November 13 by peachmangosteen

[MissLucas]

On 11/11/2024 at 11:51 PM, DearEvette said:

- As much as I am not an Alfie fan, I did like that last conversation between him and Matty. He finally sounded like a young boy who has lost his mother and was struggling to understand it.

I felt a bit conflicted about this scene. It was sweet but Mattie was basically telling Alfie that his mother and great grandmother had a genetic disposition for addiction. Which is somehow not that comforting when you're at the end of that genetic line. I was waiting for him to ask questions about what that means for him but those would have ruined the mood I guess.

Edited November 13 by MissLucas

[Nashville]

5 hours ago, MissLucas said:

I felt a bit conflicted about this scene. It was sweet but Mattie was basically telling Alfie that his mother and great grandmother had a genetic disposition for addiction. Which is somehow not that comforting when you're at the end of that genetic line.

Comforting?  Probably not - but also probably necessary, considering the potential impact of hereditary tendencies.

[possibilities]

She did say that meant he had to be extra careful not to experiment with things that he'd be more suscpetible to than other people would be, didn't she?

[Bastet]

10 minutes ago, possibilities said:

She did say that meant he had to be extra careful not to experiment with things that he'd be more suscpetible to than other people would be, didn't she?

She didn't get that explicit as to his potential situation, unless it was in another scene I'm forgetting. 

I just re-watched the Matty/Alfie scene with her nails as he's tucked into bed scene earlier today, even though the grandson annoys the shit out of me, following a conversation with a co-worker about how we had a couple of issues but mostly liked the description of addiction:

Matty told Alfie, after he wondered why his mom couldn't have just stopped doing drugs, that she did, many times, and that his mom was like her mom, "born on their back foot", susceptible to addiction and, once that was activated, they had to fight against it every day, because moderation wasn't a solution, just abstinence, so they can choose sobriety 99 times and then one bad day starts the clock over -- that made her think of Katya's bad day, and she was off and running with the case. 

So if there was a warning to him from her about his genetic predisposition, it was somewhere else in the episode I'm forgetting.

On another note regarding that scene, I love that Matty acknowledged she should have just told her daughter her nails were pretty rather than saying they looked like claws, with "Claws" being the title of the episode; seemingly innocuous comments matter and can wind up being significant under the worst of circumstances.

[possibilities]

While I'm sure it's true that whatever the crime is that the firm may have committed, they are not specifically responsible for Mattie's daughter's addiction, if they did do some kind of cover up or other illegal action, they should be held accountable for that. It doesn't seem like Mattie is going about that in the sanest of ways, but I don't think that corporations or their minions should be let off the hook for bad behavior, either. And TV is full of vigilantes who are framed as heroes. So I think, if we are going to condemn Mattie for trying to do this, we are going to have to throw out a lot of other fictional media at the same time. Maybe we should, but I don't know why we would start here all of a sudden, when this is hardly the first or even in my opinion the worst of the genre.

[peachmangosteen]

4 hours ago, possibilities said:

While I'm sure it's true that whatever the crime is that the firm may have committed, they are not specifically responsible for Mattie's daughter's addiction, if they did do some kind of cover up or other illegal action, they should be held accountable for that. It doesn't seem like Mattie is going about that in the sanest of ways, but I don't think that corporations or their minions should be let off the hook for bad behavior, either. And TV is full of vigilantes who are framed as heroes. So I think, if we are going to condemn Mattie for trying to do this, we are going to have to throw out a lot of other fictional media at the same time. Maybe we should, but I don't know why we would start here all of a sudden, when this is hardly the first or even in my opinion the worst of the genre.

THANK YOU.

[shapeshifter]

6 hours ago, possibilities said:

but I don't know why we would start here all of a sudden, when this is hardly the first or even in my opinion the worst of the genre.

For one thing, having young Alfie roped into it gives viewers pause.
And maybe giving viewers pause about vigilantism is a good thing?

[possibilities]

I agree the business with Alfie is really bad. And glorifying vigilantes is also bad. I hadn't considered that her using the kid is why people are bothered more by her vigilanteism than that of other shows. 

[seacliffsal]

28 minutes ago, possibilities said:

I agree the business with Alfie is really bad. And glorifying vigilantes is also bad. I hadn't considered that her using the kid is why people are bothered more by her vigilanteism than that of other shows. 

I tend not to watch vigilante shows, so it's not that I'm more critical of Matty than other vigilantes.  But, I am very against her using her grandson and all the lessons he is learning as he does his hacking and other illegal activities.

[shapeshifter]

5 minutes ago, seacliffsal said:

I tend not to watch vigilante shows, so it's not that I'm more critical of Matty than other vigilantes.  But, I am very against her using her grandson and all the lessons he is learning as he does his hacking and other illegal activities.

Yeah. 
Just based on all of our similar posts here, I'm guessing the writers were expecting this reaction (though I could be wrong about that) and that there's going to be a point where Alfie goes off the rails due to this hacking/outlaw encouragement from his grandparents.
If I'm correct, worst case scenario: the grandparents lose custody and Alfie goes into foster care and gets introduced to drugs and becomes addicted.
Best case scenario: it gets nipped in the bud before any of that happens.
Likeliest scenario would be somewhere between those two.