S01.E10: Chutes and Murders

[Tachi Rocinante]

One nitpick - Eastern Othodox Easter falls on the same Sunday as other Christian Easters every three or four years, and most Orthodox churches in America don't follow the "old calendar".

Morgan calling the other Mom was horribly pathetic and she should have known better.

I remember Ken Marino from The State.  Yeah, I'm old.

Edited Saturday at 08:00 PM by Tachi Rocinante

[chaifan]

3 hours ago, Tachi Rocinante said:

most Orthodox churches in America don't follow the "old calendar".

There are Ukrainian churches in my area that I know celebrate the eastern orthodox Christmas.  I have no idea if they also do special Christmas services on Dec 25, trying to make everyone happy.  My greater metro area has several orthodox pockets - Russians, Ukrainians, Latvians, etc.  I just always assumed they all celebrated the orthodox calendar Christmas.  It may depend on the area, how many recent immigrants vs. 1st generation vs. 2nd generation Americans are in the congregation.  

[Yeah No]

I don't know, I've been reluctant to post on this but if my mother had done what Morgan did regarding that kid for me she would have been my hero. As a kid that was ostracized and bullied at times I was too humiliated and embarrassed to let my mother know about it. But in those instances where she found out she did do stuff like call the bullies' parents and give them the what for about their kid. I think for me it was more important to know that my parents were on my side and would stick their necks out to defend me than for them to worry about how them doing that would affect me later. It didn't do me any harm when my mother did stuff like this and those particular bullies knew never to mess with me again. It was something I needed and I'm glad she did it. It taught me to stand up for myself because she stood up for me and the bullies stopped and cowered when they saw me in the future. In those situations that my parents didn't know about, it would have been better if they did and intervened even if it was hard for me to take at the time.

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 1/25/2025 at 11:53 PM, Yeah No said:

I don't know, I've been reluctant to post on this but if my mother had done what Morgan did regarding that kid for me she would have been my hero. As a kid that was ostracized and bullied at times I was too humiliated and embarrassed to let my mother know about it. But in those instances where she found out she did do stuff like call the bullies' parents and give them the what for about their kid. I think for me it was more important to know that my parents were on my side and would stick their necks out to defend me than for them to worry about how them doing that would affect me later. It didn't do me any harm when my mother did stuff like this and those particular bullies knew never to mess with me again. It was something I needed and I'm glad she did it. It taught me to stand up for myself because she stood up for me and the bullies stopped and cowered when they saw me in the future. In those situations that my parents didn't know about, it would have been better if they did and intervened even if it was hard for me to take at the time.

Sorry to hear about your being bullied.

For me, it's not the ultimate treatment of the bully that is the issue. 

It's that Morgan was apparently naive enough about social dynamics and/or Elliot's being an odd duck to think that arranging a playdate with Bully would solve the issue.

If she called up Bully's mom and said, "Hey that was shitty of Bully to single out Elliot as the one kid in a class of X to not get a birthday invite," brava! But to either buy it was because Bully doesn't know Elliot that well, or to see through that and hope for a good result? Nope nope nope.

As she said in this episode, she's been on the outside of enough mom groups to know fakeness. How could someone with a 160 IQ and at least normal emotional IQ think that the kid who singled Elliot out for a non-invite did so because he just didn't know Elliot all that well, and that a single playdate will rectify that?

It's just somewhat jarring to me that her big brain can contain all this trivia about all these things, see all these hidden motives of murderers, but could not figure out without being explicitly told that Bully was a douchebag. 

I do hope that Morgan does have the actual cash to make good on her threat to take the rest of the class to Knott's Berry Farm and exclude Bully, though. 

[Orbert]

If my child was being bullied, I'm definitely making a few phones calls at the very least.  But I didn't get the impression that Elliot was being bullied.  He was not invited to a birthday party because the kid having the birthday doesn't like him.  Sure, the birthday kid invited everyone else in the class (according to Elliot) but there's no law against that.  It's a shitty thing to do, but birthday kid was within his rights.

When Morgan called the mom and the mom said that it was just a small party for only his closest friends, that sounded reasonable, if we didn't have Elliot's statement that literally the entire class except for him was invited.  But kids can exaggerate, and birthday mom may have been correct.

Either way, for Morgan to suggest a playdate seemed a bizarre way to handle it.  Birthday kid doesn't like Elliot because Elliot is different.  It happens.  So you force them to hang out together?  I suppose the idea was that they would get to know each other better?

When Morgan told birthday kid (sorry, I don't remember his name) to go wait outside on the porch, I figured that's because his mom was coming to get him at a prearranged time.  That's how it usually worked with my kids.  Mom shows up, kid is waiting on the porch as expected.  She has no idea how long he's been there, minutes or hours.  Even if she asks him how the playdate was, he didn't have fun, Elliot is a freak, etc.  It doesn't seem like a decent conclusion, but I really hope this isn't the start of a greater arc, because I can only see awkwardness and "cringe" on the horizon.

[shapeshifter]

24 minutes ago, Orbert said:

Either way, for Morgan to suggest a playdate seemed a bizarre way to handle it.  Birthday kid doesn't like Elliot because Elliot is different.  It happens.  So you force them to hang out together?  I suppose the idea was that they would get to know each other better?

It seems if anyone "forced" Bully to go to Elliot's house for a play date, it would be Bully's mom, since Bully clearly has no trouble expressing his own feelings and dickishness.
In my made up backstory, I imagine Bully's mom either was glad to drop Bully off somewhere for a few hours, or maybe Bully's mom and Morgan both independently hoped Bully would discover that Elliot is a nice kid. 
It didn't go that way, but since this is a made-up story, it could have. 
On an older TV show, it might have gone the way of Bully repenting and being friends with Elliot.

But IRL, I haven't seen leopards changing their spots. 
In “Mr. Monk and the Bully,” it seems a now-adult Bully has learned not to behave that way anymore, but does not actually admit he ever did anything wrong: monk.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Monk_and_the_Bully

Edited Monday at 05:22 PM by shapeshifter

[Chicago Redshirt]

4 hours ago, Orbert said:

If my child was being bullied, I'm definitely making a few phones calls at the very least.  But I didn't get the impression that Elliot was being bullied.  He was not invited to a birthday party because the kid having the birthday doesn't like him.  Sure, the birthday kid invited everyone else in the class (according to Elliot) but there's no law against that.  It's a shitty thing to do, but birthday kid was within his rights.

When Morgan called the mom and the mom said that it was just a small party for only his closest friends, that sounded reasonable, if we didn't have Elliot's statement that literally the entire class except for him was invited.  But kids can exaggerate, and birthday mom may have been correct.

Either way, for Morgan to suggest a playdate seemed a bizarre way to handle it.  Birthday kid doesn't like Elliot because Elliot is different.  It happens.  So you force them to hang out together?  I suppose the idea was that they would get to know each other better?

When Morgan told birthday kid (sorry, I don't remember his name) to go wait outside on the porch, I figured that's because his mom was coming to get him at a prearranged time.  That's how it usually worked with my kids.  Mom shows up, kid is waiting on the porch as expected.  She has no idea how long he's been there, minutes or hours.  Even if she asks him how the playdate was, he didn't have fun, Elliot is a freak, etc.  It doesn't seem like a decent conclusion, but I really hope this isn't the start of a greater arc, because I can only see awkwardness and "cringe" on the horizon.

Assuming that Elliot goes to a school with a reasonable size class (say, 15 kids or more), I would call a snub of that sort bullying, since his absence is going to be conspicuous. The kids are almost certainly going to talk about Elliot being disinvited before, during and after the event in person and on social media. 

I take it as an article of faith that Elliot was telling the truth that he was singled out to be disinvited, especially since he seems to be portrayed so far as a straightforward good kid with no tendencies for exaggeration or drama. Like if this had been Ava saying that every kid got invited but her, I would hold out the possibility that she was exaggerating like a normal kid ("Like omigod, so embarrassing, I'm the only one not going to so-and-so's party!".) But I think that Elliot is innocent and also neurodivergent in such a way that it would not occur to him to say something that was not literally true in this context like a "normal" kid might.

I also take it that the mom was either lying (probably) or ignorant (almost certainly not, but maybe a 5 percent chance) about how many invites went out. She may not have specifically known that Elliot was excluded or why, but she had to know it wasn't just an instance where Bully didn't invite Elliot due to not having enough familiarity with him. 

If Morgan took Bully's Mom at face value, suggesting a playdate might make sense. But it doesn't make sense for Morgan to take Bully's Mom at face value. She isn't the sort of neurodivergent where she can't understand the notion of people offering social niceties and not really meaning what they say. She's demonstrated that repeatedly and reinforced that notion in this very episode when she talked about how she's been on the outside of mom groups enough to know when people are saying nice things to your face but judging you behind your back.  

Edited Monday at 09:11 PM by Chicago Redshirt

[possibilities]

What I think would be more helpful would be to try to find Elliot some kids who are not such little pricks. Maybe get him into a club for kids with similar interests. There must be something like MENSA for Kids, or interest groups for whatever his passions are. 

And build him up, let him know you love him, appreciate him. help him value himself and not internalize the negative feedback. Introduce him to some thriving adults who had crappy experiences in school. There are lots of those around.

Edited Monday at 08:53 PM by possibilities

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, possibilities said:

And build him up, let him know you love him, appreciate him

It was nice to see Morgan being supportive and loving with Elliot, and also asking Elliot how he felt about how she treated the Bully.