S01.E09: 9

[Glade]

It was really cruel the way that Noah disregarded Martin's feelings and emotions about how he's being bullied and badly needs to transfer schools.  His father got so worked up about the idea of his teenage daughter bullying another girl, but he doesn't take Martin as seriously, or see his feelings as important.  Rather, it seemed the whole discussion was really about how he feels about his father in law and private school.  It sounds like it was really difficult for Martin to open up to his father about it, and his "agreement" to wait another semester seemed to be under duress; I'm sure it's really not ok, and being bullied at school while his home life is being turned upside down by divorce (which kids often think is their fault) will make him feel even more like he shouldn't burden his parents with his own problems, like they don't care.  He probably is headed towards a crisis, as Alison and Cole seemed to recognize. 

[scrb]

Not sure why but I laughed as Helen threw Noah out.  Guess I didn't like the character.

 

The $1200 for a room because it's Christmas and Brooklyn and New York are one and the same is some bullshit.

 

So is a $60 bottle of shampoo.

 

Cole isn't really that sympathetic himself.  He apparently got that tattoo that Alison can't stand?  Then there is the drug-dealing thing, while being high and mighty about preserving the character of that little town.  

 

Because smuggling in coke to that little piece of paradise is so authentic ...

 

Kind of a doormat though if he still keeps clinging to Alison after discovering the cheating.  Then again, it looks like Helen asks Noah to come back in the next episode too.

[Milburn Stone]

The $1200 for a room because it's Christmas and Brooklyn and New York are one and the same is some bullshit.

 

So is a $60 bottle of shampoo.

 

I don't know anything about hotel rates in Brooklyn at Christmas, but this website says that Alterna Shampoo (there's a picture of it, and it looks like the kind Helen uses) costs $60:

 

http://deluxosphere.com/discover-the-worlds-most-expensive-shampoos/

 

It's got caviar age-control complex!

[Bcharmer]

If anyone actually wants to buy it, it can be had for around half that price on the internet. $60 might be the "suggested retail price." I have no doubt Helen would have paid full price, though.

 

As for the room, it was that expensive because the desk clerk said all their standard rooms were booked, and all they had available was the 2-room terrace suite with a "water view." It didn't mean all their regular rooms would have cost that much. Noah should have planned ahead.

[briochetwist]

No, it makes them assholes.  I've always judged people by the way they treat waitstaff and the way they tip.  It doesn't matter if they are upscale snobs like Helen or scuzzy bikers, anyone who treats other people with contempt simply because of their "station" in life  is a schmuck.  IMO of course.

 

So true, but like everything else that these two remember, I doubt that is truly the way that Helen feels.  I think Helen, as remembered by both Allison and Noah, is always put in a bad light to make themselves feel better about what they're doing.

[briochetwist]

 

As for the computer, have you ever tried taking away a teen girl's computer and cell phone?  They act like you're cutting off their arms.

 

Truer words have never been typed.

[Misty79]

To me, it seemed pretty clear that she was dumping the shampoo (as opposed to using some incredible amount of shampoo that would never even fit in her palm).

 

I don't know that she thought Helen would assume a mistress had been there when she noticed that her shampoo had been used up.  I do believe Allison wanted to "stick it to her," though, by sending her expensive shampoo down the drain, and she was gleeful about it.  To me, that seemed as obvious as it was petty.

 

This was my take too. 

 

I had my in-laws come and stay a few months back and at the end of the trip I noticed my conditioner bottle (it's very expensive and I buy it in large bottles) was feeling very light on. I assume my step mother-in-law was having fun with it, though it could have been my father-in-law! I was amused. It's actually really easy to tell when someone uses your shampoo or conditioner if you're the only one using it normally, even when they don't use much. 

[truthaboutluv]

So, no I didn't feel for her a bit when she started cutting and her breakdown in the doctor's office.  Alison is just as much of a f-ed up, awful, terrible person as anyone else on this show.  She just has "tragic death of a beloved child" as her trump and/or get-out-of-jail-free card.  She does just as many horrible, horrible things as anyone else, but then the show always brings it back to Gabriel.  I guess the show wants viewers to believe that she's doing these things because of the trauma of the death of her son, but I would need some proof that wasn't like this before he died.  I don't believe that anyone could be like this without having had such tendencies all along.

 

 

I really wanted to quote the entire comment but yes all of this is so spot on. I watched the scene with her and Cherry and objectively I could see that what Cherry was saying to her was brutal, if even evil, to accuse a mother of basically being responsible for her child's death and yet when it was over, all I thought was "yeah, still don't feel bad for her..."

 

What truly stuck out to me in the scene when Alison mentioned getting half of Cole's share of the ranch, was her complete confidence that she would just get half of Cole's money when she left him even though she cheated on him and they have no children so it's not like she would be owed child support. So it really said a lot to me that she was just so certain that despite everything, Cole would gladly give her half of his money and funny thing, from the little we've seen of Cole, something tells me he very well might have. Which just further heightens how shitty a person Alison is and more importantly how much of an asshole to Cole she is.

 

As for her sleeping with Oscar, what got me about that is she was clearly so upset because she got a dose of reality that she is nothing more than a mistress and all I could think was "Well boo-fucking-hoo. Him bringing you to his home he shares with his wife and kids and you two banging in his marriage bed didn't clue to you that?" So was I really supposed to sympathize and feel sorry for the misery she brought onto herself and then to compound it by banging creepy Oscar? Yeah no... because all I could think is if poor Alison is just in SO much pain in Montauk and her oh so awful marriage, she could have left. But then that wouldn't afford her the opportunity to play a victim.

 

The only time Alison truly looks happy is when she is with Noah.

 

 

She looked happy with him right up until her fantasy bubble got burst where she not only thought his wife was pregnant but got faced with the evidence that she really is just a mistress he's going to try and stash in some apartment so he can bang her when he feels like. And then she just got even lower and more broken than she was before she ever met him - so much so that she ended sleeping with Oscar of all people.

 

And that's what made the whole thing even grosser to me. That she did it because she was oh so upset that the married guy she's banging basically treated her as the mistress she is and may have gotten his wife pregnant. It's like this is not something I'm going to feel sorry for her over and so then to get so low that she goes and bangs ANOTHER guy on her husband, it's like give it a rest woman... She's so pathetic and sad and "woe is me, I'm so unhappy", it's just exhausting.

 

Her skinniness was commented on in the pilot ep. That could be why. And isn't it the case that for some for first time pregnancies you don't really show until much later ?

 

 

Also you can see her wearing an oversize black hoodie when confronted about the pregnancy test which is significantly different from the fashion sense we've seen of her to that point. So I'm guessing she started wearing some baggier clothes to hide it. She was also wearing a blue baggy hoodie when her parents heard her vomiting.

 

I had no idea the shampoo moment would seem so shocking. I assumed she just used a ton of it on her own head. We can't see her other hand can we? I assumed she just took a lot.

 

 

She very clearly and spitefully spilled a good chunk of the shampoo out. The scene shows her looking under the bottle and seeing the price, then sniffing it some more and then with her a vindictive smile, turning it over and spilling it. It was a childish, vindictive and spiteful thing to do to a woman who has done nothing to her while she's fucking the woman's husband in her bed. 

 

And Maura Tierney really nailed it in the scene with Noah - her fury was so believable and SO justified.

 

 

I've always been fairly "meh" on Maura. Objectively I can tell she's talented but she's always just bored the crap out of me. But I have never cheered harder for someone until that scene where she first reacted so quietly and eerily calm until the rage just bubbled to the surface and she told that selfish, narcissistic piece of shit to get the fuck out of her house. I swear I think I actually stood up and applauded. 

 

I have seen zero indications that these two have anything that suggests long-term relationship potential, let alone true love.

 

 

This so much, which is largely what makes it hard to sympathize let alone like either and not see them as two selfish, whiny assholes. Well Noah is just a selfish dick in my book and Alison frankly at this point feels like the perpetual victim "woe is me..." sad sack. 

 

Oh, and in response to the Is-that-what-they-were-doing-in-bed discussion: Alison's "I'm yours," made me despair.

 

 

What stood out to me about this is that in Alison's version, that moment is actually Noah saying "I love you" and she saying it back to him. It's in Noah's version we get this "I'm yours" bullshit...pretty telling that. Especially with how often she came across as the lustful, sexual aggressor in many of his versions of the story.

 

If Treem says they are in love then they are in love;

 

 

See that doesn't work for me. Art is subjective so I can never buy the "well the artist says this so it must be so..." No, in my view if I'm seeing a WILDLY different thing than what the writer says I should be seeing then in my opinion something didn't work how it was supposed to - either it's the writing, the acting, direction, etc. but something went wrong. When so many on here are seeing and feeling something so utterly removed from what we're supposedly meant to feel and see, then something is not working here. And you have to look at the showrunners/writers/creators and consider a failure on their part.

 

I can't stand Helen.  To me she's a spoiled entitled witch.  When she told Noah, "get the fuck out of MY house."  Yes, it's your house you little rich girl, your daddy bought it for you.

 

 

Considering what Noah was putting the woman through at that moment, coupled with her realizing a few minutes later he fucked the woman he was cheating on her with in their bed, the fact that that was all she said made Helen a fucking saint in my eyes. Because the asshole deserved to stabbed in his dick as far as I'm concerned.

 

Noah just took off without even saying goodbye to his children.

 

 

Keep in mind that this is the guy who in his own version of what happened, when he found out Alison was dealing drugs along with Cole's family, his first instinct was to go to her and confront her about being so offended that his fantasy image of her was tarnished rather than going to get his son and demanding he no longer work there since the people there are drug dealers.

 

Cole also said to him when Martin came to say goodbye to the Lockharts, that Martin seems desperate for attention and in Alison's version of that memory, it had Noah basically telling Cole that he'll take parenting advice from him when he has a teenage son. Asshole... And not to mention when he snapped at his young son who wanted to just spend some time with him because he had to get to his quickie with Alison. Father of the year Noah is most certainly not.

 

Cole isn't really that sympathetic himself.  He apparently got that tattoo that Alison can't stand?

 

I may need to double check but I don't think Alison ever stated when Cole got the tattoo. It's entirely possible that he got the tattoo when Gabriel was born as a symbol of his child that was I guess named after the angel Gabriel. But even if he got it after he died as some symbol of his son watching over him, how would he know that Alison hated it unless she told him and from everything I've seen of Alison to this point, I doubt she did. That woman was content to wallow in her misery silently and walk around like the most tragic person in the world.

Edited January 2, 2015 by truthaboutluv

[VioletMarx]

Cole isn't really that sympathetic himself.  He apparently got that tattoo that Alison can't stand?

 

His child died, too. If that tattoo helps get him through the night, godspeed.

[millamant]

 

I think this is the shampoo: http://shop.alternah...om/ten/shampoo/

 

And here's my late-to-the-table tidbit...

 

Alterna Haircare is Katie Holmes's company.

 

Pacey, still supporting his Joey via product placement after all these years. :)

[paramitch]

The scene that surprised me most here was the one between Cherry and Alison. I've never warmed to Cherry and this was exactly why -- she's all warmth and kindness until something doesn't go her way, and when it doesn't, she will cut you. She's a fascinating character because I think she really thinks she's this kind of sweet, salt of the earth mama figure, but she's absolutely ruthless at heart and willing to rationalize anything. Mare Winningham was excellent here and I loved the total disparity between who Cherry appears to be most of the time and who she actually is. Look where she's gotten this family of handsome kids: They're losers and drug dealers.

 

As for the "I love you, but I'm not IN love with you" stuff....okay, but why does that translate into "I'm not IN love with you, so I will treat you as badly as someone I actively hate.  I couldn't figure out the worst time in the world to tell you I'm leaving, because you aren't maimed and bleeding after a terrible assault.  Ideally that's when I would have broken the news....but this will have to do because I am King of Total Shit Mountain....Huzzah!" 

Fuck off, Dude.  

 

Love that makes you destructive to those around you and yourself isn't a real love.  It's a drug that will completely destroy you.   

 

I think this is incredibly well said, and I wish I felt like this was the point of the show. The idea that I'm watching these two idiots as some kind of soulmate scenario upsets me extremely, ,not least because I really admire what Treem and Levi have accomplished in the past. I just don't get it this time. I would like the show more if it were wiser, if it were a cautionary tale; as it is, I'm just watching two people abandon relationships and commitments they've spent lifetimes forging. In Alison's place, I understand the situation a bit more due to her grief and Cole's drug-dealing family.

 

But I will just never be able to see the affair as anything other than tawdry, tired and cheap due to the absolute banality of the relationship we'er being shown. There's no real connection for me with these two people, not even sexually. So shouldn't it be kind of funny, sad, obnoxious, etc., that they are -- as opportunistic cheaters have been doing since the beginning of time -- deluding themselves? That this time they are different? This time, they are in love? This time, they will show everyone that the purity of their feelings will not be wrecked by the world? I mean, it's ridiculous. It's crazy. They're simply addicts wrecking the world around them for their addiction.

 

Noah is married to a beautiful, smart, funny and warm woman, they appeared to have terrific sexual compatibility, and they had built a pretty gorgeous, enjoyable and enviable life for themselves that few can even hope to experience. Every brick in that relationship was forged and placed over 20 years. Isn't that worth something? The wreckage of all this for this relationship with a woman the Rashomon-structure has convinced me he doesn't even know and possibly doesn't even like... I just don't get it. And honestly, the sex doesn't even seem that earth-shattering to me.

 

I rather hate the word 'soulmate' as in there is only ONE other person in the world who can be your perfect match.  It's not true, and I think it demeans the idea of working for a relationship/family/history together.  In general most people feel they have met their 'soulmate' when they fall in love.  The infatuation stage, where partners look at each other through rose-colored glasses seems like a soulmate stage, and this is what most people consider love.  If they don't feel this way about another person, then they don't 'love' them.

 

I think loving someone and staying in a marriage is a choice.

I agree 100%. I definitely don't think there's just one person for anyone, and I also think that any grown adults in relationships must at some point work to keep them nurtured and healthy. When Noah said, "I don't want this life!" I wanted Helen to yell back, "TOO LATE. You picked it. You lived it. You can't leave it behind."

 

I agree that Helen has the empathetic failings of a person with too much lifelong privilege, but I don't actually fault her for disliking the person who her husband is screwing.  

I do think Helen has been shown to be rather blunt and tactless, but Tierney invests her with so much warmth and humor that I can't really hate her for it. As others have commented, she's also down in the trenches in a service industry dealing with jerks and nincompoops daily, so I give her credit for that as well. I do think she is pretty clueless -- as a golden girl -- about what it's like to be a "have-not," but I also don't think this means she's without compassion. If someone cheats on me, I'm not going to work all that hard to see the other woman as a human being, I'm going to loathe the very sound of her name. Even if she's Mother Theresa or something.

 

Ruth Wilson broke my heart in that scene by the ocean, but Alison is a difficult character to actually like.  I do think the fact that she is in so much emotional pain has made her numb to the fact that other people can feel hurt too.  Pouring that shampoo down the drain was sort of like leaving her bra at the house.  A part of Alison wanted Helen to know she had been there, I think. 

I agree; I really don't like Alison much, but I do find myself caring about her, and that scene with the doctor was shattering. I loved the doctor's kindness and support but that he also didn't sugarcoat his own beliefs, either. He has a right not to believe in an afterlife.

 

This series seems to be about people who are chained to the earth and to each other with bands of steel.  And some of them are trying desperately to achieve escape velocity and fly away and be free. Won't happen. 

 

I thought this was beautifully said. I would agree in a way -- it seems to be about two kinds of people, those who feel trapped, and those who don't.

 

Because he's really very attractive and his character seems to have learned Life Lessons. The actor reminds me of Ray Stevenson so...yeah. I was pretty much kidding about him hooking up with Allison though. I just think it's likely he is part of the *future* storyline somehow someway and my assumption is that's via either Helen or Allison, rather than a continuing friendship with Noah in which he ignores everything you have ever told him and likes to ask you for money he could never pay you back. Max needs to re-evaluate that friendship.

My mind just kind of went blank a little, as Ray Stevenson is one of the men on my very shortlist of fictional crushes, and I think he's even more beautiful in middle age. Meanwhile, I'm surprised at how much I liked Max by this episode -- I loathed him in the beginning (he just seemed to be a bunch of cliches), but now I think he's one of the more surprising, sweet and nuanced characters in this whole story. I really like the fact that his friendship isn't lip service -- every single time Noah has come to him for help, he has responded without hesitation. I also found the scene of the suicide to be really upsetting, and it was interesting to watch both Noah and Max react to that. 

 

Presumably to pay off that moment that Max kissed Helen on the lips, rather lingeringly in front of everyone.  Apparently he has a well known and open admiration for Helen as the one that got away or some such "I kid about pining for you....but when we're hooked up next season, it will be clear that I was never really kidding."  I'm assuming that is where Noah will get to feel his own sense of "I've been betrayed!" when Max basically rebuilds the family life he lost (and apparently mourns for, since he keeps warning Noah about making the same mistake) by stepping into Noah's shoes.  

I can't help it, I'd be absolutely delighted if Max turns out to offer a shoulder and a new start for Helen at some point. Because he knows what Helen is worth, and he knows the worth of the life she offers, even if Noah doesn't. I think it's interesting how much Max learned from the loss of his own marriage -- he's been so open with Noah about those things, and I think he absolutely wouldn't make the same mistakes again. His misery and loneliness is palpable.

Edited February 16, 2015 by paramitch

[SlackerInc]

Ah, good catch by those who figured out in the previous episode that Whitney was pregnant.  I should have known, like they said, that female vomiting on TV is always pregnancy.  But the bulimia angle fooled me.

 

The exchange about heaven and hell was some particularly sharp writing, well acted.  Like stillshimpy, I appreciated that the doctor didn't softpedal his atheism (which I share).

 

Same for the succinct explanation of why she had to leave: "If I stay any longer, I'll die. I don't want to die."

 

Wow, I really thought Noah would be a little more careful with that bra.  Like, stuff it in his pants and then leave the house to throw it away somewhere as soon as possible.

 

That final scene was definitely awkward, and a reverse form of heartbreak to the one a couple episodes ago with Allison standing forlornly outside the Butlers' house.

 

I keep thinking back to something Sarah Treem (the show's creator/producer) said in her interview with Alan Sepinwall. More than once, she insisted that the show is about "two good people."

 

 

In  Sarah Streems own words, the series was origanly conceived as being about two people in happy(ish) marriages who meet and think that they could be happier with each other instead of their spouses. The implication being that Noah and Alison find (or think they've found) they've found their soulmate in each other. This coupled with Sarah's tweet about Cole and Helen, (which seemed to imply that people who found them sympathetic were watching the series *wrong*) then yeah I think the show wants us to root for Noah and Alison.

 

I'm so glad to read these posts, as confirmation that I am not after all watching the show wrong.  It would appear however that most of you think Treem is writing it wrong!  Boundary, you are a notable exception, and I love reading your posts.  It was brave of you to soldier on alone back in 2014--I especially felt for you in this one, with the parenthetical "Yes I said it":

 

I am one. Look, we have protagonists who aren't doing nice things at the moment. They are married to people who aren't suitable for them now and they have fallen for each other (Yes I said it!). Cole doesn't even get Alison, no doubt he loves her but if he knew, he'd let her go. Helen makes Noah feel like a fraud and it's not just about money. His lights have been dimming and she has been oblivious to it.

 

They found each and suddenly things clicked between them. If Treem says they are in love then they are in love...

 

There's always "death of the author", of course; but I didn't know what Treem thought on the subject until reading this thread, and I have been finding it a "swoon-inducing", "dizzying" love story from the very beginning as you can see from my posts in earlier episode threads.

 

I agree on most counts but I understood Allison's stealing bandages differently. I'm fairly certain she was at the hospital to genuinely ask for a job. Then she saw the sick child, freaked out, took the bandages then immediately went somewhere to cut. I don't think Allison going to the hospital looking for a job was an elaborate ruse to steal bandages. It was spontaneous and made perfect sense to me.

 

Yes, this is correct.  I'm not sure how close in time this aired to the episode of the first season of "The Knick" in which a remarkably similar scene was about a nurse engaging in a premeditated plan to steal drugs; it's possible that similarity might have muddied the waters but I definitely agree with your take about this show's scene.

 

I hope she isn't pregnant by Oscar, but not for obvious reasons. It's because I really, really hate it when one-night stands on television result in a pregnancy. Magically, their tryst is timed perfectly with the women's menstrual cycle. It happens way too often on TV (movies, too, I suppose).

 

To be fair, though, a married woman having a one-night stand is more likely to be fertile than just a spin of the calendar wheel would suggest: 

 

"We found that women were most attracted to men other than their primary partner when they were in the high fertility phase of the menstrual cycle," said Dr. Martie Haselton, a UCLA researcher. "That's the day of ovulation and several days beforehand."

 

Edited October 9, 2015 by SlackerInc

[stillshimpy]

I'm so glad to read these posts, as confirmation that I am not after all watching the show wrong.  It would appear however that most of you think Treem is writing it wrong!

 

Or she's not conveying the story that she thinks she is, which happens.  There's no right way, or wrong way to watch something.   The same story can mean different things to different people and the author can screams themselves blue about what the true meaning is, but the creator of anything doesn't actually determine the true meaning for something as subjective as entertainment.  

 

The most famous example is always going to be Robert Frost and the poem Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.   Frost apparently didn't like that so many people interpreted the poem to be about death or the contemplation of suicide.  He's always claimed that it was about ....stopping...by woods....etc and apparently made a fair amount of fun of all the interpretations of the poem as being about death.  

 

The thing is, if almost everyone who reads a poem thinks it is about death....then does it matter that Frost didn't have that as his intent?  I don't think it does.  I think once you release something, you lose control over how it is received.   I also just don't ever take the word of a writer as being gospel truth of their intent until such time as the full story is told....because sometimes stories evolve as they continue. 

 

For TV series it's more like "The first season is the trunk of the elephant, but there are more parts to come....before you can glimpse the full beast" in my interpretation.  However, I've also been known to just stop watching something and call it a story at a point where I feel satisfied with it....because once it's been given to me, it's mine to receive as I like.  Same goes for you.   The writers intent is information, but you can't instruct a viewing audience to have an opinion....otherwise everything would be deemed a masterpiece, because there are few who say "Oh, yeah, that story sucked.  I wrote that one to pay off my grad school student loan.   Not my best work...." and they certainly wouldn't say that until the loan was paid off. 

Edited October 9, 2015 by stillshimpy

[SlackerInc]

The most famous example is always going to be Robert Frost and the poem Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.   Frost apparently didn't like that so many people interpreted the poem to be about death or the contemplation of suicide.  He's always claimed that it was about ....stopping...by woods....etc and apparently made a fair amount of fun of all the interpretations of the poem as being about death.  

 

Interesting!  I'm glad to learn of this (perhaps frustratingly from your POV, because it runs against the grain of the overall point you were trying to make), because those death interpretations of that poem never resonated with me.  Similarly to Jack London's story "To Build a Fire", which I got into a big argument with my high school English teacher about, I think it works better as a naturalistic, vividly described moment in time, rather than some kind of parable or deeply metaphorical deal.

 

I'm not a big fan of the "death of the author" perspective.  But if an author stated a story was intended in such-and-such a way, and I had been interpreting it differently, I wouldn't just say "okay, shifting perspective now, everything's fine".  I'd consider it a strong possibility that the author wasn't doing the best job getting their point across.  What happened in this case, though, was that nearly everyone (critics and commenters) seemed to be taking the story quite differently from the way I did, so learning relatively late in the game that Treem herself sounded like she was intending an interpretation more like the one I had was reassuring.