The kids

[heckkitty]

Is it just me, or is there infinitely more chemistry between Bud and Brianna than there is between Mallory and Coyote?  Or for that matter between Mallory and Mitch?  & if there is, how much is just due to the actor(s)?  I like Brianna and the actress who plays her much more than Mallory.

Edited June 16, 2015 by heckkitty

[JBC344]

I think Bud and Brianna have great sibling/cousin chemistry.  They have their issues but you can see that they are the more "grounded" sibling of each household.

[Julia]

I think they're a great deal smarter than their siblings, which makes them more interesting. To me, anyway.

[paramitch]

I'm so shocked to see a show in which the kids aren't raging narcissistic petulant infantile assholes (coughTRANSPARENTcough*).

 

I've been incredibly pleased at how realistic and kind the kids are -- when the show began, and the two daughters were sniping at one another, my heart sank. Then, miracle of miracles, it turned into a reasonable conversation!

 

I'm now 11 episodes in, and I like the kids a lot. They're not perfect, but they're pretty nice people, and that's so refreshing. I'm so sick of stereotypical bitchy, mean-spirited kid-characters (teen or grown) simply because people seem to think that's more realistic or edgy or something.

 

*I loved a lot of "Transparent" but I loathed the kids.

[EarlGreyTea]

On 6/16/2015 at 5:04 PM, heckkitty said:

Is it just me, or is there infinitely more chemistry between Bud and Brianna than there is between Mallory and Coyote?  Or for that matter between Mallory and Mitch?  & if there is, how much is just due to the actor(s)?  I like Brianna and the actress who plays her much more than Mallory.

Yeah, Mallory is pretty flat, but I don't think Brooklyn Decker is being given enough to work with. I wonder if she was pregnant IRL at some point and maybe needed to be on bed rest/maternity leave, because her storyline just kind of disappeared. I'd like to see more of the dynamic between her, Grace, and Coyote. They really dropped the Coyote/Mallory backstory. I think it was meant to be a bigger storyline, but for whatever reason it was scrapped.

I also love seeing Martin Sheen interact with any onscreen daughters (particularly with the West Wing actresses who played his daughters) and I'd love to see more of that.

Bud fascinates me, just for the "Bud did all the housework" throwaway line alone.

Edited June 19, 2016 by EarlGreyTea

[Serendi]

According to Wikipedia, Brooklyn Decker gave birth in September 2015 and Grace and Frankie's second season was filmed July through November 2015.

June Diane Raphael is apparently pregnant now during the third season shoot (she said on one interview "No I'm not" but it appears to have been a joke, because she said she was and discussed it at length in another interview). She also had an infant on set with her during the first season - she said in an earlier interview that she auditioned three weeks after giving birth because she had to get out of the house. She's grateful that Jane Fonda, a feminist activist, made sure it worked to have a child on set.

[Wings]

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Edited June 20, 2016 by wings707

[EarlGreyTea]

Mallory had an expanded storyline this new season, but for some reason I just don't care for her character, to the point where I feel she drags the other three down. Because she had such a small role in the first two seasons, her dynamic with the other kids and the parents isn't as organic and doesn't work for me at all. She was sanctimonious in the first two seasons with her constant "How do I explain to my children that [insert issue]?" 

I will say they do poor Brooklyn Decker no favors - she has the least interesting storyline, least developed character, and least amount of funny lines. The other three are quirkier, whereas she is the one most entrenched in a stolid, upper middle class life, which is nice to have IRL but rather boring to watch onscreen. I'm like Brianna in that I don't give a damn about kids, especially onscreen. I think they dropped the ball on developing her troubled marriage, because

Spoiler

by the time it's broken down, no one cares because we were never invested in the first place. Also, her romantic interests in the show are both pretty dreary in their own ways. Boring, disinterested husband and man-child Coyote who is only just starting to take care of himself and is probably years away from being able to be in a long-term relationship, to say nothing of all those kids.

Edited April 30, 2017 by EarlGreyTea

[Bastet]

Sweet Home Alabama was on TV tonight for the umpteenth time, and I hate that movie other than a couple of scenes, but one of them - "People need a passport to come here" - was coming up, so I stopped and watched the bar scene and realized for the first time in all my years of watching bits and pieces of the film that Bobby Ray is Coyote.  What a dumbass that I never put this together before.

[CherithCutestory]

On 7/4/2015 at 2:06 AM, paramitch said:

I'm so shocked to see a show in which the kids aren't raging narcissistic petulant infantile assholes (coughTRANSPARENTcough*).

Well it took them a few years to get there but they managed to turn them into that.

[stcroix]

I can not stand the Mallory character.  The actress who plays her is so irritating to me!  She ends most of her sentences in a question even when they aren't questions.  And she's just so unhappy and mean. I'm binge watching all 4 seasons because I'm bored and her character is extremely annoying--- way too much of her, even in little bits. I wish her husband would get a job transfer and move them out of the area.  That's all.

[BW Manilowe]

Brooklyn Decker (aka Mrs. Andy Roddick—he’s a retired former world #1, I think, men’s tennis player) is doing a very good job with her role. I cannot stand Briana at all! I wish they’d find something to make her more redeemable in some way, than have her just be the über bitch the character is, or they’d write her out (I’m either at the end of S3 or the beginning of S4... only subscribed to Netflix in September). I only watch Briana’s scenes to see if she can possibly get any bitchier than she is—which I can’t see is possible.

[greekmom]

The girls are not as bad as the boys.  I cannot stand Coyote's character. Bud I can only take in small doses until they hooked him up with that  hypochondriac of a girlfriend.

[AuntieMame]

9 minutes ago, AuntieMame said:

 

Brianna makes no sense as a character. She is written as the big meanie anti woman who is slutty, heartless, sharp tongued, averse to children in even the most casual circumstances and indifferent to relationships, because reasons career. Because how could a woman who is resisting a life of service to others as a wife and mother be anything other than crazy, creepy, slutty and downright mean screams the writing. ON top of that she is incompetent too? If I didn't know better it would seem that the writing for Brianna is a sexist parody, but I fear the creators think they're doing something fresh and original with the character of Brianna. Its not working for me. 

Running the empire into the ground is just the final, senseless straw. 

I just copied this from the episode thread as I just figured out why the writing for Brianna is such a sexist mess.  Mallory too, but in a different way. Mallory is just a blank space labeled wife, mother and younger daughter/sister waiting for something to happen. 

I'm kind of indifferent to the boys, but they annoy me too. I do love this show, but imagine what it could have been if the supporting characters of the children had been better written. The last time I believed the kids as people was during the "if you weren't gay, we wouldn't be having cake" scene. That was an insightful and sharply written scene. 

Edited January 20, 2019 by AuntieMame

[zoey1996]

At the beginning of the series, Mallory was wife/mother/daughter/sister. Her marriage broke up. Did her ex get custody of her kids? 'Cause they are never even mentioned anymore. She's taken a job that requires travel, which would mean some homelife/worklife juggling. I don't necessarily want this to be overly realistic, but a throwaway line explaining things once in a while would be welcome. Her ex is a doctor, so maybe reference to a nanny or something?

[Good Queen Jane]

It seems clear to me that Mallory's children and Bud's baby are all living in Mandyville (West Wing reference) with all the children from Grey's Anatomy, only to appear when some parental conflict is necessary to the plot and then to return to a happy, off-camera existence.