Season 3 Discussion

[Big Mother]

I think a good rule of thumb is to ask. Sometimes people need help, sometiems they don't. Sometimes helping makes it even harder for them; i.e. they rely on their walker for leverage and they'd rather not hold on to a person. sometimes they'[re actually waiting for some good person to offer to help.... asking usually doens't hurt, I think.

[ExplainItAgain]

That was a hilarious episode! The girls waiting for Bonnie and saying "Sooooo....?" when she opened the door, Jill enumerating Christy's hookups to prove her point, Adam with his "Is it too soon to say I love you?" after Bonnie's outburst at the restaurant. I laughed the whole time.

 

I hope Adam sticks around for awhile - I really like him so far.

[candall]

I really liked it, too, except. . .

 

Am I the only person in the world who hates watching an actor be "casual" by rote popping food into her mouth, with big open-mouth chomping while she says her lines?  She even probed around for the leftovers with her tongue--an added touch of authenticity. 

 

Okay, I thought I probably was. 

: p

 

 

[happy turtles]

I used to catch this show fairly regularly, but more recently have been watching Blacklist instead. However, when I saw the promo featuring William Fichtner as Adam, I pretty much moved heaven and earth to make sure I saw this. I know he's been in a ton of things, but I know him best from Prison Break (which we only just recently finished marathoning for the second time last week). I'm so used to him in a dramatic role, I was wondering how he'd do with comedy. Wow. Nailed it. Thought Adam and Bonnie had great chemistry too. Can't wait to see where they go with this, and hopefully he's around for a while.

[tobeyoungagain]

Yeah I like Adam too ... he seems like a good match.

 

Jodi - I was sad how it ended but I never saw how she fitted into the storylines and the chemistry of a group of women.  She looks a lot like Carrie Underwood though - had to google to make sure it wasn't.

 

Is Mom cancelled or is it coming back for Season 4?  Love the show ... hope it's sticking around!

[marriedaniac]

William Fichtner was also in an episode of West Wing. Can't remember if he and Allison had any scenes together, though.

 

Speaking of, word has it Richard Schiff (Toby) has filmed an episode that will air soon? Can't waitttt

 

I read that Mom was renewed for season 4. :)

Edited April 21, 2016 by marriedaniac

[EtheltoTillie]

What an amazing episode tonight. Amazing acting by the kid who plays Travis. He was in tears and so was I.

[LucyEth]

This is a great show.  Tonight's episode was really excellent. Love all these women.   Hope they keep renewing.  

[Chaos Theory]

I laughed so much when Bonnie was showing Adam Christie and Baxters wedding video. The video itself was funny but their reaction to it was hilarious.

[jjj]

Doesn't this show understand that comedies are supposed to make you laugh, not cry?  Wow, what a great blend of tragedy and comedy.  I'm so glad to hear the show is renewed.  I don't care if Travis continues or not, but the number of complex issues this show is willing to tackle is really impressive. 

[chocolatine]

I like how real Bonnie's relationship with Adam is. The show doesn't fall into the trope of "guy in wheelchair with a heart of gold"; he's a normal human being who can occasionally be an asshole. And he and Bonnie work it out and move past it, as people do in normal relationships. He probably still thinks that AA is BS, but he stopped being a dick about it, because he understood how important it is to her.

 

I wonder about their vacation plans though. Aren't Bonnie and Christie supposed to be barely scraping by? For someone in such a situation, it's unrealistic that Bonnie would just agree to the trip without asking who would be paying for what, what price range hotel he had in mind, etc. I'm in a much better financial situation than they are, and I still wouldn't agree to an impromptu trip without doing some mental math first. I hope she doesn't just assume that he'll be paying for everything.

[candall]

Hmm.  I was waiting to Christy to realize that part of her fury at Travis was projecting her own guilt about letting Jodi down.  Surprised we didn't get there.

[tpel]

I had never watched this show before three weeks ago, and generally have little interest in sit-coms. But I've watched the last three episodes for William Fichtner, and have been pleasantly surprised by the writing and the regular cast. I assume that Fichtner isn't going to be available long-term, but I'm already kind of invested in Bonnie and Adam's relationship. When he was acting like a jerk at the meeting, I was afraid this was the show's way of writing him off. But then they worked it out -- Yay! WF's expressions while watching that video were priceless.

Edited April 22, 2016 by tpel

[AbsoluteShower]

This show has improved 100 percent since they ditched the whiny daughter and the little kid and focused more on the people from AA as the main support for Faris and Janney.

[Blakeston]

This show has really begun to remind me of The Golden Girls (which is definitely a good thing.)

Marjorie is a Dorothy type, Jill's the Blanche, Wendy's the Rose, and Bonnie is such a Sophia.

[ExplainItAgain]

This show has improved 100 percent since they ditched the whiny daughter and the little kid and focused more on the people from AA as the main support for Faris and Janney.

 

Totally agree. It's funny that the kids are barely even mentioned now! They were a much bigger part of the earlier seasons. Seems like even Baxter's screen time has been cut.

 

Is Christy still in school? I can't remember where they are with that storyline.

[AbsoluteShower]

Such a welcome and refreshing change from Lorre's usual "bitches be crazy, amirite guys?" work, as well...

[12catcrazy]

Love, love, love, this show!  Laughed my butt off at the wedding video and felt sympathy at Adam's reaction to the AA meeting.   This is a show where you can root for the characters and feel vested interest  in their success, and trials.  And this a show from Chuck Lorre of all people. 

[teebax]

I'm really enjoying this storyline for Bonnie. I dated a woman in a wheelchair for about four years, and I noticed a lot of things I'd never even thought about before. I noticed that most people don't have a clue how to act around someone with that condition. Some folks would immediately jump in to help, and my ex always appreciated it. But I can understand their fear.

 

This continues to be one of my favorite sitcoms, and I'm thrilled to have read here that it has been renewed.

 

I also agree that it's much better without the whiny daughter. The son never bothered me, but I despised the character of her daughter.

[Snow Apple]

I also agree that it's much better without the whiny daughter. The son never bothered me, but I despised the character of her daughter.

I agree a thousand times.

[Chaos Theory]

Chuck Lorre actually is a fairly good showrunner if you discount 2 1/2 men. I admit to not being a sitcom person but some of my favorite he had his hand in, Most have a similar theme of starting over again.

[LucyEth]

Hmm.  I was waiting to Christy to realize that part of her fury at Travis was projecting her own guilt about letting Jodi down.  Surprised we didn't get there.

I was thinking the same thing.  Jodi called her and she didn't talk to her because of Marjorie's future sister in law who they were trying to get to the wedding.

[Dr Epi]

I loved the fact that they had a credible, sexy, romantic partner who used a wheelchair.  And, so far, not all of the usual jokes about people waiting to use the handicapped bathroom or able-bodied people parking in handicapped spaces.  Please, I hope that the show does not go there.

 

I like how Bonnie accepted him, how they made the chair fun (her sitting on his lap as he rolls and twirls) and how they address physical intimacy right off the bat.

 

2 nitpicks

 

1) in the car, when Adam was driving, they did not show him using hand controls.  He should have had a knob on the steering wheel that would have allowed him to steer with one hand and use his other hand for acceleration and braking.

 

2) would it be so hard for Hollywood to find an actor with a spinal cord injury to play the part of Adam?  When I lived in LA there were a lot of handsome men who used wheelchairs who were woefully unemployed in in Hollywood.  This is a big issue for actors with disabilities- there are so few parts which calls for an actor to use a wheelchair so why give the parts to able-bodied actors?  In the disability community, there are many who would consider this as big a sin as using blackface.

 

I realize that this is a message board about the show and the women, and not about disability politics in Hollywood, but they are entertwined at least in these episodes.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Dr Epi

[TheOtherOne]

Such a welcome and refreshing change from Lorre's usual "bitches be crazy, amirite guys?" work, as well...

 

Love, love, love, this show!  Laughed my butt off at the wedding video and felt sympathy at Adam's reaction to the AA meeting.   This is a show where you can root for the characters and feel vested interest  in their success, and trials.  And this a show from Chuck Lorre of all people. 

 

Chuck Lorre actually is a fairly good showrunner if you discount 2 1/2 men. I admit to not being a sitcom person but some of my favorite he had his hand in, Most have a similar theme of starting over again.

 

Thank you for pointing this out. I know Two and a Half Men is terrible enough to cast a pall over his work, but Lorre actually made a name for himself on women-driven shows. If anything, Two and a Half Men is the outlier and Mom is his "usual." He worked on Roseanne. He created Grace Under Fire, Cybill and Dharma and Greg, all of which were largely driven by female characters and relationships. Mom really feels a lot like him returning to his roots.

Edited April 23, 2016 by TheOtherOne

[Snow Apple]

I like early Two and a Half Men when Alan was normal and Charlie, while a dog, wasn't slimy gross. With Mom, it's the opposite for me. I like the newer seasons more than the early ones. 

 

I hope we see Travis again. Should be interesting.

[wendyg]

Lorre has a great essay on his website about his industry trials by fire that led to the creation of TWO AND A HALF MEN. If you look around, you'll see that he kind of stopped working with big female stars because he'd been so badly burned: Roseanne was a notorious tyrant; Brett Butler had substance abuse problems that meant even her co-stars wanted to quit; Cybill Shepherd had Lorre fired -- allegedly because  Christine Baranski won an Emmy (and it's certainly true that in the post-Lorre episodes Baranski's character became a bore); and after all that he retreated to pretty much all-male casts for TWO AND A HALF MEN and THE BIG BANG THEORY. I think 21/2M may have taught him the problem is much more being dependent on a big star who is *nuts* than male or female. By all accounts, Jim Parsons is a delightful human, and it's notable how many people who've worked on other Lorre shows pop up as guest stars.

 

So I agree: MOM is a return to his roots, really. btw, I would never judge *any* network show by seasons past five. At that point, the show's creators have begun looking for new projects, and their replacements can only at best make an imitation of the original show. 21/2M became absolute dreck - but its first couple of seasons were really sharp.

[tpel]

On 4/23/2016 at 10:25 PM, Dr Epi said:

2) would it be so hard for Hollywood to find an actor with a spinal cord injury to play the part of Adam?  When I lived in LA there were a lot of handsome men who used wheelchairs who were woefully unemployed in in Hollywood.  This is a big issue for actors with disabilities- there are so few parts which calls for an actor to use a wheelchair so why give the parts to able-bodied actors?  In the disability community, there are many who would consider this as big a sin as using blackface.

I was thinking the same thing, particularly since this show made me recall the excellent job Fichtner did many years ago playing a blind guy in the movie Contact. Again, awesome performance, but don't we have actual blind actors for the role? With regard to Adam, this point is somewhat lessened due to the fact that not just any wheelchair-using actor would do; for example, someone who had been paralyzed from birth or early adulthood would perhaps have muscular atrophy or other physical changes that wouldn't fit with Adam's backstory of being injured three years ago (and the recency of the injury is important for how he relates to Bonnie). So I don't know how large the relevant pool of actors is. Also, you need an actor that can get you totally invested in the character through his voice only, in the first episode, which I'm guessing not many actors (with or without disabilities) can pull off. Still, I would like to see more of a good faith attempt on the part of casting directors to look at disabled actors first for such roles.

[possibilities]

I think a lot of actors could have handled the voice-only intro, and if the look of a recent para is an issue, there are much bigger challenges that have been conquered with padding and so on. I mean, we see pregnancies faked, and prosthetic vampires/zombies/whatevers via costuming and make up all the time. I am not worried that disabled actors would be worse at faking a disability and a sexy/compelling personality/voice than a walking actor would be. In fact, the opposite; I actually thought that wheeling his chair looked like more of an effort for Adam than an experienced chair-user would make it look, and there's the driving with hand controls issue, too.

I love the character and I love the show, and I wasnt' going to complain because the writing was better than I'd hoped for (especially after the original ditching-the-date reveal which I thought was a hackneyed bunch of BS), but since it's already been brought up, I agree that hiring actual disabled people is really not that much to ask.

[Snow Apple]

I forgot to watch today. Can someone please summarize what happened?

[possibilities]

Christy was sick, but trying to ignore it so she could take exams for law school. She collapses and winds up in the hospital with pneumonia, with Wendy (the crying member of the AA group) as her nurse. It turns out that Wendy is a tough, authoritarian at work. Christy manages to escape the hospital against medical advice, takes her test, then is returned to the hospital via ambulance.

Adam and Bonnie are having a great time together but she finds out he is avoiding a reunion of stunt people he used to work with. Like a cliche, he's afraid they will only see the chair and will treat him with pity and it will be too painful. For some reason he seems to think his former friends are assholes, I guess. Bonnie convinces him to go, and before he leaves he says he loves her. She is pretty excited about it and debates for half the episode whether to tell him she loves him, too. When he gets back, he's really glad he went to the meeting, and reveals that they offered him a job as a stunt co-ordinator on a movie shooting in Croatia. He has to be gone for 5 or 6 months. He says he really needs to take the job, he thought he'd never work again, etc. But he also says he really needs Bonnie, and they will Sykpe every day. She pastes on a smile and says OK and he thanks her for being awesome. Then she goes into another room and sobs.

[Snow Apple]

Thanks! 

[Blakeston]

One thing irritated me a bit - surely any law school has procedures for letting someone who was in the hospital take a final exam at a later date.

I get that Christy wasn't thinking entirely rationally, but you'd think one of the other women would have pointed it out to her.

i liked Jill being glad to finally have a chance to do Christy's makeup.

Edited April 29, 2016 by Blakeston

[ExplainItAgain]

OK, I've missed a few episodes here and there and I haven't seen last night's episode yet...but is Christy actually in law school? Or is she completing her 4-year degree so she can go to law school? I'm not sure if she had her college degree before or not.

[iMonrey]

How can Christy be studying to be a lawyer when she never even went to college? Can you become a lawyer without ever going to college??

For the record, Bonnie, Adam said "Love ya" not "love you." I see a distinction there; the way he said it came off as a casual farewell rather than a proclamation of his feelings for her. I kept waiting for her to embarrass herself when he came back at the end so I'm glad they didn't go that route.

[happy turtles]

Can I say how glad I am that Adam's "love ya/you" going unreciprocated didn't become a huge deal? Sure, we saw Bonnie's deliberations regarding saying it back, but Adam didn't immediately turn into a raging douchebag simply because she didn't say it. Both BBT and Two and a Half Men had episodes revolving around this, so I am beyond happy that Lorre didn't go to that well again.

And what does this mean about Adam's presence on the show? He mentioned Skyping, so I'm assuming he'll actually still be present that way, rather than just gone from the show. I actually thought I'd read somewhere that Fichtner spends most of his time in another country with his wife, and I'm wondering now if they actually live in Croatia. Was that just a fun nod to his actual home? And is he going back home, necessitating the Skype calls?

[DXD526]

I, too, loved how they handled the "love ya" situation. When Bonnie was obsessing about it, I was sure she was going to make a big deal out of saying it back, only to have him not even remember, because he said it casually. That's what just about every sitcom ever would have done, but not this one. I love that about this show, its unpredictability.

[candall]

I heard "luvya" too and thought Bonnie obsessing was weird.

Edited April 30, 2016 by candall
Deleted "sore subject" topic. Stuck to the show, for once.

[Blakeston]

On 4/29/2016 at 0:12 PM, ExplainItAgain said:

OK, I've missed a few episodes here and there and I haven't seen last night's episode yet...but is Christy actually in law school? Or is she completing her 4-year degree so she can go to law school? I'm not sure if she had her college degree before or not.

I've seen every episode of this season and last season, and it's not much clearer to me. They established not that long ago that she didn't have a college degree, so it would make sense for her to be getting her bachelor's - but the most recent episode really made it seem like she was in law school. (Unless she's in an undergraduate class that's just like a law school class, which would just be confusing.)

I suspect they're handwaving her lack of a four-year degree so that they can go straight to Christy-in-law-school plots. Maybe we're supposed to believe that she was only a few credits short of a bachelor's degree, and she completed that since she mentioned that she doesn't have a college degree.

[Big Mother]

From wikipedia:

 

As of June 2014, Fichtner lives in Prague, Czech Republic, where he filmed the television series Crossing Lines.

[EtheltoTillie]

I think Christy's still in college with pre-law type classes.  The material she is studying is nothing like a real law school class.  She says she wants to be a lawyer, but she doesn't say she's in law school. 

[ExplainItAgain]

23 minutes ago, GussieK said:

I think Christy's still in college with pre-law type classes.  The material she is studying is nothing like a real law school class.  She says she wants to be a lawyer, but she doesn't say she's in law school. 

This is what I'm inclined to think too after seeing the episode. They are kind of talking around it though. Even completing her bachelor's would be a great accomplishment so it's weird they gloss over it.

[juliet73]

Is William Fitcher returning to Prison Break for S5? They are filming in Canada so maybe that's why he's going to be gone for a few months.

[happy turtles]

On May 1, 2016 at 1:40 PM, Big Mother said:

From wikipedia:

 

As of June 2014, Fichtner lives in Prague, Czech Republic, where he filmed the television series Crossing Lines.

Thanks Big Mother, that does ring a bell now that you mention that.

 

20 hours ago, juliet73 said:

Is William Fitcher returning to Prison Break for S5? They are filming in Canada so maybe that's why he's going to be gone for a few months.

From your lips to God's ears....I'm so hoping he returns for that. Unfortunately he is one of few that I have NOT heard as confirmed for a return.

[tobeyoungagain]

On ‎4‎/‎22‎/‎2016 at 10:51 AM, ExplainItAgain said:

 

Totally agree. It's funny that the kids are barely even mentioned now! They were a much bigger part of the earlier seasons. Seems like even Baxter's screen time has been cut.

 

Is Christy still in school? I can't remember where they are with that storyline.

She is in law school ... totally agree.  It focuses less on Christy as a mom and her family life and more on Christy as a woman and her relationship with her mom and the other women in recovery.  They barely show Violet or the little boy (can't remember his name).  I'm loving the show!

It's funny that she doesn't have either of her kids with her but she seems ok with it!

On ‎4‎/‎23‎/‎2016 at 7:03 PM, Snow Apple said:

I like early Two and a Half Men when Alan was normal and Charlie, while a dog, wasn't slimy gross. With Mom, it's the opposite for me. I like the newer seasons more than the early ones. 

 

I hope we see Travis again. Should be interesting.

Me too ... it would suck if they just let that go when there's so much more potential there to explore. 

[Chaos Theory]

I understand what the show is trying to do and say when it comes to the kids.  Violet has never completely forgiven her mother for her own childhood and got knocked up in her teens and his now engaged to a man old enough to be her father.  She wanted a more stable life but this last episode and from the previews in the next stable may be easier said then done.

 

i think Christy unlike Bonnieunderstands how much she screwed up her daughters life and is trying to be supportive even if that means living at a distance.  As for the son (whose name I forget) bChristy is again trying to do the right thing by allowing him to live with his father whose life is more stable then here.  Its not like she never sees him.  She just doesn't have primary custody.  Which also allows her to make herself a better person at least in theory for them,

[roughing it]

From the episode last night, Christy is attending community college with hopes to transfer to a 4-year university, and then hopefully on to law school.

[kelslamu]

This is one of the few shows that always make me laugh.  Jill was killing me this time as well. Strangely enough, I actually remember her son's name is Roscoe.

Edited May 6, 2016 by kelslamu

[ExplainItAgain]

3 hours ago, roughing it said:

From the episode last night, Christy is attending community college with hopes to transfer to a 4-year university, and then hopefully on to law school.

This makes much more sense! I don't know why I was so concerned about this!

I really like Jill, but just to be shallow for a moment, I really don't like that short haircut on Jamie.

[kelslamu]

I don't really care for the short hair either.  I do know she looks way better than I would in it, though! 

[Big Mother]

I really enjoyed this episode, especially the Allison Janney West Wing meta dream, lol!

 

I've been wondering for a while why bonnie and Christie sleep in one bed when there are clearly 2 bedrooms in the house...?