S01.E14: The Party's Over

[Tara Ariano]

Jealousy spoils Meghan's dinner party when Josh gets suspicious of her friend from work; Peter's forbidden relationship catches up with him; and Ragini agrees to a blood test to check her fertility.

[Primetimer]

Lisa makes herself useful for the first time ever, while the other two couples have a harder time holding up their share of the episode. Your editors discuss!

Read the story

[walnutqueen]

Christian and Maria just stay in the house all day, every day.  Wow.

 

Josh is a dumb jerk.

 

Ragini and Veeral, who?

[PityFree]

I did think the expression on Ragani's face when that little girl tripped was hilarious.

[Squirrely]

Christian and Maria just stay in the house all day, every day. Wow.

Why isn't he working? I'm so confused as to how this is supposed to work. It's more like his folks adopted another teenager than anything.

Poor Peter. His story is the most interesting now. Kid can't even ask a simple question. And he's told he's too young and immature to CHOOSE a wife, yet he's a year or less away from HAVING a wife? Because yeah, the parents did such a wonderful job with big brother and he should trust their sterling judgment. I'd bet anything that he'd toe the line and happily marry a Gypsy girl if they'd just let him have some say so in the situation.

[lazylou]

Guess Meghan got that mixer...a deluxe KitchenAid, no less.  But the stools seem to have been returned to the store.  We seem to have a formula in play:  couple fights, wife leaves for home...   Couple goes on trip...Jersey Shore, Mexico, indiana...high jinx ensue.     Couple gives a party for one reason or another...

Now, maybe they are all preggers?  (Doubt it.)

 

Couples counseling with the parents observing?  I'm sure that is going to be effective!

 

But, really great cliff hanger for the finale.

[Pepper Mostly]

Guess Meghan got that mixer...a deluxe KitchenAid, no less.  But the stools seem to have been returned to the store. 

 

That mixer was probably on her gift registry. Why would a woman so inept in the kitchen have a deluxe mixer otherwise?

Seriously, they invited LISA up for the dinner party? And Queen Lisa, who knows from class, puts all the dinner guests on the spot by asking "what do you (low class, oafish) Yankees really think of Southerners?" So awkward! Made worse by Josh's glowering. Meghan's poor workmates!

I thought Josh was a resident--how does he have so much free time? I thought medical residents worked ridiculously long hours and spent the rest of their time sleeping?

 

I'm guessing that the cliffhanger with Ragini and Veeral is that the doctor is going to tell Ragini that she has the ovaries of a 20 year old. And that she is already pregnant! Any takers?

 

Christian doesn't work! I bet Michael doesn't either, unless he runs a roofing or driveway paving scam. Maria and Nina sell flowers at vastly inflated prices to drunk people. Its a rich life. /sarcasm. Poor Peter. He seems to have a head on his shoulders. What a waste. He won't go to college or have any kind of opportunity, in the name of keeping the culture unspoiled.

[Straycat80]

So apparently Christian doesn't work because he and Maria 'sit in the house all day'. Gah! What does Michael do for a living besides plan out his sons futures and body guards the women when they are peddling their flowers? If they don't want Peter texting Gadje girls why don't they take the phone away?

Josh really is a douche. He works with women and talks to them. Is he that much of a chauvinist? Lisa showing up at the door with her suitcase seemed so scripted to me. I know Meghan said she was coming to help but then she looked surprised to see her at the door. Bless her heart.

I liked watching Ragini and Veeral having fun on their trip. He seems like a nicer guy when he's not around his family. I'm going to bet her test comes back fine.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Straycat80

[Evil Queen]

  Maybe it was just me but Nina came off in bad light when she was telling Maria she was giving her attitude and to just leave her to the cleaning. Maybe it was just stress over things and how Maria and Christian would come off but Maria didn't say much at all to get that crap from her. I do say that it seemed Maria and Christian seemed a little better with each other in this one. He made sure to replace his ring which was a good thing. I can imagine it wasn't cheap though which then comes back to where is the money coming from. I know they never show the men work or even mention it. While we know the rest of them all work with the other couples. Oh I also noticed that Christian didn't say a word about Maria knowing anything about Peter. At least that we saw. He seemed to be understanding on her not just saying stuff about Peter too. With them crying in the preview and how Maria called Christian, I wonder if Peter runs away. Heck I wouldn't blame him if he did. Obviously Nina doesn't take his phone away for to long either. 

  

    I would bet Josh had his mom come early since he is such a mama's boy. He needs to get a clue though. I can't stand him. Never have been able to with how he is about everything. LOL That guy she works with isn't much of a looker IMO and looks like a little kid but Josh makes himself ugly with his attitude and behavior. His mom...omg how many times has she ever left her city? LOL The way he spoke to Meghan was horrible at that dinner party. How uncomfortable for the guests and her. Seems like Josh wants to keep Meghan in a locked room if he is worried about her working with men he considers good looking. Yet didn't seem Meghan was worried about him working with good looking women. Guess he is insecure when she has ever seemed to give a reason for him to be that way. 

 

OMG I could care less about Ragini and Veeral. Its just heading towards them saying she is pregnant it seems like. As it is I find it funny that they went to a fertility doctor when they weren't even trying to have a baby yet. Don't most couples wait on that kind of stuff until they have been trying a year or so? 

[WhoAmIReally]

What a useless episode.  What I learned:

 

1.  Veeral is a nice guy.

2.  Josh has rage and control issues that will likely lead to domestic violence.  If a guy shows jealousy and hostility in public like that, there's something really wrong.  Also, he's just plain ugly. 

3.  Ha ha, Megan is going to be in better shape than Josh.  That'll piss him off.

4.  Don't care about the Queens Gypsy Crew at all.  Useless.  I would really like to axe dem why they don' wanna learn their kids to speak English right.

[numbnut]

Josh really is a douche. He works with women and talks to them. Is he that much of a chauvinist?

 

Scripted or not, Josh gets more and more unlikable with each episode. He lacks a sensitivity chip and always need to be right, which are horrible traits for a doctor. (Would he ever admit to giving someone the wrong diagnosis?) It seems like he was the most popular guy in high school and it went to his head. So now he's having an identity crisis because he's getting fat, losing his hair, and his wife has a life. And don't get me started on him using sex as a weapon. Dude is clueless. I feel for Meghan.

Edited November 19, 2015 by numbnut

[suzeecat]

So Megan calls Josh to tell him she's going out with friends after work and Josh says he doesn't have a problem with that except he wishes she wouldn't "spring it on him".  I was yelling at my TV "At least she called, which was more than you did when you went out after work!"

 

It's hard for me to decide which of these three scenarios is most scripted, but I'm going to go with Christian/Maria.  My hope is that the employment issue will be addressed at a reunion or follow-up special because this is a huge gap in their story line and I'm insulted that they don't expect me to notice.  I can't help but get a racist vibe from all their "gadji" talk.  Put any other white culture couple out there and replace "black" with "gadji" in their conversations and look out for the backlash. 

 

Put me in with the "Rajini is already pregnant" camp.

[qtpye]

I know that Josh probably was not expecting Megan to work in a gym, but where is she going to work where there are not any guys better looking than Josh?  A nun's convent?  Perhaps a women's prison?

 

Josh wants her to work and bring in money, but still cater to his every need like mama.

 

I remember a doctor I knew complaining that his wife (who was working full time while raising two little kids with him) rarely had his shirts ironed to his satisfaction.  I then asked him what chores he did around the house and got a blank stare from him. 

 

He never thought about doing anything around the house that he would deem "woman's work".  He never washed the dishes, vacuumed, cleaned, or did laundry.  He was a doctor, but I think this is not something that is unique to doctors. 

 

I think some men in the south (not all) expect that if they have a good job, they should be waited on hand and foot.  It does not matter that society has changed and their wives work.  Mama taught them they are little kings of the castle and that is the way it should be.

 

It's hard for me to decide which of these three scenarios is most scripted, but I'm going to go with Christian/Maria.  My hope is that the employment issue will be addressed at a reunion or follow-up special because this is a huge gap in their story line and I'm insulted that they don't expect me to notice.  I can't help but get a racist vibe from all their "gadji" talk.  Put any other white culture couple out there and replace "black" with "gadji" in their conversations and look out for the backlash.

 

 

 

It is absolutely racist and xenophobic.  The Roma people have put up these barriers originally to guard against discrimination and prejudice.  However, now they have a mentality that whoever is not them is bad.  It keeps their children in check, but probably stifles them as a community.  What would Nina and Michael say if Maria suddenly wanted to go to college?  A good Roma wife does not have such thoughts, so be satisfied with selling flowers to drunks and giving all the money to your unemployed husband.

[numbnut]

What would Nina and Michael say if Maria suddenly wanted to go to college?  A good Roma wife does not have such thoughts, so be satisfied with selling flowers to drunks and giving all the money to your unemployed husband.

 

I remember renting "King of the Gypsies" as a kid. It's an over-the-top melodrama from the 70s (Eric Roberts causes drama when he dates a "gadji" and tries to save his baby sister Brooke Shields from being married off to some fat kid). It now seems like a documentary after seeing the Romani in Arranged. Nina sounds just like Susan Sarandon in that movie ("dem, deez, doze peoples"). 

Edited November 19, 2015 by numbnut

[Pepper Mostly]

King of the Gypsies is a book by Peter Maas, the guy who wrote Serpico.  Another interesting book about Roma people in the US today is Hastened to the Grave, by Jack Olsen, who's a pretty well respected true crime writer. Neither one is especially complimentary to the Romani culture. Books are hard to come by, there are few about American Romani.

[becauseIsaidso]

I agree that all the emphasis on coercing the kids to confine their relationship only to Roma as well as controlling their lives and pushing them into marriage at a very young age does smack of racism....but I don't think that is the place Michael (and perhaps other Roma) are coming from. When I hear him, I am listening to a man who is truly worried about his 'race' - the Roma - dying out, and is following the age old formula of preventing that through control. But ironclad control of one generation over the next has dropped down the evolutionary scale and lost its effectiveness - as well as alienating the very people - the children - they are seeking to protect.

 

Loss of ethnic individuality happens on a bit by bit basis....ever heard of Marie Sklodowska?  Bet you have. But not as a Pole. She happened to marry a man named Pierre Curie and, as had been the unquestioned norm of the time, surrendered her name to take his. I had known the name Marie Curie long, long before I ever learned, quite by accident, that she was a fellow Pole. How about Karol Vojtyla? He gave up his name as well - when he became Pope John Paul II....his ethnicity was not so easily ignored as Marie Sklodowska's....I had learned these facts shortly before a smartass challenged me to name "one pollack who ever amounted to anything", and was astounded I could come up with not one, but three - add Copernicus. Ethnic slurs/stereotypes last a very long, long, time...

 

I would rather see Michael, Nina, all the Elders, et al, start to encourage their Roma children to get as much education as possible, to find their talent, their passion and to pursue it, to integrate themselves into those crafts, professions, arts their talents lead them to and make a name for their 'race' in that manner....rather than insulate themselves, they can make themselves desirable members of any society and still, perhaps with even the inclusion of an outsider or two, maintain their Roma identity.

[Soup333]

Josh has rage and control issues that will likely lead to domestic violence.  If a guy shows jealousy and hostility in public like that, there's something really wrong.  Also, he's just plain ugly. 

 

If Megan doesn't get out of that marriage, she'll be an empty shell in a few years. Josh was raised by a narcissist and he's no better than his mother in the way he treats Megan. I have no doubt that if he has a stressful day at work, which is inevitable for a resident, it'll somehow turn out to be Megan's fault. She'll end up apologizing for some perceived slight and he'll eventually come around to say he forgives her. She'll spend the rest of her life apologizing and trying to do whatever she can do to make him happy and none of it will work. He'll continually tear her down. She already had the look of an abused woman when her friend/show plant was teasing her about having to tell Josh about her coworker standing so close while training her. The look on her face wasn't just annoyance, it was fear. She knew Josh would lose it if he heard that. 

[Squirrely]

I would rather see Michael, Nina, all the Elders, et al, start to encourage their Roma children to get as much education as possible, to find their talent, their passion and to pursue it, to integrate themselves into those crafts, professions, arts their talents lead them to and make a name for their 'race' in that manner....rather than insulate themselves, they can make themselves desirable members of any society and still, perhaps with even the inclusion of an outsider or two, maintain their Roma identity.

Yes. See: Ragini and Veeral. Granted, Indians aren't exactly in danger of dying out, but the cultures are very similar while still being worlds apart. Imagine young women like Maria being allowed the education and life experience Ragini has had. It didn't stop her from honoring her culture in the long run, and though most don't think she and Veeral are a good match, either one of them could have called it off. They can try to pretend they were arranged all they want, but they both had a choice.

[lazylou]

No doubt Ragini is going to get good news from the doc.  Surely bad news would not have been hyped like this for two solid weeks.  I think that, whatever Veeral and Ragini's mouths may be saying, their body language says they enjoy each other.  Without conflict there is no story, so I think the endless arguments about babies and family is the best they could do for conflict.  Oddly, the happy honeymoon scenes were to me the most entertaining moments of their story.

 

Josh and Meghan...well, he is a prick.  But maybe that, too, is for the benefit of FYI.  I hope so for Meghan's sake.  

 

The efforts of Romani culture to maintain itself unchanged by home schooling children seems tragic to me.  Too bad Christian and Maria cannot go on to school.  Christian's English is much better than his parents' and very much better than Maria's.  Christian wrote on Twitter that he had finished high school and was "college eligible"..whatever that means.  I am not so sure about Maria.  It is obviously a secret what Michael does for a living, but clear that he has money.  Maybe Christian does whatever his father does.  Yes, I heard him say he does nothing all day, but that may well be a statement made to avoid revealing what he does do.  Trouble is that this secrecy does little to dispel "gadje" suspicions.  

 

Seems like an interesting TV drama could be centered around a Roma family...fiction could be true to traditions without a requirement to seem unscripted.

[StayingAfterSunday]

  Maybe it was just me but Nina came off in bad light when she was telling Maria she was giving her attitude and to just leave her to the cleaning. Maybe it was just stress over things and how Maria and Christian would come off but Maria didn't say much at all to get that crap from her. I do say that it seemed Maria and Christian seemed a little better with each other in this one. He made sure to replace his ring which was a good thing. I can imagine it wasn't cheap though which then comes back to where is the money coming from. I know they never show the men work or even mention it. While we know the rest of them all work with the other couples. Oh I also noticed that Christian didn't say a word about Maria knowing anything about Peter. At least that we saw. He seemed to be understanding on her not just saying stuff about Peter too. With them crying in the preview and how Maria called Christian, I wonder if Peter runs away. Heck I wouldn't blame him if he did. Obviously Nina doesn't take his phone away for to long either. 

  

    I would bet Josh had his mom come early since he is such a mama's boy. He needs to get a clue though. I can't stand him. Never have been able to with how he is about everything. LOL That guy she works with isn't much of a looker IMO and looks like a little kid but Josh makes himself ugly with his attitude and behavior. His mom...omg how many times has she ever left her city? LOL The way he spoke to Meghan was horrible at that dinner party. How uncomfortable for the guests and her. Seems like Josh wants to keep Meghan in a locked room if he is worried about her working with men he considers good looking. Yet didn't seem Meghan was worried about him working with good looking women. Guess he is insecure when she has ever seemed to give a reason for him to be that way. 

 

OMG I could care less about Ragini and Veeral. Its just heading towards them saying she is pregnant it seems like. As it is I find it funny that they went to a fertility doctor when they weren't even trying to have a baby yet. Don't most couples wait on that kind of stuff until they have been trying a year or so? 

 

I wonder if Nina is simply becoming frustrated with Maria's flat affect as well as the apparent "divide" between her and Christian.   Nina admitted early on that she was the main facilitator in arranging this marriage between Christian and Maria. I think she mentioned Maria's attractive physical appearance as one of the factors on which she based the match. The similarities, then, between Maria and Christian seem rather limited:  They are both reasonably good-looking young people, and they are gypsies, or "Romani" people with mutual cultural practices.  Their personalities, however, seem to be continents apart.  It's very possible that Nina is seeing Maria in a more realistic light (and vice versa, of course), and her real feelings are starting to emerge. 

 

About Josh and Meghan:   Ever notice the way he informs Meghan each morning that "I'm going to work."  He expresses this in such a way so as to suggest that he is the productive one of the two.   He does not like the idea of going out to "work" while she has all day to play at the gym and flirt with strange guys.  (that's the world through Josh the Doctor's eyes.  And, unfortunately, I speak from first-hand experience.) Poor Meghan.

Edited November 23, 2015 by StayingAfterSunday

[SnarkKitty]

I don't think that whole Nina/Maria scene was anything except an excuse so Maria could expository a "Nina is annoyed, this secret we're keeping is getting in the way" to the narrative. They're all terrible actors.

[becauseIsaidso]

Why the fvk does Veeral keep calling Ragini 'dude'?   It really sounds stupid....but then again...considering the source....I guess it makes perfect sense he would do that...

[still hoping]

Of course let me be politically incorrect...but yeah it bothers me that we are supposed to call "them" Romani or whatever instead of Gypsies

when they call "us" Gadgi and most gagi are paying taxes which I doubt they are ...duhhh

 

The history of the Romani is that they are actually ethnically from a part of India....so the arranged  on here is actually 2/3 Indian heritage

 

My true thought is that all 3 "cultures" are narrow minded....do Ragni and Vernal have any NON Indian friends?

I think she might eventually get with either a more "American" Indian guy or a NON Indian guy

 

Josh is a younger male version of Lisa...and that is NOT nice

The "mothers" and Megan iive in  long gone southern dream world

 

But I do love a good trainwreck

[okerry]

I find it very, very annoying that the Romani (or whatever) prohibit their children from getting a real education, because that prevents those same kids from ever contributing to the society that they greatly benefit from. I mean, how many Romani doctors or lawyers or firefighters or schoolteachers are there? I'm assuming there are none. It's an extremely selfish and ultimately self-destructive attitude, and very sad for all of those kids. But yeah, they can't have any "normal" professions, so where does all that money come from? Yeah.

 

On the show, at least, Josh is a complete and total asshole. He does not love Meghan and has zero respect for her. Mommy pushed him into marrying this girl and that's the only reason he's there. What kind of newlywed husband cuts off his wife from sex because she doesn't have a job?? Answer: Not one ever, unless he's already got something else on the side. Which is what I'd be looking for pronto if I were Meghan. Because honey, no young male is going to simply go without because he's annoyed at his wife. Crikey.

[Evil Queen]

I find it very, very annoying that the Romani (or whatever) prohibit their children from getting a real education, because that prevents those same kids from ever contributing to the society that they greatly benefit from. I mean, how many Romani doctors or lawyers or firefighters or schoolteachers are there? I'm assuming there are none. It's an extremely selfish and ultimately self-destructive attitude, and very sad for all of those kids. But yeah, they can't have any "normal" professions, so where does all that money come from? Yeah.

 

On the show, at least, Josh is a complete and total asshole. He does not love Meghan and has zero respect for her. Mommy pushed him into marrying this girl and that's the only reason he's there. What kind of newlywed husband cuts off his wife from sex because she doesn't have a job?? Answer: Not one ever, unless he's already got something else on the side. Which is what I'd be looking for pronto if I were Meghan. Because honey, no young male is going to simply go without because he's annoyed at his wife. Crikey.

Agree with all you said. I'd love to know where the money comes from with them. I've seen ones similar to them and they talked about it but for some reason this group is not saying. 

  And Josh is totally like his mom. Its disgusting to see him belittle her every chance he can. Only reason he will act like all is good is so he can get a meal cooked and his laundry done. No person should ever use sex like that or for anything. One day it will come back to bite him in the ass for it too. I had the thought too that making there was something on the side but they didn't go there with that at all. Just him getting jealous over her male coworker..which was lame.