Helen Solloway: Ice Queen or Misunderstood Ex-Wife?

[AmandaPanda]

Your Helen topic!

[scrb]

Are all the narrators in the show unreliable?

 

Is this show a one-trick pony in that regard?

 

Does that mean the mitigating circumstances in Helen's POV for the things which make her look bad just a load of BS?

[carryanation]

We've seen her get drunk off her ass in three different episodes now and drive drunk in two. I think she's an alcoholic.

 

One thing that's bothered me this whole season: People have mentioned that it's weird we never see her emotional reaction to the pregnancy but I think it's even weirder that she didn't have one for Noah airing all their dirty laundry in best-selling novel. Wouldn't she have an opinion on hundreds of thousands of people knowing all the lurid details of the destruction of their marriage? I mean she didn't like her friends gossiping about her before and it's got to be... so much worse now.

[Superpole2000]

I used to love this character. She had many interesting elements to her story, but then the writers had her commit two DUI offences with spectacularly bad consequences. Now I hate her. Character assassination at its finest.

[marys1000]

Her upper lip drives me crazy.  In a bad way.  What's wrong with it? It looks......loose.  and its always puckered or pursed. 

[Constantinople]

Uber's driver of the year

[scrb]

Some shady antics by Helen in the latest episode.

So the women in this show don't always come across the best.

Treem is presumably a feminist?

[izabella]

The men come across pretty bad, too.  No one on this show comes across well.  Even if they seem decent at first, soon Treem gives us something to loathe about them.

[DNR]

What is with that pouty lip thing Maura Tierney ( Helen) does?? I hate it 

[DarkRaichu]

8 hours ago, DNR said:

What is with that pouty lip thing Maura Tierney ( Helen) does?? I hate it 

That's her thing.  She even did it way back in her Newsradio days.  What was that? 20 years ago? Man I am getting old :P

[Snewtsie]

Until this last episode (ep 6), I was a big Helen fan.  I sympathized with her and found her POV to be the most interesting.  But this last episode showed her as such a despicable person... self absorbed, rude, entitled, immoral.  She treated everyone like dirt.  Is this rooted in self hatred?- 4 years of guilt from letting Noah go to prison could really mess a person up.  Or are we to think she was always this insufferable person?

Everyone has a dark side, so of course Helen possessed negative qualities beforehand, but to what degree?  Nina was never a fan of her, we are clear about that.  We also know Max idolized her- which could support that she was always a jerk and he saw a kindred spirit. Have we ever seen her do one nice thing for anyone?   I'm trying hard to think back on past episodes, and I honestly cannot recall seeing one selfless, compassionate, thoughtful act toward another person.  Am I missing something? ...and if true, how did I not pick up on it before?  

I think I just assumed she had been "wronged" by Noah when he had the affair and left her.  But seeing her in this week's episode made me see her as someone with no redeeming qualities.  I am starting to get on board with the prediction the original couples will go back to each other.  Noah and Helen, I think now, deserve each other. 

[scrb]

So which is the real Helen?

In Noah's POVs in the first two seasons, she was the one ordering him around, getting her way.

In Alison's POVs, she comes across as overbearing the few times they run into each other.

But in her own POV, Helen is more meek, less sure of herself.

To a certain extent, each of the characters are more aggressive in other POVs.  But with Helen, you also get clues from her relatives.  Both her parents are overbearing, used to getting their way or demanding it loudly.  

Of course Whitney is a spoiled princess, who's also demanding and set in her prejudices.

People often model their behavior after their parents, without consciously doing so.  So you would think Helen takes after her parents and Whitney takes after Helen, leading to the conclusion that Helen is more like how Noah and Alison see her than the way she sees herself.

Even in one of her recent POVs, you see the diva-ish behavior of a spoiled girl in the way she handles Max.

Edited January 10, 2017 by scrb

[Snewtsie]

@scrb - interesting points.  I am thinking it's common for women to view themselves with more insecurities than others see in them ...it's been true with Helen, true with Alison, and it was also true with Madame Eau So Franch.  Helen's parents are so domineering, I have to believe she leans toward that direction herself.  All her years, she has only known life as a privileged, entitled, and getting her way ...and what's worse, the divorce seems to have hardened her.  

[SunnyBeBe]

Helen’s character is really the most despicable of them all,  that I have seen so far. I’m up  to the last season.   It’s difficult to watch as I normally like this actress.   In a way it’s good to watch her character though, because for all that she seems to have, she is a bankrupt person. I still have no idea what Vic saw in her...makes no sense.  

Edited September 7, 2020 by SunnyBeBe

[AngelaHunter]

On 9/7/2020 at 12:04 PM, SunnyBeBe said:

I still have no idea what Vic saw in her...makes no sense.  

I never understood either what made her so irresistible to him.

[SunnyBeBe]

8 minutes ago, AngelaHunter said:

I never understood either what made her so irresistible to him.

Alison was pretty bad too. I lost sympathy for her after a while due to the loss of her daughter.  She seemed to thrive on being a pain in the arse.  She destroyed so many lives, along with Noah.  So many destructive people in this series.  
 

Do you recall the night they showed Alison when she died? They were at her apartment. Yet, when Colte leaves CA, he stops by Chicago to see her at the conference, but only Ben was there.  I don’t see how that makes sense. 

[AngelaHunter]

I don't think Alison "thrived" on being a PITA. I think she was a deeply disturbed, unhappy and depressed person, as demonstrated by her cutting and self-destructive behavior.

I don't remember the sequence of events and flashbacks following Alison's death. Sorry.