Recovery Road - General Discussion

[KaveDweller]

I actually like the Cynthia/Maddie/Charlotte thing the show is doing. Both women want what is best for Maddie abd Charlotte is bound to get jealous that her daughter is going to someone else instead of her. I think the show handled the friction well.

 

I like it too, but  man, Cynthia is totally going to lose her job over all this.

[ZuluQueenOfDwarves]

I do NOT get Maddie's relationship to her guidance counselor. Cynthia is clearly close to Charlotte, and has seemingly known Maddie most if not all her life, so there's more there than the typical counselor/student relationship, so I can't see how being Maddie's sponsor crosses a boundary that hasn't already been blurred. Of course, that could be Charlotte justifying her own jealousy and neuroses.

Trish definitely has an undiagnosed mental condition. Her mom didn't investigate it when she was a child because the administrator was needlessly combative instead of supportive. She had no interest in Trish's best interests (shades of Cynthia's fiancé there) and put her mom in direct opposition to her. As an administrator, she should've done better, but it happens with painful frequency. Now any bizarre behavior on Trish's part will likely be attributed to her drug use and it could be years before she gets real help. Did like seeing Erika Alexander as her mom though.

How long are they allowed to stay at the sober house? Last week Vern said he was going on 3 years, and both Wes and Trish have almost 6 months.

Is the grandmother not being allowed to come and go at her pleasure a truth in television thing? She obviously needs help if she fell and was badly injured, but since she's currently perfectly ambulatory and seemingly in full possession of her faculties, I see no reason why her freedom should be limited, or why POA is being discussed. If that's a real thing faced by the elderly what a horrifying prospect growing old is.

[candall]

I like the Cynthia/Maddie/Charlotte storyline, too, in the sense of a mother's conflict about her child's addiction versus losing some intimacy with that child when someone else can offer what the mother can't.

 

But Cynthia's a mess!

 

--She's deceiving her boss, who's also her fiancé.

--She let her friendship with Charlotte overrule her professional mandates.

--For Maddie, she's an authority figure from school, but also a co-conspirator, fellow addict, frequent friendly drop-in guest at the sober house.

--She has a conflict of interest between Charlotte and Maddie:   she shouldn't be Maddie's sponsor in the first place, but after saying yes, she had no business bringing Charlotte into the equation, and THEN she sets up this wink-wink "interim sponsorship" with Maddie to get around Charlotte's refusal.  

--Such a tattletale. 

 

******

I guess that baby's been dead for awhile?  Is Wes' mother the local drug kingpin?

[JoJoPowerRanger]

This may be kind of random but I'm kind of surprised by the amount of interracial relationships on this show -- 

 

Maddie's mom and Maddie's deceased father

Margarita and her husband

Trish and her boyfriend/drug partner/baby daddy?? from the flashbacks

And probably soon-to-be Maddie and Wes

 

Anyway yea this is probably the most I've seen on one show. And I like it!

[dmmetler]

I like that they seem to be going in the direction that Trish has untreated issues. It's so common for kids to self-Medicate, and it can be a real complication in treating addiction.

[Aimless]

Maddie is at a loss with how to help when Trish faces a crisis, but Maddie's good intentions may have a devastating effect on her roommate. Wes struggles with a secret, compounded by the chaos happening in the house. And a disturbing truth comes to light at Springtime Meadows.

 

 

No comments on the twist in the episode? Did anyone see it coming?  I absolutely did not - even after Maddie pointed out that the picture was obviously a very old one.  I tend to be very slow on the uptake with these things and was like "what are they saying . . . her kid is actually older and she hasn't seen her in a REALLY long time?"

 

It wasn't until the scene with the tattoo that the penny dropped, and I was shocked!  Do you think there really was never a baby?  I could swear of of the flashbacks showed a stroller and a high chair, but maybe I'm mixing them up.

[Chaos Theory]

I saw it coming. I realized last episode that Trish had mental issues and this episode it became clearer and clearer that her kid didn't exist. I think psychosis is one of the side effects of extreme meth use.

I also liked the backstory with Wes and his brother.

I am curious how well this show is doing because the lack of traction on PTV is worrisome. I like this show.

Edited March 2, 2016 by Chaos Theory

[Whimsy]

I saw it coming, but I will admit I didn't see it coming until the end of the last episode. 

[possibilities]

Wes stashing the gun freaked me out.

[KaveDweller]

I guessed it when Maddie couldn't find a picture and then Trish said she didn't know how to describe her. I think there must have been a baby at one point though, and maybe it died and she couldn't deal with the grief?

 

Wes stashing the gun freaked me out.

 

That is definitely not going to stay hidden, and things will not end well. I'm guessing someone gets shot as a season ending cliffhanger.

[candall]

I speculated last week that the baby was long dead, but I watched the scene with Trish's mother again and their dialogue holds up under the "no baby at all" theory.

 

I thought a nice twist was Trish saying, "I know you think I made the baby up because I've heard that before, but it's not true."  Uh-oh, crazy girl sounds rational there for a minute--now what are we supposed to think??  Good move, show.

[dmmetler]

She may have miscarried or delivered prematurely and lost the baby. Meth is linked to miscarriage and premature birth as well as psychotic hallucinations, and I know that after losing a baby I had periods where I'd find myself rocking the cat, only to come to and realize my baby was purring. It was weird-and according to my perinatologist, is actually quite common for a few months following loss of a baby until the hormones return to normal. Add the Meth, and she well may have basically gone into that state and just not snapped out of it, even now that she's off the drug. I'm sure she's met mothers who have lost custody of their children-and "getting sober for my baby" could be mixed in with guilt of feeling that she killed her baby (again, mothers who lose babies often do feel guilty even with no culpability on their part-add drug use, and she'd have a reason to feel guilty.)

All that is to say, it felt really plausible and "real" to me.

[AmandaPanda]

This was actually my favorite episode yet. I really love the Trish storyline and I find that I am far more interested in the secondary characters than Maddie. 

[ItsHelloPattiagain]

First time posting in this forum and I LOVE this show. 

 

Got a totally different twist on Trish - maybe I've watched too many episodes of Intervention but I know that victims of sexual abuse can disassociate and split into another personality. Maybe Trish wasn't ever pregnant but was sexually abused as a child (which led her off into substance abuse). She has this "little girl" in her that technically doesn't exist. Just a thought.

 

Either way, girlfriend needs some serious therapy. 

[Reghan]

I bet she had a miscarriage when she was on drugs. That was an interesting twist! I didn't see it coming until the tattoo scene. I'm actually really excited for tonight's episode!

[Chaos Theory]

First time posting in this forum and I LOVE this show.

Got a totally different twist on Trish - maybe I've watched too many episodes of Intervention but I know that victims of sexual abuse can disassociate and split into another personality. Maybe Trish wasn't ever pregnant but was sexually abused as a child (which led her off into substance abuse). She has this "little girl" in her that technically doesn't exist. Just a thought.

Either way, girlfriend needs some serious therapy.

I watch a lot of intervention too and one of the side effects of long term meth use is psychosis. Some of the crazies behaviors on that show were the meth users.

[candall]

Maddie and Charlotte reluctantly attend a party held by Rebecca's upper-class family; Wes' former girlfriend returns and drops a bombshell regarding his brother; Cynthia re-examines her relationship with her fiancé.

 

 

 

[candall]

I must have spaced out on Maddie & The Gang last week, so I came here to see what I could glean from the comments.  No thread!  Can someone give me a brief rundown on last week?  Did they explain Trish's mystery baby?  Any progress on the power struggle between Maddie's mother and guidance counselor?

 

I put up a thread for tonight's episode.  Hope that's okay.

[gpgurl50]

Ellie's suspicions about Maddie's recent behavior grow, leading her to discover where Maddie is now spending her time. Charlotte presses Wes for more information on Maddie's progress, leading Wes to suggest that Charlotte might need some help herself. Several relationships take surprising turns, and Wes, Vern, and Craig spend an afternoon bonding. Flashbacks show how Maddie and Ellie came to be friends, and Ellie's own tragic experiences with addiction.

[gpgurl50]

Since there were some questions, here is the gist of what happened:

 

We saw Ellie and Maddie's past. (Ellie is the friend Maddie was fighting with earlier in the season who was trying to drink with her).  I guess Ellie and Zach were friends first.  Maddie came joined their school late in the game and was somehow already friends with Rebecca.  Ellie was initially jealous of Maddie's instant popularity.  I guess there was always some tension between them but not much.

 

The flashbacks also revealed that Ellie had an uncle who she completely adored. He was a drug addict who had trouble staying clean.  He eventually died of an overdose and Ellie found his body as a child.

 

In the present, Ellie put together all of Maddie's sketchy behavior, went to the closest sober house and found Maddie there.  Maddie came clean but told Ellie to keep quiet.  Unfortunately, Ellie is so traumatized by what happened to her uncle that she decides to blab to another one of their friends so they can be vigilant in keeping Maddie sober.  Zach suspects all of Maddie's lying is because she's cheating on him (he's accidentally right there.  More on that later).  The other friend tells Zach that Maddie is in rehab to clear her name.  Terrible idea but these are kids who are high all the time.  Zach shows up at the sober house.  Maddie keeps lying to him even as he does.  They breakup.

 

Elsewhere, Maddie kissed Wes (there was no fallout for this either since Maddie broke up with her man for other reasons anyway).  Craig kissed Cynthia.  He got drunk while the guys took care of him which is nice I guess?  We saw no fallout of Maddie's friends spilling all her info.  Wes talked Charlotte into going to Al-Anon with them so they bonded a bit.

 

Also, Trish went off to get some help and was gone the whole episode.  The show has a way of skipping some consequences.

[gpgurl50]

I must have spaced out on Maddie & The Gang last week, so I came here to see what I could glean from the comments.  No thread!  Can someone give me a brief rundown on last week?  Did they explain Trish's mystery baby?  Any progress on the power struggle between Maddie's mother and guidance counselor?

 

Caught you up in the other thread.

 

I liked Maddie standing up for Rebecca but she threw her mother under the bus and didn't get in trouble at all for outing herself as been an alcoholic.  I guess we'll see Maddie and Rebecca in full effect again?

 

We sure got lead around by the nose this episode.

 

Also, Cynthia may have been being adventurous but her fiance was right.  There was a bunch of parents and students at that party and they work at a school that some of those kids go to.  Not cool.  Plus, it seemed like she was only into him at that moment because of Craig.

[KaveDweller]

Why didn't Maddie's mom just say something to her when she saw her climbing through the window? She's apparently afraid to ever yell or say no to Maddie. Making the guidance counselor search her locker is really messed up. I guess the plan was just to get her to the sober living place and she was never in danger of getting expelled?

Rebecca's father is the worst.

Are there really people out there who think about wanting to be a proctologist?

[possibilities]

It finally caught up with me that Maddie not trusting her friends to have her back is because she/they weren't there for Rebecca when R's life was falling apart. It seems strange to me that Ellie was in a group of partiers, and that she also abandoned Rebecca, given that they showed her being so adamant about sobriety and about supporting Maddie last week, but maybe I'm confused about the timeline or something.

 

Anyway, I feel like I should have caught on sooner to why Maddie was both so attached to these friends in the first place and so afraid to be real with them. I know that when your social circle revolves around getting drunk and high, you can't necessarily expect them to offer you anything deeper than that or stick by you when you get sober. But I had not caught on to the guilt/shame element that compounded it for Maddie, in that she had turned on Rebecca in a similar situation, thus was feeling like she didn't deserve to be supported.

 

I thought Maddie's mother not being able to confront Maddie in the flashbacks was really illustrative of how deep her co-dependency was rooted, and also helped to explain why she's so insanely jealous about Cynthia. She feels guilty too, she knows she was weak and cowardly as a parent, and she is worried Maddie will bond with Cynthia because "Cynthia is better as a parental figure/guide than my own mother." The thing is, Maddie's mother really is using Maddie to assuage her own loneliness, and is not acting like a responsible parent or guide at all. So I think that her guilt about that is actually well-founded, and that addressing her co-dependency and taking charge more is a really important step. Although I usually wouldn't think dating was such a great idea at her stage of recovery, I actually think it might be better than her trying to get companionship from her daughter, so I give it a pass.

 

Meanwhile, Cynthia is also kind of a co-dependent, if you ask me. She gets her emotional thrills from being a sponsor, it makes her feel validated, and I do think she's in it somewhat for the ego glorification. If she's really been in the recovery network for a long time, surely she knows lots and lots of women who could be great sponsors for Maddie, but she's deliberately clinging to the role despite seeing the conflict of interest. And she's also excited by keeping secrets, and was basically having an affair with Craig, so yeah-- not really showing how healthy she is right now....

 

Wes and the gun drives me crazy. I am still not convinced he should have trusted the woman so easily. Maybe she was just there to help set him up again. She can now say she knows he had the gun, knows where he buried it, and that he was an accessory to the murder. Nice plea deal for her in exchange for said testimony. Or she can report back to his brother, who will go retrieve the weapon and put it back in service for the next criminal endeavor. But Wes hiding the gun in the house in the first place was utterly insane. It's clear he doesn't have his shit together, but the way he just forgot about that whole thing until she came back and spelled it out to him, shows he's waaaay less along the recovery path than his other issues had really highlighted. Also, they buried it what? 3 inches deep? C'mon!

[candall]

Since there were some questions, here is the gist of what happened:

 

We saw Ellie and Maddie's past. (Ellie is the friend Maddie was fighting with earlier in the season who was trying to drink with her).  I guess Ellie and Zach were friends first.  Maddie came joined their school late in the game and was somehow already friends with Rebecca.  Ellie was initially jealous of Maddie's instant popularity.  I guess there was always some tension between them but not much.

 

The flashbacks also revealed that Ellie had an uncle who she completely adored. He was a drug addict who had trouble staying clean.  He eventually died of an overdose and Ellie found his body as a child.

 

In the present, Ellie put together all of Maddie's sketchy behavior, went to the closest sober house and found Maddie there.  Maddie came clean but told Ellie to keep quiet.  Unfortunately, Ellie is so traumatized by what happened to her uncle that she decides to blab to another one of their friends so they can be vigilant in keeping Maddie sober.  Zach suspects all of Maddie's lying is because she's cheating on him (he's accidentally right there.  More on that later).  The other friend tells Zach that Maddie is in rehab to clear her name.  Terrible idea but these are kids who are high all the time.  Zach shows up at the sober house.  Maddie keeps lying to him even as he does.  They breakup.

 

Elsewhere, Maddie kissed Wes (there was no fallout for this either since Maddie broke up with her man for other reasons anyway).  Craig kissed Cynthia.  He got drunk while the guys took care of him which is nice I guess?  We saw no fallout of Maddie's friends spilling all her info.  Wes talked Charlotte into going to Al-Anon with them so they bonded a bit.

 

Also, Trish went off to get some help and was gone the whole episode.  The show has a way of skipping some consequences.

Wow, thanks, much appreciated!  It sounds like this wasn't too terribly crucial to miss, which is good because my internet is too slow to stream anything.  : (

 

But what about Craig getting drunk? He's the guy in charge of the sober house, right?  Is that a big deal for him to drink, or is he not in recovery himself?  I think I remember him having some addiction history.

 

Okay, I'm off to Episode Eight.

 

(I think Trish's story is the most. . . either "dramatic" or "interesting," so I'm glad they didn't wrap that up.)

[WInterfalls]

They make a point of reminding everyone that Craig is not in the program in the previously but I still do not think it was appropriate for him to get drunk with people from the house and then go back to the house.  Maybe if it was his night off and he was going to a separate apartment I would be fine with it but going  back to the house? No.  

 

That said Cynthia needs to dump her fiance and get with Craig. Their make out session was hot. 

[candall]

Personally, I'd like to see a Jeff VanVonderen or a Candy Finnegan drop by now and then.

[ZuluQueenOfDwarves]

Is there a single authority figure on this show who hasn't rammed their head firmly up their ass? We already know what a mess Charlotte is, Cynthia hasn't met a boundary she didn't want to pole vault over, now we have Craig, who is frankly, a terrible counselor, ascends the plateau of his own ineptitude by getting plastered in a bar with his sober residents. I can't begin to count how many RL rules that violates. Also, Grandpa Ellie, if you go to your son's apartment because you're afraid he's relapsed, maybe don't bring your baby faced granddaughter with you. And if you do, perhaps she should wait outside. Not that it would lessen her grief, but it could've spared her the trauma of finding his corpse.

I want to like this show but all the storylines so far hinge on adults/authority figures behaving with less grace and maturity than they're supposed to be imparting on their charges. One such character would be intriguing. All of them being that way is just stupid.

[lofidelity]

It finally caught up with me that Maddie not trusting her friends to have her back is because she/they weren't there for Rebecca when R's life was falling apart. It seems strange to me that Ellie was in a group of partiers, and that she also abandoned Rebecca, given that they showed her being so adamant about sobriety and about supporting Maddie last week, but maybe I'm confused about the timeline or something.

It actually doesn't seem that strange to me, because Rebecca's "fall from grace" was different than Maddie's.  When the other kids find out about Maddie, she has been identified as an addict who is in treatment for her disease.  When the other kids found out about Rebecca, she was being arrested because she'd been caught dealing drugs to make extra money.  Maddie was presented to them as someone who needs help dealing with an illness, while Rebecca was presented to them as a fuckup who had gotten herself caught.  I'm sure if you asked Ellie & Co., though, they wouldn't identify themselves as addicts or as abusing drugs, and they wouldn't say that they're fuckups, either.  Kids usually aren't self-aware enough to say "Well, if my friend who does all the same stuff I do has a substance abuse problem, then maybe I have a substance abuse problem too."  (Or to say, "Well, if my one friend who got caught doing dumb shit with drugs because she's actually an addict, maybe my other friend who got caught doing dumb shit with drugs was actually an addict too.")

[lofidelity]

Is there a single authority figure on this show who hasn't rammed their head firmly up their ass? We already know what a mess Charlotte is, Cynthia hasn't met a boundary she didn't want to pole vault over, now we have Craig, who is frankly, a terrible counselor, ascends the plateau of his own ineptitude by getting plastered in a bar with his sober residents. I can't begin to count how many RL rules that violates.

I want to like this show but all the storylines so far hinge on adults/authority figures behaving with less grace and maturity than they're supposed to be imparting on their charges. One such character would be intriguing. All of them being that way is just stupid.

Yesssssssss.  There are a lot of things I like about this show, but it's got the same problem as Finding Carter: it gets so many of the basics of its subject matter wrong, and writes all of its adult characters as irresponsible and/or unethical -- in part because it's clueless about the basics of its subject matter and it part because the writers seem to believe that this makes things more dramatic -- when it would be so easy to write almost exactly the same plots and mine almost exactly the same drama, without resorting to wildly unrealistic situations and wildly inappropriate characters.  In fact, it would probably be more compelling if they tried to keep things realistic.  I mean, the total inappropriateness of nine-year-old Craig running the program and providing 99% of all the therapy for these addicts, Cynthia and Vern traipsing in and out of his office and being viewed as authority figures by the residents and knowing details of other residents' treatments, and Craig getting drunk with several of his sober charges could be solved if the writers had just...made up a program at which Cynthia, Vern, and Craig are all staff members but not in charge of the program and not anybody's therapist.  (It would also be solved if the writers made up their mind about whether Springtime Meadows is a sober living facility or a rehab.)  In fact, that's pretty much what I pretend is going on every time I watch the show now, so I don't have to acknowledge how fucking unethical literally everything every character does is.

Edited March 15, 2016 by lofidelity

[candall]

It finally caught up with me that Maddie not trusting her friends to have her back is because she/they weren't there for Rebecca when R's life was falling apart. It seems strange to me that Ellie was in a group of partiers, and that she also abandoned Rebecca, given that they showed her being so adamant about sobriety and about supporting Maddie last week, but maybe I'm confused about the timeline or something.

 

Anyway, I feel like I should have caught on sooner to why Maddie was both so attached to these friends in the first place and so afraid to be real with them. I know that when your social circle revolves around getting drunk and high, you can't necessarily expect them to offer you anything deeper than that or stick by you when you get sober. But I had not caught on to the guilt/shame element that compounded it for Maddie, in that she had turned on Rebecca in a similar situation, thus was feeling like she didn't deserve to be supported.

 

I thought Maddie's mother not being able to confront Maddie in the flashbacks was really illustrative of how deep her co-dependency was rooted, and also helped to explain why she's so insanely jealous about Cynthia. She feels guilty too, she knows she was weak and cowardly as a parent, and she is worried Maddie will bond with Cynthia because "Cynthia is better as a parental figure/guide than my own mother." The thing is, Maddie's mother really is using Maddie to assuage her own loneliness, and is not acting like a responsible parent or guide at all. So I think that her guilt about that is actually well-founded, and that addressing her co-dependency and taking charge more is a really important step. Although I usually wouldn't think dating was such a great idea at her stage of recovery, I actually think it might be better than her trying to get companionship from her daughter, so I give it a pass.

 

Meanwhile, Cynthia is also kind of a co-dependent, if you ask me. She gets her emotional thrills from being a sponsor, it makes her feel validated, and I do think she's in it somewhat for the ego glorification. If she's really been in the recovery network for a long time, surely she knows lots and lots of women who could be great sponsors for Maddie, but she's deliberately clinging to the role despite seeing the conflict of interest. And she's also excited by keeping secrets, and was basically having an affair with Craig, so yeah-- not really showing how healthy she is right now....

 

Wes and the gun drives me crazy. I am still not convinced he should have trusted the woman so easily. Maybe she was just there to help set him up again. She can now say she knows he had the gun, knows where he buried it, and that he was an accessory to the murder. Nice plea deal for her in exchange for said testimony. Or she can report back to his brother, who will go retrieve the weapon and put it back in service for the next criminal endeavor. But Wes hiding the gun in the house in the first place was utterly insane. It's clear he doesn't have his shit together, but the way he just forgot about that whole thing until she came back and spelled it out to him, shows he's waaaay less along the recovery path than his other issues had really highlighted. Also, they buried it what? 3 inches deep? C'mon!

^^^This is really good.  It hadn't occurred to me, either, that Maddie would assume she'd get the same cold shoulder and derision from the gang as she and her pals gave Rebecca.  Plus, there was something about Maddie getting lucky and skating clear when Rebecca was led away in cuffs.  Maddie needs a real therapist for that amount of baggage.

 

ITA that guidance counselor has replaced her drugs/alcohol addiction with an addiction of another sort.  I'm not sure what to call . . . being too much in everyone's business?    Back off, guidance counselor.  And step up, Mom!!  She's not your bestie, she's your daughter.  I grew up in a two-person home with my mother, too, and if she'd ever caught me slipping through a window at dawn, well, the mind boggles.  I probably would have been on a plane to one of those British boarding schools where everyone showers in ice water.

 

Wes is a sap.  I thought he would sneak over and re-plant the gun at Diesel's house.  Instead he handed over his entire future to the ex with the spotless record for trustworthiness.

 

But I'm putting down my bitching stick because Maddie's speech was a thing of beauty.  I doubt there's ever been a teenager who could speak like that extemporaneously, but I'll take it.

 

The most perfect detail was the little old lady retired teacher with foot-in-mouth syndrome wearing a wig with approximately three times too much hair.

 

Sidenote:  I could see specializing in proctology.  I know a urologist who has a nice relaxed practice where it's all peen, all the time, and he enjoys the mid-seven figure paycheck.

Edited March 16, 2016 by candall

[KaveDweller]

But what about Craig getting drunk? He's the guy in charge of the sober house, right?  Is that a big deal for him to drink, or is he not in recovery himself?  I think I remember him having some addiction history.

 

Just to clarify one thing, he didn't intentionally get drunk. They were at a restaurant and some women sent over a round of shots to their table. The guys tried to refuse them, but ultimately let the waiter leave them. They were going to ignore them, but Craig decided to have his, and I think Wes and Vern encouraged him to do it. That's all we saw him drink and they kept commenting on what a lightweight he was, so I think we're supposed to believe he got that drunk from just the one drink. 

[atomationage]

 

David Witts (Craig) wasn't in anything I watched, but according to IMDB he was on 156 episodes of Eastenders as Joey Branning.

I would recommend watching whatever you can find of him in that role on Youtube.  He looked very different, and played a tough guy with an even tougher father.    He came to Walford to get his sister away from his father, and ended up in a relationship with his cousin.  I watched the first episode of this and didn't even recognize him, then I rewatched and saw his name, and had to look it up on the IMDB to verify that was him playing Craig. 

[candall]

Maddie involves another housemate in her attempt to learn what is troubling Wes; Trish is angered by Maddie's efforts to help her; Vern becomes suspicious of Cynthia's strange behavior; a house search leads to unexpected news.

 

  I need a status update on Baby Heaven-backwards!

 

 

 

[Edited for a more thorough description.]

Edited March 22, 2016 by candall

[lofidelity]

I think I must have missed something in the beginning.  Why was Vern asking Craig to do a search of the house?  Was it because if Wes' "change in attitude" or did he already have the dirt on Rebecca?

[AmandaPanda]

I think he asked Craig to do the search of the house because he knew about Wes' gun and wanted to be sure that Wes wasn't using again.

 

My heart completely broke for Trish. I just wanted to hold her and tell her that everything would be alright. I'm glad that the Xanax blew up in Maddie's face, but hope this won't be the end of Trish. She's probably the most interesting character on the show for me.

[izabella]

I was glad Vern came down on Cynthia with a bucket of cold water.  She really needed to stop and do some thinking.  I like their friendship. 

[AmandaPanda]

Maddie completes her first 30 days in rehab, but wonders why another resident has left the house; Wes' efforts to fix the sins of his brother do not have the results he anticipated; Maddie and Wes reveal their true feelings for each other.

[candall]

Good episode.  Many people got called to account, in one way or another.

 

Trish does the worst "crying" I've ever seen, but I like her and her story.

 

The more we learn about Rebecca, the more interesting she is.  Her cutting and family problems are much more interesting than Maddie's standing with her cool kid friends and whether Wes keeps her fully informed about his problems.

 

More Vern!

 

P.S.  I keep thinking about someone's suggestion that Vern and the woman from Jamaica and the guidance counselor could have been rotating staff members and everything would have made more sense.  Excellent idea. 

[Cramps]

I don't like the gun story. It feels forced. I like the rest.

[possibilities]

Oh my god, you guys!! Consequences!!

 

I liked this episode. The implosion of Cynthia was awesome. I mean, it was painful and terrible, but so long overdue. Everything spinning out of control is so much more realistic than I'd hoped to see. Ditto so many other things that have been long overdue to fall apart that also fell apart.

 

The way one addiction replaces another, one secret or bit of drama piles on the next until the whole thing just crumbles-- it's not that I like it, it's just that I was getting really sick of the "ain't recovery quirky and fun?" stuff being lathered on so thickly.

Edited March 29, 2016 by possibilities

[Cramps]

Good episode! Hope it gets renewed.

[candall]

Where's the recovery unit for entitlement?  Maddie needs detox.  I'm only 28 minutes in and she's out of control.  Rifling the files, taking no prisoners in her one-woman Rebecca crusade immediately followed by repeating history and chopping a different friend off at the ankles, seeing collapsed guidance counselor as a personal betrayal, hanging up on an adult who's about to be helpful. . .

 

Back later.

[TeapotWakeen]

"the keeper of my sobriety" ??  The hell???

[Chaos Theory]

This show is still not as good as I hoped it would be but it is so much better then I feared it would be. If that makes any sense. Cynthia's self destruction has been coming for awhile and I am glad it was realistic. Maddie is also a far more complex character then I thought she would be.

The quirky stuff is fun but I like the show when it takes a more realistic look at addictions d recovery.

[Aliconehead]

How many are thinking that Maddie hot and killed someone when driving drunk? Or at least that is what the friend tells her

[sara416]

I liked this episode a lot, but as someone who has worked in substance abuse for years, I have to point out one of the many things wrong with this episode.

 

NO ONE but you are the keeper of your sobriety. Even in the 12 step programs, you give yourself to your higher power, but YOU make the choice to get and stay sober, one day at a time. Giving someone else the power is making them your higher power, which is just as bad as making the substance your higher power. If they fail, you fail. I know that scene was romantic and lovely and whatever, but it was just wrong. 

[possibilities]

I thought that was the point, though. Wes and Maddie are still breaking the rules, still creating secrets and drama. It fit the theme of people trading one addiction or secret for another, getting clean in one area while using another to create the familiar drama and repeat of unhealthy patterns. Just refraining from substances isn't all that recovery is, and I thought they were showing that you're still in addict mode until you dump the whole thing and develop actually healthy ways of being-- Cynthia being in one phase of that cycle and Wes/Maddie in another. Really, everyone was demonstrating that you can't bury anything or think you've got it all figured out until you've got it ALL figured out. I'm sure the "keeper" and the "romance" will blow up on them in due time.

[TeapotWakeen]

The thing is, recovery is so often misrepresented in tv and movies, sometimes for dramatic points and sometimes out of ignorance. Hard to know which it was. Presumably Wes had been attending Al-Anon enough to suggest it to Maddie's mom, so he would have at least been savvy enough to heard a lot of talk about how he can't "cause, cure or control" someone else's recovery (drinking). Not to mention that the most time he's ever stacked up is 6 months, right? That's some pink cloud territory right there. (How funny were the ice cream and cake scenes earlier in the show -- does anyone love ice cream/cake/candy more than a newbie in AA? LOL)

[izabella]

Trish got on the reality show!  What could possibly go wrong?

 

I'm not liking the murder story line.  It feels like cramming a little too much drama in a show that has plenty of drama.  But I liked the show a lot overall.  i thought it would be terrible, and ended up looking forward to watching it.

[Cramps]

I like everything about the show but the murder plot line. It doesn't feel organic to the show.