"Oh HELL No!": TV Moments That Make You Irate

[Spartan Girl]

1 hour ago, Bruinsfan said:

Particularly in a blue-collar Ohio town where one of her classmates had to switch schools to escape constant bullying. What Finn did could have gotten Santana badly hurt or worse.

And what makes me madder is how Finn blackmailed her into helping him with something or other in exchange for getting her off the hook for the well-deserved bitchslap she gave him. 

[Spartan Girl]

Another Glee moment that pissed me off was when Rachel promised to help Kurt with his campaign for class president only to screw him over and run herself just because she was scared that she wasn't going to get the lead in West Side Story and and mess with having an impressive record for college. And even when she got the lead anyway -- because she always got everything -- she kept up her campaign trying to pass it off as a feminism issue when it was really about her own over achievements. Yes, she did see the error of her ways and drop out, but not for several episodes. It shouldn't have taken her that long for her to realize why Kurt was so pissed off at her.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Spartan Girl

[BookWoman56]

On 6/2/2020 at 3:58 PM, Bastet said:

Just as a person, but especially as a civil rights lawyer, most cop shows are unwatchable for me, because they normalize, justify, and glorify a wide range of completely unacceptable police behavior.  They're a series of "Oh, hell no!" moments and thus unpleasant to watch.

It's the same for me, although from the perspective of a person, not as a civil rights lawyer. I've seen way too many episodes of L&O:SVU and other cop shows where a cop doesn't hesitate to intimidate and hit someone who doesn't immediately jump when the cop says to jump, which usually amounts to not answering questions before an attorney is present. There's also the total disrespect the cops on those shows display toward attorneys and prosecutors, bitching and moaning because a prosecutor won't bring charges against someone based solely on the cop's hunch that this suspect is really the perpetrator, or that a defense attorney actually does his or her job with a client who's a suspect. Finally, I hate the "us versus them" mentality that is so prevalent, evidenced by making almost all non-cops be obstructive jerks. In real life, what BFF of a murder victim blows off the cops investigating the murder by claiming they have a business meeting/golf game in a few minutes, that is way more important than finding out who murdered their BFF? Yet I cannot count the times I've seen this scenario play out on cop shows. 

[Bruinsfan]

I don't get that either. The one time an FBI agent asked to interview me for someone's routine background check I cleared my schedule and tried to be as helpful as I could despite barely knowing the subject of the inquiry. I can't imagine being close to someone who was murdered and being all "sorry, but I have a shipment to unload" to detectives investigating their death.

[Zella]

One of my big pet peeves in cop shows--and I say this as someone who watches a ton of crime shows and mysteries--is when they treat people who ask for a lawyer as automatically suspicious. You're not automatically guilty if you ask for a lawyer. You're just being smart and protecting your rights. 

[Blergh]

But of course, if a cop gets accused, they're HEROIC to ask for a lawyer on these shows (especially if the accused is a series regular/protagonist)! 

[Zella]

51 minutes ago, Blergh said:

But of course, if a cop gets accused, they're HEROIC to ask for a lawyer on these shows (especially if the accused is a series regular/protagonist)! 

Because Internal Affairs is always the bad guy! :S 

[Ambrosefolly]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but when the Doctor had Harriet Jones deposed as the Prime Minister by convincing people she was mentally unfit to lead. Not great to kill a bunch of aliens, but she had a point. Humans aren't like Time Lords, they just die. While the Doctor treats humanity as his ant farm, a lot of aliens don't have kind uses for them, including a few of his own enemies.  Maybe she read about that alien species that liked to be hooked up kids to them to get high, dooming the kids to an eternity of the worst type of slave labor. I did like that the show validated her when she gave her life saving the universe.

Edited September 11, 2020 by Ambrosefolly

[Llywela]

8 hours ago, Ambrosefolly said:

This might be an unpopular opinion, but when the Doctor had Harriet Jones deposed as the Prime Minister by convincing people she was mentally unfit to lead. Not great to kill a bunch of aliens, but she had a point. Humans aren't like Time Lords, they just die. While the Doctor treats humanity as his ant farm, a lot of aliens don't have kind uses for them, including a few of his own enemies.  Maybe she read about that alien species that liked hook up kids to them to get high. I did like that the show validated her when she gave her life saving the universe.

Heck yeah, that one still burns, even all these years later. Not even so much that the Doctor did it, because lashing out in a moment of self-righteous fury strikes a strong character note for him, but more that the show never called him out for it, played him as the morally virtuous hero standing proudly on the moral high ground while destroying a loyal ally for the terrible crime of defending her planet. It still enrages me now. If the show had ever truly acknowledged that he overstepped the mark on that one, that he was a hypocrite who did the wrong thing, I might not mind so much. I mean, he'd even told us that Harriet Jones was supposed to oversee a golden age, and he then changed the course of human history by tearing her down like that, which led directly to the Master's reign of terror in the following season, and neither the show nor the Doctor ever acknowledged his culpability for that.

Edited September 11, 2020 by Llywela

[SVNBob]

19 hours ago, Llywela said:

Heck yeah, that one still burns, even all these years later. Not even so much that the Doctor did it, because lashing out in a moment of self-righteous fury strikes a strong character note for him, but more that the show never called him out for it, played him as the morally virtuous hero standing proudly on the moral high ground while destroying a loyal ally for the terrible crime of defending her planet. It still enrages me now. If the show had ever truly acknowledged that he overstepped the mark on that one, that he was a hypocrite who did the wrong thing, I might not mind so much. I mean, he'd even told us that Harriet Jones was supposed to oversee a golden age, and he then changed the course of human history by tearing her down like that, which led directly to the Master's reign of terror in the following season, and neither the show nor the Doctor ever acknowledged his culpability for that.

I think the whole "Time Lord Victorious" at the end of "Waters of Mars" can be seen an acknowledgement of sorts, and a reflection and bookend on this moment.

[Llywela]

13 hours ago, SVNBob said:

I think the whole "Time Lord Victorious" at the end of "Waters of Mars" can be seen an acknowledgement of sorts, and a reflection and bookend on this moment.

Too little, too late, for my money. I needed the show to acknowledge in the moment that the Doctor was in the wrong in what he did. Instead it supported his claim to the moral high ground, upheld his action as morally justified, which it absolutely was not. A mini arc about him being out of control more than two full seasons later was way too late to reflect any retrospective critique on his actions in that first Christmas special, and he certainly never apologised for what he did, either to Harriet or to the course of human history, which he materially altered for the worse. His past selves would be ashamed of him. Every one of them knew better.

The Third Doctor faced a similar moment when the Brigadier took punitive action against an enemy the Doctor had negotiated a truce with. He was similarly furious then. But he knew better than to destroy his ally over it; he had a much clearer grasp of the big picture.

[Spartan Girl]

Glee: Will suspending Marley for a week because she didn't want to wear a seashell bikini for the performance.

No, that really happened. He wanted her to wear a revealing outfit for the performance, she felt uncomfortable and didn't want to wear it, and HE SUSPENDS HER FOR REFUSING.

Are we sure Sue was the big villain of the show? Because as bad as she was, its pretty clear Will Was Actually The Asshole on a great deal of fronts. And this incident just proves that underneath the Nice Guy act, he was an opportunistic loser who used his students to relive his own pathetic teenage years -- and his self-insertations into performances crossed the appropriate boundary lines. So. Many. Times.

[Shannon L.]

Homeland: in the last episode of season 3, Carrie tells her father (who is bipolar, too) and her sister that she isn't ready to be a mother and that she can't do it. Her dad and sister give her a pep talk, telling her that they'll help, dad going so far as to say that if she's going to give the baby up, he'll take it. 

First episode of season 4, Carrie is in Islamabad, telling her exhausted sister that she's doing important work and can't come home yet, but thanks for caring for her daughter.  Episode 2, Carrie is back in the states where her sister informs her that dad isn't helping much at all, and, rightfully, tells Carrie it's time to step up. It's blatantly obvious that Carrie has no feelings for her daughter and no inclination to be a mother. When Carrie talks her way back into a job in Islamabad,  her sister is irate that she's blowing off motherhood and leaving the kid with her again for God knows how long.

I spent half of the episode yelling at the TV "Lady, she told you she couldn't and didn't want do it and would have put her with a loving family who wanted a child! You know what your sister's psychological condition is and still you had to give her that pep talk and tell her you'd help." It also didn't take a genius to figure out that dad wouldn't be there as often as he intended to be.

For the love of God, I don't know why these writers make these kinds of decisions. 

[Spartan Girl]

You guys remember how in Ugly Betty, Betty's first horrible boyfriend Walter cheated on her, then stalked and gaslit his way into getting her back, with the help of her own family -- all of whom claimed that Betty was the one who was wrong for being so "rude and unforgiving"?

Or when later on, Betty's other horrible boyfriend Matt, after their breakup, deliberately took a job as her new boss with the intention of sabatogng her career? And when she finally called him out on what a spoiled asshole he was, he deffected it with the "I'm only an awful person because I'm hurting so much and I secretly want you back" spiel, which eventually leads to them getting back together?

Or how after years of being the caretaker of her family, Betty decides to focus more on her career, only for her family turn into Andie's horrible friends from Devil Wears Prada, berating and belittling her for "being selfish" just because she had to miss Hilda's beauty shop opening? And how Hilda blamed her for Ignacio's heart attack?

Feminist show MY ASS.

[Bastet]

Betty's family was the worst!  They were supposed to be the real world good guys to the vapid loon bad guys at the magazine, and, yeah, the Mode folks had their share of flaws and most of them didn't treat Betty well for quite some time, but the Suarezes sucked too, yet the show acted like they didn't.

[Spartan Girl]

I will never understand why Ignacio showed such favoritism to Walter after he cheated on Betty yet was nothing but hostile to Henry just because he got his ex pregnant before he and Betty even got together. It's especially hypocritical how much crap he gave Betty for it, considering that he hooked up with Betty's mom while she was married to another (abusive) man. You'd think he'd be understanding about how relationships can get complicated after that, but noooooo....

[Blergh]

7 hours ago, Bastet said:

Betty's family was the worst!  They were supposed to be the real world good guys to the vapid loon bad guys at the magazine, and, yeah, the Mode folks had their share of flaws and most of them didn't treat Betty well for quite some time, but the Suarezes sucked too, yet the show acted like they didn't.

At least the magazine folks didn't pretend to have Betty's interests at heart while her so-called family DID! BOO!!

[Spartan Girl]

So I was watching a clip from St Elsewhere featuring Judith Barsi (the poor little girl who was murdered by her abusive dad) as a terminally ill patient who, as is the case with many TV children characters, has divorced parents that fight every time they're on screen. It gets so bad that Dr. Wade takes them aside and reminds them their daughter is dying and they should cool it to make the most of the time she has left.

But instead of being shamed into putting their crap aside for their daughter's sake, these assholes have the nerve to get all huffy, even telling Wade to her face that she doesn't have the right to judge them because she doesn't have kids.

Wow. Wooooooow.

I'm pretty sure that one doesn't need to be a parent in order to see that bickering and playing tug-of-war with your daughter isn't good for her. Especially when she's on HER DEATHBED. 

Edited September 29, 2020 by Spartan Girl

[Bruinsfan]

Yeah, that makes you long for a doctor who'll walk in with big syringes of Demerol in either hand and say "Sweetie, Mommy and Daddy are going to be taking a nice, long nap until they're less cranky."

[Blergh]

7 minutes ago, Bruinsfan said:

Yeah, that makes you long for a doctor who'll walk in with big syringes of Demerol in either hand and say "Sweetie, Mommy and Daddy are going to be taking a nice, long nap until they're less cranky."

Or even better one who will flat out tell the DNA Donors - 'If you two don't stop washing your dirty laundry in front of your gravely ailing child right now, I'm calling security to have you thrown out of this room and out of this hospital so it's your call whether bickering is more important than making the most of what time you have left with this child! ' 

[Spartan Girl]

I would never wish the death of a child on anyone, but some people just shouldn't be parents.

I always hate the trope on medical/crime drama of bitter divorcing parents airing out their bile in front of their children without caring how it's going to damage them until it's too late. Those scenes are an automatic Hell No for me.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Spartan Girl

[magicdog]

Was watching a repeat of Family Law this morning and there was a doozy of a  B plot that was poorly conceived from a writing perspective.  

The case involved a now 50+ year old woman who sought out her long missing father who had abandoned her and her mother when she was a child.  When she finds him at an old age home, she attacks him by hitting him so hard he falls out of his chair he was sitting in!  Then she sues him for back child support!  Then she laments that she wanted to go to college because she loved science, etc. but dropped out of high school to work as a hairdresser and help support her mom.  Then sues him for college tuition when she decides to apply to Pepperdine University!!

As I said, this was a poorly conceived B-plot since most any judge would have thrown this out of court since the woman was an adult, working, and could have gone to night school part time in the intervening years!  She and her 85 year old father then sue each other until father is ordered by a judge to move in with the daughter since he can no longer afford to stay at the assisted living facility he’d been at the beginning of the story!   I’m sorry but the daughter was the one who opened the can of worms here and I had zero sympathy for her!!

[Spartan Girl]

Pretty much everything Prince Charles did and said in season 4 of The Crown pissed me off but the one that made me irate was him berating Diana for her successful New York tour and for publicly hugging a young AIDS patient, accusing her of trying to make the royals look bad, but also -- and this is a doozy -- because it made Camilla feel bad.

That's right: he yells at his wife for not being more "sensitive" to his mistress' feelings. JFC

[Wiendish Fitch]

35 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Pretty much everything Prince Charles did and said in season 4 of The Crown pissed me off but the one that made me irate was him berating Diana for her successful New York tour and for publicly hugging a young AIDS patient, accusing her of trying to make the royals look bad, but also -- and this is a doozy -- because it made Camilla feel bad.

That's right: he yells at his wife for not being more "sensitive" to his mistress' feelings. JFC

Oh my God, Charles has been loathsome this season. Sure, it sucks he didn't get to marry the woman he really loved at the time, but that didn't give him carte blanche to treat Diana like his personal stress ball. 

Fuck Charles, his man pain, and his tender little ego.

[Spartan Girl]

1 hour ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Oh my God, Charles has been loathsome this season. Sure, it sucks he didn't get to marry the woman he really loved at the time, but that didn't give him carte blanche to treat Diana like his personal stress ball. 

Fuck Charles, his man pain, and his tender little ego.

Even lower was him screaming “I REFUSE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS GROTESQUE MISALIGNMENT ANY LONGER!”

Dude, YOU sought her out. YOU called her sister just to pump her for info. YOU introduced her to your family. And even if they pressured you into marrying her you’re still a 30 year old grown ass man. You went along with the marriage without even trying to get to know her better and you used her being more popular than you as an excuse to check out of the marriage and when your heart wasn’t in it in the first place. You had PLENTY of responsibility. Stop acting like such a little victim and grow up.

[Zella]

17 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

That's right: he yells at his wife for not being more "sensitive" to his mistress' feelings. JFC

Wow. My face while reading this:

[magicdog]

Well, after another episode of "Family Law", I nearly blew a gasket with one of their legal plots!

The episode was largely focused on babies and responsibility.  In one plot, a 16 year old boy fathered a child with his girlfriend.  He chose to keep the baby and raise it with his father.  They went to the firm to get an order from the court to make the baby mamma's family kick in some child support.  The girl was told by her parents to ignore the baby and move on with her life as she is too young to be a parent and should focus on her future.  This on it's own is bad enough, but what got me steamed was the lawyer plotted to have the teens get back together, marry (in another state where they didn't require parental permission), become legal adults and raise the kid!  Plus make the girl's family kick in some dough.  The other option was for the baby to be raised out of state with baby daddy's mother who would likely get full custody eventually since he's a kid who is still in school and working part time at a fast food joint.  That couldn't have been more irresponsible!!!  Not once did anyone ever consider putting the baby up for adoption when it was born (the girl mentioned she considered aborting it but was talked out of it) - which honestly would have been the best solution from the start!  What are the odds these 16 year old children are going to stay together much less raise a kid and finish school and find a career?  These days, the one you dated in HS or college is usually not the best marriage material.  The baby daddy was adamant about keeping the kid because he loved it.  Fair enough, but love is not enough and he seemed more like a child who refused to part with his favorite toy!     

[Bruinsfan]

Hopefully that child will do better by its own children when it becomes a parent in 2035 or so.

[Spartan Girl]

Look, we all know Ross Gellar sucks, but the episode of Friends where Rachel gets pissy about Ross caving to Emily’s ultimatum to cut Rachel out of his life makes me mad. Rachel, your hands are not clean in this: you went to London with the intent of breaking up the wedding, and even when you didn’t go through with it, you were being passive aggressive about your feelings until you told him and then laughed it off like it was a big joke. Given all that, you don’t have the right to be upset. It’s more than understandable why Emily wouldn’t feel comfortable with you hanging around, even if him saying Rachel’s name at the altar is on him.

[Wiendish Fitch]

10 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Look, we all know Ross Gellar sucks, but the episode of Friends where Rachel gets pissy about Ross caving to Emily’s ultimatum to cut Rachel out of his life makes me mad. Rachel, your hands are not clean in this: you went to London with the intent of breaking up the wedding, and even when you didn’t go through with it, you were being passive aggressive about your feelings until you told him and then laughed it off like it was a big joke. Given all that, you don’t have the right to be upset. It’s more than understandable why Emily wouldn’t feel comfortable with you hanging around, even if him saying Rachel’s name at the altar is on him.

At least we got that glorious moment of Hugh Laurie telling her off!

Look, Ross is absolutely shitty and I hate him, but Rachel had more than her share of toxic moments, whether it was trying to break up Ross's wedding or sabotaging his other relationships.

If this had been some mission to save other women from being with an asshat like Ross, I don't know if I'd like it, but I'd at least understand it. Instead, it was more of a "if I can't have him, NO ONE SHOULD!" mindset, which is not only massively selfish, it crosses the line into Hollywood Crazy Scorned Woman territory.

God, Ross and Rachel really did deserve each other, didn't they?

Edited December 31, 2020 by Wiendish Fitch

[anna0852]

Looking back, it's hard for me to believe I ever liked watching Friends. So much of it is so cringeworthy now. The only part that really stood the test of time for me is the very healthy relationship between Monica and Chandler. That's it. Ross and Rachel are toxic idiots who deserve each other. And by the end I'm not sure how Joey and Phoebe could even function in the world.

[Zahdii]

They WERE on a break!  I hated Rachel the moment she acted like Ross cheated on her when he slept with that girl because Rachel told him she wanted them to see other people for a while.

[legaleagle53]

35 minutes ago, Zahdii said:

They WERE on a break!  I hated Rachel the moment she acted like Ross cheated on her when he slept with that girl because Rachel told him she wanted them to see other people for a while.

On the other hand, Ross was an idiot for immediately going out and sleeping with the first woman who came along just hours after Rachel told him that. It didn't matter that he had no way of knowing that Rachel would change her mind just a day later. That he slept with someone just AFTER she told him they needed to start seeing other people sent the message to Rachel that their relationship had never really meant anything to Ross and he had just been looking for an excuse to start sleeping around on her behind her back the whole time.

The truth is that Ross's paranoid jealousy was just as toxic to the relationship as Rachel's dog-in-the-manger attitude was. Phoebe nailed it when she said that Carol's infidelity had clearly so damaged Ross that he couldn't believe or trust any woman who came after Carol to stay faithful to him. It's what led him to suspect (and practically accuse) Rachel of sleeping with Mark (which is what in turn led to the fight that ended with her telling Ross that they needed to split up for a while). It's also why Ross got paranoid when Emily started getting what he thought was a little too friendly with Carol's wife -- he was terrified of history repeating itself.

[Bastet]

I only ever casually watched Friends, and only for a few seasons, but even I know that Ross and Rachel were on the phone talking about how they regretted the "maybe we need a break" parting, this was crazy, and they could work on it, when he heard Mark in the background, turned into his usual jealous, paranoid, possessive self, didn't let her finish explaining why he was there, hung up, and fucked someone else hours later.

I don't care what it technically was or wasn't when he did that, it was gross, and Rachel was not out of line for finding it something she couldn't get past.  They were awful for each other - and Ross would be awful for anyone - and the idea that the "happy ending" was for her to give up a career-changing job in Paris to stay with his whiny ass makes me angry umpteen years after not even watching the finale to begin with.  But back in that moment, I'm not mad at Rachel for being hurt by his actions and his cover-up attempt.

[Spartan Girl]

Also, being on “a break”/“taking some time” is NOT the same thing as an actual breakup, and therefore shouldn’t be used as a free pass to hook up with someone else without consequence!

A similar (and maybe worse) scenario was on Gilmore Girls with Logan and Rory. Logan just assumes they’re broken up after one fight, doesn’t have the guts to try to talk with her after, tells all their friends so that she is blind sighted when someone else tells her, and and screws a bunch of his sister’s friends before using Grand Romantic Gestures to win Rory back. Rory was right to be pissed when she found out. Even shittier was how Logan had the nerve to mock all the girls he slept with behind their backs to Rory before she found out.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Spartan Girl

[scarynikki12]

Don't forget that Ross only began his "We were on a break!" mantra AFTER The One With The Morning After which results in Rachel definitively breaking up in light of learning Ross slept with Chloe. The next episode he starts his mantra which just brings back all the red flag behavior of the season 3 episodes that led to Rachel wanting the break in the first place. He doesn't want to feel guilty anymore and really doesn't want to deal with Rachel's continued anger so he decides that he did nothing wrong and she's being unreasonable. Never mind that he spent the entire day running around convincing everyone to keep quiet about him sleeping with Chloe because HE KNEW it would upset Rachel. If he always thought he'd done nothing wrong he'd have said that and stuck with it the whole time but he only settled on that after the breakup. That whole episode pisses me off actually because Ross is being an asshole the entire time: he decides he's not at fault for Rachel's hurt feelings and anger and she should just get over it, he tries to convince their friends to cancel the weekend plans they made with Rachel because he thinks they should prioritize him, and he tells Carol that Rachel dumped him for Mark and makes himself seem to be innocent in the breakup. Then he gets rewarded for his behavior when their friends convince Rachel to be cordial and be around Ross so their friends don't have to choose.

To be fair to the show in season 3 they did an excellent job of laying the groundwork for Rachel to ask for the break, and showed some awareness of how shitty Ross was being about the breakup in the second half of the season but all that went away as the series went on. Even in the series finale Ross references "we were on a break!" in the moment he's getting back together with Rachel which tells me he learned exactly nothing in the seven years since the breakup. TV is full of couples who the audience 100% knows will breakup offscreen after the show ends and Ross and Rachel are at the top of the list.

[Ambrosefolly]

Technically, Rachel said "I think we should have a break." I am not a Ross hater, but officially broken up or not I agree with what Chandler said about the incident:

"You slept with somebody three hours after you thought you broke up. I mean, bullets have left guns slower."

 

Edited January 3, 2021 by Ambrosefolly

[Spartan Girl]

The irony is, had the writers not been so determined to use Ross whining “We were on a break!” as a big running gag, and instead had Ross be genuinely contrite for longer than one episode (and maybe examine his own behavior) he would have come off more sympathetic.

[Blergh]

4 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

The irony is, had the writers not been so determined to use Ross whining “We were on a break!” as a big running gag, and instead had Ross be genuinely contrite for longer than one episode (and maybe examine his own behavior) he would have come off more sympathetic.

And the whole SHOW was composed of 'Oh HELL No!' moments from start to finish (and, yes ,IMORachel was more sympathetic than Ross here but being 'not as bad' is never the same as being good or even likable). 

[Bruinsfan]

Rachel had enough red flags herself to supply a government parade in China. Neither of them deserve a decent significant other or happy ending based on all their manipulative and boundary-crossing behaviors.

[WinnieWinkle]

On 12/31/2020 at 11:13 PM, anna0852 said:

Looking back, it's hard for me to believe I ever liked watching Friends.

So funny.  This is exactly how I feel now too.  They've started re-running it here and I just can't get into it at all.  Not sure if it's me 20 yrs older or if the show itself is just dated but in keeping with the topic of this thread - I have no interest in revisiting the "we were on a break" crapfest and there were so many scenes (interestingly usually involving Ross) that I just can't watch anymore.  I hate that they tried to make his jealous tantrumy behavior acceptable.

[proserpina65]

1 hour ago, WinnieWinkle said:

So funny.  This is exactly how I feel now too.  They've started re-running it here and I just can't get into it at all.  Not sure if it's me 20 yrs older or if the show itself is just dated but in keeping with the topic of this thread - I have no interest in revisiting the "we were on a break" crapfest and there were so many scenes (interestingly usually involving Ross) that I just can't watch anymore.  I hate that they tried to make his jealous tantrumy behavior acceptable.

There are episodes I still enjoy, but the vast majority of it was pretty awful.  And I definitely avoid all the Ross-Rachel shit.

[WhitneyWhit]

On 12/31/2020 at 12:00 PM, Spartan Girl said:

Look, we all know Ross Gellar sucks, but the episode of Friends where Rachel gets pissy about Ross caving to Emily’s ultimatum to cut Rachel out of his life makes me mad. Rachel, your hands are not clean in this: you went to London with the intent of breaking up the wedding, and even when you didn’t go through with it, you were being passive aggressive about your feelings until you told him and then laughed it off like it was a big joke. Given all that, you don’t have the right to be upset. It’s more than understandable why Emily wouldn’t feel comfortable with you hanging around, even if him saying Rachel’s name at the altar is on him.

Can we be besties? Because I agree with you. I have so many feelings about that story and  the whole thing is a hell no moment for me. Ross was usually an asshole but I was on his side when he snapped at the group and said it was his marriage he was talking about when they freaked out over him considering Emily's ultimatum. I was team Emily and another hell no moment was the show trying to make Emily out to be the bad guy. Rachel acted like a fucking lunatic, I mean she traveled to another continent to break up a wedding, she proposed to Joshua, she was seriously off the rails. And don't get me started on her showing up to the reception, held at Emily's parents home.

[Dr.OO7]

On 1/3/2021 at 9:30 AM, Spartan Girl said:

The irony is, had the writers not been so determined to use Ross whining “We were on a break!” as a big running gag, and instead had Ross be genuinely contrite for longer than one episode (and maybe examine his own behavior) he would have come off more sympathetic.

Precisely.

Once his attitude became "I didn't do anything wrong at all", I lost any sympathy for him or incentive to even try to see his point of view.

You're right that Rachel was no prize either. I loathed her for how rude and nasty she was to and about Julie, who was never anything but nice to everyone, as well as her manipulative attempts at interfering in their relationship.

 

Edited January 8, 2021 by Dr.OO7

[Spartan Girl]

9 hours ago, Dr.OO7 said:

Precisely.

Once his attitude became "I didn't do anything wrong at all", I lost any sympathy for him or incentive to even try to see his point of view.

Indeed. Xander Harris used the same tactic after cheating on Cordelia and later dumping Anya at the altar. A brief show of remorse, and the second he saw them with another guy, he turned himself into the victim. At least Ross’ friends called him out on the “break” shit.

[janie jones]

I always agreed with Ross that they were on a break -- when Rachel proposed the break and didn't set parameters, she left it open to interpretation by Ross -- but that still doesn't make it not douchey to immediately turn around and have sex with someone else. Okay, you're not a cheater, but that doesn't make your behavior palatable.

Anyway, I'm another who liked Friends fine back in the day but can't stand it now. I used to work somewhere where we had a boxed set of DVDs in the break room, so people were always watching it on their lunches. It grew old fast. I don't know if I outgrew the show or it was the concentrated viewing or what. Even the characters I still like do annoying things.

[vibeology]

And for me, it wasn't just that Ross hooked up with the Copy Girl, it was that he lied to Rachel about it while the rest of the gang knew. He made her look like a fool. I would never have forgiven him after that. 

You pile up Ross showing up at her work when she had an emergency, telling her he was waiting for her to apologize when she got home, leaving as soon as Rachel suggested taking a "break from us," assuming she was with Mark just because he answered her phone, hooking up with another person that night and lying about it the next morning and there is no way that Ross can be someone's partner in that moment. He's just a pile of red flags. So while I can think that they had a miscommunication about what a "break from us" meant and I do understand how Ross thought that meant they were done, I cannot believe he thinks he was in the right in that situation. At no point in that entire run was he in the right.

[Ambrosefolly]

Netflix's "Night Stalker" documentary: Laurel Erikson threatens to expose that Richard Rameriz wore a rare pair of tennis shoes to the murders and abductions unless the police grant her an exclusive interview. Gil Carrillo, was right, it was extortion. The guy killed, tortured and sexually assaulted men, women and children; everybody was terrified. One of the few things going for the investigation was the uniqueness of the shoes, but they looked so nondescript that the average person wouldn't think twice about them . All revealing evidence  would have done  was get Richard to dump the shoes, which he ended up doing after Mayor Dianne Feinstein announced to the media about that bit of evidence (also a rage inducing moment). It caused me to hate journalists a little more to know that they are willing to play with the public's lives in order to raise their own status. 

Edited January 17, 2021 by Ambrosefolly

[Blergh]

OK, here's an oldie-but-baddie: on WRKP in Cincinatti, the skeezy, pervy married  station ad saleman Herb Tarlek kept trying to hit on the receptionist Jennifer Marlowe but she constantly rebuffed him. OK, that was an annoying enough trope- even for the late 70's time period. However, what infuriated me was when his wife Lucille (played by the marvellous Edie McClurg) got the idea that Jennifer had come on to HIM- and, rather than just tell Mrs. Tarlek 'Hell, NO! I'd dig up Adam rather than have  your creepy husband Herb if he were the last man on Earth!,'Jennifer inexplicably pretended that she HAD made a play for Herb  which he allegedly nobly declined (and at no point did she or anyone else at the station attempt to set Lucille straight on the matter). Not only for the 'misunderstanding' episode itself but even when Herb was being interviewed for some kind of Real People -type spoof show, Jennifer continued to keep feeding that lie. WHY?! She was the highest paid receptionist in the city who could have easily taken her services elsewhere (and was quite well-heeled even without her salary) and I don't even think Mr. Carlson would have objected to Jennifer defending her own rep . Moreover, Herb was so incompetent that they could have gotten a houseplant to do his job . Instead everyone just let Jennifer fall on her own sword for Herb's sake... and rep because. .. why? 

[Ambrosefolly]

This is something of a trope, but I hate it when everyone tells someone else "It is time to get over it," especially if the person they are grieving loses the love of their life. I volunteer with a grief support group, and plenty of them don't go trying to date again, especially the ones that still have to raise young children. Do I think it is healthy to barricade yourself in your home and develop a drug addiction because you are grieving? No, but if the person in question is working, moving on with the other aspects of their lives, and not spiraling their children into some toxic hellhole, then if said person doesn't want to date again for whatever reason, then really shut the hell up. They had the plot point on General Hospital, when Robin Scorpio "died" in an explosion. After her husband got over his insta-drug addiction, all of his friends kept pushing to start dating brand new character Sabrina. It was all to push Patrick Drake (the husband) to be at the altar when he married Sabrina only two years after Robin's accident, so Robin could walk in on their wedding. There are plenty of people that get married a short time after their spouse dies, but it felt like Patrick was brow beaten into his relationship with Sabrina and his rushed marriage. He wanted to stay single. He had a young daughter to raise, so it is okay for a few years to focus on that. Everyone grief journey is different and if the person isn't doing anything destructive to themselves and others, it is fine how they work through that grief.