S01.E07: Goddamn Animals

[formerlyfreedom]

While Smurf takes care of unfinished business, Craig and Deran throw a party at the house. Forced to accelerate his timetable, Baz takes the final step in his long con. J makes a dangerous mistake.

 

[I-Kare]

So much going on in this episode! I think I have to rewatch and unpack it in order to comment.

[formerlyfreedom]

I loved Craig's moment with Deran. Throwing everyone out, and asking where Adrian was. It was really lovely.

[sjohnson]

Breakups and betrayals, all down the line. Love hurts, man.

Not sure I buy J's penis conquering the teacher, though.

Deran does know Craig was lying about how not everybody knows, right? 

[Ferniesfreckles]

Maybe everyone does know.

Pope was looking at Adrian funny the other day. 

Moms know everything, too. 

 

I didnt know Deran had it in him to cry. I felt bad for him, but only a little bit. I completely understand Adrians  hesitance to get further involved with that batshit family. 

I'm still not completely understanding Smurfs storyline with that dude. Was she molested by that guy?

[Laurie4H]

How old is Smurf supposed to be?  She didn't seem much younger than that man.  I was figuring her character around 60, Baz and Pope late 30's/early 40's, Craig early 30's  and Deran about 25.  So Baz is turning out to be the most evil of them all it seems?  On a side note, does every episode have to have an unnecessary sex scene?  I'm not a prude but it just seems to be there to get people to tune in.

[Artsda]

Well that was a lot of information for an episode, I do love how fast some information comes out.

Craig knew about Deran all along and loved their talk where he pointed out that he knew and to stop being a fake ass. We know the reason he took off for Belize he could go be free and himself. 

Baz and Julia did have a thing and I loved Baz and Pope in Pope's bedroom too. They really came out like brothers at the end. I liked Pope pointing out Julia was supposed to be Baz's sister too. 

The teacher sure caved in and told J the truth fast. He was an idiot over how much he told her. 

Smurf's name came from her mother's boyfriend who called her that because she swam until blue. Interesting,have we seen her swim in the pool as a present day adult? We saw the flashbacks of her swimming up to the man and now this man saying she swam till blue. 

[Chaos Theory]

The teacher is playing out a lot like J's mom.  Basically a good person but weak.  Add sex to the mix and guilt and things get real complicated.   When she thought she was just turning J into an informant on his family that was one thing but now that cop lady says he is facing a felony conviction that is a whole other thing.  I liked the scene when J came over and she was either high or ODing.  Must have brought him back to his mom real quick.  Still I kinda like the pairing.  I am not sure why.  It's wrong and icky abd will never last.  Maybe that's why.

Edited July 20, 2016 by Chaos Theory

[NorthstarATL]

So was the teacher just always owing the cop a favor, and it was just a "happy coincidence" that J's mother died and that he wound up being taken in by his Grandmother? Because I didn't get the sense in the beginning that she was new when he returned to school in the first episode. That is a lot of speculation  and a long con for the cop to be playing.

  I was hoping for a more shocking reveal about Baz and Pope and the girls they fell for than what we apparently have, because the show seemed edgier than that. Baz growing up with the family and falling for not-his-real-sister and then both guys competing for the same girl who was not a part of the family is pretty normal soap opera fare.

  I guess if the guy who named her had been more literal she would have been "Smurfette" all this time, and lost any chance at being a criminal mastermind.

So Deran is only fooling himself? That's actually kind of realistic. Lots of people seem to be surprised when they "come out" and everyone who knows them was always aware and wondering what took them so long. I wonder if Smurf realizes that she doesn't wield any sexual power over Deran, but doesn't encourage him to be himself because having a secret gives her another type of control? Adrian is probably the only significant other of the boys that Smurf would be OK with, OTOH.

  Baz is overreaching, and someone is probably going to get hurt/killed.

[Texasmom1970]

So if I was watching correctly during a store robbery Smurf's mom was shot and looks like she died and her boyfriend at the time took off in the car leaving Smurf. That is why she looked him up for revenge, because she was pissed he ditched them at that time. And that was Craig's father that she spoke to on the beach. I am loopy on pain meds from a tibia injury so just checking my facts.

Like others the scene that really got me was Craig and Deran. I did feel bad for Deran due his crazy ass up-bringing there is no way he feels comfortable having an open relationship, no matter how much he cares for the guy. 

Even though we have an explanation for why they call her Smurf, still does not bug they hell out of me. Every time anyone says it all I can picture is the cartoon show I used to watch as a child!

[Laurie4H]

Ok so I had to fact something.  The Smurfs are from the 80's.  (based on a french comic strip) so I'm guessing the writers are not historically accurate rather than Smurf being a child in the 80's.  

On a shallow note....I couldn't get passed the teacher and him hooking up after her in a puking/sleeping mess.  I just kept thinking brush your teeth first.

[topanga]

1 hour ago, NorthstarATL said:

So was the teacher just always owing the cop a favor, and it was just a "happy coincidence" that J's mother died and that he wound up being taken in by his Grandmother? Because I didn't get the sense in the beginning that she was new when he returned to school in the first episode. That is a lot of speculation  and a long con for the cop to be playing.

  I was hoping for a more shocking reveal about Baz and Pope and the girls they fell for than what we apparently have, because the show seemed edgier than that. Baz growing up with the family and falling for not-his-real-sister and then both guys competing for the same girl who was not a part of the family is pretty normal soap opera fare.

  I guess if the guy who named her had been more literal she would have been "Smurfette" all this time, and lost any chance at being a criminal mastermind.

So Deran is only fooling himself? That's actually kind of realistic. Lots of people seem to be surprised when they "come out" and everyone who knows them was always aware and wondering what took them so long. I wonder if Smurf realizes that she doesn't wield any sexual power over Deran, but doesn't encourage him to be himself because having a secret gives her another type of control? Adrian is probably the only significant other of the boys that Smurf would be OK with, OTOH.

  Baz is overreaching, and someone is probably going to get hurt/killed.

The detective said in another episode that the police caught the teacher with heroin, so spying on J's family is her way to keep from going to prison. I'm just not sure when everything began. It sounds like the cops have been watching Smurf's family for a while, and they knew who J was, even though he wasn't part of the family until recently.

Maybe they'd wanted the teacher to try to seduce one of the brothers in order to get information (which would have been much scarier). But then it would be an awfully big coincidence that she happened to teach at J's high school. 

In other words, I guess I'm just as confused as you--if not more. 

And your "Smurfette" line cracked me up. 

 

1 hour ago, Laurie4H said:

Ok so I had to fact something.  The Smurfs are from the 80's.  (based on a french comic strip) so I'm guessing the writers are not historically accurate rather than Smurf being a child in the 80's.  

On a shallow note....I couldn't get passed the teacher and him hooking up after her in a puking/sleeping mess.  I just kept thinking brush your teeth first.

Just blue-skying it, but if Smurf was born in the late 60s, she could have been 13 when the Smurfs were on TV in the early 80s. Which would make her 50 at the oldest. If Pope and Julia were the oldest of her children, and they're supposed to be in their early 30s, then it's plausible that she was a teen mother. 

I can maybe fanwank that Smurf is 50, but hell, she'd be a rough-looking 50 year old. Mind you, I'm not throwing shade on Ellen Barkin. I think she's beautiful. But she looks older than 50. 

[sugarbaker design]

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I can maybe fanwank that Smurf is 50, but hell, she'd be a rough-looking 50 year old.

That makes sense though, Smurf had, and still has, a rough life.

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Smurf's name came from her mother's boyfriend who called her that because she swam until blue. Interesting,have we seen her swim in the pool as a present day adult? We saw the flashbacks of her swimming up to the man and now this man saying she swam till blue. 

That could be character-driven, or maybe Ellen Barkin doesn't want any swimming scenes.  Hair and makeup does wonders.

[Cranky One]

The Smurfs have been around since the late 50s. I remember them as a kid in the 70s, but I was living in Europe at the time where they were probably more popular there than the U.S. However, I just turned 50 and I'm not buying Ellen Barkin as a 50 year old. However, as noted, they didn't become popular in the US until the 80s, so it's weird that she'd have that nickname as she would be at least 14-15 (if she's supposed to be 50) at the time.

This is one show I definitely look forward to each week!

[atomationage]

Ellen Barkin played a great-grandmother on The New Normal.  Jay is officially the most boring, while Craig is getting better and better.  I predict the teacher

Spoiler

will be offed by lethal injection, instead of what happened to Nikki in the movie. 

Another great episode.  The show improves every week.  Three more episodes, so I guess something big is coming.  I wonder if  they've been picked up for another season.  This is high priority for me. 

Edited July 20, 2016 by atomationage
OMG spelling

[topanga]

9 minutes ago, atomationage said:

Ellen Barkin played a great-grandmother on The New Normal.  Jay is officially the most boring, while Craig is getting better and better.  I predict the teacher

  Reveal hidden contents

will be offed by lethal injection, instead of what happened to Nikki in the movie. 

Another great episode.  The show gets better and better.  This is high priority for me. 

Is it an unpopular opinion to still like Jay? Despite the not-so-great things he's experienced in his life so far (being isolated from everyone but his mother, his mother's drug use,ODs, and eventual death), he still gets this wide-eyed look of surprise when his family members--and now his teacher--reveal the f'd up things they're involved with. And the fact that he broke up with Nicky, someone he loved, in an attempt to keep her away from his home and his family, IMO shows that he still has a moral center. I still root for J, though life isn't giving him many good options these days. I wonder if Smurf would consider sending him to boarding school for the remainder of his senior year?

[Chaos Theory]

This was the first episode I found J not boring.  Maybe because he has chemistry with the teacher and lacked any with the girl who was supposed to be his girlfriend.  

[walnutqueen]

So Smurf catches Baz & Julia in flagrante delicto and banishes Julia, but not Baz?  She is one sick & twisted puppy.  As is Pope, who narc'd on them.

[NorthstarATL]

42 minutes ago, walnutqueen said:

So Smurf catches Baz & Julia in flagrante delicto and banishes Julia, but not Baz?  She is one sick & twisted puppy.  As is Pope, who narc'd on them.

Well, we don't have Smurf's side of the story, and we'll never know Julia's, but the show so far has told us that Smurf seems to discard females at puberty when they (a) become threats to her, and (b) are likely both less useful and less malleable than the boys.

[sjohnson]

Moral centers? Well, to me morals are how you treat other people (to some morals are about following the rules, God's or society's.) By that standard, most of the Cody boys care to take some pains for each other. And not even Smurf's manipulations of their jealousies have done that. So I guess they're not monstrous. But Pope torched a house (probably the deaths were unintentional, but when you set houses on fire...) Craig left his girlfriend for dead after robbing her. Deran beat up his own lover (and had a rival attacked.) Baz slept with his de facto sister. Also he puts Smurf ahead of his wife, who he cheats on anyhow. Pope has diminished responsibility I think, the others don't. So far as the crime goes, it's more or less what they were taught to do for the family (especially Deran I think.)

But J? Well, he's closed off and judgmental about his grandmother and his uncles. On the one hand, the uncles are kind of scary. And his grandmother had left him to his mother. He's enjoyed the material privileges but has never, for an instant, treated them as family. And for what it's worth he robbed surfers at gun point, hijacked a safe and started his moves on teach before he dumped Nikki. It's not clear what he feels about his mother. And yes, he took care of her some, but he also shot her up with a fatal dose. 

[iMonrey]

So much to process here.

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So if I was watching correctly during a store robbery Smurf's mom was shot 

Is that who got shot? Here's what I made of the story based on what we saw: I think Smurf had always blamed this guy (the one in the photo) for getting her mother involved in whatever lead to her downfall or death, but when she finally got to talk to him she realized her mother was the one who got the guy involved in crime, not the other way around, and that he had only stuck around with her mother because he cared about Smurf. I think that's why she ran out instead of shooting him like she planned - although I'm not real clear on whether or not she went through with it. Is that how everyone read it? I didn't realize it was her mother who had gotten shot in the flashback, I just thought it was the store clerk, and that the guy was yelling at her to hurry and get in the car so they could get away, and I thought maybe he'd ended up driving off and leaving her behind, which set her on her path to revenge all these years.

Pope and Baz - Baz was fooling around with Julia and Pope told Smurf and that's why she caught them together and threw Julie out of the house. But was Pope also sleeping with Julia? I'm still not real clear on that. What was the significance of the "JPB" initials carved into the night stand? I can't get a read on whether there was anything sexual going on with Pope and Julia. I didn't think so at first but now it seems almost like he was jealous of Baz because he wanted Julia for himself, the same as he felt for Catherine.

I almost felt sorry for Deran there at the end and I suspected Craig knew what was up when he saw Adrian storming off at the party. He had a look on his face like he knew what was going on. I like how Craig actually liked Adrian and called him a good guy.

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 I completely understand Adrians  hesitance to get further involved with that batshit family. 

I think it has less to do with the family and more to do with Deran himself. I think Adrian was already over Deran by the time he met the other guy and finally found someone who wasn't in denial about who they were. He told Deran they were through even before Pope threw that guy off the boat.

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Is it an unpopular opinion to still like Jay? 

I feel sorry for him. He looks shell shocked half the time, and it's obvious the poor kid is in way over his head. That's why the scene with Alexis was kind of touching - he clearly knew how to deal with someone high on heroin. 

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.I couldn't get passed the teacher and him hooking up after her in a puking/sleeping mess.

Me neither. She was the polar opposite of sexy in that moment.

I'm not clear on what the whole plan is with Nikki's dad. I get that Baz wants his help stealing money from the base, but do they intend to cut him in on the take or are they just using him as a patsy? Pope already pointed out the guy would probably sing like a bird the minute police questioned him so I'm guessing they intend to use him then kill him.

[atomationage]

1 minute ago, iMonrey said:

I think that's why she ran out instead of shooting him like she planned - although I'm not real clear on whether or not she went through with it. Is that how everyone read it? I

That's the way I read it.  We'll find out if they refer back to it next episode.  I'm guessing the finale will be whatever they do on the military base, or the result of whatever they do.  Someone is bound to get killed.  I vote for Jay.  

[sugarbaker design]

I'm fairly certain that's not the last we've seen of Isaiah (sp?).

[Cranky One]

5 hours ago, atomationage said:

Ellen Barkin played a great-grandmother on The New Normal.  Jay is officially the most boring, while Craig is getting better and better.  I predict the teacher

  Reveal hidden contents

will be offed by lethal injection, instead of what happened to Nikki in the movie. 

Another great episode.  The show improves every week.  Three more episodes, so I guess something big is coming.  I wonder if  they've been picked up for another season.  This is high priority for me. 

It has been picked up for another season!

[topanga]

3 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

I'm fairly certain that's not the last we've seen of Isaiah (sp?).

Is that Pope's former cell mate? If so, I'm afraid for that dude. Baz's calmness is scarier than if he'd gotten angry and told the guy off. Somehow I don't think he'll make it to Season 2. 

 

4 hours ago, sjohnson said:

But J? Well, he's closed off and judgmental about his grandmother and his uncles. On the one hand, the uncles are kind of scary. And his grandmother had left him to his mother. He's enjoyed the material privileges but has never, for an instant, treated them as family. And for what it's worth he robbed surfers at gun point, hijacked a safe and started his moves on teach before he dumped Nikki. It's not clear what he feels about his mother. And yes, he took care of her some, but he also shot her up with a fatal dose. 

Ha. I don't think J is closed off and judgmental enough! That family is a houseful of scary gangsters. And they've never treated him like family. Except for the pilot episode when Smurf picked him up from his mother's apartment. And remember that he's the child--he's the one who needs to be nurtured and accepted by adults. 

Yes, he's being roped in to the family's life of crime and is being corrupted bit by bit. That moral center is still there but is slowly being eaten away. 

J shot up his mother with a fatal dose of heroin? I must have missed that in the pilot. When he called the paramedics, it seems like he expected her to wake up after they gave her the Narcan, just as she'd done the times before when she'd OD-ed. 

[atomationage]

1 hour ago, topanga said:

J shot up his mother with a fatal dose of heroin? I must have missed that in the pilot.

It wasn't mentioned in the pilot.  It was mentioned in a later episode, and Baz said he had done the same thing, not a fatal dose, just a dose.  One of my favorite Jay scenes was his confrontation with her drug supplier, when he took away his gun. 

Edited July 20, 2016 by atomationage

[I-Kare]

I'm finding Baz more and more fascinating. He may not be related to Smurf by blood, but he sure as hell is the most like her. It was so cold and calculating how he reacted to the news his brother had been pretending his wife and daughter were his family. Didn't phase him, instead he sees it as an opportunity and something he could potentially manipulate. That was a very interesting reveal to me. 

I don't think Pope was jealous of Baz in a "I want my sister" way, I think it was more "the three of us are supposed to be in this together and if you two hook up, where does that leave me?" That's what the PBJ carving means to me. 

I read the Smurf scenario like you all did. I think she'd lived her life thinking one thing and it probably drove her to an extent. But finding out the truth was something different took the wind out of her. So my guess is she didn't hurt the guy and instead just left.

[iMonrey]

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That family is a houseful of scary gangsters. And they've never treated him like family. 

Well, Smurf has. She constantly coddles him just like the rest of her boys. But no, none of the uncles has really treated him like family.

Oddly, it was Pope who started out as the most menacing towards J and now Pope is coming the closest to actually reaching out to the kid. Meanwhile, Baz seemed like the most accepting and now he's the most hostile. Ironic.

[sjohnson]

J isn't stupid. He knew his mother wasn't breathing. 

As to being closed off and judgmental...we know that if he'd opened up with Smurf she'd have used it to get her hooks in him. But he didn't. Relationships are like conversations. There are some ways to stop conversations that superficially sound responsive, but are the exact opposite. J did that with Smurf. I'm sure it's because he condemns her for leaving him with Julia. I don't know if he realizes it. Playing J so guarded makes it hard to read the character (and the performance too.) 

As for the uncles, he's always dealt with them like they were high school bullies, a careful mixture of appeasement, defiance and avoidance. He can barely even talk to them about Julia, especially not to Pope, which I think is significant about who he is. 

[SingleMaltBlonde]

1 hour ago, I-Kare said:

I read the Smurf scenario like you all did. I think she'd lived her life thinking one thing and it probably drove her to an extent. But finding out the truth was something different took the wind out of her. So my guess is she didn't hurt the guy and instead just left.

So he stayed because of the daughter but then left her at a crime scene?  People have an amazing ability to remember things the way they want to...I think that guy is dead but was Pope and Julia's dad.

[I-Kare]

4 minutes ago, SingleMaltBlonde said:

So he stayed because of the daughter but then left her at a crime scene?  People have an amazing ability to remember things the way they want to...I think that guy is dead but was Pope and Julia's dad.

Didn't he try to get her in the car? And the police were coming? It's not like he just said "see ya" and casually walked away. 

Edited July 21, 2016 by I-Kare

[sugarbaker design]

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Is that Pope's former cell mate?

Isaiah is Smurf's mystery man.

[topanga]

30 minutes ago, sugarbaker design said:

Isaiah is Smurf's mystery man.

Thanks.

[ElleMo]

15 hours ago, I-Kare said:

Didn't he try to get her in the car? And the police were coming? It's not like he just said "see ya" and casually walked away. 

And he does feel bad about it.  That is why he keeps the car and the photo -- to remind him of who he shouldn't be. 

When he said he loved her, it sounded more fatherly to me than anything else.  So while I thought he might have been Pope & Julia's father, I am not sure now. 

 

It's really creepy how she kept the dad's out of their lives.  Don't know if Craig's dad would have been very involved, but it sounds like he would like to at least know his son. 

[Kuther2000]

I didn't get what was being said in the flashback at all. It looked to me like he just left her after the botched robbery. The way he talks about her make me believe some of the other suggestions of him telling her to get in the car . He did leave her in the aftermath though.

[topanga]

2 minutes ago, Kuther2000 said:

I didn't get what was being said in the flashback at all. It looked to me like he just left her after the botched robbery. The way he talks about her make me believe some of the other suggestions of him telling her to get in the car . He did leave her in the aftermath though.

I'm inclined to believe the worst about him, given what I've seen IRL about mother's boyfriends. I think he either killed Smurf's mother, or his actions led to her being killed, and he seemed to be a little to interested in Smurf. In my experience, when a grown man cares a lot about his girlfriend's adolescent daughter, chances are, he's molested her. Or has tried to. 

[Kuther2000]

3 minutes ago, topanga said:

I'm inclined to believe the worst about him, given what I've seen IRL about mother's boyfriends. I think he either killed Smurf's mother, or his actions led to her being killed, and he seemed to be a little to interested in Smurf. In my experience, when a grown man cares a lot about his girlfriend's adolescent daughter, chances are, he's molested her. Or has tried to. 

I don't think he molested her. We are only getting bits and pieces of flashbacks. The flashbacks involving him don't support that at all.I think it is exactly as is shown and whats said. He probably hooked up with Smurfs mom who had drug problems. She told us this herself. We also saw Smurf as a kid stealing pills. They tried to rob a store to get money. Robbery went bad and she probably got shot. He didn't want to go to jail so he left. Smurf probably feels like he could/should have done more to help them instead of just leaving them and her there.

[sugarbaker design]

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It's really creepy how she kept the dad's out of their lives.  

Is it creepy or protective?  We don't know anything about the boys' dads, save for Baz's.

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Don't know if Craig's dad would have been very involved, but it sounds like he would like to at least know his son. 

Have we met Craig's dad?

[MaggieG]

Damn, are we going to see Craig's ass every episode? I mean, not that I'm complaining. I hope Ben Robson is getting paid extra to show of his tush. 

Deran, for some reason I can't explain, has become my favorite. I just want to hug him. I really liked the conversation between him and Craig. So Craig knows, J knows because he walked in on them and we're assuming Pope knows. Smurf probably knows too, she's just waiting for him to be comfortable enough to tell her. I'm not sure if Baz knows or if he would care, he seems too wrapped up in his own shit. 

I was completely confused about the whole flashback/smurf situation but I think I understand know after reading some comments, so thanks guys!

[Joimiaroxeu]

Wonder why the Smurf nickname has stuck with her all this time?

Why did it sound like Baz and Pope had been competing for Julia? Was Pope having a relationship with his sister? So now I'm back to  wondering whether Pope is J's father.

Guess teacher thinks J is worth going to prison for. Odds are though that she'll OD and J will be on his way to developing a fetish.

I got no problem seeing Craig's ass every episode. They can put it in the opening credits AFAIC. It's like something created by Michaelangelo.

Ditto comments upthread, I felt confused about Smurf's age relative to that guy from her past. I guess she's in her 50s and the guy is about 10 years older?

Great news about the second season.

Edited July 21, 2016 by Joimiaroxeu

[iMonrey]

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Didn't he try to get her in the car? And the police were coming?

Yes - and that's the last we saw of it. We don't know if he drove off and left her or not. So we're left to draw our own conclusions. However - I think it's fairly safe to say he never molested her. If that had been the case I think she would have shot him anyway. Her issue seemed to be that she blamed him for his mother's death, and this episode revealed to her it was the other way around, and that he only stayed with her mother because he cared about Smurf. That must be why she got so weepy and ran out of there, because she realized she'd been wrong about him and her mother the whole time. There's clearly some kind of "light bulb" moment going on when she's sitting in her old car and the guy is telling her about being with her mother. 

If he had in fact molested her then nothing he was telling her would have changed her attitude.

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I got no problem seeing Craig's ass every episode.

Honestly, I don't either, but I have to admit at this point it seems pretty gratuitous. 

[tennisgurl]

I still like J and am still interested in his story. The stuff with his teacher is creepy, but interesting. I mean, I am normally totally turned off my student/teacher relationships, and this one is definitely going to end very badly, but at least its interesting.

On the one hand, I would like to see J interact more with his uncles, because its an interesting dynamic, but on the other hand, I really dont want to see J falling even more into the criminal life, and his toxic family. 

Favorite scene was absolutely Craig and Deran and Craig admitting that he knew, and that his attempts at being straight were just sad. And he seems to be totally ok with it, he even seemed to approve of Adrian. I would laugh if just about ever person in California knew, and they were just humoring him with his "secret". I wonder what the rest of the family would say? There has to be a reason he keeps it a secret. Damn it Deran, just run off and get away from Smurf ASAP. 

I hope this season gets a second season.  

[Raja]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

 

I hope this season gets a second season.  

TNT announced a second season last week

[SingleMaltBlonde]

I think it's cheap and easy to make J wholesome and perfect.

I need to rewatch but I thought the guy pushed Smurf out of the car...we also don't know what she did with him.  Plenty of child molestors justify what they do to kids by calling it love....Smurf is was too screwed up to just have had a bad mother.

[formerlyfreedom]

6 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Honestly, I don't either, but I have to admit at this point it seems pretty gratuitous. 

 

I hate myself,  but I can live with it.

[SingleMaltBlonde]

7 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

Have we met Craig's dad?

He was the guy that disabled the cameras at the vintage car dealer that Smurf met on the beach...I got the impression he knew who the guy was too.

[ElleMo]

23 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

Is it creepy or protective?  We don't know anything about the boys' dads, save for Baz's.

If she were a normal mom, it's possible it could be protective.  But I doubt it.  She is so possessive of her sons, she probably just didn't want to share them with the dads.

 

I highly doubt that she was in any healthy relationships with anyone so the dads were probably creeps, but she's pretty creepy too. 

[iMonrey]

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On the one hand, I would like to see J interact more with his uncles, because its an interesting dynamic, but on the other hand, I really dont want to see J falling even more into the criminal life, and his toxic family. 

That's a pretty good point. I'm not nearly as invested in J and Nikki or J and Alexis as I am with the uncles and their stories, but if they were to throw J into his uncles' orbit it would mean an instant slide into criminality and probably drug abuse. So for the sake of the character it's probably for the best if J continues to keep his distance from his family as much as possible. Otherwise there's really nothing to differentiate J from any of the other family members, and the story loses that "outsider looking in" perspective.

[lucindabelle]

I assumed surfer dude had molested Smurf. I inow take it back. He spoke about her in a very normal way. I now look at the flashback last week and think young Smurf was attracted to him but nothing ever happened.

 

ellen Barkin is 61. She looks great for 61 or rather that's what 61 can look like with good haircuts, figure etc. She does not look 51 and her character being older makes more sense. To make her early 50s really doesn.t

 

of course the photograph of the surfer who was moms boyfriend puzzles me time wise. So Lila cole took the photograph 30 years ago he was already selling cars she's never displayed it someone help me out here. Anne Ramsay who played her is 55 (and looks great and like she's a few years younger).

 

moms boyfriend has obviously aged in 50 years. How long ago was the pic taken?

Edited July 22, 2016 by lucindabelle

[SingleMaltBlonde]

On 7/21/2016 at 1:44 PM, iMonrey said:

Honestly, I don't either, but I have to admit at this point it seems pretty gratuitous. 

Except it does speak to the character and the lack of boundries they all have...