S01.E02: Red Flags and Parades

[lezlers]

On ‎12‎/‎3‎/‎2018 at 5:53 PM, preeya said:

In this era, no one needs cash unless you're buying or selling drugs. Plastic is the new $$$.

I know others have addressed this, but it does stand to be said again: in the event of a disaster, your plastic is more likely than not going to be rendered completely useless.  Everyone should have cash readily available to them in the event of an emergency.  I certainly don't have large quantities of it, but I make sure I've always got at least 50 bucks cash on me at all times.  Even outside of a disaster scenario, I've been caught with my kids at places where they're  hungry and no vendors take cards (hell, it happened to me a couple days ago at an xmas event for my son.)  

Not just drug sellers and users carry cash, responsible people with foresight and some life experience do, too.  

[lezlers]

On ‎12‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 9:41 AM, Neurochick said:

Yes to this.  Also I remember how Debra's mother kept saying how handsome John looked when he came over for Christmas.  It's like both she and her mom admire the superficial:  handsome, well spoken, chivalrous.  To me, John's performing, like an actor and they're falling for it, thinking it's the real him.

I do like the scenes with Deb and her mother (although they both drive me insane) because when you start thinking "omg, how can Deb be so blind and stupid!!!!" you listen to her mom and go "oh, yeah there it is."   When she was starting to have doubts about him after what her nephew told her she didn't go straight to confront him, she went to her mother for some empty validation to help silence the cognitive dissonance.  She's learning from a pro.

[lezlers]

On ‎12‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 10:59 AM, Sterling said:

 

Both of these posts are so spot on, it's scary!

With my own Dirty John, also 50's, in debt, but so charismatic he was magnetic, he too gave me all the "el cheapo" gifts and little gestures that don't cost a thing.

I am not materialistic, and I would never want diamonds or anything like that.  But with my DJ, the gifts were so cheapy-cheap, it was almost like, is this a joke?  

Re:  The morning smoothies and whether Debra even wanted them....good question!  It's not like she ever asked for them, that we saw.

In my own DJ situation, every single morning he'd run out to Starbuck's while I was showering, and bring me back a latte.  I finally told him thanks, but no thanks, as I don't really like Starbuck's.  He insisted, and continued to bring me the lattes.  I'd bring it with me in my car and dump it out later, because he just wouldn't take no for an answer.  I later realized, it was his way of saying, "See?  See all I do for you???".

Ah yes, I experienced this type of thing with an ex.  I remember my birthday one year, I told him I wanted to go to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants that wasn't fancy at all.  We actually got into a huge fight about it because HE didn't want to go there.  It wasn't nice enough.  It was MY bday dinner!  Who gives a shit if the place wasn't nice enough for HIM?  Turns out, he proposed that night and didn't want to do it at a "cheap" place.  It didn't even occur to him to just do the proposal later and let me eat where I wanted to.  He'd rather get into a huge fight, ruin the evening and practically throw the ring at me at the restaurant than just adjust his plans to make me happy.   Shockingly, the wedding never happened.

[Tabbygirl521]

On 12/2/2018 at 8:08 PM, Gem 10 said:

Debra and her Mother sitting there like two dummies singing John’s praises. Lol.

The mom kept saying, “He takes such good care of you.” ?!?!?!?!?!? He treated her like a toddler, putting toothpaste on her brush, etc. not to mention the financial aspect. These chicks are bonkers. 

ETA: I think the purse in the safe vs. $80 grand lying around illustrates that Veronica is savvy and cautious and Debra is not. 

Also, I think Debra made it very clear in a few scenes that she is TONGUEmotized. 

Edited December 8, 2018 by Tabbygirl521

[Starlight925]

1 hour ago, Tabbygirl521 said:

I think the purse in the safe vs. $80 grand lying around illustrates that Veronica is savvy and cautious and Debra is not. 

This is a good point.  Why wouldn't Debra just keep her cash in Veronica's safe?

Or take a cue from Veronica and get her own safe?

I'd be worried about fire as well.  They sell fireproof, waterproof safes (to protect against firefighter's water hoses).  It's not like it's a couple hundred bucks.  This was $80,000.  Who just keeps that in a drawer?

[princelina]

21 hours ago, lezlers said:

Ah yes, I experienced this type of thing with an ex.  I remember my birthday one year, I told him I wanted to go to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants that wasn't fancy at all.  We actually got into a huge fight about it because HE didn't want to go there.  It wasn't nice enough.  It was MY bday dinner!  Who gives a shit if the place wasn't nice enough for HIM?  Turns out, he proposed that night and didn't want to do it at a "cheap" place.  It didn't even occur to him to just do the proposal later and let me eat where I wanted to.  He'd rather get into a huge fight, ruin the evening and practically throw the ring at me at the restaurant than just adjust his plans to make me happy.   Shockingly, the wedding never happened.

With my Dirty John I ended up paying the balance for my engagement ring!  That wedding didn't happen either :)

[MrsRafaelBarba]

On 12/3/2018 at 11:09 AM, Amy Beth said:

Toby the nephew made the classic mistake of letting the bad guy know that you are onto him. That just gives him an incentive to push another person in Debra’s life away. As damning as the information seemed to him, he should have let the private detective do her thing while sticking as close to Aunt Debbie as possible.

 

When dude told Toby he should be glad his dad killed his Mom, that took me TF out.

Eric Bana is having a blast playing this character.

Edited December 12, 2018 by MrsRafaelBarba

[IDreamofJoaquin]

I can't get over my own frustrations with the mom picking a man over her daughters. I feel like both my parents picked shitty partners after they divorced that were allowed to abuse me and I still don't like them (it's been over 25 years).  So for that I dislike Debra.  If a guy tells you to smack your kids then you kick him in the nuts and leave him. 

In the podcast do they ever revisit the intruder in the home?  I assumed he set it up so he could be a hero. 

He knows Debra is so dumb he feels completely confident leaving all that stuff in a drawer not locked.

[Anela]

Finally watching this. I didn't watch before, because this reminded me of when I was a kid, and my mother was engaged to a sociopath - I don't know if he pretended to be a doctor, but I didn't like him from the start (and I was only six, but she knew I didn't like him, and she still moved us in with him - quickly). By the time she got out, she'd been talking to someone on a hotline number, to keep herself afloat, so that she could take care of us kids, and not do something stupid. This person helped her to focus, get organized, and get out. They met for lunch when it was all over - I didn't know this part until I was an adult.

So, when she ignores her daughter's wishes to keep him away at Christmas, and away from her CHILDREN, her babies, it kills me. 

This douche reminds me of my BIL, too. Ugh. I usually avoid things like this, but I like the actors involved, so I'm watching. I could have sworn it was on Netflix for a while, or Amazon prime, but I couldn't find it on either of them. 

The grandmother is an idiot. 

Edited May 21, 2019 by Anela

[Clanstarling]

The moment anyone made a "joke" about killing my kid (especiallly in that flat tone), I'd be showing him the door. Period.

On 12/3/2018 at 6:25 AM, Pickles said:

Why in the world would you keep $80k in cash? Even in the event of an earthquake or whatever, I wouldn't feel comfortable with more than $1000 in cash in the house.

The rich are different, and a little safety cash for them is a whole lot more than what most of us would feel comfortable with. Heck, I can't even keep a grand in the house - can't afford to.

On 12/3/2018 at 6:29 AM, 2727 said:

Why was Debra so set against John depositing his cash into her account? They are married. She apparently has a compulsion to keep very large sums of money laying around the house, but him wanting to put his measly $10K in the bank or a safe deposit box isn't odd on the face of it. Debra was the one acting suspicious and weird in that scene.

I think that despite being clueless about love, she's not that clueless about money. Mixing his money, which he clearly wouldn't have reported to the IRS, in with hers would make her party to that IRS fraud, wouldn't it? She was also pretty clear about the illegality of putting cash into safety deposit boxes (I had no idea that was illegal - just inconvenient if it's your "just in case of emergencies" stash).

On 12/3/2018 at 7:36 AM, EdnasEdibles said:

I was also struck by how her client had no idea who this guy was even though her husband supposedly works at the same hospital and that didn't seem to set off any warning bells for her. 

I thought it did, it seemed to me she reacted slightly, then told herself a mental lie and ignored it.

On 12/3/2018 at 8:28 AM, TattleTeeny said:

How old is she supposed to be? I think it works for her. I don't like the notion that age has something to do with how we can wear our hair.

Amen. It's our hair, we can do what we want with it. A lot of older women, myself included, wear our hair shorter for various reasons such as the hair starts to thin, or we're tired of dealing with it, or we just don't give a damn what anyone else thinks.  If I had glorious hair like Connie's, I'd probably wear it long. As I don't, short is great - a real time saver.

On 12/3/2018 at 9:53 AM, Barb23 said:

I thought it weird Debra went along with John's explanation of how he got the 10k - it was supposed to be cash payments from non-insured patients. He is not a family practice doc whose patients pay him after being seen in an office.   I'm pretty sure all his billing would go thru a billing office where patients would mail in a check or money order (not cash) or provide credit card info.  The billing office would take care of depositing the receivables properly in the company's bank account. This isn't the old days where patients pay for services directly to the doctor with cash, a pie or a cow. Like a lot of people, she probably never gave it a thought. 

Yeah, no one at a hospital pays cash directly to the medical people. Ever. The billing office, maybe.

On 12/3/2018 at 1:04 PM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

For me, Christmas is a family event. It’s not something that my family invites random dating partners to join. There are plenty of other events to invite new boyfriends/girlfriends to that are way less family oriented (birthdays, regular dinners, that kind of thing) but I know my sisters and I never would have thought to invite someone we’d just started dating to Christmas. It’s not like we have all kinds of weird holiday rituals either. Christmas is family time and someone I’ve dated for two months isn’t family. ng John join them and be around the kids. 

My brother, who ultimately married 8 women, once brought a woman over to Christmas. We were all pretty shocked. Had no clue who she was. She was foreign (which wasn't the problem), but so far as we know - even now - he hadn't really dated her with any seriousness at all. Of course, his was the only child there. My niece (from his first wife - he always had custody), had some issues growing up, poor thing. He was very much like Debra - believed in love and eventually found his soul mate shortly before he died. My niece hated her.

On 12/3/2018 at 2:06 PM, 2727 said:

I'm curious to find out where John's salary is going. Nurses/nurse anesthetists in L.A. should earn decent enough money. I suppose his drug use doesn't help, or perhaps he has legal bills.

Knowing nothing about the man, I'm assuming he doesn't actually work at the hospital - just parks the car there. Since he's got so much cash on hand,  I figure something illegal is going on.

On 12/5/2018 at 3:10 PM, CruiseDiva said:

Regarding Terra's Christmas sobbing fit... I think she was transferring her own emotions about her mother's men always disappearing onto the family's young children. I doubt that the nieces, nephews, and grandchildren got so attached to Debra's boyfriends/ex-husbands that they'd be devastated when the men were no longer around. On the other hand, perhaps Terra was upset as a younger child when they disappeared from the family circle.

Again, knowing nothing about the real people involved, I wondered if her sobbing fit and worry about John was less because she was devastated when the men were no longer around, but had been molested while the men were there. Debra's exactly the kind of clueless mom who'd miss any signs and dismiss her kids if they told her anything.