S01.E08: This Young Woman Fought Like Hell

[Rubyslippahz]

This series was about 3 or 4 episodes too long.

In the end I really liked the characterizations of the daughters and the performances by the actors playing them.

I felt rage with the scene of Debra mincing down the hallway in the hospital to visit Terra, her hair perfectly waved.  Her daughter was centimeters away from being slaughtered in a parking lot and it was the same airy-fairy demeanor.  Grrrrrrr.

[mythoughtis]

50 minutes ago, Rubyslippahz said:

I felt rage with the scene of Debra mincing down the hallway in the hospital to visit Terra, her hair perfectly waved.  Her daughter was centimeters away from being slaughtered in a parking lot and it was the same airy-fairy demeanor.  Grrrrrrr.

Spoiler

In the two hour Oxygen special, news crews were on the scene of the attack. So we saw clips of that. Debra is shown there trying to get to Terra and being stopped by the officers on scene. So that scene on the mini-series is another one of those fictionalizations that people think I should just shrug off.  

Edited January 18, 2019 by mythoughtis

[Barb23]

I was thinking same thing about the hospital scene on the series. Number one, forget identifying John first thing, I would have seen my daughter first no matter what. He was gone, he could wait.

I thought Ronnie acted more lifelike  in seeing  Terra than Debra did.  Even though they tried to stop her, it seemed like Ronni flew in the door to see Tera. I also thought Ronnie gave her a more realistic type of hug.  She squeezed her so tight & think she only let go to let Debra hug her. Debra's hug was good but it didn't seem as realistic as Ronni's was.

[newyawk]

On 1/16/2019 at 1:31 PM, kicksave said:

Liz wasn't looking for love...she married men instead of living with them first. She had many substance abuse issues and it clouded her judgement. The only men she truly loved were Mike Todd (he was the love of her life) and Richard Burton. Her first marriage to Conrad Hilton, Jr. was a disaster. He physically and emotionally abused her... she was barely 18 when she married him and did not have much experience in relationships. I think her predilection for marriage was another addiction for her. If Mike Todd hadn't died at such early age I think she would have stayed married to him until her death. 

Right, I know Liz's history. As I said, I was just responding to someone that said Debra needed to stop dating altogether based ion the fact that she had been married 5 times. I was pointing out that it was a ludicrous thing for him to say, to tell anyone to permanently give up dating. 

[kicksave]

22 hours ago, newyawk said:

Right, I know Liz's history. As I said, I was just responding to someone that said Debra needed to stop dating altogether based ion the fact that she had been married 5 times. I was pointing out that it was a ludicrous thing for him to say, to tell anyone to permanently give up dating. 

Debra can date again...just hope she Googles any future dates before meeting them and marrying them two months later.

[noveltylibrary]

On 1/16/2019 at 1:31 PM, kicksave said:

Liz wasn't looking for love...she married men instead of living with them first. She had many substance abuse issues and it clouded her judgement. The only men she truly loved were Mike Todd (he was the love of her life) 

That's what my mother always told me, her first cousin married Mike Todd Jr:)

[Pondlass1]

Nature versus nurture is interesting.  John was trained by his father to be a scammer but he had to be that way inclined in terms of personality traits and character. Zero empathy, zero guilt, etc.  Not having a conscience is scary and a danger to those around you.  However his sister didn’t turn out that way and she too was exposed to the father’s cons on a daily basis.

And then there’s Debra who unfortunately inherited a great big wallop of her mother’s ‘love and forgiveness’ DNA.  It would have been interesting to have some knowledge of the early marriages and why they broke up.  I would have thought she’d be a man’s dream wife. Wealthy, attractive and – most of all – naive in the extreme when it came to trusting her partner.

Thankfully her daughters apparently did not inherit the mother’s gullible and trusting ways. 

Monsters walk among us.  And the meek probably will not inherit the earth. 

Edited February 19, 2019 by Pondlass1

[SandraML]

This "mother" & her blonde daughters, TOGETHER, have a collective IQ of 35-1/2.  I had seen this program before & I am even angrier at how damn dumb they were (and apparently STILL ARE).  They clearly rely on their looks (and those are nothing all that outstanding) to get men, money & (most pathetic) self-esteem.

[bettername2come]

Well acted and the dog is the true hero of the series. I have nothing to add except this is what I thought of when Terra was on the ground kicking up at John.

[Paloma]

On 1/14/2019 at 12:25 AM, HunterHunted said:

I was able to find a news report from back then and it's way more screwed up than that. His sister brought Terra flowers and said "You did a good thing." Yikes. That just shows what his blood relatives thought of him at the end.

http://www.newser.com/story/249779/how-the-story-ends-dirty-john-goes-to-hell.html

Wow, the most amazing thing in that news report is the bravery of the 14-year-old witness who ran to help Terra vs. the cowardice or indifference of the other witnesses (what used to be called the Kitty Genovese bystander effect).

[Paloma]

On 1/15/2019 at 3:59 AM, yourmomiseasy said:

According to the Oxygen special the theory among those involved is that he was going to use Terra to lure Debra and then kill them both.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was his plan, but was he also planning to kill several other people? Because when they showed him digging a grave in the dessert, the camera rose higher and showed that there were multiple graves already dug--maybe as many as 10. I thought his plan might be to kill one person and bury them in one of those graves, but having multiple graves would make it hard to find their body. It doesn't really make sense.

[Paloma]

On 1/15/2019 at 8:47 AM, Ninny said:

They may have been adults but, a mother's instinct is to protect her children - no matter how old they are.

So true. I'm over 70 and live in the US, and my daughter is 40 is a very independent and competent adult who lives in Israel--but if I thought she was in danger and that there was anything I could possibly do to protect her, I'd catch the first flight over there. I do think Debra had/has protective feelings toward her daughters, but her need for a man's love was apparently stronger than those feelings.