S02.E08: Disruptions

[Lady Calypso]

Quote

Following multiple confrontations in her life, Callie decides to make a change; Gael learns something unexpected about Elijah; Mariana gets the real story about what happened with the female former engineer.

[possibilities]

Okay... maybe I'm just tired, but I don't fully understand why Gael is so angry with Callie, and why Mariana thinks he is right. Why was Callie supposed to tell him Jamie bought his art?

Also... re Amanda: They fired her and told Evan she quit, because... why? And then she filed a lawsuit against Spekulate after their date because she found out what happened? But... what happened?

And with Malika, she's having second thoughts about protesting the judge who decided not to press charges against her, isn't she?

I want to say that I like animal prints, and I would not want Mariana to dress me or my date, given her opinions about that subject. She's dressing Evan to not be himself. It's a problem, because how long will that work in a real relationship? I'm really curious, though, what his own style really is.

And are they saying that Dennis decided not to get involved with Davia and lied to her about getting back with his ex because he thinks she will fuck and then dump him, like he thinks is what happened with Jeff? Did I understand that correctly? He thinks she's afraid of commitment or something? Or did he really want to get back together with his ex, and not really interested in Davia, but lied in order to spare them having that conversation?

All the lying and secrets are exhausting to me.

Callie never told anyone she knew about them mocking her over the mug, either.

And... do we believe Joey, or do we believe.. I forget the name of the comedy legend person? I find Joey extremely unpleasant, but I find person whose name I forget also unpleasant. You don't go and kiss someone who you know has a partner, unless you know they're in an open relationship. And you don't do it right before they go on stage when you know they are very nervous and kissing them will only cause more stress. Maybe they're both lying. I want to like everyone, but the constant berating by Joey and manipulation by Rhea Butcher's character are making me feel like Alice is being used by both of them and not like either of them has any respect for her as a human being rather than a useful pawn.

Ugh.

Glad Elliot (Elijah?) is gone, though. He's good looking but obnoxious.

I worry about Evan. I really like him. Mariana means well, but she's as impulsive as Callie is, and when she meddles it always ends badly. And the show sure is trying to make us think that there is more going on between Mariana and Evan than platonic or professional courtesy.

Edited August 7, 2019 by possibilities

[KittenPokerCheater]

This was a very....meh season ender.  Too many questions, almost no answers.

The only people I care about on this show are now Evan, Dennis, and Davina and sometimes Marianna.

I don't know WTF is up with Dennis and why Amanda is suing Spekulate but right now I'm too irritated to card.  

[alexvillage]

I haven't watched it yet but apparently the synopsis of the episode is total bullshit? Nothing was really answered? 

(just snarking, I will watch soon so you don't have to pay attention to my bitching 😛)

[gesundheit]

I'd love if Callie moved in with Jaime and we never saw her again. Which makes me really sad, but she's unbearable.

[Guest]

What a bland finale. I couldn't care less about anything happening. Alice's actress is really terrible. "Socially awkward" does not mean "monotone middle schooler." And now she's in the world's limpest love triangle with two identical condescending shitheads who manipulate her to boost their egos, great.

I'm getting tired of Marianna/Evan. Is he a socially inept adorkable genius that she wants to bang or a closet misogynist evil boss playing the innocent while plotting to destroy her career? Pick one!!!

Does Dennis ever actually do anything besides stare guiltily after the 500th flashback of him ignoring his dead kid? Speaking of which, all the frenetic and/or extended flashbacks made the episode really hard to follow.

Callie continues to be the worst, but hey, Gael will be sucked back into her vortex next season!

[dmc]

I"m sorry but why is Gael pissed Jamie bought his art.  It was for sale anyone could buy it

[gesundheit]

I have a really hard time believing Dennis was ever that straight-laced and preppy. 

[Samwise979]

Severe over reaction from Gael. Esp at the very beginning when they show in Slo-mo him walking to his apt with her behind him and he looks to be on the verge of tears. Gmafb 🙄🙄🙄

Technically yes, Marianna got the real Amanda story - they fired her and let her keep her app idea but told Evan she quit but... why did they fire her??? I still don't know. 

I know there was jumping back and forth (as usual) but did Callie and Marianna's fight end on Callie saying, you're my sister, you're supposed to have my back! with Marianna wondering later on to Raj, what's her problem?  Gee Marianna idk 🙄🙄🙄

I'm sure Dennis knew what Davia was going to tell him and he didn't want her to say it so he blurted out about getting back together with his wife. What I'm not sure on is, why he did that?

I'm not enjoying Alice or Malika's storylines. 

[tennisgurl]

So does Gael think that Jamie, what, bought the painting so he could stare at it and remind himself that Callie chose him, while...jerking off? The same Jamie who was just helping his sister not long ago? I think that says more about Gael than Jamie honestly. What a load of drama and ridiculousness. Really, lots of people seemed to be kind of dicks this week. Gael, Marianna, Davia, both of Alices possible love interests. No wonder Callie wants to split.

[Regalbegal]

Caught up with the last two episodes back to back today.  I feel like the writers are trying to drum up sympathy for Callie by having everyone treat her like crap (except Jamie, who I am sure she will turn on eventually).  However, I just can't feel bad for her, even the "mean girl" text group, because honestly if I had to live with someone like Callie I'd probably snark about her with my friends too. 

The out of order timeline structure this show keeps falling back on felt a little out of control the final episode, to the extent I am still not sure I quite pieced together what was happening, it felt both rushed and confusing.  Towards that end...

1 hour ago, Samwise979 said:

I'm sure Dennis knew what Davia was going to tell him and he didn't want her to say it so he blurted out about getting back together with his wife. What I'm not sure on is, why he did that?

Yeah - I don't know if they purposely kept this opaque or it was just a product of the time jumping.  My interpretation was that between his ongoing angst, low self esteem, and the realization that Davia (who he thought he could trust above anyone) had lied to him about Jeff and was still seeing Jeff at the same time he felt there was something more building between them, he just sunk back into his isolation and closed her off.  But, who knows, this finale was quite the jigsaw.  On a positive, I thought the scene with the two of them alone in their respective beds was both well-composed visually and sad. 

I think my #1 wish for S2b is that Alice find a nice partner who accepts her for her.  Both of her options right now are... not optimal. 

[Samwise979]

2 hours ago, Regalbegal said:

Yeah - I don't know if they purposely kept this opaque or it was just a product of the time jumping.  My interpretation was that between his ongoing angst, low self esteem, and the realization that Davia (who he thought he could trust above anyone) had lied to him about Jeff and was still seeing Jeff at the same time he felt there was something more building between them, he just sunk back into his isolation and closed her off.  But, who knows, this finale was quite the jigsaw.  On a positive, I thought the scene with the two of them alone in their respective beds was both well-composed visually and sad. 

Oooohhhhh so the part where Dennis asked Davia if she broke up with Jeff and Davia said yes happened before she actually did break up with Jeff? And then when Jeff showed up and Dennis over heard his rant, Dennis realized she was lying? 

I don't normally have trouble following the out of sequence storylines but then something like this happens making it too confusing.  I took the scene as happening after the break up but it was an actual flashback of Dennis's from before the breakup. 

Edited August 8, 2019 by Samwise979

[possibilities]

I like Callie. I don't think she's any more annoying than anyone else on the show, and she's less so than some of the others.

[dmc]

39 minutes ago, possibilities said:

I like Callie. I don't think she's any more annoying than anyone else on the show, and she's less so than some of the others.

Agreed.  She’s the least annoying one.   I think Marianna takes the first prize. 

[yourmomiseasy]

There was way too much jumping around in the timeline this episode.

[alexvillage]

9 hours ago, Regalbegal said:

Caught up with the last two episodes back to back today.  I feel like the writers are trying to drum up sympathy for Callie by having everyone treat her like crap (except Jamie, who I am sure she will turn on eventually).  However, I just can't feel bad for her, even the "mean girl" text group, because honestly if I had to live with someone like Callie I'd probably snark about her with my friends too. 

The out of order timeline structure this show keeps falling back on felt a little out of control the final episode, to the extent I am still not sure I quite pieced together what was happening, it felt both rushed and confusing.  Towards that end...

Agree with you. I think they did a bad job writing Callie as a member of the Coterie from the beginning. She always seemed a little detached from everybody else, no chemistry. And the episode was a big mess of making everyone be just terrible people, or lost people, of confused people - so that Callie could look better. While I can see how hurtful it was for her to feel shunned, they could have written the scene with Mariana a little better, with Callie telling Mariana how clueless she was about the chat. I guess they are setting us up with a story where Callie will be the savior of the lawsuit, and her life will take off, she will probably have to use her awesomeness to solve Coterie problems, making everyone else feel really bad about how they treated her.

By the way, the ACLU does not get involved in cases like the one in the story, at least not in the way I was able to understand (which I admit it was a little confusing to me).

I think they overused the time jump. It was giving me a headache.

I am still confused about Amanda and Evan - was Amanda his date from the dating site? The writing is really bad on that story because they give us pieces of it but they are too disconnected for us (for me at least) to make sense or even speculate (no pun intended).

I like Alice and her story was also left hanging and for something really silly. She froze because of a kiss - so what? She could have frozen for whatever reason, it was overdramatic, imo, not really deserving of a cliffhanger.

The Davia and Dennis story was also a little too convoluted, almost like a comedy of errors.

Malika's story could have been interesting if it wasn't so rushed. I can see someone feeling conflicted about doing what they see as right, and the danger of doing so and possibly face prosecution. But they just showed us her conflicted face. It was irresponsible and she should have talked to the others in the group. Having BLM in the mix and creating a blunder of a story bothers me.

Gael can go sulk in a corner and be there for a long time. He needs to grow up. First he is outraged that Callie didn't tell him Jamie bought his piece, then outraged that the piece was hidden in a room and demanding explanations? Dude, someone bought the piece, it's theirs, and if you will demand that they treat the art as you want the art treated, don't sell it. 

Like with the episode before that, I think most of the characters are acting like teenagers. Callie's bosses included. Boring.

Except Evan. I think his part, the few lines about his personality, were well written. Without being pity porn, his admission of having problems with relationships rang true to many (not all) autistic people I know. And at least in this episode it wasn't overplayed or generalized to "autistic people prefer objects to humans". 

[tennisgurl]

Normally I dont really care about the way the episodes are framed, jumping around in time (its usually pointless, but inoffensive) but this was actually pretty confusing. So what really was the deal with Amanda? Did she quit, get forced out, or what? I dont think Evan had anything to do with it, so was it all Angela? Why? What is going on with Dennis and Davia? Their story was so sliced up I have no clue why they are doing anything now, especially Dennis. 

Even if she did help Mariana with the salary thing, Angela is clearly a really shitty HR person, especially if she really did hush up the sexual harassment complaints against Josh. No wonder they fired her. 

Everyone just seemed like they caught a case of the assholes this week. Gael and his hissy fit about the painting (didn't he move the painting because Callie made a thing about it?) Davia being a dick to Callie about a freaking mug (its one mug! Just leave it alone!) both behind her back and to her face, Mariana is super snippy to Gael for something thats already resolved, and is just awful to Callie all of the time, Joey and the other comic are probably both assholes who are using Alice in some kind of passive aggressive power play, or its just a lot of cheating, did the local coffee place close down, why is everyone in such a shitty mood?

Malika should have probably asked for a few more details on this before she got involved, especially so soon after she almost got sent to jail for what went down with the judge. If she considers this to be the cause she will risk serious consequences for, more power to her, but if she is having second thoughts, she needs to reconsider her role in this, or look into helping out BLM in a different way. Also, is anyone from BLM actually involved in all of this plotting? It just seems like when you use a real activist organization, I feel like you should make sure you at least know how they function, maybe have someone in the know on speed dial at least. Its the same with the ACLU, I feel like this isn't how it really works, and a show that wears its Woke tag so strong, I think they should make sure this isn't an inaccurate portrayal. 

I generally found this to be a pretty bland finale, and one of the weakest episodes of the season. I hardly even understood half of what was happening

[possibilities]

I guess I wasn't the only one who couldn't follow what was going on. That's a bad sign. I think they always over-use the flashback device, but usually I can at least figure out what they are doing. And usually I am not confused by half the other conversations and events as well.

If you can't use your innovative storytelling devices effectively, just write an interesting narrative and present it in a straight-forward way, show!

[Regalbegal]

4 hours ago, possibilities said:

If you can't use your innovative storytelling devices effectively, just write an interesting narrative and present it in a straight-forward way, show!

It seemed like they were pushing to cram so much action into this episode so that every character was in a cliffhanger by the end of the finale, and they over-used the time-jump device to get there.  If it wasn't such a dull episode (compared to the rest of the season) I'd watch it again to try to figure out what exactly happened..... 

[alexvillage]

17 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Also, is anyone from BLM actually involved in all of this plotting? It just seems like when you use a real activist organization, I feel like you should make sure you at least know how they function, maybe have someone in the know on speed dial at least. Its the same with the ACLU, I feel like this isn't how it really works

BLM is in the show. Patrisse Cullors is the founder of BLM and she has been a guest for a few episodes. I am not sure she is consulting but I hope she is. If not, she should demand to be. I am glad you mentioned the ACLU because the episode was so fragmented, I didn't quite understand why they got involved. For what I understood, that's not something they would use resources to take on. It might be a shitty situation but I don't think it is an ACLU level situation. But I might have missed something.

[Lady Calypso]

I agree with everyone who said it was hard to follow the plots in this finale. They definitely tried to cram way too much in this episode.

The Dennis/Davia stuff was a bit hard to follow, but I figured out that some of it was taking place pre-cliffhanger from last episode.  The thing about Dennis telling Davia about trying again with his ex is that, if he does, then he leaves the Coterie and we know he isn't leaving. So the reveal of the divorce didn't surprise me. But yeah, both of them need to work on themselves before they can be with each other.

No surprise about the Alice/Lindsay stuff actually happening. I don't like either of Alice's love interests so that's an issue in the long run. But I think I prefer Joey to Lindsay.

So, instead of listening to Isaac's advice about her career, Malika decides to jump all in on the BLM group, which seems to be getting her into more trouble. I mean, it's good that she wants to help people but I think she's realizing the real risk in being so active in the group.

Yeah....add me to the group that was confused by the Evan/Amanda stuff because they were still leaving out information. I figure that Evan personally met up with Amanda to apologize, after he heard the truth from Mariana? 

I did like Evan's speech about his inexperience with relationships. I am really, really liking Evan's arc. 

So, why is Gael so upset? I figure it's a bit to do with his jealousy issues, but it still is over the top for Gael to be upset. I don't think it was a big deal for Callie to not tell Gael. 

I will say, I would not have blamed Callie if she HAD said "Why don't you ask your Coterie Biatches?" to Mariana in her fantasy shot. But yeah, Callie, passing the bar should be your first priority. If that's not your first priority, then you won't be able to do half the world saving that you want to.