A week and half into the series and no thread. I’ll start one.
It’s an interesting story. Obviously we haven’t even begun to delve into the backstory but I’d really be interested to learn why the (for the most part) the kids and (almost completely) the husband are so cool with the whole multiple personality thing. As the husband I’d be pretty darn frustrated that I couldn’t be intimate with my “wife” half the time and really upset that Tara had laid down the law of “no hanky panky with my alts.”
I like Toni Collette and think she’s doing a great job with her characters. And I just looked up Brie Larson in IMDB. She’s 19. Whew. I really felt like a perv liking her so much.
And here’s hoping Buster Bluth becomes a reoccuring character!
I’m really enjoying the series so far. It’s a bit early to really pass judgment but if they can keep it up this should be a winner. Toni Collette is doing an awesome job.
So far, I’m only warm to the series, but I’ll give it a chance.
I think the thing that has me a bit frustrated is the 30 minute show length. I think it moves too quickly through the different personalities. An hour would be much better. Right now, it seems a bit rushed.
It’s interesting how she has separate personalities to deal with each crisis: anxiety about sex with husband? Turn into Buck, dodge the issue. Daughter is promiscuous? Turn into Alice, deliver prissy sermons. Can’t deal with responsibility? T, go shopping.
I wanted to cheer when Alice washed Kate’s mouth out with soap. Such an inhibited response to teen obnoxiousness. Totally over the line, of course, but who hasn’t be confronted with such behavior and wanted to do exactly that?
I think I’ll stick with watching it because I love Toni Collette, but the writing could use some help. It has Diablo Cody’s name practically flashing in a neon sign at every turn.
The idea that the mother CHOSE to go off her meds and that’s why she’s slipping into her alters bugs me because, IMHO, that’s damn near abuse to her family. Unless her side effects were unbearable, there’s no excuse to do that to the ones you love. We’ve yet to find out why though, so we’ll see.
The Diablo issue is that the kids talk like adults. Of course children in their situation would have their odd ways of dealing with this odd situation, but it would make them little adults insofar as they speak like 50 year olds? In a scene with the teenage daughter and the father, he says something is funny and she says “Sure, it’s as funny as a questionable mole.” WTF? Kids.don’t.talk.that.way. That’s just one example, there are others I can’t quote. In the first episode her little speech to her Dad about the morning-after pill is another example. She says something like “Would you prefer that I let the egg and sperm fertilize and become an embryo and grow inside me blah blah blah” Kids.don’t.talk.like.that.
Yes, yes I’m sure a 100 Dopers would come in to tell me that their Rhodes Scholar children do, but I believe Cody is figuring that Juno worked for her and she’s gonna ride it to the end.
Still, Toni Collette is so fantastic it is nearly impossible to look away. I hope it gets better.
Tara discusses this with her therapist in next week’s episode (I can watch a week ahead OnDemand).
She said that she couldn’t work, do art, fuck, or barely even get out of bed when she was on the meds. Her personality was completely flattened. I’ve heard this argument before from people who have severe mental illnesses that require constant, heavy medication. I’m not sure what to think. I guess those meds giveth and they taketh away.
I agree that the kids sound very precocious, but it sorta works for who they are. The boy is very intellectual and well-read. The girl seems like the type who would be articulate/mouthy. I’m giving Cody a pass on that for now.
I am interested to hear the reason why she has DID. It better be a good one, because DID is vanishingly rare from what I’ve heard, and induced by severe trauma. Her sister’s dismissive attitude belies that, so I hope the explanation helps it all make sense.
I’m relieved it was cancelled. I was a big fan during the first season, but hoo boy this second season devolved into the most insufferable self-indulgence I’ve ever seen. The last few episodes I ended up fast forwarding through any scene that had Tara in it, making the episodes a breeze to get through.
It may be that this series was sort of a running in-joke Diablo Cody perpetrated as revenge for all the movies with male protagonists that have shallow, hollow, ridiculously unrealistic protrayals of women. Because the husband, Mr. Perfect? Give me a break. Or, maybe, Diablo Cody is just a terrible writer. I prefer to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume his over-the-top devoted sainthood was intentional gender revenge.
Unfortunately this started to bleed into my perception of Nurse Jackie – another show with a troubled female lead and a devoted, saintly husband whose entire life is lived in service to his wife – and now with Weeds and The Big C starting next week, I’m probably in store for more of the same. Ugh.
Me too. This was the third season that just ended (right?) and I couldn’t bring myself to bother watching. The side stories started to become interesting but I couldn’t stand anything with Tara anymore. Her right to do anything she pleased, because she is sick, combined with the crap everyone else had to take from her, because they were not sick, became too much.
Were the writers seeing just how far they could pull our legs when Tara got so upset with her husband for sleeping with one of her alters? I mean, she doesn’t mind sleeping with anyone she wants - “Oops, I’m sick. Wasn’t really me anyway.”