"Live in the moment."
So, if you want to know what this show is about, I recommend giving my preview a look before reading this, this article will be more about discussing the different events and will, of course, be filled with spoilers, so be warned. Also, this is my new favorite show and I hope you liked it, too, and I hope you weren't deterred by some bad reviews that were quite surprising to me. Yes, likes and dislikes are quite different for everyone, but I don't think anyone could call this a bad show. Also, the social commentary is there but I don't think it's there to judge, I actually find it quite realistic and honest. Hopefully, you were able, as I was, to watch it without any preconceived ideas and were able to judge it on its own, because if you did I'm pretty sure you'll be on board.
If you watched the episode you know this show will follow the Bayer-Boatwright family, a beautiful dysfunctional mess of diverse children and parents that follow the liberal ideas to a fault. The whole family is admittedly an experiment of said parents to contribute their little grain of sand to make the world a better place, and living their philosophy, thus adopting kids from (yes) "shithole countries", which I'm sure would've been a reference if they hadn't filmed this before that whole thing. Anyway, everyone has their own issues, so allow me to dive in one by one, and even though pretty much everything revolves around Ramon here, let me save him for last.
Gregory is very much ignored when he has a meltdown in front of his whole family, and yes, his son's vision might take precedence, but no one seems all that concerned about him. This is a man that has not only dedicated his own life to the empathy philosophy, but he's inspired a lot of people to do so as well, and he finds that suddenly, at least to him, the social climate has shifted and that his whole life is focused on a course of action that seems to have no real effect in the world. We see how personally this depression affects him when he's coming back from meeting with a prostitute and stops the car to cry. On a separate subject, am I the only one who thought there was something more to his relationship with his T.A., Michael? His wife seems to think it's about his need for approval, I don't know, maybe it's just me, but it would not surprise me if he has some confusing feelings on that regard.
Audrey used to be a shrink and now handles the Empathy Initiative, she tries to control everyone and impose her beliefs on everyone, though I'm sure she's not the only mother to ever fit that description, and it all is made worse when suddenly her son starts hallucinating and she doesn't know the reason, which is understandable, especially since her brother was scizophrenic and she sees soe of the same symptoms on her son (though, as they remind her a few times, Ramon is not related to him biologically), I have a bit of a doubt here on wether there was something supernatural about her brother as well, but for now we don't have enough information for my crazy theories. And on this one I want to be honest, I'm sure a lot of people will check this out because of Holly Hunter, but I find her character the least interesting of them all.
As I said in my preview Ashley is my favorite kind of boss bitch, I love Jerrika Hinton from her last season of Grey's Anatomy and I've lost none of it here, if anything, it just gives her more of a chance to shine. One of the things I find intereting about her is her rejection of her own roots, I'm sure is actually a rejection from her parents' interpretation of her roots, that instead of making her feel wellcome they gave her a name she couldn't even pronounce and had to change as a soon as she was of legal age to the "whitest" name she could think of, and it shows, the name truly does not fit her in my eyes, and I wonder if there will be some sort if search of her own roots moving forward, there have been a few hints here and there and I think it's related to her risky behavior, but nothing seems definitive. She has a husband, Malcolm (Joe Williamson - Looking), and a daughter, Hailey. Ashley's definitely one of my favorite characters here and I can't wait to see more.
Duc (pronounced like Duke even if your instincts tell you otherwise) is a motivational architect, whatever that is, he's some sort of life coach that follows the "here and now" philosophy, he is apparently celibate to avoid shifting his focus away from his work, though I'm sure there's something else going on there. He seems to be a good brother but he often finds himself in complicated situations since Ashley's husband is also his best friend. Of the "kids" I think Duc is my least favorite but his storyline might offer some redemption farther down the road, so let's hope for that.
Kristen is the youngest and the only biological child of Audrey and Gregg, which brings her to feel left out, she feels she has nothing interesting compared to her siblings and so she finds herself doing a lot f stupid stuff, like losing her virginity to Randy, a model brought to her dad's party by Ashley, while wearing a horse mask. She also seems to have some sort of fake profile online which will probably have more eaning later, there's is something interesting about her story and about how she sees the world, even though she's slightly annoying, and her relationship with her siblings seems pretty sweet.
And last, but most definitely not least, Ramon, he's the first one we meet and the catalyst for everything in this story, not only it all begins with the dreap sequence of the woman on the beach, but from early in the day he begins seeing the number 11 11 while he flirts with a barista called Henry, he goes about his day normaly but things begin getting weirder by the hour and he researchs some of it, it seems there's a lot of people online sharing their 11 11 experiences one of the theroies is that individuals contacted by said number usualy have some sort of positive mision to acomplish, and Henry jokes he just might be the next step in human evollution (and by the way I love Henry's attitude towrds the crazy stuff going on with Ramon), but things get less fun when during his father's speech Ramon sees the number again, in fire and in front of everyone. Which brings us to his new therapist, who will turn out to be a lot more important than we thought since his mother is the woman Ramon saw in his dream.
As you might suspect, I fell in love with this show right away, literally from the first five minutes, and it didn't let me down once, I love the characters, their chemistry, the writing, the acting, the directing, the bloody music... Of course, none of this surprises me coming from HBO and Alan Ball, so I'm ready to be utterly confused and mesmerized throughout the ten episodes that constitute this season, and hopefully more. What about you?
"Oh, God, yes. Let’s get fucked up."
What did you think of the episode? I look forward to your comments.
