"Let's fucking say something!"
We begin once again in Farid's office with Ramon freaking out about his latest hallucination. In his altered state he goes into detail about how his visions were similar with his mom and Farid's and for the first time, Farid hears about his mother scratching her face, four gashes, 11 11, just like he himself remembered her doing. It might be just a little detail but I have to say I'm disappointed in Ramon calling Farid Fred after teasing him about his racist patients calling him that, maybe it was purposeful, I know the writers don't usually leave things to chance, but I haven't seen a good reason yet. Ramon is desperate and begging for meds so eventually, Farid prescribes him something to calm him down. The parents are waiting outside and they go in when they hear shouting, Farid is tired of them, especially Audrey, interfering with his treatment and he says so, so they leave in uncertain terms.
And the session leaves Farid reeling about the overwhelming amount of "coincidences" as Layla insists on calling them. Their marriage seems to be in constant danger, with his issue with her religion, which goes as far as disrespecting her fasting for Ramadan, and wit her ignoring his concerns about how he sees Ramon's case. Later, Farid decides to finally play Ramon's game and after a while of trying to figure it out, though he seems fascinated, he gets to the avatars that have the same scars as him, and this is, of course, a little too much for him to handle, so I wonder what he'll do next.
Henry suddenly comes back after being AMA for two days, and though he feels bad for not being there in Ramon's time of need, he lashes out and says he's not used to people caring where he's at, and he doesn't go the nicest way about it but he tells Ramon that a friend was about to relapse and he just had to go to him but he forgot his phone. Thankfully they hug it out and everything seems fine though clearly some issues are bound to bubble up in the future. His reasoning does make sense but I'm sure there's more to the story here. Later, he apologizes to Ramon and says he should've been there for him, but then Ramon tells him he loves him and though he tells Henry he doesn't have to say it back the look on Henry's face is far from okay.
Duc visits Ramon and their different living styles clash, Duc says maybe he'd feel better if he was more organized, but the mess is probably indicative, not causative. Later, Carmen and Duc meet up and he tells her straight away he's celibate, to avoid any awkward moments, and she says she's not interested in dating either because she just got out of a bad relationship, at least they feel the same way about relationships even if they're coming at it from different places. And though this "friendship" could be interesting I just can't seem to give a damn about Duc's storyline, I hope it gets more interesting soon.
Navid and Kristen are doing the Portland video, and there is a couple I love to watch, they are so different and yet both so open to each other's points of view, it's actually refreshing, and they are hilarious. Navid tells her how fasting for Ramadan makes him empathize with people who have nothing to eat, how it makes him appreciate what he does have and to avoid temptation. And she explains why she likes gay porn, so much they could teach each other (sigh). At first, they're going about doing the video in a very typical way, but Kristen, in particular, is not into it so they decide to spice it up, and I'm curious to see where this takes them, though their homework is derailed when she seems Henry walk by. They follow him to the tent of a homeless man where he stays for two hours, she films them getting out but it's unclear what she'll do with this footage.
A teacher at Hailey's school, who's all sunshine introduces Ashley and Hailey to the new black mom and child in school, Jamila, and little Baldwin. And though Jamila is very nice, Ashley feels uncomfortable being boxed in. After that, she meets with her dad for lunch, they have some nice quality time and it was pure gold, she confesses she feels like she has everything she's ever wanted and yet something's missing, and he says he can relate. But it's different for her she feels like the fact that she grew around white privilege made race a bigger issue than it was (though maybe it just made her more aware). She says he could never understand, she tells him about what happened with the cop and when he suggests she should report the cop, she laughs and says that's the perfect example of the different worlds they live in. Jerrika Hinton was amazing here, and her reaction was so on point and heartbreaking as it was funny.
That night Ashley and Malcolm have dinner with the Williams', Jamila and her husband, Corey, and Ashley struggles to show who she is without being too self-aware, she talks about how fashion is important as it's indicative of social status, of the historic period, but no one seems to care. It looks like she's been judged about how black she is constantly, even Malcolm expects her to be some sort of "expert". Jamila talks about how Portland was founded as a white Utopia since it was illegal for black people to even step on it until 1926. But when she learns Ashley's parents are white she says that makes sense, which really pisses Ashley off. The thing is she keeps surrounding herself with white people, and even though it makes sense given the environment she grew up in, she can't really get upset when they don't fully understand her point of view.
Audrey's day starts off terribly when she's decided to get a family therapist and finds Famiko's page on Gregory's laptop (the fact that he didn't use private navigation is beyond me), she finds the messages between them, so yeah, there's no denying it now, and she finds out where the cock sling came from. She's clearly stunned but she decides to push it aside for the day, and ignore Greg. She goes running with Duc, complains about Henry, seems she's suddenly not his biggest fan and she even blames him for being around when Ramon started hallucinating.
Later, she goes to see Steve Benjamin, who always had a crush on her, and now that she knows about Famiko and he's recently divorced... nothing happens yet, but they talk about the good old times and have an interesting debate on young revolutionaries. He thinks they only do it because it's trendy and she says they're one of the most connected generations and they use it to fight in different planes as well. She says the kids need to be taught to fight differently than them, not with hate and violence, this gets Steve's interest piqued and he says she should present a project to his board to get funding.
Greg continues with his crisis of faith and is especially disillusioned about the stupid stuff that is discussed at faculty meetings, they're almost all old white men and he even calls them out on it, he says they should be trying to change the way they teach philosophy, to engage people in a direct way. He reminds them the founders of philosophy were not hiding in ivory towers, they were men of action fighting for what they believed in. Of course, their reaction is to ask if he's drunk and tell him things that might have been charming in his twenties are not anymore. Greg comes home talking going to Antartica but he has no idea what he's walking into. Audrey confronts him about Famiko, with printed pages of their messages and shows him one where he said he hadn't wanted someone in a long time, and there he knows he's screwed. Then Kristen hears her mom kick her dad out with a heartbroken look on her face.
I for one am loving this show, the acting, the writing, the directing, everything is just perfect and some scenes I would just watch over and over. I wish it got a bigger audience, since it totally deserves it, but by now I have learned to accept that some gems, like The Leftovers, will never get the love they deserve. This episode too was filled with great lines, so I thought I would write some of the best here:
"I'm not anything."
"The world is not ours anymore."
"Babe, we talked about this, Emoji is not a language."
"What's in front of us is awful, there has to be something better."
"I can only dissect the concept of shame into a thousand subconcepts until we don't even know what we're talking about anymore."
What did you think of the episode? How are you liking the show so far? I look forward to your comments.
