"Satan can only be in so many places at once."
In this episode, Mary Louise continues to intrude in everyone's life, she asks Jane to submit Ziggy to a paternity test, which, honestly, even though it feels so invasive, I get when she’s coming from, she doesn’t know Jane, and she had a different idea about who her son was, so if she’s going to live with the destruction of that idea, she needs definitive proof. But when she follows them and sees Ziggy it seems she no longer needs a DNA test, he looks exactly like Perry’s brother. Still, she tries to inquire about Jane's perception and how perhaps she misunderstood her own rape. Then she goes on about how sweet Perry was as a kid and it only gets more unsettling when we think about that process, how a sweet little boy grows up to become an abuser and a rapist.
Jane finally goes on a date with Corey and he’s so annoying but she seems to like him. She tells him about Ziggy and he says he wants to meet him, which seems way too fast, but still, she lets him teach Ziggy how to surf right away. When he tries to kiss her she flinches, which leads to another awkward moment, which is all their interactions are, for the most part, but by the end they actually have a pretty sweet moment, and I hope she gets some happiness, I don’t know if this is the guy but I think she really deserves some joy for once.
Speaking of joy, Celeste feels joyless without Perry and thinks it makes her a worse mother for the kids, and honestly it's insane, that she would miss it, perhaps she thinks going through something horrible made her a better mom and she feels weird now that she's a more normal mom, it's so unsettling how much she misses the whole thing, but thankfully this comes up in therapy. She continues to try to salvage the good memories with Perry but the therapist won’t let her continue in denial, perhaps because she might be open for it to happen all over again with her next partner. Dr. Reisman compares it to war veterans who can’t handle normal boring life, they miss the war, the adrenaline, and it actually kinda makes sense.
Madeline and Ed also go to Dr. Reisman for couple’s therapy and Madeline feels under attack, Amanda picks up on her insecurities over not going to college and perhaps the influence her parents had on her, she later tells Celeste about a memory of her walking in on her dad and another woman and how she never talked about it. She feels very guilty but Ed is being such an asshole and quite calculating which doesn’t really surprise me, but it does seem to surprise Madeline when he starts being nicer to Bonnie so he can piss Madeline and Nathan off at the same time.
Ammabella has an anxiety attack at school and it turns out she's mostly worried about her mom going through something, her dad going to jail and the end of the world. Of course, Renata focuses mainly on the last item and there’s an assembly at school to talk about the issue with kids learning about climate change. Madeline ends up being the first one called to speak and she starts talking about how their kids are too young to learn that, but eventually, goes to the other side, to say they can’t pretend life has a happy ending, that making kids believe in illusions is actually a disservice. She has a clear breakdown in public and Ed doesn’t seem to give a fuck which, honestly, I might be biased here, but that’s it for me, I know he’s hurting and I'm sorry, but that dude’s an asshole and I don’t think he’s worth fighting for, he never was, really.
"You miss the war."
What did you think about this episode? Is Ed worth fighting for? I look forward to your comments.
