Big Liberal Lies
The Monterey Five are officially starting to lose it, folks! Meltdowns, monologues, and capital-M mothering abound in this week’s episode, “The End of the World,” featuring big lib energy and some of the series’ goofiest writing to date.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
Where else but in Monterey would Charlotte’s Web be re-spun (do u get it) as a sustainability parable for second graders? This has definitely happened in one of those yuppie “don’t call it a charter, we just believe in school choice” classrooms. I bet every kid has a metal straw, too. That’ll solve it! (It won’t.) But as our hero Madeline later tearfully and somewhat haphazardly articulates, we’re all living with a bit of delusion: about climate change, about our relationships, about what’s really motivating our choices. Our coastal liberal elites are figuring out that throwing money at the problem won’t always make it go away! Sometimes, the only way out is through. This week’s episode was all about seeking crucial perspective from others (often our loved ones) to work through our delusions. So, how’d our ladies do?
Madeline
“We have to tell the children that life is an illusion and things don’t work out sometimes, and that, you can’t tell them part of the truth. You have to tell them the whole truth.”
We’ll get to her speech at Otter Bay in a minute. Because right now, we’re going to therapy! Of course Madeline would haul Ed’s ass over to Celeste’s therapist, Dr. Reisman, Monterey’s premier therapist specializing in absolutely reading you. Why did Madeline cheat? Well, she’s severely lacking in self-worth (partly because she never went to college) and lashes out to protect herself from getting hurt (probably part of the reason why she clashed with Renata so much before—they saw too much of themselves in each other). Oh, and when she was little she walked in on her dad with another woman. That’ll fuck you up!
A lot of attention is being paid to fleshing out each of the Monterey Five’s backstories this season—some more convincing than others, but all intended to be reflective of how each of them copes with trauma. Whether Merrin Dungey’s eternally glowering detective character busts the group for acting purely out of self-defense is a total MacGuffin to me, an easy means to help justify continuing a story that maybe didn’t need another chapter. But if you’re going to do it anyway (and I suppose with this cast, why wouldn’t you?), then I’ll take this attempt to tell a story about people who materially could have anything they wanted be completely unable to ask for what they actually need.
Speaking of! That speech. Yikes! Madeline, asked to speak at the school assembly that was called after Amabella Klein literally collapsed from climate change anxiety (this show…), bumbles through an incoherent speech about being more honest (to our kids, to people we love, ya KNOW?), making a detour through a half-memory of a song from The Muppet Movie, all while her friends wince and grimace in the audience. Ed’s there too, and despite intense eye daggers from Celeste and Renata to get the fuck up there and save her, he leaves poor Madeline to twist in the wind, her hand extended as she stands on the edge of her emotional cliff, desperate for her husband to join her out there so she’s not alone. It’s finally a flashy scene for Witherspoon, who usually seems duty-bound to stand back and let her co-stars shine; you cannot deny the wattage of her star power here. Adam Scott is good too, in this very specifically smarmy role that is maybe 60 percent hairstyling.
Celeste
“Life just feels colorless now. It just feels flat and dull. As dead as he is, sometimes I think maybe I’m deader.”
Our dear Celeste continues to feel completely unmoored by Perry’s death, haunted by his abuse but also by the way it controlled her and (to her) gave her direction and purpose. Dr. Reisman gets her again, and describes to Celeste how she is like a soldier back from war, struggling to acclimate to a life without constant violence. Celeste tells Madeline in a front-seat vent-session that she feels drained of purpose—who is she now that she’s doesn’t have Perry’s threatening presence to motivate her? Which isn’t to say Celeste didn’t have her own motivations and beliefs before, but as we’ve unpacked with her in therapy, when a powerfully animating force in your life suddenly disappears, and in this case, a terrifying one, it can be utterly destabilizing.