I'm going to let the (apparently few) readers of this show help me write this week's entry.
Chartex: "Here's the dealy: this show makes being in a relationship — hell, being alive — seem like a dour, mirthless slog broken up by occasional bouts of desperate humping. That could make for a plenty interesting movie, but it's tough to see why you'd tune in to a weekly show for this crud."
You know, if you'd posted this after week two or three I probably would have agreed with you. But now that we're past the halfway point, I think it's easier to see the bigger picture. It's not perfect and I still think the show has some pretty deep flaws. But it's slow by design and I think the slowness is starting to pay off. Take this week's episode: At first Jamie just seemed like a shallow nothing of a character but as the series has progressed, she's shown hidden depths (as has the actress playing her, Michelle Borth.) Now that surface shallowness seems like part of a long-range vision for a character who's just now starting to discover herself and realize there might be a way out of the unhappy patterns she's used to sabotage herself. Jamie's scenes make the explicit sex looks like it has a point, too. Contrast her scene with a returning (and suddenly incredibly whiny) Hugo this week with her athletically enthusiastic scene with Boone From Lost last week. With Hugo it was familiar, obligatory, and to all appearances just satisfying enough not to count as a failure.
Howardbeale1: "I'm tired of Carolyn, she's been an insufferable cunt from the word go and Palek might as well bang Jamie if that's where this is going, anything to get him out of this awful relationship as quickly as possible. Also I'm in favor any more sex scenes involving her."
Hmm… I'd agree that for the first half of this season, Carolyn seemed like an unforgivable harridan. But when she finally gave up on getting pregnant, all that time spent watching her act so obsessive about it made me feel really bad for her. And now it's Palek who's seeming a little monstrous. He's happy to have a wife who's given up on kids and who can now be sexually available with no consequences, but the moment some boundaries go up, forget it. Does somebody always have to be the bad guy in a relationship gone wrong? It would seem that way. These characters have slowly grown interesting over the course of the show. (On the other hand, the big reveal at the end of the episode came as a huge "no duh.") Also, I've tried to avoid sounding lascivious throughout this blog but you're not honestly saying you'd want to see fewer sex scenes with Sonya Walger, are you?
Howardbeale1 (again): "Siver Fox husband is funny, but there's only one official Silver Fox, country great Charlie Rich."
Damn straight.
This show sucks: "If I wanted to watch old people having sex, I'd hang out in a nursery home."