It was by far my favorite Barb moment of the series and a standout scene in an episode with a lot of those. Russ when he told Barb he was grateful, and the surprised, touched look on her face were great moments for both actors.

I wish there was more of an audience for these types of character-driven shows, but that never seems to be the case. The only character-driven stuff that ever seems to cross over and become a (usually modest) hit is stuff that is also violent and/or flashy and slick, like the Sopranos or Breaking Bad. The Wire, Mad…

This was definitely my favorite episode yet.

I think the show heavily suggested that someone tipped the manager off about Russ. The manager said it himself, so it's not necessarily Russ being delusional or avoiding his own culpability (although I wouldn't rule it out with this show).

But you assume Mark is in the right and Richelle was being manipulated - why? That may be the case, but he clearly seems to have some undefined feelings for Gwen, so maybe he really does have some pretextual reasons for getting engaged?

Actually, I thought this past episode exposed Mark (the living son) as maybe being as unreliable as his mother. When his fiancée called him out, it raised some questions - is he really marrying her because he loves her or just to show up his mother? Or for some other complicated personal reason? When his fiancée…

I'm definitely not opposed to bleakness as a general rule, but I think the difference here is that when you have 7+ hours of it (as opposed to 2-3 hours), it can start to feel 2 dimensional instead of insightful.

Exactly. I mean, I don't doubt that the prison stuff happens, but to have that happen while Aubry is talking about being abused and the Giutierrez family is splitting up and Russ is getting fired and Barb is being Barb. It's a lot to take. Especially when it's 7 episodes following essentially the same pattern.

Yes, everyone looks fairly equally fucked up, regardless of race! ;)

I find this show a little frustrating, because it is just *so close* to being great. But like I mentioned below, the relentless emphasis on bad things is hard to take.

I think the show is more balanced than people give it credit for.

LOL! I love many many things about this show. I love the actors first and foremost. Felicity Huffman, Timothy Hutton, Elvis Nolasco, Regina King. I mean, this show has Lili Taylor in a tiny little role, and she's KILLLING IT.

There are a few things this show does brilliantly. Carter and Aubry are an amazingly spot-on portrait of how devastating addiction is. Their bad decisions are exactly the kind of bad decisions true addicts make, and I hope the show follows through with bringing out more of Russ' past to layer onto that. And I also…

Yeah, that's a little off what I've heard from the commentary. Rooker was talking about him not being friends with Hutton or Amy Madigan during the shoot or after, not that Hutton isn't friends with actors generally. The issues on that set were a lot bigger than an actor taking a method approach to a character. …

Agreed. And as I said above, having Barb remember her son in some way, as Russ has been shown doing, would go a long way towards adding nuance to the bitch on wheels thing. I do expect the show to give us more at SOME point, but as you, it metes things out very slowly. I'm wondering if it wasn't a mistake to wait…

I'm desparately hoping to find out that Barb was not the saint of a mother she believes herself to be. There is just no way someone that bitter and single minded doesn't bleed that into her relationships with everyone.

Barb is tough to take, to the point that I'm starting to struggle with her character. I GET everything they're doing and why, but I find her unwillingness to consider Matt's involvement in his own demise and her insistence that this was a hate crime unrealistic. And I think it's the kind of thing that could fixed…

Sure those qualities aren't always an indication of self-loathing, but they can be, and given Alonzo's other statements about the difference between Mexicans and Mexican Americans, it's pretty clear he's in the self loathing camp. Not every minority is self loathing b/c of race, but some are, and the point here is I…

I was watching the Twitter TL, and the scene where Tony's sister confronted her dad and accused him of hating himself seemed to get the most positive response of the show, for exactly this reason.

Middle class kid mixed up in a murder case with no idea what's going on. Do you have to be Mormon level sheltered to cry in that situation?