Photo: Apple TV+
Two years ago, Nicole Holofcener, writer and director of such funny and edgy indie comedies as Walk and talk And Lovely and Amazingreleased another great film, You hurt my feelingsstarring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Beth, a successful memoirist and creative writing teacher who is having trouble finishing her first novel. Her agent thinks it needs work, but she has the unwavering support of her husband (Tobias Menzies), who goes so far as to suggest that she find another agent who might be more enthusiastic about it. Then one day she overhears her husband confessing to his brother-in-law that he doesn't really like the book, but he can't bring himself to tell her. Needless to say, Beth is upset to hear this. Name You hurt my feelings unfair in the sense that Beth's husband always tried spare her feelings without being honest about what he really thinks about her work. He only hurt her by accident, which gives Holofcener an opportunity to reflect on the value of honesty in romantic relationships and whether those closest to us should know what we're doing. Really think about everything. What does support actually mean? Should it only be about encouragement? Or is a little frankness important too?
If there were ever any questions about Carol's commitment to saving humanity, they were put to rest this week by her desire to know what Helen, the woman she loved and respected most in this world, really thought about her job. We've witnessed Carol's fundamental willingness to be uncomfortable sitting on a bus when first class is open, or tossing re-creations of her favorite foods in the trash. But revealing painful truths about herself as a writer, as she does in one of the two most moving scenes of this extraordinary episode, is like sticking your face into a fan. She initially wants to learn something about the Others and how their hive mind works, but ends up opening Pandora's Box.
After another clever cold open – more on this in the bullet points – For many takes where the last episode is overwhere Carol leaves an injured Zosia to recover in the hospital and drives home in a police car. (She doesn't want to talk to the Others at this point, which confuses them so much that they assume she doesn't know how to use a CB radio. “Works the same as on Adam-12. Remember how much you liked that show?”) Arriving at the Others' team, including the mayor, cleaning up the broken glass and shrapnel on her property, Carol heads to the board, which is currently filled with ideas for the series. fifth novel in her Vicaro trilogy. Taking a new board, Carol begins to organize her thoughts on the topic “What do I know about them”, trying to understand a possible weakness. She decides that the question mark in her fifth entry is “surprisingly honest?” needs to be eliminated.
He calls one of the Others, a typically sunny gentleman in bicycle shorts named Larry (great cast). Jeff Hiller), Carol begins by simply asking the group if they like her books. The conversation around this issue is less about honesty and more about what Others value. “Your books are an expression of you,” says Larry. “And we love you.” Fine. Going further, they love the plot twists and character arcs, and can recall from memory the flowery passage about the dress from one of her Wycaro books. They then put her work on the level of Shakespeare, which is absurd for her, but significant because the quality of the writing itself becomes meaningless compared to the content it provides. Carol is apoplexy about how stupid it is to think that Vicaro's book is equally good Romeo and Juliet simply because it helped bring some satisfaction to people like Moira from Kansas City. But she was pained to learn that Helen liked the life that her bestsellers provided, and the books themselves were considered “cotton candy.”
At the same time, Carol sticks her face in the fan for the sake of humanity. She gives Larry “special permission” to tell her what Helen really thinks. “If you tell me,” she says with heartbreaking determination, “it will make me happy.” Carol may admit that her Vicaro series is mercenary nonsense, but what about Bitter dollan unpublished novel that is as heartfelt a stab at greatness for her as Beth's debut novel in You hurt my feelings? Carol learns that Helen thought it was “aha,” that she stopped reading this 489-page tome, three paragraphs on page 137, and that she and her agent agreed that Carol's career would not be harmed by its publication in the world. The rest are honest. Now Carol can remove that question mark and figure out how to use them to do this. She also has to come to terms with the fact that her significant other doesn't think highly of her work and that even at her best she is a mediocre writer.
With this new understanding in hand, Carol dusts herself off and returns to the hospital to visit Zosia and ask her directly if there is any way to undo the Joining. Zosia's inability to lie and say no tells Carol what she needs to know, but Zosia's insistence that Carol will “understand everything” once she is brought into the fold gets stuck in her craw. The idea of surrendering to the collective “normal” evokes the deep trauma of Freedom Falls, the “conversion therapy” camp in Tennessee where she was sent after her mother discovered she was gay. “Some of the worst people I’ve ever known,” she tells Zosia, “and they smiled all the time, just like you.” For Carol, the thought of giving herself away for the promised happiness of a normal life is abhorrent. Perhaps there is something different in the form of acceptance that Zosia offers, but she cannot be trusted.
Carol's scheme to use Pentothal, which she steals from a hospital pharmacy under the guise of looking for heroin, in order to gain more information about Zosia's Joining, results in a spectacle that exposes the Others as vulnerable when they are asked to challenge their own collective values and sense of self (or self). Being forced to speak against their will is not the same as what happened to Carol at Camp Freedom Falls, because we don't know anything about who the Others are or what they want, or even whether it's a good idea to try to stop them. But Zosia's tears, and those of the hospital staff and patients who gather around her as she collapses from cardiac arrest, speak to their vulnerability just as much as the alien's tears do when scientists examine him. Carol and the Others are enemies? Or do they not understand each other? Stay tuned …
• Another excellent cold open introduces us to new main character Manousos (Carlos Manuel Vesga), who treats this situation like a real alien invasion, holed up in a warehouse office and refusing any interaction with the Others. As far as Carol is concerned, giving up first class is one form of resistance, but licking the lid of a trash can is another level of commitment. Juxtaposing this scene with Manousos and Carol's attempt to contact him from the previous episode is a smart move because we see that her third call signals hope for him. Others wouldn't tell him to go and fuck his mother.
• Kudos to the show for treating pentothal as a complex anesthetic rather than a truth-extracting device like Wonder Woman's lasso. It's funny that, after watching numerous videos of her babbling incoherently under the influence of the drug during a test run, Carol believes that her own admission of screwing Zosia is the most convincing evidence that she is up to something.
• This episode was written by Alison Tatlock, one of several writers Vince Gilligan transferred from Better call Saulfor which she is credited with five episodes. But Tatlock deserves a mention here because she also wrote three episodes of the series. Halt and Catch Fireone of the most criminally underrated series of this century. Go and have a look if you haven't already.
• Gilligan's interest in obsessive personalities – reflected, of course, in the thoroughness of his show – now gives us a board of Carol and Manousos recording radio frequencies. You just know these two will happily spend the evening piecing together the bills from the shady nursing home!
• It's worth highlighting some of Carol's ideas for Vicaro's next book: Raban Dies (Again?) – FOR REAL THIS TIME?!?, Flood of Sand, LOVE POTION!, The Cliffs of Chartreuse.
• This is worth talking about more in future episodes, but the contrast between Manousos and Carol's interactions with the Others is significant. Although Carol realizes that she is being manipulated by Zosia, a manifestation of the Others created especially for her, she nevertheless shows some sympathy for her from time to time, such as when she helps an injured Zosia open a carton of milk in the hospital. Zosia is the Other, which she does not 100 percent consider Other.
• “Fun fact: the cop who drove that car, the sister of his son's third grade teacher's husband, was an active member of the Wycaro fan club.” “Wow, chills.”
• The show remains extremely funny, such as the scene where Carol is caught raiding a pharmacy and asks the pharmacist for some heroin and hypodermic needles: “I'm going to Sid Vicious this shit like it's the fucking Chelsea Hotel.”
