fyi
Arranged Throws A Dinner Party, And Caveman Josh Ruins It
Lisa makes herself useful for the first time ever, while the other two couples have a harder time holding up their share of the episode. Your editors discuss!
Our Players
The Talk
I never, ever, ever, never, ever, never thought I'd say this. But Lisa actually said something smart and gave Meghan good advice on Arranged this week. I am no gender essentialist and certainly way less of one than Lisa apparently is, BUT: when she tells Meghan that when something's bothering her she should just TELL JOSH, she's right. ...Also the dinner she makes looks amazing.
That fried chicken did look fantastic, and I don't even eat chicken. Too bad Lisa isn't as good at raising boys who turn into grown men, instead of little brats who sulk and make a stink at the dinner table. Then again, I'm not sure Josh isn't simple. "I'm at the hospital all day, doing work" is such a let's-play-dress-ups way of phrasing it. You're a doctor. ACT LIKE IT.
I spent most of the episode thinking the conflict between Meghan and Josh was totally fake -- particularly when we see Derek training Meghan at the gym and clearly could not be less interested in her except as a client -- but I don't think Josh is a good enough actor for that scowl across the table not to be real. I really fail to see what he's even mad about? It seems to be that she works with a man he thinks is a dreamboat, because it's not like she (a) ever kept Derek's existence from Josh or (b) tried to keep them from meeting -- even before inviting him for the dinner party, she'd welcomed Josh at casual after-work hangouts. I'm thinking Josh is acting this suspicious because HE has something to hide.
Or doesn't think anything sexual is going on, but is afraid she's starting to think for herself, which will naturally lead to her thinking he's a big old passive-aggressive fatback dumbshit she could do way better than. I mean, she finger-gunned him. She knows he's full of shit, especially since he's all boo-boo-kitty about how Meghan "sprang" after-work drinks on him. Oh, like you did to her two weeks ago?
THANK you. Straight from my notes: "Why, did you MAKE DINNER?" Shut up, Josh, even your mom isn't on your side anymore, and in the first half of the season I was pretty sure she wanted to be the one marrying you instead instead of Meghan.
At least something happened in that part of the Arranged-verse. I could barely keep my eyes open for the other two segments. The Ragini hormone test is dragged out for another week? Haven't they been teasing that for like a month now? ...Never mind: don't fucking care.
And strictly from a dramaturgical perspective, I don't get why it's the last third of their plotline from this episode, coming straight off their honeymoon. About which all I'll say is that I am surprised Payel actually knew better than to show up off Veeral's invitation to join them. But: good for her. Maybe she's learning.
I am also surprised by that. Maybe she's as bored by them as I am. Everything about their interactions is so ersatz that I can't pay direct attention to it for more than a couple of seconds. Occasionally I can rouse myself from my torpor to mutter, "Stop using 'impact' as a verb, both of you," but that's...pretty much it.
The discussion of Indian names on their "don't" list was somewhat amusing, but yes, they are the fakest. I refuse to believe that any woman who thinks she MIGHT have kids doesn't know her fertility is going to start winding down in her mid-thirties. I knew that and I swore off kids at age ten. But do we make a nickel bet that the "shocking" test result ends up being that Ragini is more fertile than anyone thought someone as elderly as she is possibly could be?
No bet, because it's that, or she's already knocked up.
haha, I'm so dumb I didn't even consider that possibility! I bet you're right! Moving on to our final couple: I'm mad about Peter and his dumb gadje drama because everything else happening around it was showing us stuff about the community that we hadn't seen to date. Michael's dad considers non-Roma people to be a different "species"! There was a reference to Roma "rulers"! And then Peter and his tall hair and his clickety-clacking texting had to make it all about him. Snooze.
And how fake do we suppose THAT is? He doesn't strike me as that rebellious -- or conscious, half the time; I frequently think he's sleeping even if his eyes happen to be open -- so part of me wonders if it's not a big production-plant fake-out and some PA named Naomi just occasionally texts him and/or instructed him to save her as "MyGirl." Because, and I know I have some problems with underestimating how dumb it's possible for someone to be and still get dressed, why wouldn't he save this person as some boy name like "Johnny" unless he wanted to get caught? Or were told to?
I was about to give Peter the "benefit" of the doubt by pointing out that they've said they're all homeschooled, but if their teacher is Nina, they should have at least learned how to be devious -- so yeah, fake. Or else he's deliberately trying to provoke a discussion about free will or hint that he's going to abandon the community if he doesn't get more of a say in his arrangement than Christian did in his, but somehow I don't quite believe Peter has that much revolutionary spirit or initiative.
He can't even get a different hairstyle from his crapweasel brother. How would you look at that all day and be like, "That's the one for me!"?
Sarah. It's so tall. It hurts my feelings.
It hurts my pillowcases, vicariously.
Peter is a dumb teenager first and foremost, which I'm sure is what's actually behind all this -- he hasn't thought through the consequences of flirting with this girl if she is, in fact, the pizza girl and not a PA. Or he figures he might as well talk to her while he can, since nothing can really come of it once Nina puts him on lockdown for real. Her rage? Did not seem fake.
It read more like fear to me, but no, I agree it was real. She's losing control of the situation -- or thinks she could at any moment, because it's all dependent on a Truman Show level of the kids not questioning the traditions even in a gentle way.
Hey, if I lived with Nina, I wouldn't question anything either. She looks like she knows four ways to kill me with an earring and wouldn't scruple to do all four just to make sure.