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Arranged Tries To Bring Back Maria, And Lets Christian Make Both His (Punchable) Faces
Also, the other people whatever. Your editors discuss!
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The Talk
Tara, I both kind of hate you for convincing me to watch this steez, and kind of love you for introducing me to the sorts of medical doctors who walk to work wearing their lab coats with their grotzky backpacks over top, JOSH.
Once his awful mother Lisa left the state, I was pretty sure Josh would just be boring and mostly unobjectionable. Turns out he has faults of his own that are probably only 30% her fault! Another 30% we can blame on his dad Kurt, the kind of person who uses the expression "women's work" unironically. And then the rest is just him, really not being appreciative enough of what his wife has given up to join him as he starts his career.
It's hard to believe he got through med school without realizing that it's going to take up some time? He seems quite slow, that one.
He had been living with his brother, who is also in health care but who, if I recall correctly, is a dentist? So maybe he thought he would only have to work that hard. Sorry, Josh! Should've majored in plaque.
I guess I should have some comments about the...other people? But I don't. "When to have the kid" "drama" = boring.
About Ragini and Veeral, I will just say this: fake. There's no way that woman, in that culture, didn't know what the expectations of her would be with regard to having kids, and her stalling really feels like it's just for the sake of a storyline. If she wanted to be a "modern woman," she could have gone the whole nine and remained single. I might have bought that the pressure was actually starting to distress her, but when even her dad got in on it, I felt like it was just piling on to sell that plot.
Maybe that's why I found it so hard to care; I didn't get the sense that she cared. She just stood where the call sheet told her to and said the lines.
Last week's "drama" felt just as fake. I refuse to believe she would book a whole day-long wine-tasting thing and not mention it to her husband until he "sprang" it on her that they had another obligation -- and, that if the other obligation is the same exact thing they do every Sunday-- you know what, we don't care, let's move on to the reason we're watching this nonsense: CHRISTIAN AND MARIA.
THAT LITTLE ASSHOLE. That did not feel fake to me. (His assholicism, or anything else about it.)
Oh yes: that all felt very real to me too, maybe primarily because so much of the stress surrounding Christian's family's reaction to Maria's leaving -- Christian's included -- was economic. This came up a lot in the first half of the season too -- that the main reason Christian had to work harder at getting along with Maria is that if it gets out that Christian is a shitty husband, Nina and Michael won't be able to arrange marriages for their other two sons (who, from what we've seen, aren't the shitheads Christian is). Hence the convening of the Gypsy Council, apparently the only event in the Miller household that warrants the use of actual glassware.
I would feel more encouraged about Peter, the next youngest brother, if he didn't have exactly the same greezy aero-duh-namic clown pouf Christian does, but yes -- the parents legit seemed panicked, and they should be. The dad said that marriages in the community aren't technically recognized by the state, so if Maria wants to peace out, ain't really anything tying her to Christian. Except the ability to screw him over royally, which I hope she does. And drags it out real good, too.
I wish I believed she would, but since she seems to miss the rest of the Millers way more than she does Christian, Maria probably won't do anything that will damage the family's good name, UNFORTUNATELY. The fact that she's gone home to Poughkeepsie, however, is just highlighting the fact that her own family has refused to be on camera -- and the more Michael and Nina insisted in the first half of the season that they're good people and just private, the harder it is not to think they're hiding something and I am dying to know what. Shame that they let their child marry a worthless pissant like Christian, maybe?
I bet that's it. Christian's own parents are starting to seem a little regretful about raising such a shitburger. "The thing I don't know is, what if she doesn't miss me?" Allow me to help you with that, Makeup Miser: she doesn't. She's just too young and sheltered to realize that sensation she feels is glorious relief.
Even as she was leaving in the last episode, it did seem like this was the first time in ten months it had occurred to her that she even could, which is...extremely sad, I don't care how many times everyone prefaces their horribly misogynistic living arrangements with "in our culture." Christian was making Maria go out on the street and work and taking all her revenues. There's a word for that arrangement, and it isn't "marriage."
And it's usually prefaced by "child." No wonder they're like, we don't care about the state's definition of marriage -- theirs allows children to do it. Or have it done to them. I did feel like Maria's "because you needed to be left" was a good line...that meant she wants him to beg and make it up to her, and doesn't really want to get divorced.
I'm sure she doesn't want to get divorced; she has no other concept of how else she might live. Given that she married Christian when she was seventeen, I'm not even sure she finished high school. Where's the SVU ripped from THESE headlines? It would be so easy, they're just right there in Queens!
Criminal Intent may have done an ep on them. Or maybe it was those weirdos in Broad Channel. Either way: seriously! Who would you cast as Christian -- Bieber?
He actually looks a bit like Jake T. Austin, the old Jesus from The Fosters who just got recast this year. Although Jesus knew better than to do...that...to his hair. For Maria, maybe a young Victoria Justice type, except anyone who's done a Disney OR Nickelodeon show is going to have a hard time acting subservient for even a second. For Nina, though: Amy Sedaris.
Ooh, totally. I was actually going to suggest the girl from Paranormal Activity, or Amy Carlson, who plays Wahlberg's wife on Blue Bloods. But NOW I feel like the girl who plays the teenager on Blue Bloods, Sami Gayle, should play Christian. (Sorry, Sami Gayle. You seem neat.) (But he would be SO DESTROYED by a chick playing him, he'd probably die. Win!)
So assuming Maria does come back, which I think we both do, does anything change? Does she just get craftier when she spends her H.O. money so he doesn't notice? Or does she put it in a secret bank account for the day she can finally escape, Katie Holmes-style, and start a whole new life?
I think he's nicer for a while, and she gets less naive about what she can expect from being honest with him, i.e., nothing good. And she figures out how to work the system, so she stays in it. Although Maria really does make me sad. Not only does she not see any alternatives except this set-up; she can't even exploit it for what little it could benefit her effectively.
It's true: she's relatively far from her home and friends and she has no allies in that house; Nina pretends to be on her side but we saw last week how fast and how savagely she can turn on Maria -- for barely smacking Christian when he bossed her around? A lot of his problems can, I feel, be traced to the fact that he hasn't been smacked enough. SPEAKING OF WHICH, now that I've induced you to start watching this show (sorry/you're welcome), let's close on this: which is, in your opinion, Christian's most punchable face? Is it the boo-boo-kitty sadface, or the glare of pure loathing?
Loathing. Because he still looks like Monchichi From Da Club.
I agree. Sadface is just more laughable, because he thinks whomever he's pointing it at doesn't realize how calculated it is.
Sadly, he's usually right, hashtag his shitty mom.