The Less We Get Together, The More Miserable We'll Be

Of all the things Togetherness has done well through its first season, the one I think I've come back to the most is how many moments of character development and even plot have rested on nothing more than a look between characters -- Michelle's heartbreak over missing the baby's first experience of the ocean in the series premiere; Alex realizing he hasn't actually made Tina fall in love with him at Brett's TV show premiere; David's marvel at Michelle's Kick The Can victory while Brett looks on helplessly. The proof of how dramatically effective these (and more) have been now that we've reached the season finale: all these tiny but meaningful looks have built upon one another to bring us to huge declarations and decisions and devastating results.

The story of this season is, essentially: when four losers try to make the best of their lives, how do things change when two get a taste of victory?

As the finale begins, our core four protagonists are marking Tina's last night on the east side, on the eve of her departure to move in with Larry. The moment feels final enough that, as Tina prepares to leave, Alex is out back telling Brett he thinks he's ready to give up not just on the work Alex and Tina have been doing together to move his career forward, but on his career: he's thinking about moving back to Detroit and working in his family's restaurant, or maybe teaching. Brett doesn't bother trying to talk him out of it, and it does seem like the safe move for a guy who, when we first met him, was so unsuccessful as an actor (and in life) that he was getting evicted from his apartment. But the next morning, everything changes in a second: after reading not for the part on offer but for the one he wanted, he got the villain role in Larry's movie. And now that his instincts have proven out with one decision, maybe it's time for another: he rides Tina's bike to the hotel where she's gone for a spa weekend with Larry (not in Palm Springs, as I had suggested, but at The Viceroy in Santa Monica, a hotel I have stayed in and that is for sure an excellent choice if you don't feel like driving all the way into the desert), carrying the one bloom left from the roadside bouquet that got clipped by a truck on the way, sends Larry out of the cabana, and asks Tina to come to New Orleans with him. He doesn't quite say he loves her, but there's not really any mistaking "I want to be me with you," and judging by Tina's reaction, she hears what he doesn't say, anyway.

Tina's response is heart-wrenching for what it reminds us about how she got screwed over by the jerk in the series premiere, and for what it tells us about all the past romantic disappointments that came before him. "It's better this way, don't you understand, it's better THIS way! Trust me! What we have is so awesome!" Tina doesn't understand that she could have a great friendship with Alex plus a romantic partner because she's never had it before and doesn't know it's possible -- that she could let herself have more from life than just swimming in Larry's pool and walking his dog and letting him buy her clothes and show her off at Nobu. If she were as brave as Alex, she could try imagining a different kind of life for herself, with someone weird and challenging who doesn't happen to look like he could star in a commercial for a Ralph Lauren cologne or a very high-end ED drug, like Larry does. Tina denies happiness to herself and Alex in the short term because she can't conceive of what that happiness might actually look like.

But that doesn't mean she isn't thinking about it, even in a very nice hotel bed that Larry can easily afford. (...Guys, I know that Larry isn't the right man for Tina, but I'm just saying that what he offers is not the worst and as someone who enjoys the finer things in life I kind of get where Tina is coming from, OKAY?!)

Upstate, Michelle has a victory of her own, rescuing David's presentation to the Department of Education and getting David's charter school closer to moving from a mere proposal to a reality. Michelle's address to the committee doesn't just reveal more about her character that we hadn't known (that she gave up a career in social work to raise her children), but it gives us a side of her that we've never seen: passionate, powerful, self-assured -- all the qualities that helped Alex make his dream come true are serving Michelle here, too. David's gratitude brings us to another pivotal look...

...but David, as a divorced person, knows he should confront the issue and make subtext text: he stops Michelle for a conversation about the connection that's been growing between them, and says he respects her marriage too much to pursue it. Which would be a very sensible move if the two were staying on different floors or, better yet, different hotels. As it is, they've ended up in adjoining rooms, and once the spark has been acknowledged, we all should have known that notes passed back and forth under their neighbouring doors would fan that spark into a full-on flame.

It's a scene that -- since we also know by now that Brett has taken Alex's advice to reconnect with Michelle by surprising her in Sacramento -- has all the tension of a horror movie...and yet, when Michelle and David finally give in to temptation...

...it doesn't feel entirely wrong? Brett and Michelle have spent the season taking turns making the effort to restart their sex life -- Michelle's light BDSM fantasy come to life; Brett's surprise hotel room -- while their interactions with Linda and David, respectively, have seemed like experiments in how much a married person can reasonably try to get from someone outside his or her marriage. Brett's epiphany in the finale -- that he can find real joy in his relationship with his children and quit thinking the apex of happiness for him will revolve around finding a quiet corner to sit by himself and read Dune -- has almost nothing to do with Michelle; it takes Alex's suggestion to make Brett consider the possibility that he should bring this new excitement and fulfillment to her. And as Michelle's piece of hotel stationery is passing from herself to David, it sure seems like Brett is the last thing on her mind; even if Brett had made it to her hotel room before she opened the adjoining door to David, it's unclear to me whether she would have been interested in or able to transfer the energy of her win at her meeting to having any kind of intimacy with Brett. I mean, the two of them didn't even kiss goodbye before she got on the road that morning. She might have been done with Brett before she left L.A.

As thrilled as I am that Togetherness will return for a second season, part of me wishes this could have been the series finale -- not because I don't want to see what happens next, now that we've seen how all the tiny moments have agglomerated into major events in our characters' lives, but because leaving things open-ended is so typical of a mumblecore movie that doing it in a mumblecore TV show would have been both on-brand and subversive. What happens to Alex after he's (basically) declared himself to Tina? What happens to Tina when she's forced to confront the difference between what Larry's given her and what she might have with Alex? Will Michelle turn a one-night-stand with David into her second marriage? Will Brett ever get to read Dune again? All these questions will be answered eventually, we now know; but until then, we can write any ending to these stories that we like.