THE New Normal

[FindingNamo]

I actually felt emotional pain during the second act of tonight's episode. I don't know how Barkin gets through lines like those. It was distressing.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

That may have been the worst episode yet. Well, next to the one about voting.

Did Shania's mom work out the custody thing or something?

[Tag]

Loved the "what are you doing, is it my birthday" line.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

I loved that the normally perverted boy (Wilbur? I defy anyone to show me a Wilbur that was born after 1950) didn't say anything sexy.

[myprettycabinet]

If you look at the perverted things Wilbur said as "kid saying adult things", then he was just as bad tonight as ever. I hate how the kids are so OBVIOUSLY scripted by adults. Of course all kids on TV shows are, but it shouldn't reek with it.

[myprettycabinet]

I think in general, I actually didn't hate this episode as much as the other more recent ones. I think it's something to do with Ryan sticking to what he knows...

But I got REALLY pissed off with the little girls doing those homophobic talking heads - particularly the idea that people would store blood in a freezer for transfusions so that they couldn't get gay blood. I thought gays (well, men at least) couldn't donate blood anyway? Which is bull**** too, but went addressed, so that obviously wasn't Ryan Murphy's point.

I'll probably be back with more to say later, lol.

[EricMontreal22]

Maybe Murphy's getting busy with American Horror Story and whatever prep they're doing for Normal Heart--he's not listed as a scripter or co-scripter on upcoming episodes, and wasn't on the last three or so.

Honestly, the last few episodes have sorta felt just like filler to me--which is odd because Ryan Murphy shows tend to move at breakneck speed which is one reason I've always assumed that character consistency goes out the window. Goldie finally told Nana to go home, but it didn't do much. I assume they're prolonging this apparent custody battle just so they still have story before the baby is born. Even Nana's prejudice seems to change episode to episode... (I have no comment about the whole pretend wedding thing--and I thought Shania was hated at school except for by Wilbur? Listening to Nicki Minaj didn't seem to be her style, either, but I guess that was the joke, or something). Goldie increasingly comes off as a well meaning, but *awful* mother...

So, any bets on who they'll eventually stunt cast Goldie's mother with?

[myprettycabinet]

I particularly agree that last week's felt like filler.

My bets for the mother...Julia Roberts, Kathy Bates or Lisa Kudrow. ;D

[TheatreDiva90016]

I really wanted to like this show.

Too bad it's just crappy.

[FindingNamo]

I've been under the weather for about a week so maybe my sensitivities are more delicate than usual, but Barkin's anti-gay marriage speech was so incredibly hateful, I was wondering why I should subject myself to it.

[WhizzerMarvin TrinaJasonMendel]

Namo- I found Barkin's marriage speech and the three school girls talking to the audience very hateful and unfunny too. Barkin's character should have been a guest star, not a regular. She really brings down the show with her hate- the character, not the actress.

The whole pretend marriage thing was so stupid. One of the dumbest plotlines I've seen on a sitcom in a while.

As this show keeps getting worse and going all over the place, Go On just keeps getting better. I thought the Go On's pilot SUCKED, but stuck with it for Laura, and now genuinely think it's cute.

[SonofRobbieJ]

I was absolutely confounded by this episode. Admittedly, I turned in 10 minutes late (there was a very compelling SVU with Rosie Perez on at the same time and you just don't turn from that easily). I honestly don't understand what happened. There was a fake wedding between Spectrum Shania and Pedo-to-Be? Why? Why was this a thing? And what adults go along with it?

And the Barkin character is coming from such an unfunny, hateful place that it's hard to see the value in any moment she has on screen. All of the actors deserve better, and we CERTAINLY deserve better as an audience. I mean...there is not enough Pledge in the world to clean up this mess of a show.

I can't wait to see next week's!

[FindingNamo]

I keep thinking of the scene in the early episode (before I even understood what his character did for a living) when Andrew closed his laptop with some sort of snippy comment about the number of teenage hearts he just broke with a plot twist on his television show.

I think Murphy is one of those writers who actually doesn't give a crap about his characters or his audience, so he gets to do whatever the hell he wants with them. That's fine as far as it goes, but I would like to know exactly what's going on in his brain when he creates a monologue like Barkin's anti-gay marriage rant.

I have a suspicion it gives him a boner, the way I imagine the odious Neil Labute gets one when he has his characters say and do awful things. There's a long history of writers getting boners when they have their characters say and do awful things. What bugs the hell out of me is when they won't admit it.

[SonofRobbieJ]

Oh please. Murphy may be ick-inducing at times, but there's NOTHING more awful in the history of the written word than the 'best sex I had was when I raped a guy in the showers after gym' monologue from Your Friends and Neighbors.

It's at that point I began to realize that Neil Labute could be the worst human being alive.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

I wonder why those glasses magnify Shania's eyes so much if there's no prescription in them.

[doodlenyc]

I dropped this show at the "spank bank" line from a 9 year old...that disgusted me.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

ME TOO (well, it disgusted me. I didn't drop it because it fills me hate-watching quota). I'm not normally a pearl-clutcher, but I thought it was so gross to hear a child say that!

[doodlenyc]

I'm no prude either...and am MORE offended that they offended even me. And for what? It wasn't funny, at all. It took an awkward but realistic story of two youngsters who are curious and absolutely ruined it. Nothing I heard come out of Barkin's character's mouth offended me to that degree.

I actually like Glee and really liked American Horror Story, so I guess Murphy is hit or miss with me.

[FindingNamo]

RYAN MURPHY'S Larry Kramer's "The New Normal Heart." The heart-tugging story of wealthy conservative lawyer Ben Weeks, whose diseased homosexual brother has the temerity to compare his new relationship to that of Ben's legitimate heterosexual marriage. With clear-eyed precision, Murphy presents both sides of the relationship issue, allowing movie-goers to decide for themselves that the pro-creative heteronormative structure is life-affirming, as Weeks's gay brother's entire circle of friends dies horrible deaths due to their own unnatural behavior.

[SonofRobbieJ]

^ You just made my brown eyes blue.

The 'spank bank' comment COULD have worked if you felt that the kid had no idea what he was saying...like he heard it from an older brother. But it was just so...lascivious.

[myprettycabinet]

D: That's disgusting - I COMPLETELY missed that line, who said it?

[SonofRobbieJ]

So...I'm bored at work and I just rewatched some of it online (I told you...Rosie Perez...Pedophilia...SVU...this isn't a Sophie's choice here).

That final 'proposal' is some of the worst writing I've ever encountered. How do you write a BAD marriage proposal scene? HOW???

[TheatreDiva90016]

Do they think that Ellen's character is supposed to be funny, like Jane Lynch?

Because she's not.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

The spank bank line was from Wilbur, but it was several episodes back, in the one where he got busted with Shania in the coat room. He looked at Nana up and down and said "All this is going in my spank bank."

[Mister Matt]

It's at that point I began to realize that Neil Labute could be the worst human being alive.

That makes me feel better about the scene I caused during previews of In a Forest Dark and Deep in London and what I said to him. I thought I might have overreacted, but...nah.

[FindingNamo]

I loathe him.