As a diehard fan of The Office, if I see anything with Steve Carell, I know I’ll be sitting watching. So hearing he was in a new show on HBO had me excited. Normally, for a season like this, I would take each episode and break it down. But I decided to do something different for this one. I wanted to handle this show like I handled The Pitt. I want to discuss the overarching themes that came out of this one because I think they’re pretty important.
Charly Clive as Katie
The general plot of this show focuses on author Greg (Steve Carell) heading to Ludlow University to support his daughter Katie (Charly Clive), who works there as an art history teacher. She has recently found out that her husband is having an affair. Ick, not great. Even better than that is her cheating husband, Archie, is played by Phil Dunster (Ted Lasso). He’s great at playing a piece of shit. But not only does Katie have to reckon with her husband cheating with grad student Sunny (Lauren Tsai), but also there’s a bun in Sunny’s oven. Uh-oh. What’s a girl to do? What’s a dad to do?
One of the biggest themes in this show is parents and the control they have over their children’s lives. An unfortunate incident occurs, and Katie’s job is easily on the line. Greg doesn’t want to work at the university, but he also doesn’t want his daughter’s life to be ruined because of an accident. So, of course, unbeknownst to her, Dad does what he needs to do to save the situation. And while they patch up that issue, it’s not the last time Dad oversteps his boundaries, and eventually Katie’s had enough. “I get to make mistakes.” There’s a balance to helping your child and protecting them from unwanted harm while also allowing them to make their own choices and deal with their own consequences. Katie has her own journey to take. She is not her father. She’s allowed to make her own choices and decide what that life looks like for herself. On Greg’s end, he divorced Katie’s mother, Elizabeth (Connie Britton), because she had an affair with his best friend. Extra ouch, so I get why he’s sensitive to his daughter going through it. But she gets to choose if she wants to take Archie back or not, and that brings us to the next theme.
Lauren Tsai as Sunny & Phil Dunster as Archie
Affairs are a big deal. For me, I told my husband going into our relationship that I had two deal breakers that would be immediate relationship enders: cheat on me or hit me, and we’re done. Cheating is so vicious and malicious because it relies on that fundamental trust your partner has in you, and the cheater so willingly uses and abuses that trust. Archie is an ego maniac. The show’s writing and Dunster’s acting perfectly encapsulate this. He’s an elite academic on niche Russian history. He’s smart, he’s charming, and it’s all mildly annoying. Of course, women would be drawn to him! Charisma is enticing. But even Sunny clocks how much he likes to hear his own voice. And here’s how he’s truly the villain. Not only does he shatter his wife’s trust in him by having an affair with a grad student, he uses a woman much younger than him for sex, gets her pregnant, persuades her that he’s invested so she ditches a promising job opportunity, and then he ghosts her to go back to his wife who did want him but ultimately decides she can’t get over the cheating and his truly obnoxious personality. She loves the idea of him, not who he really is anymore. He’s absolutely evil, but she gets to decide if she wants to forgive him and repair things.
Lauren Tsai as Sunny & Robby Hoffman as Mo
Now, while I have empathy for Sunny’s position, she also admits she knew it was a possibility that he would go back to his wife. Archie wasn’t pretending to be single or lying. Sunny knew he was married and just preferred living in a pretend reality where his wife didn’t exist. So on some level, she’s done this to herself, and she acknowledges that. But also, you’re cheating with a married man; do you think he’d actually be loyal to you? Because cheating is a fundamental lack of respect for your partner, and that’s not something I ever see Archie changing, given what fucking ego maniac he is. What is a blessing in this instance is that Sunny has friends and family who support her and will be there for her through this and in her journey of probable single motherhood. Because I’m supremely hoping Archie dies alone. I hope that his choosing his wife was enough for Sunny to realize he’s never going to be fully committed to her or their child. And they both deserve more than that. He might have shown up at Sunny’s apartment, but he showed up because the other option said no. That wasn’t his first choice; he was left with that default after the other option went away. Believing in someone’s ability to change is important; I just don’t see it happening with Archie.
Danielle Deadwyler as Dylan & Steve Carell as Greg
Another important theme we see is how important it is to believe in someone even if it’s only yourself. When Greg arrives to see Katie, it’s clear he’s emotionally withdrawn in his own way. Even though the marriage was over years ago, he hasn’t moved on emotionally, and to be honest, his ex-wife isn’t making it easy. I have to give massive props to Connie Britton for how she played this character because I fucking hated her. Every second she was on screen, saying the most offhand, rude shit, I was seething. She fucked this man up so much and then gets salty when he takes her picture down. What a cunt. She wants him to stay obsessed with her, and my god, that’s so unhealthy. But what’s amazing for Greg is that he finds community here at Ludlow. He makes new friends with the president, Walt (John C. McGinley), and literature professor Dylan (Danielle Deadwyler). Greg helps coach the hockey team, and he even gets back out there dating! He personally helps one of his students pass his classes and shows up for him. And while he’s showing up for others, he ends up getting the support he needs. He grows, he moves on. He learns to open up and let himself feel good again. Believing in others can be so powerful, but not as powerful as when you start believing in yourself. But sometimes, you need someone else to believe in you first for you to believe it yourself.
John C. McGinley as Walt
Lastly, gender dynamics created some great conversations in this show. We see some men running things into the ground with women not in charge or barely to be found. Alan Ruck plays a sexist, douche professor so perfectly. He’s funny and charming in that offhand way, until you really listen to what he’s saying and realize what a fucking asshole he is. Walt has a choice between his buddy and Dylan, the woman everyone else would actually like to lead the department. In the end, he makes the right choice. He chooses the woman who loves her job and wants to create an amazing Literature department. Walt’s not a bad guy; he really is trying to do the best for everyone at the university. And then on the flip side, Elizabeth is getting a building named after her on campus, and we watch her maneuver herself politically around campus. Walt is worried she’s coming for his job, and gosh darn it, he’s right. Does she deserve it? I can’t speak to her CV, but her attitude sucks. I can’t imagine her being a good replacement for Walt, but what’s done is done. So it begs the question: who is a better leader? On the whole, as we’ve seen globally, women seem to make better leaders. But in the instance of these two individuals, she will never have the dynamic with people that Walt has. Watching him take Sunny under his wing and his weird friendship with Mo (Robby Hoffman), he is a genuine person, and that’s not something I got from Elizabeth at all. Even her own relationship with her daughter has a lack of emotional connection. So can we trust her to have anyone’s best interests at heart besides her own? I tend to doubt it.
Connie Britton as Elizabeth
The show has already been confirmed for a second season, so I’d expect the storyline to likely pick up where it left off after Christmas. Walt has one semester left on campus before the handoff, so here’s hoping he makes the most of it. Actually, if we’re hoping for things, I hope shit goes wrong and Elizabeth loses the job opportunity and maybe has an injury. I don’t know; I’m going big on my wish because I truly can’t stand her and I hate that she’s taking Walt’s job. Because he was by far one of my favorite characters, and I hate the idea of him really leaving. For now, we shall wait patiently, but I’m looking forward to another season of college shenanigans and Steve Carell being a weirdo. He does it so well.
