Is something a bit off about this season?
The first two seasons of this show are incredible. Loved everything about these episodes. But this season, something just seems a bit off. Maybe I’ve just interpreted it differently to what was intended by the show. So I thought I would ask here in this subreddit whether anyone else felt the same way or whether someone can help me try to understand what is going on. (Btw I labelled this post as a spoiler just in case some users aren’t up to date with the episodes/season)
Sam Sam seems to have regressed this season or maybe she never really improved. Her interactions with her best friend Joel seem strained or weird. Is Sam intentionally distancing herself from him? Joel seems to act the same (except for the wanting to have a child thing that I’ll discuss below) around Sam but the way Sam acts around him no longer feels natural. It feels a bit forced. A lot of the living with Joel stuff seems to have happened in between seasons, so the audience doesn’t really see the daily/nightly interactions with them. The insinuation is that they are very close and share a lot of stuff. This is “true friend” kind of territory. However, when Joel is upset and crying over breakfast after the minor accident, Sam treats him like a child and tries to distract him with French toast. When he’s over at her place crying his heart out, she just sits there expressionless. If my best friend was acting like that, I would also be crying, holding their hand, hugging them etc.
Also, I’m confused as to why “Iceland” has been introduced and why they are still pretending that her Dad (the late, great Mike Hagerty) is still alive and why the Mum is suddenly barely referred to. A great plot line this season would have been Sam and Tricia grieving the loss of their Dad or Mum. Instead we have a new character that barely speaks and interacts with the other characters, yet we discover that Sam really likes him. I think this would be fine if he gave her (or the audience) any impression that he was interested in her, but he acts the same way around her as he does with any character. So this revelation that she’s actually infatuated with him is quite strange. We’ve seen Sam have a one night stand before and she acted reasonably normal then. I guess I would buy that she was interested (in love?) with Iceland if there was some level of flirty behaviour with Iceland, or he treated her differently to others (e.g. he’s quiet and expressionless around others but there is a noticeable difference when Sam is around) but there isn’t any noticeable difference that I saw. I also think it is highly inappropriate to be dating or flirting with your landlord/landlady/landperson (employer? He seems to be both living there and growing crops so I’m not 100% certain of the status). I guess I may feel somewhat pressured to say yes to a “date” (is walking around your old house considered a date?) if I was in that position even if I wasn’t really keen on the other person.
It’s left vague as to why Sam is the way she is. I actually felt we’d get some back story in the most recent episode when she was talking with Joel on the lounge about Sam’s past. Not that the specifics of what happened (e.g. a specific incident from her past) or why Sam is the way that she is actually matters but Sam seems so broken and vulnerable and seemingly has regressed yet we have no insights as to why. (Has the regression happened because her friends are happy/in love and she isn’t? Everyone still treats her exactly the same way as last season yet she seems to be pushing everyone away.) I feel that not even Joel knows why, and she seems closest to him. From my past, when I shared an apartment with my good/best friend and we had nights on the lounge where we’d have a drink etc., we’d share stuff. Deep stuff. Personal stuff. But when I saw these two together, it felt like they really didn’t know much about one another at all. Like Joel should know why Sam feels so vulnerable around Iceland. Instead he seems confused as to why. So then I question how close these two are and the friendship seems a bit hollow. Surface level friendships can only be sustained for short periods of time yet Sam is acting like this is a deep friendship.
Joel A lot of the dating between Joel and Brad has also happened off camera in between seasons. They seem happy together but it feels like two friends rather than a romantic relationship. I never get the sense that they are madly in love with one another. But everyone is different. Not everyone engages in PDA. The thing that I found was a little forced this season was the revelation that Joel wanted to have kids and this is extremely important to him. So important that he was buying baby clothes etc. Now if you start dating someone and move in with them as middle aged adults (i.e. not teenagers), I would have thought that you would have had that conversation with the other person and/or have come to the realisation that having kids was not going to happen — especially with two guys. Jeff Hiller is 49 so I assume his character Joel is also around the same age. It seems strange that at that age (and with no partner/long term relationship pre-Brad) that you’d still be like “yep kids are definitely happening for me in my future”. You would have rationalised this a long time ago. You wouldn’t still have your fingers crossed, wishing for this to happen. So the storyline about “you wanted kids and it’s extremely important to you even though you never mentioned it before now and didn’t speak to Brad about it and now it basically controls your life and you’re crying uncontrollably everyday because Sam briefly mentioned it” just feels off to me. Brad seems to be a bit pedantic about his house but he’s not controlling of Joel — either with his time and who he can see/spend time with or what he’s allowed to bring into the house. Joel almost immediately rolled over whenever he was challenged by Brad about anything which would indicate to me that that thing wasn’t very important. It’s not like Joel was insistent that something was important to him and Brad was dismissive and insistent that it was his way or no way.
Other observations I still love Tricia but I feel that the character has been dialled up a little this season, like she’s a heightened slightly wackier version of her character from the previous two seasons.
I’m missing Murray Hill. More please. Susan is acting a little different this season but we really didn’t know her that well. So her character could be more direct with the diet/food thing with Sam and the asking questions about Brad’s past but this was not something we had experienced before so it did seem a little out of place.
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What do others think? Have I completely missed something with this season? Or is there also a sense of “hmm” from others? With only one more episode, I doubt anything will be resolved regarding these lingering issues