One thing that’s been consistent amongst my Togetherness reviews is my universal dislike for the Brett character. At one point I even said all the problems of the show could be solved if Brett was removed from the show, and as much as I believed it then, I am even more onboard with that idea now.
I’ve also been a little unfair to the show in regard to its quality, because I despise the message so much. Because of my disgust, I don’t comment on the actual quality of the episode. I hate when people just hard on the message of a character or plot point and don’t give substantive criticism; if you’ve ever taken a workshop class for creative writing, you know that the worst criticisms (positive or negative) are the ones in which someone says “I feel this way about a character, and I ______ that.” The message of the thing is irrelevant to quality.
The reason I bring that up is this: I don’t think this is a well-made show. I’ve questioned some of the plot logic before, as well as character logic, and this episode really drove those points home for me. A small example: Alex starts pouring his heart out to Michelle, only to be interrupted by her seeing David and her blowing him off. I get the Michelle actions, but Alex? He and Michelle have no relationship in the world of this show. The first five minutes of the episode were the most meaningful interactions they’ve had. There has been zero setup for an Alex/Michele relationship, because we know literally nothing about Alex/Brett besides that they are best friends. No backstory, no nothing.
That’s a show-wide problem, too, I think. Togetherness often yadda-yadda’s the actual event in place of the reaction to the event, which is a really interesting concept, if we already have a good sense where things are going. The couples’ therapy visit that Brett and Michelle go to, for example, is really awesome, because we get to skip the crap that we already know in-depth about (their relationship problems) and skip to them acting on their new perspective. There’s a billion little examples of this, like us not seeing Brett drinking “Scott’s Tea” or his interactions with the people of the house (though we get nice expository dialogue about how “awesome” they are), and it’s just so stupid. Brett’s transformation at the end, in which he’s drugged out of his mind, needed more setup.
Also, besides the fact that the message Brett is sending is bad, he’s also just a bad character. Dude is a black hole of doucheness; he’s obviously known about this charter school party thing for a solid while and yet he still skips out to go to Linda’s place? Wasn’t it like three episodes ago he was trying to get closer to his family? He just straight up doesn’t mention his kids at all this episode; they just don’t exist except for like a few seconds here and there. I understand that he is unhappy. I understand that his life is unfulfilled. But how can you root for a character, or want him to succeed, when he is literally the most selfish human being on the planet?
Also, why in the world does he get to be the one who comes to realization about he and Michelle’s crap marriage? Michelle is the one who’s been setup to figure that out, with her relationship with David and the search for a charter school. Brett has literally just freaked out on his job and then come to this magical realization thanks to drugs. Michelle, by all logic, is a character much more suited to the moving of that particular plot.
Another also: why does Tina have to fail in her attempt to do the bouncy castle thing? Why is she, the character who has gone out on a limb for Alex and attempted to make something of herself, have to slink home back to Larry? We don’t even see Alex doing anything! We’ve seen him doing a little working out and him freaking out in an audition. Tina, on the other hand, has been hustling her business up the whole time. How does it make any sense to have her fail and have Alex suddenly realize that he should be, you know, her friend?
The female characters have been much more concretely developed for the storylines that the male characters have taken control of.
One more episode to go.
Stray Thoughts
– Using drugs as a way to come to a realization is super lame. When dealing with real people, have them realize things while doing more commonplace things. Drugs are lazy in this instance.
– I like David, and I hope he isn’t just waiting Michelle out.
– Larry is a weird, cool character.
– Frank and whatever the daughter’s name is have basically no place on the show.
[Photo via HBO]
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