I just don't buy it

If he already knew George's piece of information about Trey since his teens, he would've never touched Daniel.

Hey, Eva -- how are things down under?

You mention something that also gave me pause. I noted it at the time, but for the sake of staying engaged I decided not to scratch that itch. But it continued to itch, and I trust that instinct. It tells me it wasn't quite right.

On reflection I think it's not so much that he'd have never touched Daniel, but that McKinnon needed to provide a bit of added context to understand it -- and to feel it. I think that would have been fantastic.

I think Bobby's beating Daniel despite knowing what George said is actually a realistic development. What could be more human than knowing something intellectually, but taking action based on a pent-up, frustrated emotional need? How many times have victims, those damaged by others and despairing of finding justice, ganged up on scapegoats despite knowing they are in fact innocent? (See certain current events for evidence.)

I wish that truth had been expressed dramatically in this series.

Bobby needed an outlet because Trey, for whatever reason in his mind, is untouchable. Daniel is the official scapegoat -- the confessed murderer -- and someone like Bobby, ignorant, member of an oppressed class, would easily defer to the official story, not to mention Daniel's own.

He wants to beat Daniel despite what he knows, and doing so aligns with officialdom, if not much of the general community, which wants to crucify him anyway. Bobby can rationalize and even ennoble his base instinct for violent revenge, casting aside reservations born of reason. Just take a few stiff drinks, organize a mob in which the hate becomes a runaway train, and you're off to the races.

All of that would have been fascinating to me. However, I can see the decision to foreshorten Bobby's story based on the concern of not having Bobby compete with Ted Jr., the character in whom much the same frustrations are located, and who has a similar trajectory toward seeing the light. It's one of those incredibly hard creative decisions. How can I expand on Bobby's story without drawing too much energy away from Ted Jr.?

I think one answer (with perfect hindsight), is more interplay between Bobby's and Ted Jr's stories. For Bobby enacts what Ted Jr. craves to do, but isn't free to, for various reasons. He can take nasty sideswipes at Daniel, but he can only beat other people, like the deadbeat customer. It's transferred hatred. He can also take out a gun and shoot the inflated man -- who he knows Daniel related to in some way, and feels he's become the spirit of Daniel's mockery of him. But he cannot beat or kill Daniel.

When shooting the inflated man ends up wounding him, his response is more or less humility. Of course he is also receiving counseling, so the understanding is that the two combine to influence this response. However, it could just as well have made him even more angry, since the source of his frustration -- his wound, now made literal -- is not healed, and in fact you could say it's been rubbed even more raw.

This is where Teddy's own progression starts its forshortening. But imagine one other element coming into play. Imagine him being confronted by the spectacle of himself-as-Bobby-Dean. Almost a kind of inevitable path to a showdown, forced to essentially look in the mirror at this victim, who is now victimizing himself.

Does Teddy want to go down into that pit too? Not much. And that would be why he pulls out of it. Nothing like the horror of seeing the devil in yourself to set you on the better path. There but for the grace of God, go I. Of course, Bobby Dean must then not be allowed his own rapid turnabout in order for Teddy to get the real, ugly picture of himself.

In the aftermath of Bobby's violence, Ted Jr. expresses jealousy, at one point I believe saying that Daniel still manages to get all the attention despite being in a coma. In my view the stage is set for him to confront the perpetrator -- the guy (or spirit) he wants to be, yet should be extremely afraid that he is actually starting to become.

I think that it's theoretically possible to have the cake and eat it too, but one must always be willing to forgive because TV moves so damned fast, and McKinnon did not have a large writers' room. I put this in perspective knowing that often these compromises are not mistakes or laziness, but come down to harsh limitations of time and straight out fatigue.


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

I actually thought her pairing with Jon Stern, while believable, was the most untenable and made the most sense when it didn't work out. It was based on their mutual passion for justice, but when that justice was attained, albeit muddled and impure, their connection meant less and less over time. Her trajectory has always been toward re-connection--first, with Daniel and freedom, then with her and family, and finally with her and Paulie. That she finds familiarity and comfort with Billy makes total sense. He's someone to whom she never has to explain herself.

Her storyline with billy & her old friend etc this season seems to imply that she'll stay in the town long term and is content with that. Yet she only came back to help Daniel and she was disgusted by the way the people living there turned on Daniel. It's a syrupy sweet ending to have her be over that already and want to remain there.