Review: Enlightened – Season 1, Episode 4, “The Weekend”
Rating:
Air date: Monday, October 11 at 9:30pm ET/PT on HBO
A week out of treatment, Amy Jellicoe (Laura Dern) is feeling slighted at work and dislikes her new job in the data center. She dreads falling back into her old ways on the weekend or spending what she considers non-productive time gardening with her mother. Meditation leads her to reminisce about an outdoors trip she took thirteen years ago with then husband Levi (Luke Wilson).
Feeling nostalgic, Amy thinks it’s a good idea to take a similar trip with Levi and railroads him into going. Do Amy and Levi survive their time together? Well, let’s just say a lot happens!
“The Weekend” is our first chance to learn the backstory about Levi’s and Amy’s relationship.
Amy’s laboratory-like work environment is replaced in favor of the outdoors which has an immediate positive effect on her and Levi. As they kayak down the river, they’re both beaming and having fun.
I should admit Amy’s self-destructive tendencies and apparent lack of filter when reading others have been driving me nuts. However, the ambitious nature of the show (in its treatment of the material) and Dern’s engrossing characterization of Amy keep me watching. Creators Laura Dern and Mike White clearly didn’t intend for Amy to be a lovable fuzzy character. Instead, their attempt at ‘evangelizing’ viewers with Amy’s mantra is more about viewers relating to her via her mistakes and feelings. My favorite scenes are those instances when Amy has insightful introspective moments. The voice overs in this episode are powerful and supported by the music and almost slow-motion effect of the scenes. Dern soaks her words with emotion and that gives enough credibility and weight to her character’s words. They make us root for Amy.
Amy Jellicoe's (Laura Dern) kayaking trip with ex-husband Levi (Luke Wilson) goes well until she takes away the one thing that 'keeps him calmed.'
The outing’s bliss is disrupted when Amy finds drugs in Levi’s camping gear and she angrily dumps them in the river. That leads to a confrontation that confirms the dysfunctional nature of their relationship to the other fellow kayakers.
The episode builds up to an important conversation that takes place in a motel after Levi snaps out of his drug hangover by – how else? – getting high. A relaxed version of Levi emerges and he recounts his own pleasant memories of the same trip Amy had fondly remembered earlier. But his account represents a parallel experience to Amy’s. For her, the trip represents one of their happiest times as a couple, while Levi thinks of it as fun time. He ends up talking mostly about a pet they owned who is now dead. Their frame of mind is the equivalent of being in two different geographic time zones and it surprised me to see Amy dealing with it in silence. It’s a significant change from her hysterical confrontations of the past.
Dern and Wilson are magnificent in their scenes but their final one is especially moving. Contrary to their other conversations, this one is muted and they agree that it’s okay to accept each other in their present circumstances. Amy and Levi have something in common, they both want to stop their compulsive ways but their approach in how they get there is completely different.
It appears Amy has accepted her new situation; we shall find out next Monday for sure. What do you Enlightened fans think about the way Amy and Levi resolve their problems? What does it mean for their relationship?
Tune in to Enlightened Monday at 9:30pm ET/PT on HBO. For more on the show, visit http://www.hbo.com/enlightened/index.html.
Photos © 2011 HBO. All Rights Reserved.
elleL
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