I managed to watch 10 more episodes this weekend so I am at 460.
I'll start off with Another Life's answer to Bobbie and Lucy. The rivalry between Babs Farley and Nancy Lawson is just fun. Babs arrived on the scene as Nancy's prison cellmate and, from the beginning, Nancy has always thought of herself as better than reformed hooker Babs even though Nancy is never against using her body to get what she wants. For all my praise for Jason Vinley, I will say Nancy is one of the few characters not better served by this writing, yet. Babs, on the other hand, has emerged as a comical secondary heroine who will make you laugh and break your heart in the same scene. I do feel these episodes moved the dial slightly towards improving Nancy's position on the canvas.
Nancy and Babs' separate stories collided when both women were visiting Harold Webster and a cat fight ensued. Babs' got the upper hand and left Nancy with a nasty bruise on her face, which led Nancy to file charges against Babs. Nancy's pursuit of "justice" later ends up saving Babs' life when another hit is arranged for her in Fairmount involving Lance and Marty, an informant for the organization.
Before we even get this far, there is a very great episode that highlights the hypocrisy of Nancy. When Russ comes to collect the money that Nancy owes, Nancy alludes to the fact that she is willing to sleep with Russ in order to work off her debt. For all the grief that Nancy puts Babs through, Nancy is the one who offer her body still to pay off man. In the same episode, Gene visits Babs at Walter's Restaurant where Babs is employed with money from Harold. Babs vows she will pay the money back. It's a very deliberate contrast to Nancy who thinks she doesn't have to pay.
Nancy's big story has been dragging for weeks with her refusal to leave Nora's house, which she cannot afford, and her desire to keep the Redlons from owning it due to Nancy's blatant racism. Nancy's money problems have been brewing for awhile and we finally learn that, yes, she has borrowed money from a loan shark from Vince and Nick's organization. It's a delightful turn which I figured was coming, but I hadn't expected. When Russ comes to collect, now Nancy is privy to knowledge that should move forward Russ' story. It's only a matter of time now before Nancy lets the Davidsons know Russ is working for the mob. I can't wait for Lori to react.
Nancy is back to a lot of lower level scheming with characters like Vicki and Carla. With Vicki, Nancy manages to not only get 500 dollars from her, but also a place to crash once Nancy is evicted. With Carla, Nancy goes the extortion route and offers to vacate the house without issue and sell to the Redlons if Carla will give her 1000 dollars. Carla later considers it as she despertely wants the house with the baby on the way.
There is little movement in the Monk story with Carla and Gene arguing over whether or not Monk can move in, and Harold making it clear that securing Monk's release is dependent on Gene agreeing to become Monk's guardian. It's a story I wish got a little more play because I do think there is threads to play given that Monk was Lori's student.
I think Lori's pregnancy is a complicated story. I do think Lori isn't completely healed and I do think it's a stretch for her to think the baby is Blueś, but I don't hate it. I just wish they would lean into others acknowledging that Lori isn't as mentally well as they would like her to be. For me, the biggest issue is that we are suppose to believe that Lori got pregnant around the time of the attack in September so Lori is supposedly fairly far along and this wasn´t caught at all when Lori was in the hospital.
The movement in the mob story is nice. I cannot beleive how much I am enjoying this story, but because Vinley has grounded it in relationships, I am fascinated. Ron has decided to make Russ his second in command which aggravates the current second in command, Lance. The tension between Lance and Russ is continuing to build. I am not really sure where they are taking it, but I enjoy it. Russ' loan collections has put him in contact with Nancy, which threatens to cause problems in his world. There also seems to be a bit of a suggestion that Ron might be elevating Russ just to stick it to Vince for insisting that Russ be in the organization. While I do think Ron admires Russ to an extent, I do think part of this is making things more chaotic for Vince so that he doesn´t look too deep into the record keeping. I also wonder if Lance and Ron will set up Russ as the fall guy for the side hustles.
I hope Nancy becomes more involved in this world. I do think Nancy would be the perfet mob wife for either Ron or Vince or married to Vince and sleeping with Ron on the side.
I am ready for the kidnapping to end. It's gone on for a long time and I feel like it has stalled the Carpenters as characters.
There was a lot of good stuff in the Phillips' story, but I'll save that for a later post.
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dc11786 ·
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