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11 Signs You’re Watching a Motherthriller
A crappy husband, an elite Zip Code, and women supporting (other rich) women? Check, check, and check.
On the other hand, these series mostly promote the archetype of “conventionally beautiful mom who is frazzled by all her responsibilities despite having the money and social cache to hire support staff, and refuses to be honest with her family about her loneliness because there wouldn’t be a show if these characters didn’t constantly miscommunicate.” (The Expats episode “Central,” a rare exception, defies this trope by focusing on the protagonists’ domestic help.) In BLL, it takes a while for the Monterey housewives to accept Shailene Woodley’s single mother as one of them; in The Undoing, the protag’s social circle assumes the working-class husband of a murdered woman her killer because of financial pressure and his inherent Latino temper; the most disappointing thing about Apples Never Fall is how satisfied it is not interrogating why the Delaneys are so comfortable treating someone from outside their Zip Code with condescension and contempt. Girls5eva gives us women who admire and compete against each other in ways alternately wacky and grounded; Abbott Elementary, intergenerational mentorships and friendships; Dead to Me, a best-friendship of soap-opera twists and very tangible emotional devastation; Tiny Beautiful Things, a compelling mother-daughter relationship between Kathryn Hahn and Merritt Wever; We Are Lady Parts, a triumph of self-discovery through the experience of screaming along to System of a Down’s “Toxicity” in a car full of other female punk musicians.
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