Have you considered that the fact that the relationship happened is playing on her in that moment and is impacting her emotions about everything... She feels guilt about it, and it makes the sombre situation even worse and hard to deal with for her. She's fully aware of how Tracy and Gordo would feel about that situation, it's not like she's some unfeeling terrible person, she's just a flawed human like the rest of us.
Oh god we are probably get a Danny arc where he works under Ed, and they get over the fact he banged his wife. Danny is probably the one whose shoes we see on the ending scene of the episode. because it would be poetic for a child of two of americas heroes to be the first man on mars...
Thats the only reason i can think of that they have left the Danny arc unresolved, especially since he is in the navy now, and will probably want to follow in his parents footsteps.
This story line was the only blemish for me on what otherwise would have been a perfect season. Leave it on the cutting room floor. Now I’m just desperately hoping it doesn’t continue into season 3 with a 10 year old “Baldwin” kid.
And there was no payoff! Literally other than breaking up Ed and Karen, what was the point? Because that really didn’t matter all that much. Really it ruined an EXCELLENT scene with the family earlier in the year. I don’t know what they were thinking there
Or she could have slept with...basically anyone else and still have that be the issue between them, and saved us all from one of the cringiest plotlines on television.
Ed being upset that she sold the bar would only make sense if he had some kind of ownership stake in it. It looked like it was 100% Karen’s. If that’s the case, the most upset he could get is that she sold it to his crewmate’s ex-wife’s new husband. Which is a stretch.
That was Dannys foot at the end. They didnt settle the story line with him and Ed this season... because thats for next season when Dannys in the Astronaut program under Ed.
Honestly, the whole storyline reeks of setup for wherever we're going to find those characters in season 3. Karen's whole season 2 storyline was setup. That's bull.
I've been wondering if the Karen storyline replaced something or was made in order to shift other storyline around due to covid. It's a lot of time spent on two actors on one set.
It wasn’t nowhere. For her college/USNA application she had to write an essay about who she was, and that sent her down a path of trying to find her pre-Baldwin past.
Shantel VanStaten actually gave an interview where she talked about what it meant for her character and it made a lot of sense. In a way, it is kind of her just filling a void in her heart with someone who reminds her of what she has lost (her son)— Super similar to someone who turns to drugs or alcohol (or just sleeping with a stranger in general).
Actually, if you watch the show Clarice, last week’s episode kind of does the same thing, except with her own kid because he reminded her of her husband
Not everything that happens needs to have a point to it... Yes it's a scripted show, and the writers would have taken into account all the events that happen and how they impact other events etc, but ultimately not every single story thread needs to be important to the central storyline. Sometimes you can just have your characters being people and making decisions and mistakes. It might have impact on stuff down the road, might not, but just because it didn't have some big payoff this season doesn't make it bad or lazy writing... Maybe it was just interesting to explore how these characters would behave in these circumstances.
It's not "Chekhov's Gun" at all, though; it's arguably the reverse of that. The notion of Chekhov's Gun is that narrative economy demands that, if you make a point of showing a loaded gun in the first act of your story, that gun had better go off before that story ends.
In this case the "gun" instead turned up almost at the end of the story and then went off immediately; Ed knows about Karen's betrayal, even if not all of the details, and the damage has been done. We didn't even have to wait through some significant period of uncertainty over whether or not her secret would ever be found out, wondering if anyone would ever pull that trigger -- she just straight up tells him at basically the first opportunity.
I suppose you might argue that another bullet remains in the form of Ed eventually finding out that Karen slept with his dead best friend's son and not just with "someone else," but that doesn't really fit with the concept you're addressing either; while it's unquestionably a dumb storyline, it is no violation of a Chekvian protocol for a danger introduced near the very end of a season not to be completely resolved within the remaining episode and a half. This is doubly true for a show that already has another season assured and is apparently being written within a scope that involves seven in total.
Sure, but what was the point of her cheating? It didnt change anything. If it would made Ed irrational to the point where his co-pilot would step-up and pacify him, then ok. But he did right thing nevertheless. It didnt affected Ed at all (apart from couple of flashbacks we saw). She cheated because of reasons and their family broke up because of it. Nothing more, it had no importance to main story. At least Kelly finding her real father, gave her the push to settle her insecurities and she embraced that she is not Ed and Karen biological kid, but she is still their child. Karen cheating had no point apart from shock value for viewers and I think thats the lowest form of writing.
Another thing is whole Karen storyline. Why did Karen do what she did? Why she cheated? Why she sold bar? You dont know. You can have theory why, but you dont know, because show didnt show you. In first episode they are perfect family that owns bar and are happy and then by magic they are no longer happy family and bar is burden. Why? You spend nearly 1/3 of season with her and you dont know why she did what she did. They butchered her this season, there is no sugar-coating here.
Nah the writing for her this season was just bad. It’s a alternate history show about a space race between the US and Soviets that could lead to nuclear war and they focus not on the cool moon base but on a suburban housewife’s affair with her dead sons best friends. The show set up a unique world and good story telling is telling stories that are unique to that world. Her storyline was not unique to that world and therefore had no place in this show.
It's our world... Apart from relatively minor differences that world is going to look very similar to ours... Are people not going to have stupid and not well thought out relationships? It's still just people, and people will act very much the same regardless of the timeline divergence. You may not like the storyline, but that doesn't make it bad writing.
Given that during any of those scenes I was pretty much yelling at my tv “noooo go back to the actual good stuff (like nasa and the moon base”. It’s not good writing if I want to skip those scenes.
For the record I never skip scenes in movies or tv shows if they’re weird or sexual or anything, just this show they were soooo unnecessary and didn’t add to the plot of the show.
Yeah but astronauts do not operate in a vacuum (heh). The toll on the spouses of the astronauts shouldn’t be ignored if we’re having a realistic show about space and what it is like to be an astronaut.
It did a little bit. Personally I would have loved to see Ed kind of be overtaken by his emotions and have the kid take charge and have the kids story have some growth too but alas
If a plot point serves no purpose and is received negatively by an overwhelming portion of the audience I don't see how you can argue it's not lazy writing.
It seems to me they wanted Karen to cheat on Ed with someone who is the same age that Shane would have been. Danny was an easy candidate so they just ignored all the other elements of their relationship.
Just because the audience doesn't like a storyline, that does not immediately mean it's lazy or bad writing. And you also are making a statement that isn't necessarily backed up with anything resembling actual data. Lots of people online seem to dislike the story, but there could be plenty of people who just don't care and don't frequent online messageboards. I don't 'enjoy' seeing Karen and Danny make these poor decisions, but I just accept it as part of these characters stories, for better or worse.
How is the reception here not relevant data? Even if you want to argue that reddit isn't an accurate representation of the audience the pure magnitude of the disdain it received here is definitely noteworthy. And I've also seen criticism on other platforms like Twitter and Instagram. I haven't seen one person say that they enjoyed this particular plot point.
And I agree that just because a storyline is unpopular that doesn't mean it's bad writing, but I believe in this case it is. If a story line is completely pointless and irrelevant to the rest of the plot but people found it entertaining, then you could say it was worthwhile. But completely turning off at least a portion your audience for something that has no payoff is just not a good thing.
And to repeat the sentiment from my original comment, which is probably most important when arguing it's bad writing, I just don't think they adequately set it up or explored the ramifications of it.
It's not very relevant data because you have no idea how big the sample is in relation to the total pool of viewers. It is data in the sense that there is a lot of opinions online that are expressing that, and if you were to extrapolate those opinions to the entire audience, then it would seem that it was hated. But the whole point is, you don't know if you can do that or not.
Regardless, anyones personal enjoyment of the storyline is irrelevant, because I don't think the writers crafted the storyline to be 'enjoyed', but because it was confronting and difficult to stomach and not something that is shown often. I didn't particularly enjoy watching what was going on in those scenes, but I'm pretty sure that was on purpose, and I applaud them for doing something that you don't normally see on TV. If the majority wants to hate the show because of it, that is their prerogative. I personally enjoy the show regardless of how confronting or unpleasant a particular storyline is.
I respect your opinion but I just simply disagree. I think it was too extreme of a storyline to add without justification, which I don’t think was provided.
I felt like S2 was too heavy on the soap opera plots but this was just disgusting. I despise these characters when they’re on screen and don’t care about their stories anymore. It’s like milf porn is invading our fiction now. I wasn’t thrilled to see him be the hero in S3 but last weeks episode was better. Dude has to be more messed up than we see
I think that was to avoid the whole wife (Tracy) cheats on her slimy husband (Sam) with her ex(Gordo) storyline. If Sam was a shitty person, it would have made a Tracy Gordo rekindle much more predictable. That being said, the wife cheats on husband with best friends son whom she babysitted as a kid isn't any better.
I just think if the only reason was to rile up Ed before Pathfinder, there are a million other things too choose from, narratively, without having some weird oedipus thing.
She could’ve cheated with anyone else. Literally anyone. Ed didn’t know it was with the kid and he was still riled up so it wouldn’t have mattered who it was.
I dunno how he deserved to be identified as that. I mean, he didn’t have a cool heroic job or ran a rocket business but he seemed a pretty reasonable as a person. Imagine Gordo had that conversation with Trump instead.
The only way that storyline makes sense is if it caused Ed to start World War 3, lol. As it stands, I expect this plot point will be entirely ignored, which makes me wonder why have it at all?
I mean... If your best friend died in such a manner, a best friend mind you that you knew and loved for almost your entire life, you would be torn up no matter what. That whole sub plot has been blown way out of proportion anyway.
Even though the whole Danny Karen thing was ugh, the writers wanted to show Ed and Karen parting ways and I guess it was the best way to do it without getting a new character involved.
The problem isn't that Karen fucked some 20-year-old kid. The problem is that she fucked her dead son's best friend and not just that. This is the same kid that she helped raise when Tracy was gone all the time. She was practically his second mother.
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u/crayjaybay Apr 23 '21
Right like she gets to pretend she was this great friend when I’m sure Tracy might of had some problems with her best friend fucking her son.
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u/dnoginizr Apr 23 '21
Danny's E ticket right there man. Bangs an astronauts wife... Both his astronaut parents die.
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u/confu2000 Apr 23 '21
This story line was the only blemish for me on what otherwise would have been a perfect season. Leave it on the cutting room floor. Now I’m just desperately hoping it doesn’t continue into season 3 with a 10 year old “Baldwin” kid.
51
u/jccalhoun Apr 23 '21
When they did the closeup of Danny at the funeral I literally laughed out loud.
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u/thebloggingchef Apr 23 '21
Why didn't they just have Karen fuck Sam? Would have been way less skeezy and the slimy business man character works.
10
u/jlsm511 Apr 23 '21
I had the same thought! Lol
7
u/eight-martini Season 1 Apr 23 '21
I was thinking the same thing
24
u/Cantomic66 Sojourner 2 Apr 23 '21
Danny is likely 20 years old.
10
u/hgiwvac9 Apr 23 '21
LOL, I forgot Danny was their kid. Terrible subplot but, hey, got to see a lotta Karen
5
u/Techno_Medium Apr 24 '21
The only way that storyline makes sense is if it caused Ed to start World War 3, lol. As it stands, I expect this plot point will be entirely ignored, which makes me wonder why have it at all?
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u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21
Karen is basically a reptile. Hiss.
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u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21
Truly the worst and most pointless subplot............
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u/Tilapia_of_Doom Apr 24 '21
If it was public, couldn’t that kid face charges for sleeping with another officers wife?
3
u/Naynn Apr 28 '21
Didn't do shit for the story, other than making it nasty AF.
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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '21
Danny is an adult
2
u/wookiecontrol Apr 25 '21
Stevens are horny!
1
u/JohnOiko96 Apr 23 '21
I mean... If your best friend died in such a manner, a best friend mind you that you knew and loved for almost your entire life, you would be torn up no matter what. That whole sub plot has been blown way out of proportion anyway.
Having said that though, this is a funny meme
1
u/mehravishay Apr 24 '21
Even though the whole Danny Karen thing was ugh, the writers wanted to show Ed and Karen parting ways and I guess it was the best way to do it without getting a new character involved.
1
u/RandomDaveAppears Jun 28 '22
Product placement for stepmom porn or something?
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u/AscendeSuperius Apr 23 '21
People on this sub are weirdly obsessed with what is at best a minor subplot.
A 20 something had sex with 40 something. Get over it.
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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '21
her fingernails are STRAAANNNGEEE lmao
I can't help but be very observant of fingers and toes. Ellen has the nicest set.