This one felt very gimmicky. The first 2/3 of the episode are a flashback to 1999, the year that Val became pregnant with Laura. It was very weird seeing Thomas Dewey and Michaela Watkins playing the Alex and Val 18 years ago. They, of course, looked way too old to be playing a 19-year-old and a 23-year-old and I couldn't get over that fact. They had a different actor playing Drew, who looked age appropriate for the part. He had the mannerisms down even though he didn't look just like Drew. It also felt like they were emphasizing cultural reference points of that era a little too strongly, which was also kind of distracting.
I think if this had all turned out to be a dream I could have accepted the incongruity of this part of the episode better but it wasn't a dream or even really explained. Was it there to contrast with what Laura is going through? Was it just something that the creators of the show wanted to do?
The last 1/3 of the episode takes place back in the present. Laura arrives in Sacramento. She goes to see Casey. She finds her mentoring a girl about her age. Casey is shocked to see Laura. Laura runs off.
Val finally comes clean with Jack. She tells him that she thought they could be screwed up together. Not exactly a compliment to someone who is trying to fix his life. She seems to have given up on trying to fix her life, at least for the present. From my perspective she seems very wedded to the idea of an ideal seeming relationship. She can't seem to get that so she seems to want to go in the opposite direction and be as self-destructive as possible. I might be reading it wrong but that's my read of it at the moment.
Alex seems happy in his relationship with Judy but he doesn't seem to recognize the personal responsibilities she has. She doesn't have the quantity of time to spend with him that he wants to spend with her. He seems very slow to understand that. He is a man-child.
At this point I'm not sure I want to continue watching the show beyond the end of this season, the next episode.
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