I'm really liking Shameless...so much so that I kind of regret my practice of watching one season at a time; then waiting for Random.org to pick it again for me.
On the other hand, I'm excited to see what my next show will be.
My favorite episode of Shameless so far has been "It's Time to Kill the Turtle".
In this episode, Frank (William H Macy) the alcoholic, narcissistic, father is told he will get $3000 if he stops drinking for three weeks.
He's a struggling, grumpy mess in the first hour or so of the experiment. But once he discovers the powers of sugar via his daughter's (Emma Kenney's) juice box, his mood picks up, and he becomes sober-super dad.
He entertains and impresses his kids with his piano talent. He makes pancakes. He takes the kids bowling....
Most importantly, for the first time in the show, he shows interest in being with his children.
The tragedy in the episode is the children knowing that none of it will last.
One thing I wondered while watching the episode is if Frank's narcissism is dependent on his drinking. Without a drinking problem, would he be NOT-a-narcissist?
OR was he still a narcissist while sober but in a less noticeable way?
The episode reminded me of two of my old blog posts.
Lucifer had inspired me to write God Narcissists and Demon Narcissists, and The Fosters inspired me to write this post. The former was my way of dividing narcissists into those who are adored by many and those who are scorned. The latter was about a character in a similar situation as Frank. She seemed to be a narcissistic heroin addict. Then she gave up the drugs and also seemed to give up the narcissism.
Oh! I just saw that the post talked about another thing I've been wondering about. (Past me and Present me sometimes REALLY think alike)
Anyway, what I was and am wondering is if narcissism could influence the behavior of the drug addict and/or alcoholic.
Do alcoholics without narcissism put in more effort to be sober/clean? And even when drunk/high, do they treat their kids better than a narcissistic drug user?
What I asked in the old The Fosters post is this: I'm also wondering, are all addicts that desperately manipulative? Are there some addicts who manage to have standards? Like, I'll steal to get high. But NOT from my own children! If some addicts have lower standards and are more manipulative, could these manipulative traits be there before the addiction began and after they've become sober? Could it simply take a more subtle and different form?
As for the god and demon narcissist thing. I would definitely put Frank in the demon category. He's not seen in good light, maybe partly because of the narcissism but more so because of the heavy drinking and irresponsibility with money.
Did Frank's narcissism disappear when he stopped drinking? And would it permanently go away if he stayed permanently sober? OR would he just become a God narcissist—someone who is self-absorbed, dishonest, and manipulative but hides it behind things like physical attractiveness, wealth, charm, talent, philanthropy, etc.
Moving on....
I'm starting to like season 2 of Broadchurch. I wasn't too into it with the first two episodes. But with the third episode, I started warming up to the whole thing. And I was even dismayed when the episode ended...longing for more.
I usually try to not play on my phone while watching shows. I'm bad at multitasking. But I started doing that while we were watching the second episode. I was looking for Broadchurch actors older than me so I could feel less old. Yeah. I do that sometimes.
I found a few.
But I also found out that Jodie Whittaker and Arthur Darvill (who are dreadfully younger than me) have the exact same birthday. I was so excited about this. I blurted it out to Tim and actually asked him to pause the show, so he could fully hear the news.
Tim listened and then asked if they were born the same year.
I was like...hello? Why else would I see this as being newsworthy? I mean it would be mildly cool for actors on the same show to have the same birthday. I probably wouldn't have interrupted the show for that, though. I might have just said it quietly to myself not caring if Tim heard or not.
I feel it's kind of a big deal to know someone who was born on the same day as you.
I don't think I ever met anyone who was born the same day as me.
BUT....one of the few things I remember from my late 1970's St. Louis life is that there was a girl in preschool. Her name was Allison, and her birthday was close to mine. I don't think we had the same exact birthday. But it was a big enough deal to me just to have a friend with a close birthday. I mean a big enough deal that I still think about it 43 years later.
I wonder if we were the same age. Were we born days apart? It's possible that she was a 1973 birthday instead of my 1972.
In screenwriting news, I'm feeling somewhat good about The Dead are Online version B. I had decided to NOT submit that one to contests. I was unhappy with one of the characters...Anna. My plan was to save the scenes in version B and use them when/if I wrote a miniseries version.
I felt somewhat okay with her character in a full length project but felt things about her personality and storyline would be a deterrent to a contest judge liking my screenplay.
SO I ended up deleting a couple of scenes that might have fixed the problem.
Well...to be less vague. Anna and her fiancee Eugene have a bad relationship. They are awful to each other; maybe more her to him than vice-versa. Then, in the end, they start mending their relationship. But I started to think that maybe Anna was too toxic, and the mending of the relationship wouldn't be seen as a positive thing. So I took out her more toxic bits.
I've not been a podcast person, but I was suddenly in the mood to hear the Horizons theme song and ended up finding the Imagineer Podcast, and they have a whole episode about the ride. I listened to it in bits...just like I've been listening to Trump bully Raffensperger in bits. But with the Horizons thing, I listened in larger bits, and I'm already done listening to it.
I might listen to more episodes. Well...actually I started this one while doing some chores. So I'll probably continue with it.
One last thing (hopefully).
Eastern Europe is the section of the world I've usually been the least interested in and attracted to. But I watched this video from the Frank James channel, and my interest was sparked when he said Latvia is the best country for introverts.
So this morning, I watched the Latvia episode of Geography Now! and learned about the Singing Revolution. That got my attention. My days of being disinterested in Eastern Europe are probably over (which is good because my great grandparents come from the Soviet Ukraine).
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