What I’m Watching: Liar

Liar: Season 1, Episode 4 "Catherine" (B)

As much as I’m intrigued by this show, I still don’t quite understand what its take on sexual assault is. When the guy at the airport bar kept hounding Laura to give him a shot and then later sent her flowers, that seemed like the perfect time for a conversation about consent which she dismissed in favor of apologizing for her state of mind. We saw Andrew break into Vanessa’s home after apparently drugging her, proving that he’s not just a rapist who thinks he can get away with it but a very dangerous sexual predator who calculates his criminal activities. I think this show could have enough to say about sexual harassment, a notion that’s trending heavily on both my Facebook news feed and in my real news sources, without casting its suspected rapist as someone who isn’t just overconfident about his ability to mistreat women but deliberately malicious in the situations he engineers to willingly take advantage of them. As Vanessa realized - too late - that she needs to get out of this line of work for the sake of her future child, Laura is continuing to try to take action to ensure that Andrew doesn’t get away with what is now a devastating pattern of behavior. She had no luck with his mother-in-law, and she almost had Catherine on her side before the chef realized that little good was guaranteed to come from her speaking up, and forgetting about his influence in her life was the far better choice for her to make.