Monday, May 10, 2021

What I’m Watching: Shrill

Shrill: Season 3, Episode 5 “no” (B+)

Well, this isn’t what I expected, and it’s certainly not what Annie had thought would happen when she tried something different either. The title “Separate but charming” was inherently problematic, and she saw the reaction right away when the barista told her that they didn’t serve racists there and gave Amadi two drinks on the house. Her desire to write an apology may have been borne out of her own white guilt, but the response she got from both Gabe and Sheila, united for once, showed her that they wanted to stick by her and the reporting she did rather than do the right and ethical thing, since they valued journalistic integrity and high readership numbers for the magazine. Things got much worse for her from there as Nick decided to text, indicating his cluelessness and uselessness, and then Ryan appeared as a source of comfort. Telling her after they had sex that he had forgotten that he had a girlfriend was the last straw, and she’s going to have a tough time recovering from all this. While she didn’t want to be there to support her white friend going through her own reckoning with her perception of race, Fran dealt with cultural insensitivities on another front from her extremely curious girlfriend. Em did appear sincere throughout it all and actually bonded quite a bit with Fran’s mom, and I think this relationship is likely here to stay, which is a very good thing since they seem to be a great fit for each other.

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