Monday, April 14, 2014

Mike and Molly's "McMillian and Mom" a Morally and Philosophically Barren Episode.

At first it was the use of simple math to rob the elderly of their wealth. "You have a quarter million dollars of home equity in your home and no mortgage but you need 30,000 dollars cash? Sorry, based on your S.S. income, you qualify for nothing". 

Even if that 30,000 dollars would have prevented a calamitous event from occurring, or would have saved the senior a couple hundred dollars in credit card interest rate charges every month, the senior is cast aside as a silly number unworthy of any home liquidity based on a lifetime of responsible living.

Which brings us to Mike and Molly. In episode "McMillian and Mom" which aired April 14, 2014, Carl discovers his mom has been alive all of these years and that she wants to see him before he dies.

The rage that Carl feels towards his grandmother who continued to hide the truth about Carl's mother long after Carl reached adulthood is brushed aside because at least Carl will get to see his mother now.

On the way to Memphis, Carl, Mike and Samuel inadvertently don't pay for 30 dollars worth of snack food and go back to pay rather than paying on the way back from seeing terminally ill mom.

As luck would have it (or make that tv writers with too much time on their hands who should have spent some of that free time getting to know their own moms), it's just not a big deal when that return trip to pay for the snack food causes Carl to miss seeing his mother while she was still alive.

On the way back from missing seeing his mother alive, Mike philosophizes why it's just no big thing that Carl never got to connect with his mother whom he had not seen since he was an infant, and instead Samuel tells a funny story that prompts the three to go visit Elvis.

Who writes this crap? How does it get on the air? This is a first draft script that should have gone through several rewrites before hitting the air.

I find the trivializing of our seniors an alarming event as each passing generation learns to use social media to confine and define their entire world into what they want it to be with no other outside obligations. Which is exactly the message of Mike and Molly "McMillian and Mom", confine and define their entire world into what they want it to be with no other outside obligations, and go visit Elvis instead. 

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