SPOILERS BELOW! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

I really like how blame is tied through the whole show. every character and even side conflict involves this sense of blame and the guilt and shame that comes with it.

My thoughts fall into a few main buckets so I’ll share those here, mainly commenting on blame through motherhood and peter Irvine.

blame on mothers / marissa and jenny’s friendship

This show plays with the experience of being a mother, specifically the constant waves of shit you have to deal with every single day just to have someone point out the one thing you didn’t do, or how you could have done it better. All while offering zero help of their own.
a moment I really love is when the detective is interviewing jenny and her husband about carrie. The husband asks jenny how she couldn’t tell if the reference families from carrie were actors and the detective INSTANTLY asks “well could you tell?” and he has to sheepishly admit that he hadn’t spoken to any of the references personally. GET CHECKED!

granted jenny’s husband is just his own level of fuckass idiot. He’s a piece of shit who should’ve never been a father if he feels no personal responsibility. AND there is no way they’re living that lavish of a lifestyle if he is working as a high school teacher and she is a publisher that apparently doesn’t make a lot of money.
I guess I assumed that when her husband was all focused on the money SHE makes from her job. Because if a high school physics teacher is telling me I don’t make money, then yeah I’m making less than a high school physics teacher. Either way, he sucks.

And I don’t blame Marissa at all. I mean, obviously, but in the moment too. If I’m Marissa, hanging out with Jenny in the bathroom and drinking wine, I would believe the text without checking the number. Maybe that makes me a piece of shit too but after a hang out like that, we are blood bonded.
I’m so happy they stay close throughout the show. Jenny is there for Marissa CONSTANTLY and is often the only one that actually understands what Marissa needs or is trying to communicate. The upholstery cleaner was such a good example of Marissa clearly communicating her needs, Jenny seeing the true need within it, and Peter missing the entire fucking point.

the peter of it all

”I NEED to be needed right now.”

-peter in episode 4(or 5) after he told Marissa he couldn’t help her make a website for their missing son while she has a panic attack

something about this actor, he just loves being a piece of shit lmao. Right after finishing this, my friend and I started “friend of the family” where he literally plays a guy that kidnaps and assaults a child?!?! Glutton for punishment ig idk

anyway, peter Irvine is a piece of shit. I’m not sure where to even start when every topic I think of gets me so heated.

lets start with the brother plotline. Tbh the stupidest thing in this whole show. It wasn’t in the original book and you can TELL. Shoving this plotline into episodes felt like making an SAT prep book MORE dense. It was just hit after hit of intertwining reveals and I got lost a little bit ngl.

this is my understanding of the injury: lia and brian were playing. Peter was watching. Peter goes to trip brain because he thought it would be funny. Brian collides with a coffee table and gets injured. Lia takes the blame and peter says nothing. THEY GO ON FOR LIKE 30 YEARS, BRIAN NEVER GETS A JOB, LIA NEVER GETS A JOB, PETER PAYS FOR BOTH OF THEIR NEEDS WHILE MAKING THEM FEEL LIKE FREELOADING LOSERS THE WHOLE TIME FOR GUILT HE FORCED ONTO THEM AND LET THEM CARRY FOR 30 YEARS.

because it doesn’t matter WHAT actually happened, right? To me, it doesn’t matter. To me, what matters is that Peter let Lia feel guilty and BLAMED for this accident her whole life, and Peter constantly and vocally judged her bad choices, claiming he “couldn’t take his eyes off her” or else she’d make a mess for him to clean up. And he only felt this way because of a MADE UP STORY OF EVENTS!
Brian is a whole other story, Peter definitely forced financial support onto him because of his guilt and shame (which is really just self-blame ig). But god, it’s just a whole issue created by Peter’s shame and the blame he projected onto Lia.

but to the elephant in the room:

it’s all HIS fault!!!!

that’s right! It was Peter’s fault the whole time. He ACTUALLY switched the babies during the car accident, causing Carrie to spiral, eventually resulting in all the events of the show INCLUDING the death of at least 2 people by his hand. I was not expecting that at allllll. I had assumed Carrie wanted milo as her own kid, but I didn’t expect her to think milo WAS her kid. And I especially wasn’t expecting milo to ACTUALLY be her kid?! Because who the fuck would do that??

most of my thoughts were surrounding the brother plotline. It sticks out against the well paced main plot and the reveal comes so close after the original story of the injury it feels like there was no time to sit with Lia as the cause of the accident. The reveal of peter as the one who swapped the babies and killed Carrie’s dad is well presented and believable. By the time it’s revealed, I believe that peter is someone who would put his son in the trunk of a car and abandon him in the middle of nowhere to keep a secret. And I believe that peter could do a whole lot more if he could mentally justify it.

closing note

it’s going to be hard finding another show like this. My friend and I watched DTF St. Louis a few weeks ago and THAT was brutal. Super good show but such a tough ending that really reframes the whole show in a way I didn’t LOVE. So we were wanting a crime with a more linear path and All Her Fault delivered in ways we didn’t imagine. I kind of want to get her to start succession but I don’t know if we’ll be able to sustain four seasons…

we just get into such a binge then have to stop when we’re exhausted from whatever emotional roller coaster we’ve gone on over the past 4 hours. Having something with a clear end gives us a forced stop lol

this is the first review I’m writing then adding to my blog. I’m trying to type the html tags I want as I go so I don’t have to add it after… you’ll only see the finished version as the viewer thought loll

until next time,
amber

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