It's Undone

I recently stumbled upon the HBO series “The Undoing" and so far, it’s kind of interesting but in a stiff kind of way. I only ended up watching it because I heard some good things and I was awake in the middle of the night, making it the perfect time to watch since my toddler was asleep and I would not have to watch and be on alert for adult scenes. I would not watch this show under any normal circumstances and am only committed to finishing the season because at this point I want to see how it ends. To sum up my impression thus far, it is a drama of milky opulence run amok.

The first thing about the series that lets me know I am not the target audience is the cast. Besides the cast being ALL WHITE, it is the cast of white people who are included. The star couple is played by Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman who are both doctors in the series; she is a psychologist and he is an oncologist. Both of these actors were in their prime when I was much younger so I am not familiar with their other work. The other people in the cast are lesser known to me, but the one minority who is closest to my own identity is the troubled character who coincidentally is the person with whom all of the drama is rooted.

While watching the show I feel like this is a peek into the opulent lifestyle that is afforded to some people with new and old fortunes. I do not come from money and am working on finding the way capitalism will work for me to provide legacy wealth for my offspring, so no I do not identify with the characters at all. There is an auction scene where a glass of water is auctioned off with a starting bid of $1,000. This was a regular glass of tap water, nothing special about the water, just a way to share a story of ridiculousness of the rich and wealthy.

One of the things I do find interesting in the writing is that the characters are aware of the bubble of privilege in which they live and acknowledge that the bubble life was always the standard and expectation. This is interesting to me because in reality the social problems faced by the citizens here in the United States is the fact that everyone is in a different type of bubble and find it impossible to try to understand how things work in the other bubbles. Just look at the most recent election results, and all that has happened since. Bubble life, which is seemingly a form of tribalism, is the way of our world here in the states, but it’s the intolerance that makes it so detrimental. These people don’t seem to be intolerant but they are very well insulated from other bubbles.

The event that rocks the show is loud, noisy, and indeed scandalous but it still comes across as being tailored and stiff. The story moves along quietly and even the bombshells just kind of come and go. I have already formed my thoughts on what actually happened and what will happen with the rest of the season so I will be watching it through the end to see if I am correct.

The lack of diversity doesn’t bother me because the demographics of the characters are properly reflective of people like them who actually exist. In these situations in Manhattan there are few Black and brown people in these bubbles. Those who are there also do not have my same experience so I would still feel a disconnect while watching the show if they forced a diversity hire. The show comes on Sunday nights on HBO if anyone wants to watch with me and share their opinions and/or theories.