Patrick Melrose: Mother's Milk
June 3, 2018 12:50 AM - Season 1, Episode 4 - Subscribe
Patrick is spending the summer at his old family home in France with his wife Mary and their two young sons. When Eleanor, now sober, announces her plan to leave the house to a New Age foundation instead of Patrick, he quickly falls off the wagon. As Patrick returns to his old self-destructive behavior, the fate of his marriage is seriously threatened.
I liked this episode! Not as much as last week, which I really enjoyed. I think I'm also a bit relieved because I was sure something terrible was going to happen to one of the children, either Robert would fall through that well he was jumping on (...Is that a well? What the hell is that? WHY DO CHILDREN ALWAYS DO STUPID, DANGEROUS THINGS, WHYYYYY?!?!) or Patrick would hit one of them drunk driving. I don't know, I just kept getting that vibe.
I thought it was interesting how Patrick was repeating (to a much milder degree) some of his father's parenting horrors. He's jealous of his wife's relationship with the boys, feels displaced in her affections, wants to interact with the boys but his drunkenness puts them off. The scene where he jumps into the pool with the older boy, totally freaking him out, and then brushes his objections off with, "YOU'RE FINE" sounded JUST like his father. He's so self-destructive. And I like how they made Cumberbatch look kind of terrible. His nose was a bit red, his skin was rough. He looked like someone who drinks too much and doesn't sleep. It made me sad that Mary was offering him familial snuggliness (of the kind she didn't have. She's clearly trying to make a VERY different family than the one either of them grew up with) and Patrick rejects it.
In the last scene, Eleanor said something to the camera. I couldn't make it out and my captioning wasn't working. Did anyone catch it?
posted by Aquifer at 8:50 AM on June 5, 2018
I thought it was interesting how Patrick was repeating (to a much milder degree) some of his father's parenting horrors. He's jealous of his wife's relationship with the boys, feels displaced in her affections, wants to interact with the boys but his drunkenness puts them off. The scene where he jumps into the pool with the older boy, totally freaking him out, and then brushes his objections off with, "YOU'RE FINE" sounded JUST like his father. He's so self-destructive. And I like how they made Cumberbatch look kind of terrible. His nose was a bit red, his skin was rough. He looked like someone who drinks too much and doesn't sleep. It made me sad that Mary was offering him familial snuggliness (of the kind she didn't have. She's clearly trying to make a VERY different family than the one either of them grew up with) and Patrick rejects it.
In the last scene, Eleanor said something to the camera. I couldn't make it out and my captioning wasn't working. Did anyone catch it?
posted by Aquifer at 8:50 AM on June 5, 2018
I don't think I would have found this series without your posting about it. Tx for that!
It's a really well made series and I enjoyed some parts greatly. Cumberbatch does some nice slapstick with the quaaludes kicking in. And of course he's great being acerbic and condescending (rather similar to his Sherlock Holmes I thought). The girlfriend who tries to save him was a rather touching role: a loving uppper middle class girl.
But in the end for me it felt rather schematic to me: the people we're supposed to dislike (the new age guru, the snobbish social climbers, ), Melrose's disdain, the lost shangri la of the French estate.
This article mentions how we viewers value depictions of upper middle class. The great British export product.
I guess all in all I didn't care that much about Patrick Melrose and his tormentedness.
posted by jouke at 10:15 AM on June 6, 2018
It's a really well made series and I enjoyed some parts greatly. Cumberbatch does some nice slapstick with the quaaludes kicking in. And of course he's great being acerbic and condescending (rather similar to his Sherlock Holmes I thought). The girlfriend who tries to save him was a rather touching role: a loving uppper middle class girl.
But in the end for me it felt rather schematic to me: the people we're supposed to dislike (the new age guru, the snobbish social climbers, ), Melrose's disdain, the lost shangri la of the French estate.
This article mentions how we viewers value depictions of upper middle class. The great British export product.
I guess all in all I didn't care that much about Patrick Melrose and his tormentedness.
posted by jouke at 10:15 AM on June 6, 2018
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posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 3:49 PM on June 4, 2018