The Slap: Manolis

March 5, 2015 9:49 PM - Season 1, Episode 4

Manolis tries to help out his nephew Harry by arranging a meeting with a powerful lawyer he knows, but it works too well, and distresses him. He finds some comfort in attending the bedside of a dying character we've never been introduced to.

I had a little trouble following this episode, because the DVR made the show hang for a silent second or two every five minutes. Plus, there was an adolescent puppy in the room throwing a tantrum about a bone another dog had.

It struck me particularly that Manolis was shocked to hear that Harry had hit his wife, and that it had been kept a secret. Even though he is a good-hearted guy, he is surely from a time and place where that kind of thing was expected. Maybe this detail was given to show that he's not very good at being a patriarch.

posted by Countess Elena (3 comments total)

Man, fuck this show.

I'm trying to make peace with the fact that it's a completely separate show from the original series and stop referring back to the ways they're different, but damnit.

In the Australian series, the episodes went man, woman, man, woman, woman, man, woman, man.

So far NBC has given us man, man, woman, man. And the one woman they've focused on so far has had her plot completely throttled. I just don't get it.

Also FYI in the Australian series you don't find out that Harry hit his wife until almost the end of the series, and he broke her fucking jaw. It's a pretty big moment and this show took it away.
posted by phunniemee at 6:40 AM on March 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah, this episode was not that great. The thing with Mano's old dying friend? Ugh, so what? Not terribly interesting. It was better than the last one, but that's not saying much for me.

I'm dying to see episodes based on Aisha, Rosie, and Sandi though. For a world that revolves around the women characters so heavily, they really haven't been given their fair share of screen time.
posted by dogwalker at 8:01 PM on March 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Manolis is the epitome of the wise fool. Mostly he strained credulity with his total willful blindness as to the true characters of the other various Greek men in his life. Like he couldn't predict that his powerful lawyer frenemy who is openly sexist and gross was going to Take Shit Too Far? Really? Or that his nephew who hit a kid has also hit other people who are less powerful than him, such as his wife? Duh man!
posted by hush at 10:46 PM on March 16, 2015