A longing for the love, support, and the happy endings only found in scripted television…
by: Jianna Heuer
“Wow, that is some writers working their shit out,” Jason murmurs behind me on the couch. We assumed our positions thirty-seven minutes prior. He is lying on the chaise lounge part of our fading navy blue L-shaped sofa, and I am propped up against him, vertical, with a coral-and-orange lumbar pillow. This is a perfect configuration for snuggling and remote sharing, something that has become necessary as an hour-long show can take two to three hours to watch with all the stopping to discuss what is happening. This comment comes up frequently, but most often references a moment when a bad father attempts to redeem himself with his child.
Tonight, Jason is talking about a moment in The Morning Show, Season 1, Episode 5. Reese Witherspoon’s character, Bradley, who has just risen to national fame, is standing outside a bar taking a call from her dad, whom she hasn’t spoken to in fifteen years.
Pause.
“I bet he wants money, what a scumbag!” I say.
“Yeah, totally. Looks like he is living in his car,” Jason says.
Unpause.
I don’t remember what Bradley’s dad says to her verbatim, but the gist is the same as in all the moments in shows and movies where the dad gives a speech about how proud he is of the kid. He says all he wanted was their happiness. He can’t take credit for their success because he wasn’t there in some way (emotionally, physically, psychologically), but man, he loves them so much and has always been proud of them, even if they couldn’t show it.
Jason and I are silent and still during these scenes. I won’t assume what is happening for him, but I know I hold my breath. Tears welling in my eyes. My stomach feels like a burl. I am squelching my wish that I would get this call, knowing there is nothing I can do that will make it come. I want my dad to love me, be proud of me, and say everything Bradley’s dad says to her. I assume Jason may feel some of the same emotions since he also has an estranged father.
After the character who is getting this speech lets one exquisite tear run down their cheek, and the scene is clearly finished, Jason will, without fail, say his line, “Wow, that is some writer’s working their shit out. That would never happen in real life.” As I write this, I realize it’s his way of letting out the tension he feels while watching.
“You know it shatters my suspension of disbelief when this happens,” he says.
“I get it. It’s like this enactment of wish fulfillment that may be cathartic for the TV writer to put on the page, but it reminds me of what I’ll never have. I experience the whole rollercoaster when it happens, the build-up to the high point of hope, the explosion of relief when the character hears what they have needed to for so long, and then the dip where I know that’s not something my dad will give me.”
“He won’t. Neither will mine. Does anyone actually get these moments outside of fiction?”
I’ve been a psychotherapist for over fifteen years, and I have never heard of a case where a previously bad dad says the thing their kid needs to hear, giving them a sense of wholeness they previously did not have.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“So then, why do it? Why put it in our heads that this is even a possibility? This is what I mean when I talk about ‘TV Learning’ being unrealistic, and still people go about their lives thinking shit like this can happen.”
“Yeah, but also, we keep watching this stuff, so maybe the question is, why do we want to see it?”
Jason vehemently snorts, “I don’t want to see it, it’s forced upon me and ruins the moment in the show!”
I know at least one psychological reason we keep engaging with this particular story — repetition compulsion. There is this theory in psychoanalysis about our unconscious need to repeat traumas in new situations in an attempt to get a new result. The problem is that if we repeat old patterns, we tend not to get new results. Shows, movies, and books can let us experience our own traumas through the lens of a character, and we feel all the feelings, but often, the character gets a better, healthier conclusion. I know I’m looking for that when rewatching my old comfort shows like One Tree Hill or Felicity. I can relate to Peyton’s outsider vibes and Julie’s date rape with a seemingly nice guy. They both get happier endings than I did in those situations. It makes it seem possible that I could have too, giving me some sense of hope in the world that I haven’t gotten from my own life experience.
Bad dad-turned-good dude scenes let us imagine what it would be like if our dads came back, apologized, saw the error of their ways, and loved us. Who wouldn’t want that? It also allows us to feel envy and anger towards the character who gets this when we don’t, feelings we generally don’t impose on our friends. Maybe this is another version of the writers working their shit out in a way that doesn’t endanger relationships they have in their real life. This allows them to get the ending they want with an estranged parent without feeling jealous of a close friend who already has a typical good-guy TV dad, like Phil Dunphy of Modern Family or Jack Pearson on This Is Us. I’d love to interview a writer of one of these scenes and ask, “Am I totally projecting? Do you actually have a great dad?”
I know I’ve focused primarily on dads here, but the same goes for all parents; I just happen to have daddy issues, not mommy ones. But the fact of the matter is, when parents have been shit at parenting, kids carry the feelings that come with that, thinking they are broken, a burden, unworthy, unlovable, forever. It affects every relationship in their life, usually not in a good way, and now it’s impinging on my relationship with my programs (not cool).
The TV trope of fatherly redemption, something Jason coined as an example of TV Learning, almost made me do something dumb. After over a decade of no contact with my own toxic and abusive father at my brother’s wedding, I got sucked into the idea that I could finally get one of these TV moments. My dad walked over, looked at me, and said, “Hello, how are you?” There was no emotion in his voice, no tremors of fear, as my heart raced and thumped like Bambi’s little rabbit friend Thumper’s foot. He was chill, not fazed at all.
We exchanged banal chit-chat, and as I walked away, still amped up, I found Jason and said, “I want to say all the things. Tell him how he has hurt me. Maybe he is hiding all his feelings under a calm veneer. Maybe he is sorry?”
Jason took me to the side of the house, hidden by a shrub, sat me down on a bench, and ever so gently held my arms and looked into my eyes with an abundance of compassion. “I know you want all that to be true, but it’s not. That man doesn’t feel anything. He will only defend himself, his words, and his choices, and gaslight you into believing it was all your fault. He can’t give you what you want. You’ll just get hurt if you try to talk to him.”
I knew he was right, but at that moment, I was wishing so hard that he wasn’t. I almost convinced myself I could be Jack in Dawson’s Creek with the dad who changed from a gay hating homophobe into a supportive and understanding father who goes to car shows and hugs his son at the suggestion of any emotional moment. So I reluctantly return to reality. A reality where I watch characters get their happy endings with their TV Dads, knowing I will never have one of my own.
Read more from Jianna Heuer here.
