Season 1
Disclaimer: I’ve been watching soaps for years. I know how they work, but even some of the worst ones have developed characters from the beginning.
I’ve been binge watching this show for the past few weeks and just finished season 1. Some story lines are slow but soaps are inconsistent in general, the writing isn’t terrible but again inconsistent, and there’s a lot of telling not showing. Race plays a major part in this show and they do a good job in some areas (working in culturally specific references) but leave much to be desired. No one is really in community with other Black people outside of their families, the white characters are rarely challenged, way more interracial couples than any other soap, there’s no diversity in Black people in a city close to DC (no Afro-Latinas, Carribeans, Africans?) and there’s colorism and I mean old school paper bag test colorism that centers whiteness, (almost all of the DS characters are villains or the help). The acting is fine imo, some actors stronger than others but again this is a soap. The thing I am curious about is if the show actually knows how delusional all these characters are, especially the Duprees. Almost anything that’s happened can be explained if they delved deeper into each character and they just don’t. I come from a large family obsessed with appearances and so much of this show rings true except acknowledging how dysfunctional it all is.
Vernon is known to use a fixer, one who had repeatedly cheated on his daughter, is a politician, hid a murder (like the entire family), but nobody questions that he can be shady while upholding respectability politics strongly in his grip. Unrealistic. The cheating SL is only goofy because all the men on the show are already cheaters. It’s overdone already. Have something he did as a senator come to haunt him.
Anita has some of the best backstory as far as the Articulettes, and she’s shown that she can be morally questionable when she acted like a mob boss and got Dani back on that board at the country club. She also told Eva she could never be a Dupree which was odd and messy lol. Lean into it. She is the only one with a backbone most of the time. They could write her disdain and conflicting feelings about Leslie much better too.
Dani is impulsive and often immature. She shot up a wedding and assaulted someone in public and we’re just supposed to buy that her and Andre are stable now and people questioning it are doing too much. It’s barely been a year since Bill’s wedding. All the comments on Hayley being young just to end up with Andre…obsessed with 1% milk Andre… that relationship has improved since being married but all they do is hunch in this season. Still can’t see what the appeal is outside of him caretaking but again it’s only been a year. She gave up her career for a man TWICE. She condoned her madame friend working in her family’s country club… she also stayed with a serial cheater as a woman with means so there’s tons of delusion there.
Nicole is an avoider. She wants to keep the peace. She’s had to fix her sister’s stuff growing up (telling not showing). She should be resentful. Instead they play her resentment out as her being a hater then probably being rightfully fed up. She can be self righteous (especially pre-Leslie) and has had to form a new identity post Leslie which is hard. She has a disconnect from her children probably because of her practice, explore that. Explore how she’s used to putting on appearances for the sake of her perfect parents.
Martin is the only male in the family. There’s pressure there. Him being an uptight, masculine-presenting gay man in an interracial relationship makes so much a sense for a politician in this family. I like that he’s a grandchild instead of Dani and Nicole’s brother because I feel like his personality is too similar to Nicole’s to play off Dani well. He clearly spent a lot of time with the Grans and isn’t seen as being that close with his parents which makes sense based on their ages and careers. Is he resentful of having to be perfect to reach his career goals? He and his sister have anger issues that go beyond righteous anger. They play it off as the secret in the beginning but if a woman was getting snapped at all the time, being told that their job of raising the kids was more important the relationship would be seen extremely abusive.
Kat could be the most interesting character but she falls flat. She was spoiled as the miracle baby. She’s classist, not just when it comes to Eva, “who do you think you are,” when Tomas bumped into her and spilled her drink. If these traits are part of the reason her parents didn’t believe her, because they know she was looking down on Eva for things other than catching her snooping (her appearance), it needed to be established more than in passing comments. Is this a pattern? She can hate Eva forever but her need to constantly bring it up is why she’s stale to me. If the people around her were like your anger is righteous but you’re obsessed and we’re concerned it would make more sense. People love detective!Kat but this girl would 1000% be a dirty cop. Interesting!!! She’s shown as vindictive with failing to train Eva correctly, but you can’t tell me that was all about her. None of that was to punish her dad? It’s his business and his employees affected by it. They do not explore her being a sad, little insecure girl. She has to be told Ted that love is infinite. Why when she grew up with lots of it? Why does she feel like her father can be stolen? She’s not a child. She resentful of the way she had to apologize to Martin, explore that. Nobody is a reliable narrator when it comes to their childhood but we’re also the most reliable. Where do they differ? She cares deeply about her family and hates that they were wronged but doesn’t see Ted as the most accountable. Why? Tomas can be explained away as her needing stability and wanting to not be alone with so much going on in her life. Instead their love is supposed to be the thing holding them together 🤢. She is reflective but it just ends up with her apologizing for things she not in the wrong about or coming to the wrong conclusion.
Chelsea and her sister make the most sense as far as real reactions to a parent’s infidelity.
She’s not close to Bill. He didn’t know she was dating a woman. Makes sense. She was suffocated by Dani and her constant meddling. They drop that trait on both ends. That is not realistic imo as someone with a similar mother. She has that meddling trait too, see: Madison’s mother. She let them force her to get back on SM and caved too soon. A peacemaking people pleaser that falls in love in seconds (with Allison and Madison). She could be so much more interesting. Maybe she likes throuples in the beginning because she saw her dad cheating on the mom constantly and didn’t want the commitment. How she feels about her mom’s new marriage? Just going along to get along.
Naomi’s development got dropped after she settled the harassment case. She’s never shown in court. I like the June storyline but the progression was too fast. She prefers helping people verses chasing money (like her father) and that should be shown more. Her reaction about finding out he had a man killed was lackluster for her. She stubborn and righteously angry but the writing is so inconsistent with her so it seems like to comes out of nowhere. The baby storyline was just to cause conflict with Jacob when the conflict should’ve been she got an abortion and didn’t tell him. He knows she hiding something and thats the conflict, that she hid it and dealt with it alone. But no it’s her not listening to him say he didn’t know he’d feel that way and is fine with her decision. There should also be more conflict with Hayley since that was her friend. They also don’t show what her and Ashley have in common or why they’re friends.
I have a lot of opinions (clearly lol) about the side characters too but this is already long. I think Leslie could’ve potentially one of the best soap villains we’ve seen. Truly a woman scorned that is triggered by feeling less than. I don’t think they’re written her into a corner but her motivations are weak now as with most characters. I really like the show but I wish they’d show that “we’re the Duprees” meant something other than keeping up appearances. They’re a powerful family full of dysfunction and they just don’t really lean into it.