On 2.24 I wrote that I was settling into HBO’s Togetherness and starting to feel good about all the characters except for Melanie Lynskey‘s awful, draggy, down-headed Michelle. My heart has been aching for her miserable, screwed-down husband Brett (Mark Duplass), who’s been at least making an effort to pull things together but who naturally feels alienated by her lack of sexual interest in him, and by her blooming platonic relationship with David (John Ortiz). It’s a San Quentin marriage with occasional furloughs. I’ve been sitting in the lotus position in front of the Samsung and pleading with Brett to “give it up, man…move out or move into the garage but cut the cord and let your soul breathe…Melanie is trying to get to a good place like the rest of us but she’s almost Margaret Hamilton.” No, that’s harsh. She’s not a witch. But everything she touches turns to glum.
And then on last Sunday’s “Party Time” episode…breakthrough!
On 2.22 Brett ran into an older hippie check named Linda (Mary Steenburgen) and right away felt a certain spiritual connection, and so last Sunday night he decided to duck out of a charter-school party Michelle was giving and visit a party at Linda’s commune instead. Right away he meets a hippie-cat guy who gives him some psychedelic tea, and not long after Brett starts to hang with Linda the elevator in the brain hotel starts to rise and rise and rise, and before you know it he’s spaced and dreamy and totally tripping.
