PRIVILEGED: All About the Big Picture
January 21, 2009 by Nicole
First off, let me congratulate all you Americans on your new president –I snuck off with a few co-workers to watch the inauguration on t.v. yesterday and it was pretty great. And now, for those of you who were able to stop mainlining CNN and watch Privileged, lets get down to business!
There was lots of guy trouble this week – the twins, due to their (or should I say Sage’s) determination to be famous and the time it takes away from the guys who care about them. Megan, because her family is driving her crazy and she doesn’t want to see Will dragged into things any more than he has been. And Marco, who is finding himself missing Keith more and more as each day passes. All that, plus a shout-out to Troy Dyer and a zinger aimed at Miley Cyrus to boot!
Luis was not present in the episode except by phone, but it was clear that Sage was ignoring him in favour of her “career” as a would-be famous person. She and Rose have lots of events to go to, set up by their publicist, and as a result they’re both missing out on time with their boyfriends. Normally I would totally say that your career goals are important and you shouldn’t sacrifice them completely for a guy, but c’mon. When your goal is essentially to be on the cover of US Weekly, it’s not really a sacrifice. Rose, who has gone along with all of the fame-seeking mostly for Sage’s sake, is now finding that the career path is interfering with her and her own man, my favourite, Dave Franco (Zach). I know, I know…he mumbles and he’s awkward…but he’s just so adorable. When he smiles, I smile. And when he’s sad because Pete Wentz and Rose’s ex-douchebag Max are in a picture with her at a nightclub on display on Perez Hilton (ahhhh…I can’t tell you how many times that happened to me in high school), I’m sad for him.
Another thing Zach hates? When people use “party” as a verb. This also makes me like him so, so much. I love the match of the shy, quirky mathlete with confident, adorable, popular Rose. I think that these two kids are good for each other. Anyhow, after some soul-searching and some missed calls and an argument or two, the girls decided to give their publicist the boot and focus on what’s making them happy now, rather than what might make them happy in the future.
Oh, and Megan also had a convo with Sage in which she said a couple of things that really tickled me. One, Sage complained that she felt old and that Miley Cyrus started her career at age nine. Megan’s response? “Miley Cyrus started when she was 9 and now she looks older than me, no offence Miley”. Lol!! Also casuing me to lol? The closed captioning on my tv said “Moley Cyrus”, hee! Two, Megan talked about the very true fact that what you think you want at sixteen is not necessarily what you want as an adult (a theme this week – Ted and Barney’s Cocktails fantasy anyone?). She points out that at sixteen, all she wanted was to marry Ethan Hawke – Reality Bites Ethan Hawke, not left-my-wife-for-the-nanny, haven’t-showered-in-10-days Ethan Hawke. I loved that because that was my goal in high school as well, except it wasn’t even as grounded in reality as Megan’s – I just wanted to marry Troy Dyer himself, the character from the movie. Anyway….have I mentioned that I love it that Sage and Megan are friends now? Because I do; they’re a hoot together.
Marco is devastated over his break up with Keith, and Megan encourages him to shake things up and make a change in his life. She suggests his hair, to which he hilariously responded “I’m not female, or sixteen, or white”. I LOVE Marco. He decided to take Lauren up on her offer to help him finance his dream of a restaurant, but when he went to check out the space he was thinking of buying, who should be there on what looked like a date? Keith of course. The restaurant plan is now on the backburner because Marco realized that he didn’t want to do it without Keith there with him. He has a new mission now, one that Megan will be helping him with: Project Get Keith Back. You go Marco!
Moving on to Megan, her mom has now taken off with Will’s money, Lilly is out of the big house and Dad and Will are clueless about Mama Smith’s thievery. So now that the whole scheme has come to light, everyone is reacting differently to it: Lilly is devastated that she didn’t get to see her mother, Will is pretty mellow about losing the money (although when you’re a billionaire, $25K is probably like petty cash) and Papa Smith is Queen of Denial.
First off, I must give credit where credit is due and I will say this: Lilly didn’t make me want to throw things at my t.v. last night. I have a theory: Lilly is better when quiet – when she’s angry or defensive or otherwise belligerent, which is always, she’s annoying as hell and her acting is just, well, not great. However, I was actually touched by the scene between her and Megan at the hair salon; she seemed vastly improved in the acting department; I got a sense of real emotion this time instead of a girl just shouting memorized words in the direction of her scene partner. Mind you, in the scene where Lilly called Megan and demanded that she meet her at her father’s house because their dad was losing it, old Lilly was definitely back. Hence, my theory: quiet Lilly good, loud Lilly bad. Oh, and I thought that dad’s “freak out” didn’t really warrant an emergency phone call and demand to meet…right? I mean, it’s not like he was going to sell his boat and go on welfare in the course of an evening. Anyhow, Megan did what she had to do and left to spend the evening with her boyfriend and his family.
Will has two super nice parents who seem to be the most supportive parents ever and love Megan, even after she mistook Will’s dad for the butler and handed him her sweaty coat. In the midst of having dinner with them, in the face of their awesomeness, she became overwhelmed with the mess that is her family and decided she had to bail because she left her dad and sister in a bad way after a family argument about mom. I would not have done that, but that is me. As I said, it’s always drama with her family – they could have waited until Megan finished dessert.
To end things off, we saw an ominous bottle of booze in Papa Smith’s grocery bag, which he put in a kitchen cupboard for safekeeping. Hmmm….hopefully this will not turn into a long dragged out storyline. I can think of a few shows where a long addiction/depression drama can completely kill a character….and one show in particular where this happened to several characters (I’m looking at you, Party of Five). On the bright side? Will and Megan exchanged I love you’s! I started out a major Charlie fan but have really warmed to Will and I like these two together. Megan is very high-strung, and Will is completely the opposite, so naturally they work. It was a nice way to end things off last night.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on last night’s episode. Do you think there will be a legitimate explanation for Megan’s mom’s behaviour, or is she just a flake and a liar? Are you happy that Megan and Will have moved to the next level? I’m pretty sure that next week is a rerun (there was no preview for a new episode and the CW site doesn’t seem to have one for next week), so we may have to wait a bit to see how things shake out.
Nicole is a lawyer with an unhealthy t.v. obsession and many t.v. boyfriends. If she had a locker at her office it would be covered in photos of Zachary Levi, Jensen Ackles, Lee Pace and John Krasinski. She lives near Toronto and is spending the winter cursing that fact while trying to convince her friends to do a group move to a warmer climate. So far it’s not working.
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Thanks for the recap. i really enjoyed last night’s episode. The “woman that I fell in love with” made me swoon. The only thing that really bothers me about those two is that they seem to constantly be in bed. not that I’m completely against that cause um will without a shirt is worth it but it just seems so unrealistic – maybe that’s the married with three kids under five and a full time job talking but at some point don’t they have to get out of the bed. I don’t know. I’m with you on really liking Charlie but falling over to the Will side. He kills me in his attempt to help but just not ever knowing how without making it worse. Also, I have to agree about what a bad actor Lilly is. i thought the scene with megan at the beauty shop was pretty good except at the very beginning. It was like they told her to look tired and she kind of slumped her shoulders and pretty much did what my five year old does when he wants me to know that he’s worn out. I mean she got her point across but it was so overdone. Her voice doesn’t seem to be as grating in this episode, though.
I really like Sage & Luis. I wish he had actually been there.
While I enjoyed last night’s episode of PRIVILEGED, I have a few concerns as to where the show is heading. I’m wondering why less than a full season into the show, the main storyline – that being that Megan has come in to tutor Sage and Rose – has been almost abandoned. I liked the premise of the show when we saw how Megan’s presence influenced the girls. The show has now become all about Megan’s dysfunctional family, a storyline that I particularly don’t care for. I love Megan but she’s become more irritating the more she plays the role of the martyr. I understand the pull of her family, but I I lose respect for her decisions when she rudely disappears in the middle of an important dinner with her boyfriends parents.
Why abandon the original premise of the show – Megan tutoring the girls to gain more insight into their world which becomes fodder for her career as a writer? Is she even writing the book about Laurel? Will Laurel and her granddaughters ever share screen time? Is Rose doing any better in school under Megan’s influence?
PRIVILEGED is one of my favorite new shows of the year, but I fear it going down a path that I’m not convinced I want to follow. I will. For now. But I hope the show comes back to me.
I agree wholeheartedly Kath! I think that we still see glimpses of Megan positively impacting the girls’ lives, like when she had her talk with Sage last night. However, there is no mention of school, or the book, and you start to wonder why she is even still at the house, unless to act as a surrogate grownup for when Laurel isn’t around.
I am really not a fan of Megan’s family either. I’m fine with it if it’s a small blip in the grand scheme of things, but if this is to be a regular part of the show then it may become too much (and it does put Megan in the annoying category on occasion, like last night for example). I would love to see the show focus more on Megan’s relationship with the girls, her relationship with Will, her friendship with Marco and, last but not least, the girl’s schooling. The show has a great backbone, mostly great cast and it’s really clever. I’m there for the long haul if they can focus on, ahem, the big picture and let some of these other distractions go by the wayside. They could make a few small tweaks to the show, hardly disrupt it at all, and make it much more cohesive. I’ve never read the book that the show is based on, but I thought it was supposed to be more about how the lives of the wealthy family and the people associated with them impact Megan; not how her family impacts the rest. Getting rid of the family arch would be a huge step towards getting on the right track.
I seem to be in the minority in that I love how Rina has brought Megan’s family issues to the forefront. It brings that “Everwood-ian” aspect to a show that was severely lacking a strong, emotional resonance. I loved the pilot and the episodes after that, but they didn’t seem to be going to a deeper place. So seeing more of an emphasis on family dynamics has been nice. Now, I do think the show needs to bring more of the tutoring aspect of the show back. I think with the girls no longer associated with the party/celebrity lifestyle, the show can do that. If we get a season 2, I can see them having more storylines associated with school, their futures at Duke, etc.. I just…I dunno, I think its been a gradual build-up. It hasn’t always had the best execution, but I think the show has been and is heading, in a good place.
Charles – You are wrong. I am right. Done!
Ha ha – of course I’m joking. I do see what you are saying about the depth that the family dynamic brings to the show. It gives it something more than stories about rich girls and their tutor. I’d like to see more of a balance between the two, I agree -I’m glad they are dropping some of the “socialite” stuff.
I agree with the general sentiment that there’s too much of Megan’s family. I hate Lilly so much, the actress and the character just grind my nerves.
I enjoyed last night’s ep, but their choice of song at the end confused me. I love “Happy Ending” by Mika (I was recently a little obsessed one might say with it), but it’s a little sad talking about having had love but then not being together anymore. I’m wondering if this is some foreshadowing to Will and Megan not ending up together in the long run or even the not so distant future…. or I’m just making way to much of someone’s random song choice.
does anyone know the song played at the end of Privileged “Big Picture” when when Will and Megan are saying I love you..? Thanks!