Honestly, was this show trying to preach about "Love" or condone this behavior? I don't understand the angle of this bit they had w/ Cara Lynn and the teacher.
In real life, this guy would be in prison if not killed. A 15 year old girl, I don't care how smart she is, can easily be manipulated especially by a manipulative adult. That guy was sick. He was nothing like Bill. I hated the fact that Cara Lynn was comparing that w/ Bill and Margie's relationship.
I feel like maybe they were trying to show it against Bill and Margene to say 'if one of these is okay, then both have to be.' Like it was more of a Bill and Margene even though the characters kept thinking of it as a Nikki and JJ thing. But really, al of them were squicky to me.
The whole series has Margene wanting more. And Carolynn was way smarter than Margene. She would never have been happy married young.
I could see they were trying to compare and contrast, but it was just awful execution. It made me really hate the guy. He wasn't a typical pedophile who enables young children, but he knew the moral and lawful implications this can have and still carried on with it.
shareThe real reason why it's so squicky, in both the Cara and Margene situations, was that the man both times was in a position of power. And so it could never be equal. If Cara Lynn met some random guy who was 40, it wouldn't be so bad. She's always going to have daddy issues but 16 is not child enough to be like, okay she isn't able to make her own decision. That teacher was responsible for her.
shareYeah, this was one of the weaker plots. Kind of gross. But I think what the show makers were trying to portray, if not successfully, is that this is what Cara Lynn would have found normal. They weren't married -- that's a major sticking point for someone with her religious upbringing. That he was twice her age? Not so much, that was typical in her culture. But they didn't develop the character of the teacher enough to make him seem more than just a creep. Cara Lynn says at one point "it was his first time too" and we're supposed to believe that?
The contrast to Bill is this: Bill thought Margene was 21 when he married her due to her altering her birth certificate. Stupid and unrealistic, but there it is The teacher had no such delusion. He KNEW Cara Lynn was only 15 and what he was doing was a crime.
I think that point was that her whole culture set her up for the teacher's exploitation, and then Nikki blamed her for it -- thus leading to her breakdown, one of the most meaningful and heartfelt parts of the show IMO.
I'm going to mark this up as the writer's faulty ideology w/ the whole premise. Considering the writer's were on strike at the moment or going to be on strike, they may have forced it a little, but the whole thing got lost in translation.
I wished they had more time to see that relationship develop. Kind of like a murder case. I'm watching the OJ Simpson series right now and the prosecution did a lousy job. They never even thought to evaluate OJ Simpson's older son, Jason. If they had done a thorough evaluation, interview and cross examination, this "show" would've been much more interesting, enlightening and intense.
But I digress, I wished they had shown a bit more on their end of the relationship and let things fruition. But time was essential for the BL Crew.
"Bill thought Margene was 21 when he married her due to her altering her birth certificate"
Eh, Don clearly called BS on Bill's defending himself with that excuse. Don points out that Bill cannot deny the fact he went after someone outside the faith and obviously too young to even understand what it all entailed (Marge agreed she didn't understand what she was getting into), and that he was clearly obsessed with her, and not because she was smart.
So Carol Lynn does have a point.
Yea. Even if he thought Margie was legal, he knew she was young and naive. I mean when we're introduced to her, she's like 20? And a severely young 20. Imagine her almost 3 years earlier. Seems like the kind of scenario where she told him she was 18, he probably didn't believe it, but he went with it and never questioned it.
Boredom is bullsh#t.
On season 1 she said she was 23 so when he first met her she was either 19 or 20. Still very young, I agree.
Someone tasted my tongue and told me I tasted like the color crimson with a faint of violet.
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