so is Olive bad or good?

This probably won't make much sense to you ...

but imo Olive is basically BAD at being a GOOD person.



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Olive is a sick person who needs a shrink. The husband is a super guy who has been treated like crap for so long he is just looking for some affection.

What we got here is... failure to communicate!

In my opinion: People are complicated in real life. We're so accustomed to one dimensional ("he's a good guy!" "she's bad!") characters in entertainment that it is almost difficult when confronted with people who are reflections of reality. For instance: we're taught on TV that someone who smokes cigarettes is either a villain or will die. Of course that is not true in real life. What we are (generally) fed on TV is a highly filtered diet of lazy characterizations and archetypes. Even what we are supposed to think is "thought provoking" is usually contrived to elicit that response. Marriage is complicated. Should Olive and Henry be together? Well, they are married so they are together, for better of for worse. It would be too frivolous to divorce and look for something else when nothing is particularly wrong. They are in an environment where searching for some vague, 21st century concept of personal fulfillment is wasteful. They strikes me as both satisfied-as much as a thinking human being can be satisfied in life. They seem very yin and yang: he is the romantic optimist and she is the pragmatic realist. I see a lot of love they have for one another. They both just need outlets for various aspects of their emotional needs that their marriage does not supply.

I haven't seen all of it but here goes:

Olive is severely depressed. Yes, be a realist, but she intentionally made people suffer, hurt them. I don't know if she could have said it differently, as you said, no one wants to accept their flaws. But Olive wasn't passing out help with her facts. She was using people's weaknesses against them.

Henry couldn't help his wife, so he helped everyone else. You are correct about young women. I'm not sure it was just younger, but maybe women in need. Women that needed a kindness. I remember the scene in the restaurant and he did come to that woman's defense about how her grandchildren were treating her.

They could have loved each other. But the other emotions, behaviors got in the way. Had a bigger hold on their day to day lives.

Edit: after I watch it all, I will come back and see if I need to change my responses.

I agree that he favored younger women. But he was so happy to help Jack's wife too. Women in need triggers a response also. And no one knows how her father's suicide impacted her. She had a plan and was stopped by other actions. Not herself. If that's not a cry for help in any century, era, I don't know what is. I do agree that we can have individual responses to life. But Olive wouldnt accept any responsibility for how her life was out of whack. Jack said it best in his last speech. But he was depressed too, missing Olive just came from a suicide attempt and brought him flowers. I say bi-polar, and a good helping of severe depression and low self-esteem.

If we can save humanity, we become the caretakers of the world

I found Olive to be emotionally abusive and selfish. Withholding affection from Henry deliberately, and as Christopher said, treating other people better than her own family. Mooning after Jim O'Casey but sneering at Henry for his attachment to Denise, who fulfills some of his need for joy in his life.

I don't think anything in the series highlighted just how mean Olive could be as these two scenes --

when she decides to leave Brooklyn and expects them to either beg her to stay or drop everything and drive her to the airport, then turns around and tells Christopher he is kicking her out. There were actually two scenes with Christopher, the other one being where she blasts him for being selfish and when he confronts her, all of a sudden she needs someone to be nice to her.

where she has dinner with Jack Kennison and accusing him of being intolerant etc. When he gives her back a taste of her own medicine, she gets pissed and leaves. It's only good when Olive is dishing it out.

Also Olive's secret revenge against Sue also said a lot about how she picked her victims. Outspoken no-nonsense Olive couldn't handle that one directly because she did not yet know Sue's weakness.

In certain ways, she reminds me so much of my dad. She is stuck in her ways. She is blunt. She is a product of her era. She is a miserable wife, and a miserable person, but she means well. I think she clearly has issues that she never dealt with correctly.

Olive, bad.

Frances, very good actor.

Well, I've only watched the first two hours so far but I like Olive a lot. As fictional characters go, I feel like I'd get along with her. She's a sad person, and has the guts to be sad and to speak her mind, instead of pretending to be something she isn't for the sake of everyone else's comfort. It isn't sadistic, she doesn't mean to be cruel, but she doesn't compromise herself. And I love that she's sensitive and perceptive and smart, even if her unwillingness to hold her tongue for the sake of nicety makes her seem unaware of how her words will affect people. I feel like she wants other people to be able to handle the truth, and it bothers her when they obviously can't.

So, she has her issues. She could be 'nicer.' But on the other hand, everyone else could probably stand to be less oversensitive. Most people seems to think they deserve not to be uncomfortable or to hear unpleasant truths, and some of us don't feel that that's the case.


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