I don't agree that Pearl is the Ryans' child. If I recall correctly, Mia was impregnated by the "turkey baster" method, so she actually was Pearl's biological mother. The surrogacy method of the gestational mother also being the biological mother has since been abanadoned, precisely because it was apparent to most people that a woman who is both biological and gestational mother has an intrinsic claim to motherhood of the child. Forcing her to give up her biological child to the commissioning parents would be unethical, and a form of baby-selling. I think one's of Mia's wounds is that she was treated as if she did steal someone else's baby rather than anyone acknowledging that Pearl was actually and genuinely her daughter.
However if Mia was going to keep Pearl she needed to ensure she was not also taking money from the Ryans.
Lexie plagiarising Pearl's essay is not Mia's fault. Elena going out of her way to dig up dirt on Mia is Elena's responsibility. If Elena didn't trust Mia in her rental home she can just evict her, not go digging into her private life. Some of the other stuff you wrote, I agree with. Mia badmouthing another mom to her child was not cool. Promoting the idea to Izzy about burning things down was, at best, ill-judged, if not actively malicious.
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Burgershmurger (1273)
4 years ago
Initially, I assumed she was impregnated by both Ryans because Mia's parents told Elena it's not their grandchild.
But then Pearl was only going on about seeing her dad but not her mom. This plot line was handled by the writers poorly.
As for the rest: I agree. That's what I meant by unintentionally. It's as if evil was following Mia.
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Iffy762 (1331)
4 years ago
Yes I agree with you, the show was insufficiently clear about what was happening, so to viewers it seemed like Mia might not have a biological connection to the child. That made it confusing when people in the show were saying that Mia stole the child. I must say, I think the muddying of what it means to be a mother is one reason I am not in favor of surrogacy of any kind, but that's just me.
Other than that, I did not find Mia a very sympathetic character.
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Burgershmurger (1273)
4 years ago
Do you think Elena did start all those little fires metaphorically speaking? Was she right confessing to the arson? Or was Mia the real instigator? Did Mia simply bring those latent conflicts in Elena's family to the light? Or would they have gone on about their normal lives without Mia and Pearl? I'm still unsure.
I find the aspect of how an encounter with a stranger can turn your life upside down very intriguing. One thing leads to another.
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Iffy762 (1331)
4 years ago
I suppose I can agree that Elena started the fires in the sense that she did seem to get her nose into everyone's business. But I also felt like the show was saying that Elena taking a risk on renting the rental house to Mia was a selfish act and I thought that was a wierd interpretation of Elena's behavior.
I think Elena's family would always have had problems because I think Izzy's issues were at the root of her problems. The show seemed to be saying that Izzy's issues stemmed from Elena not really wanting to have another baby, so again it was all Elena's fault. But, to me that is just one more example of how mothers are always blamed for any problems their children have. It's easy to complain about how Elena raised Izzy but with a different mother Izzy might have gone off the rails a lot sooner. When Mia first appeared I thought maybe her influence would help stabilise Izzy's track but Mia was such a bitter and negative person that I felt she made things worse.
Something I thought was really interesting is how Elena's care for her home was seen as a negative thing, that the home was a constricting place that was suffocating her children. I remember my own mother telling me once that a woman's desire to provide a stable home for her children is a really deep-seated need. It is something I have found in my own life. So the plotline with Mia moving around a lot with Pearl did not ring true to me at all, and it came across to me as extremely selfish. Elena's willingness to "settle down" in order to provide a stable life for her children was presented as selfish but I think it's perfectly healthy and normal. Again, it's just a part of the show that I could not relate to at all.
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