Impressed how many people called all these plot developments early!
The scenes with the lower class Essex guy unraveling into a drunken, boorish, non intellectually curious (exactly who he has always been) then damaged victim, were a little overdone, but a nice touch by White, to add empathy and also show something of realization from Portia about class similarities and "cavemen", when she said do you have any goals? She's really realizing we aren't really compatible or even interested in one another aside from those roles they were playing as "fun loving guy", and "fun seeking girl", who was bored and curious.
But, there's a bit of that kind of hangover in every connection/relationship, I think on some level. I know there's women I want to sleep with, but I know I can't stand an hour with them, outside of sex/intimacy, which means, for me, better to avoid.
I think some of the Tanya storyline is over the top, absurd, (a murder plot with a gay love affair from 50 years ago? Wyoming?) but it's done on purpose, White having fun, and the direction this season is so gorgeous it all kind of works, on some level for me. Agree the Ethan/Cam/Harper/Daphne is so tautly written and tense, realistic. I am lucky to have never experienced most of that, but I see how it gets there. You see how trust just swiftly erodes and you get stuck in a feedback loop of paranoia, and then resentment. It's dark stuff! The I Love You/I Want You scene was so uncomfortable. Ethan just doesn't get it. You can love someone, but you have to want them, you have to have that sexual chemistry, or you are looking at a very vanilla living arrangement marriage. She's by far the more sexual, desirable one, and he's missed every single cue she threw at him, and when she asks him directly, he still avoids it.
Also, I think a lot about society's obsession with fidelity and monogamy, and how we enforce those norms, I care a lot less about that sort of thing, and have a much more accepting outlook, I think you have to start with acceptance that monogamy is going to be very difficult, and one I don't want to enforce it with narrow guidelines of behavior, nor do I want my ego to take over, and tell me it's impossible or disastrous if someone I love was with someone else.
Plaza is so good, Emily The Criminal is my favorite movie of the year, I would advise everyone in here to watch.