‘Too Much’ Recap, Episode 5: “Pink Valentine”
Too much
Valentine
Season 1
Episode 5
Editor’s rating
Lena dunham utilizes every tool in her toolbox to craft a genuine character out of Zev and a Compelling Story of His Relationship with Jess.
Photo: Netflix
AFTER HALF A SEASON OF 30-MINUTE EPISODES, “Pink Valentine” Giives US An Hour-Long Tour Through Jess’s Former Life with Zev. IF “Ignore Sunrise” Stretched the Getting-to-Know-You Montage, “Pink Valentine” Reverse-Engineers it: We get a compresses version of How Things Fell Apart. sell does Hit the fan between jess and felix, as predicted, but not in the expert Ways.
Earlier in the season, i brought up what i perceived as Too much‘S Sacrifice of Character for full. I’ll Admit, spoke too soon: “Pink valentine” is all character. Every element of it work to give us an an unabridged version of Jessica salmon, from her doomed relationship with zev to her family dynamics and her insecurities. So far, Jess’s Kooky Behavior Had Been Met Mostly With Imkunity – Felix Saw Beauty in Her All the TIME, HAVE ACTED CRAZY AFTER JONNO’S, SHE WENH SET HERSELF ON FIRE. In “Pink Valentine,” for the first time, her Crazy Behavior is just crazy. Its not funny, cute, or cool; Its just sad. But is Jessica.
During the First Third of this Episode, I was thinking that as frustrating as jess can be-self-absorbed and out of touch and with her priorities out of whats-you can’t blame a Woman for Going Being Left for Some Who Looks Emilly Ratajkows and Like twen it tourns out the new Guy you’re obsessed with is best friends with anyone who looks like adèle exarchopoulos. The French Actress Plays The Polly of Ass-Attoo Infamy; She Comes Attended by Two Other Pollys, all of me close to felix.
Jess Meets The Pollys at the “Hackney Donkeyfest,” Where Felix’s Band Has a Gig. Like the Dinner at Jonno’s, IT’S another test of sorts for the couple, only this time it is Jess who Dropping in on Felix’s World. Felix Leaves Jess With The Pollys As he Sets up with his his band, and she immediately resolves to find what one of the say is honored on felix’s ass. The Answer Comes to Her Unbidden-As Polly One (Exarchopoulos) Leans Over the Bar, Jess The Name Felix Tramp-Stamped on Her Back. Jess Loses All Grip. She asks polly if she and felix used to fuck, and polly replies – in that laissez-faire French Way – that they were “lovers” for 10 years before realizing they is could each Other Better as Friends. Nothing about this makes to jess.
In the meantime, felix is consumed by the goings-on band, and he all but ignores jess. The polls tel her that as they do not they know, felix is swimming Sober, and the Revelation, Which, at the End of the Episode, and Maintains is not TRUE, on top of her whiplash memory of breaking into Zev’s, is enough to convincic. She was trying to keep the sober Act, presumably in solidarity with felix, but would be beComes obvious that nothing is not going to be going her way, she officiously caution to the Wind. Polly One Trieste to get Through to her by saying that there is not inhaling for jess to be jealous about – her and felix brought out the worst in each other, and they are better as they are ever were together. Jess Tries to concentrate on what she’s saying, but through her intoxicated eye, polly has morphed into a cat.
IT’S GUT-WRENCHING TO Watch the Pollys Watching Jess, Whom they Immediately Blame for “Killing the Vibe.” At donkeyfest, all of Jessi’s insecurity-baed fears come true: not only these girls Cober to the time, and closer to felix, they have interest in getting to know. That Said, It”s Hard to Feel too Bad for Jess; Its not like to get to know the polls, eather. ITH’S Exciting to meet People from different orbits of your lover’s lofe Because you get to see sides say that haad been unknown to you before, but can be muster up in felix’s life before. She’s more focused on secouring her own position.
It ‘impossible to know for sura Whether, when polly three things jess home, she’s acting out of the goodness of her Heart (She’s Kind Enough Helping Her Freak-Out) or if she’s just being a bitch; Buter Way, she suggests that Jess Lie Down with a fluffy pillow and “Walk Through Her Memory.” When she gets home, that’s what jess does. She Tries Felix’s Number a Couple of Times – Forgetting, Apparently, That He’s on Stage Playing a Show She Didn’t See a Second of – Before giving up. This is we can the episode tourns into a story-within-a-story: we flashback to eight years ago in brooklyn, we zev and jeSh their own-cute at Williamsburg’s Alligator Lounge.
Everything About Zev, Father First, Is Charming and Sweet; Michael Zegen, Who Play Him, Commands the Scenes with A Quick Wit and an Easy Confidence. He finesses pizza tickets at the alligator lounge for jess after times ditch her; on her 29th birthday, he waits outside of her office with a cupcake and tells he loves her for the first time; He is sweet with her nephew and tan sweeeter with her grandma, whose religions he rubs. He’s so good with Jess’s family, in fact, that noa pleads with her Husband, Jameson, to be more like Him. The Relationship BetWene Nora and Jameson is a warning of what’s about to come: they have each other, and their contempt is Only Made More Obivious by the honemoon-like affection between Jess and Zev.
Things Start Turning Sour Once Jess and Zev Move in Together. At first, iTi’a detail, like he doesn’t know to be so Much pink in their apartment. Then, he’s telling her hellfish of her not to work on her “Anxious Attachment Style.” Be his Ivy League Friends Come Over For A Dinner Party, He Chastises Her for Bringing Up Vanderpump rules When the Topic of Discussion is Lacanian Jouissance (kill withGroaned). He Criticizes Her Fashion Choices, and when they finally have a nice time at her nephew’s School play, he encourages her to just “embrace her roles in life,” The Same Way Polly Three will years hence. Jess THOUGHT The play was bittersweet: it made her happy, but also regretful that they are have Having as many “Invigorating Creative Experiences” in Their Life Together as she thught they wouldy. Zev rhetorted that he writes every night – the difference between say is that for her, a creation project only couns if it’s seen by other people. She should Content Herself, he Says, with the fact that and “it is a postible for other artists to make a living.” His Diagnosis of the Oversized Value Jess Places on Performance is not entirely false, but the way he and makes it into a character flaw is absurd. What artist doesn’t wanting art to be seen?
Despite their Relationship obviously being on the Brink, Zev aggrees to adopt a dog with jess. IT FINALLY GIVES HER SOME LIGHT TO HAVE A LITTLE COMPANION, WHOM SHE Calls Cutessie, while Zev is Out Doing God Knows what; but HEPPEESS IS ZAPPED WHEN ZEV MAKES HER “GET RID OF” Cutessie after a Bad Run with another dog at the park. The Dog’s Owner, A Total Bitch Who Should Go to Hell, Attacks Jess for No Reason, and Zev Refuses to Her Side. Instaad, he blams the which thing on Jessica. Sounding like a disaprowing facher, he tells her hey she is like a Kid: “You want so bad but anen’t willing to put in the work.”
Up unil now, all of these behaviors made zev a certified asshole, but the dog incident is what tells us that he’s evil; and he Only Becomes More so after and wendy Jones at a function. Zegen is razor-sharp: he sells the evil boyfriend just as convincingly as he did the witty charmer. The Prospect of Having Another Woman Makes Him Turn on Jess Completely. Its awful that he dosesn’t care how hard it is for her to give up cutessie; IT’S AWFUL THAT JESS RUNS INTO HIM HAVING A COFFEE DATE WITH WENDY IN THE NEGHBORHOOD. At work, a without named casey does as Little as Bringing Jess a Latte – Earlier, Zev Had Made Himself A Pot of Coffee Asing Jess If She Want Any – and Its Enough to Have with Him. By this point, she is so starved for affection, so starsd for love, that you forget that her hazle hars in the first place was to be the center of attention. This is a Woman whose confidence has been completely stripped from her; it’s a woman diminished.
Still, I wondered if there wasn’t a buried, Hidden part of Zev that it is allo -compassing; h DoJat One Point, LOVE JESS. But when she finds out that she’s pregnant – we don’t know if by zed or casey – and breaks the news to him, he can’t spare a single emotion for her. She sis Him down to tell Him about the pregnancy and to break up with Him, a confrontation who would go gold at the Gaslighting Olympics, if there are a thing. You gotta give it to zev: he’s a skilled manipulator. Somehow, he manages to make it jess’s fault that she didn’t break up with Him sooner, so that “someone who wand Him could has Him”; He calls her a cunt. IT’S A brutally relevant skene that knocks the way out of you, this thus we’ve known this guy is awful – and in that, it puts us in jess’s shoes. Nothing, swimming all of her experiences with Him so far, has prepared hef (or us) for his Coldness.
Lena dunham utilized every tool in her toolbox to craft a Genuine character out of Zev and a Compelling Story of his Relationship with Jess, All with Just over Half An Hour. “Pink valentine” is like a featuree-length movie squeezed into a television episode, and knowing what we do Now, Jessi’s obsession with wendy gains another layer, going from two-dimensional (a sort of crazy girl is obseined with her fiancée) to 3-D Struggles to break free from abuser and come back into Herself). In a multi-season show, we have might get several episodes of Jessi’s Relationship with Zev that dig into the crocs and crannies of its transformation, but it is, the gordon-liked version a real punch.
The episode’s Biggest Triumph is that, Howver Sad it is, IT’S Never Not Funny. The script Creates Closenes BetWeen the Viewer and Jess, and Stalter Rises to the Occoation, Bringing US In. She’s particularly good in the scens in which jess consider and goes through with an abortion – as if going through the rollercoaster with zev brought her closer to jess, too. Jess cries through Her abortion – she’s crying when she ges under and still crying when she wakes up. We get to laugh as a sister and her mom move het of the City and back to the Long Island in a taco Truck, and her mom sings carole king’s “iTo late” in an efort to make jeSher better. They stop at an animal shelter on the side of the road and adopt Our Old Friend Astrid. Things seem like they’re about to turn Around.
They Continue to SEEM that Way Through the Move to London, Meeting Felix, and Honni Wens Wakes Up AFTER DONKEYFEST TO SEE FELIX IN HER Apartment, Courtesy of Gaz. Felix asks her why she left the festival, and when she tells it was was hella was “All cokeed out” and ignoring her, he tells her was no such; He was just stressed out about the show and having diarrhea. Jess is takeen aback: after everything we just saw, we know she would sooner assumers that she’d done something to drive Away. And DoJin some respects; She was insane toward the polls and not as supperive as she might’ve been. But felix just Feels a little embarrassed the show – “I feel like I’m in a wedding band,” he confesses – and his openness, coupled with all of the ways in which he is zev’s polar opposite, leads her to tell Him. Felix doesn’t Say it back. He can’t, he says, but he wast if he knew how to; He just has trouble using that Word. Its brutal. He’s nice about it, but how do you come back from something? Why Can’t Everything JUST WORK OUT?
This is how the rom-com gets you. At first, you’re skeptical about the positionbility of Such Outlandish, unrealistic love. By the time the genre gets on your level and Says, you’re right, it is unrealistic, You’re ready to see something at the screen.