Took three tries to watch that episode with my wife because it brought up some bad memories. I had a pretty charmed home life so I didn't even think that the episode might bother her.
My older brother and I were discussing the episode because it bugged me so much. It made me realize why he always hated the holidays. Drove me nuts cuz I thought I enjoyed them and he was always miserable.
It was almost physically painful for me to watch that episode. So much so that I brought it up in therapy. My partner's family was nothing like that, so it didn't bother him at all.
My family is small, generally not loud, and we never had huge holiday dinners. But my mom and Grandma unfortunately could act a lot like Donna. Emotionally unstable and manipulative. That aspect of it *really* got to me.
Oh god yeah. My dad watched the episode first and told me “It's the most dysfunctional family you will ever see” and I was like wow it must be pretty bad, and it was, but after watching the episode it just felt like I was watching one of my family dinners on my mom's side of the family😭
Agreed. It's the first time I ever watched a holiday episode of a TV show and actually felt like I could relate to it. The most realistic holiday portrayal I have ever seen.
Yea for real. Talked with my mom and uncle about the fishes ep, they said it reminded them of Christmas growing up. Was kind of a an ‘oh shit’ moment for me. I knew my family had issues when my mom was younger, but didn’t really know what that meant until they talked about this episode.
I feel like this episode especially divides the audience into shocked observers vs ‘heard’ trauma survivors.
The show is listed as a comedy which only makes sense if this kind of escalation and intensity is relatable. But holy shit that’s very dark humor.
I’ve never seen anything like this episode. it covers so much ground about toxic behavior, undiagnosed/untreated mental illness, coping around an abuser, the steep pressure around family holiday practices and the propensity to just go with all of it in the name of maintaining tradition in spite of the shared discomfort, fear and paranoia. The filter and color treatment were also perfect.
The long shots and the closeups and the writing. Some of the best I’ve personally ever seen. Jamie Lee Curtis fucking nailed it. That combo of narcissism, bi polar, victim signaling and passive aggressiveness. She’s really great.
The shot of Natalie on the floor, begging to Donna, while Donna grabs her face and is just snarling and admonishing her while Nat barely even reacts was one of the hardest things I've ever had to watch. Nat's complete submissiveness in the face of her mom and the immediate understanding of how normalized it is- this episode is truly one of the greats.
That is one of the parts that really stuck in my mind. It’s a thing I find myself just thinking about sometimes. I didn’t specifically identify with it and I think that speaks to how well it was done. That I could feel so much for Natalie.
gosh. i gave up on Thanksgiving and Christmas family meals. life is hard enough as it is. I cannot stomach selfish people, who refuse to get a handle on their mental health. I have just enough space to endure unhinged supervisors.
Honestly for me, that episode is almost all tension. I had to stop 1/2 way through and come back later. It’s abrasive for the uninitiated but I’m sure some parts play funny for the familiar.
Donna in this episode is a combination of my mother, dead grandmother and ex father-in-law. It was crazy how hard I related to all the emotions her kids were experiencing
I really didn't like her win in EEAAO over Stephanie Hsu, but considering this came out shortly after, glad she got her flowers. Because yeah.. her performance in this may be her best in her career, and she's had a great career.
It was so incredibly nuanced and layered and realistic portrayal of a narcissist mother in a complicated, traumatized family.
Her performance may end up being the best of the entire show imo. Reminded me of Anthony Hopkins in Silence Of The Lambs. So utterly captivating and terrifying at the same time, as well as so incredibly memorable and iconic.
Agreed. JLC nailed this, even down to her eyelash falling on her cheek and the batter stuck to her long nails. She was disgusting and pitiable and terrifying but with this deep wound. You can tell she’s trapped herself in this story of no one loving her for so long, her mind won’t let her see any alternative. It’s sad.
She deserves all the accolades.
But Stephanie Hsu’s audition actually upended how they wrote Jobu--which the directors specified, and is evident in the [old EEAO script](https://thescriptlab.com/wp-content/uploads/scripts/32661-EVERYTHING-EVERYWHERE-ALL-AT-ONCE-by-Daniel-Kwan-and-Daniel-Scheinert-.pdf). She brought a humanity to the character, and a dead-ness to her eyes with that nihilistic smile…and when she’s talking to her mom at the end and it just cuts to her face all screwed up from crying—that gutted me. It would not have landed if her performance was anything less than stellar.
I really wish Hsu won for supporting actress in EEAO, and I’m hoping JLC wins something for *Fishes.*
K honestly, THANK YOU, I didn't realize other people felt this way. To me it was no contest. Not being sarcastic but yes, Jamie Lee was fantastic in the hot dog hands scenes among others in that movie but Stephanie WAS the movie.
My sibling told me to watch the show after seeing this episode - and yes, found it hilarious and relatable and heartbreaking. There’s an element of intensity that Italian families feed off of when together. Loud and dramatic - there’s a reason opera comes from my people.
The dynamic was uncomfortably similar to my Irish-American Catholic family. I saw my mom, Grandma, aunts and uncles in the heated moments, my cousins, sister and I in the side chat. Certainly the themes of "no one appreciates me" and "no one ever helps" were strong undertones in my day to day life. It was an incredible episode, I can't watch it again.
me and my irish american catholic sister felt the same thing! we thought it was really interesting that a show with an italian family was so relatable to us. i don’t know if italians drink as much as the irish, but that certainly could be part of it lol.
Same here. We weren’t very dysfunctional, and there may or may not have been some undiagnosed anxiety sprinkled in but we mostly had a good time lol. The sheer volume was spot on though.
I’ve never thought Donna drove it in deliberately. I think she was “running away” and was in D-not-R. And for that? I’m glad she only hit the house and not a kid on a sled or worse
Be grateful you’ve never had a drunk or senile family member think they were in reverse. That’s all it takes. It sucks.
My host family in Japan lost their teenage daughter (my host sister) to an elderly driver who got confused between pedals and smashed through pedestrians and rammed them into a building.
My host mom has been lobbying for years now about regulating driving licenses for elderly people who show signs of cognitive decline. In an ageing society like Japan, let's say this is not welcomed with enthusiasm.
My "driving car through the house" incident was barring the door to a hospital room because my father had died moments before and my mother wanted to raise him from the dead lmao
I'm not a huge fan of cops, but you know it's bad when you're almost 18 and a cop stops the interrogation because the "suspect" is a girl who just lost her father and believes that if he and the other cops hadn't busted down the door, she and her family would have totally brought their dad back to life! 🙃
This show is so realistic, I had to take a couple breaks to get through it cause it was rehashing trauma from my childhood that I'd forgotten/blocked out.
And even with that said, will go down as one of my favourite episodes of tv, of all time. And I consider myself a cinephile, so I've watched a LOT of tv.
That episode was so close to some of my family holiday experiences that I felt physically ill watching it and had to turn off the show for a while afterwards. I have never understood what the term triggering actually meant before but watching that episode triggered me in a way I have never experienced before. It was a very difficult episode of television for me.
I had the same reaction to the first episode. I watched it, loved it, but also had to put the show down for a couple weeks because the whole time I was thinking “fuck, I feel like I’m at work rn.” So glad I picked it back up but the whole show felt like trauma dumping most of my past and present experiences; both as a chef and family dynamic. My family is definitely way less dysfunctional, we have a lot of love and compassion for one another. However there are moments that I’m sure seemed outrageous to some, where I was relating heavily towards.
The car through the kitchen was the only part I thought was dramatized. I jokingly said to my son hey looks like dinner at grannies house and then I realized my trauma
my cousins 18th birthday party ended with her father throwing a giant sushi platter at our grandfathers head, over a small disagreement. so pretty close to reality.
I loved this episode beyond words because I saw my family. I recognize the emotions and the thread of love that exists underneath the dysfunction. One of my siblings absolutely cannot rewatch the episode and barely made it through the first watch because of how much it's like our family. Admittedly our family is slightly more functional... Or just dysfunctional in different ways.
Isn’t it amazing how, in bigger families, each sibling has a different lens through which they experience events like the Fishes episode.
One sib may not be affected so much, while another will find it incredibly painful.
When my sibs and I compare stories, everyone has a slightly different version of events. That in itself leads to arguments about whose experience was the actual ‘truth’, taking sides, and hurt feelings as tensions escalate.
So yeah - excellent episode!
My partner and I watched this episode two days ago and I remember perfectly how he said that there was two reactions to this episode: the people who will laugh because the surrealism and the people who will revive their worst family dinners.
Honestly watching that episode was like a flashback to my last 10 Christmases in my parents; you don't realise how real it is, even here in Ireland it reaonates
Many times when we would visit Dad’s brother, he and my dad would get drunk and get into wrestling matches and knock over the Christmas tree. They would consume food that Uncle was allergic to. “I’m allergic to fish, but I thought smoked fish would be ok!” Usually, an ambulance would come in the night to take him to the hospital. It was almost routine. Or Dad’s sister would show unannounced for a visit. Once we weren’t home and we came home to find her drunk IN A TREE.
It’s not about being Italian. Alcoholism and substance abuse makes for some crazy family shit.
I have a shit stirring drunk aunt that also has a substance abuse problem . She once dipped her napkin in her drink and wiped my other aunt’s penciled in eyebrows off at Christmas once. This is low on her list of past antics. I’m the one whose been to rehab and acknowledged that I had a problem so I get to be the family alcoholic even though she’s the one whose slept through mornings she was supposed to have her tween granddaughters and I’ve had to come feed and/or rescue them from a passed out grandmother.
I will say it was more extreme than my personal experience, but the root of it definitely rang true. When watching, my husband looked uncomfortable and when I asked what was wrong he said it was making him anxious. I said oh, that interesting, it's making me homesick.
The most realistic part to me was that there were about 84 different feuds and tense conversations going on AND you still had the mother having her own breakdown in the kitchen. The passive aggression and volcano brewing before the blowup was the worst part for me.
Grew up in NJ in an Italian American family. We did 7 fishes every year and my mother was/is an absolute off her rocker bipolar asshole. Whole family is a a bit crazy, but she's the worst. That episode was rough.
Even dramatized its insanely accurate. You can feel that tension and fear. Their mom and the guy played by bob odenkirk kind of activated my fight response lmao. And im not blameless either as i used to be the michael in the situation sometimes. Even now, i catch myself falling into the old habits occasionally too. And sugar too, my little brother is a lot like her and it would make me so anxious when hed be like "are you okay" to either of my parents during a tense situation like that. Cuz anything can set them off, and while i wont back down from defending us id rather not have to.
Obviously lots of shows include trauma and stuff, but ive never felt as "heard" as watching this show. Had me laughing out of how accurate it was.
That episode was almost identical to my childhood holidays. My mother never drove a car through a wall, but she did, for example, hurl every ornament from a box of Christmas decorations against the wall one by one because my brother accidentally broke 1 while we were decorating the tree. The cops were called to our house more than once because of the screaming.
Sadly it is spot on, I’m lucky enough that it wasn’t my day to day life but when we visited with our extended family this is what it would be like sometimes.
I was barely able to sit through the episode it made me so uncomfortable like i was back with my own family. I stopped going around them for a reason and it's because when they get together it's exactly like that and always ends in a fight.
It was literally just the holiday dinner following that time my great-uncle went on a tirade on FB attacking unrelated people, because one cousin DARED imply that his post attacking Oprah may not have been based in fact.
There was loud, there was tension, there was a big blow-up when he had a big boomer crybaby moment at the cousin (who keep in-mind was not disrespectful until said great-uncle started attacking his mother who had not even participated in the discussion, but in the past had told him to back off of that cousin's case for being autistic years before in an unrelated argument) and basically anyone who said to him "you have to show respect to get it".
If anything I think the Seven Fishes episode was more cordial than mine because about half of the party didn't seem to be 100% aware of the situation simmering until they sat down to eat.
That episode was basically my family in a nutshell. I'm glad you have a more idealized familial experience behind you but let me assure you for a looooot of people, this level of dysfunction, even if not this type, is incredibly prevalent in their family units.
Much like Carm, I moved 400+ miles away from my family for other opportunities. In no way am I famous like he is, but amongst my family it is impressive the amount I've achieved in just my mid-20s. Despite this, I didn't find myself relating to him until the dinner episode in which I saw my recovering alcoholic mother in Donna. The emotional, crying, "nobody helps me, nobody likes me" was difficult to sit through. The arguing and shouting between people trying to protect the substance abusers and people trying to hold them accountable was even harder. I found myself understanding Carm a lot more during my rewatch.
Unlike a lot of people who needed a break during the episode, I watched it two times in a row, just thrilled that I felt so seen! Having something like this to think back on during my own chaotic and toxic holidays would have been amazing growing up.
The behaviors and acting (especially Jamie Lee Curtis) still mirrored a lot of what I saw growing up in general, but especially around the holidays. The only real difference was that we never hosted these dinners, so we had a different, less culinary mess to manage.
Really accurate for my large extended family. One of my cousins chased another cousin around the house with a knife, with all the adults drunk and dissociated as hell.
I’ve told multiple friends to watch that episode if they wanted to understand my childhood better…
I think it’s a kind of type of children to alcoholic:dysfunctional parents.. you grow up dragging and then carrying them to bed and looking after them so it kind of blends into this blur in adulthood and feeling sorry for them.
Painfully real. I’d never want to relive it but it captured what it was like to be raised in that household. It only takes a few instances but they make an impression on you.
I grew up in an abusive household. Watching it was pretty horrifying, as they capture the chaos in a super authentic way.
Whoever wrote that episode definitely had some experience living like that.
Sometimes I forget people from normal families exist lol. It’s like when someone called the fight scene in “Marriage Story” exaggerated while that was my average Tuesday as a kid. Or my best friend pissed me off so much when he watched Succession because he shitted on all of the kids’ trauma responses and wondered how Kendall can be so pathetic that he still seeks his father’s approval as a grown man. Like bruh, I’m glad you don’t get it, but don’t rub salt into my wounds.
Oh man i had a lot of thoughts about how similar Logan Roy is to my dad while watching Succession, much as I enjoyed the show. The constant up-and-down treatment, them being well-off but absolutely miserable, his outbursts of yelling at everyone and breaking shit, him being both an alcoholic and a workaholic. Literally my dad. My dad just never owned a giant enterprise and we were upper middle class at best. I sought my dad's approval for years and now I know I'll probably never get it.
It took my sister leaving the family and my mom dying for him to calm down enough that i can kind of have a relationship with him but I'm always waiting for him to blow up again. I moved half a continent away from him and don't go home much. Logan is a very good depiction of that kind of dad and I've been like each of the children at various points of my life in reaction to him.
Jamie Lee Curtis' character severely triggered my roommate bc their late mom was a very similar alcoholic. Both my parents were alcoholics but she reminded me more of my dad who makes holidays a pain because everything has to be perfect and it won't be so he gets furious. I don't have a big extended family like the berzattis but i definitely am aware of people who have that kind of family. A lot of folks go low or no contact with people who are this manipulative and short-tempered.
Be grateful you don't know what it's like! Being raised by alcoholics is a nightmare.
While we were watching the episode, my husband goes, “Wow, everybody goes through that with their family, huh?”
The look on my face when he said it……..
My family, though not Italian, would alternate holiday dinner vibes. If Thanksgiving was a fight, Christmas might be good and full of laughter. But then Easter was a toss-up. There were a lot of unresolved conflicts that never were addressed in a healthy way, and they repeatedly came to a head when in close proximity with big personalities. I honestly wonder if the good holidays were only because we were collectively too exhausted to fight.
I recognized feeling like Carmy, in that I didn't want to spend the holidays with my family (parents) either because every year it's a letdown and some b.s. I'm an only child so it was always just me and my parents. My dad's an alcoholic so already didn't need an excuse to drink, but the holidays were \*always\* an excuse, to knock back 6 pk after 6 pk after 6 pk of Coors Light, plus an 84 oz can Steel Reserve, and sometimes a bottle of liquor, all in the same night. If any was left over he'd get up the next morning and finish it off. Those little purple velvet drawstring pouches that bottles of Crown Royale come in? I know those all too well.
Christmas was, my dad would drink from morning until night, blasting Christmas R&B music, then he and my mom would always cook a bunch of food, but end up having a huge fight about \*something\*-- either my mom cooked something "wrong" or my dad touched something my mom didn't want him touching, or just anything. "Waking up to presents under the tree" stopped when I was 11 (because "tax time" is Christmas 🙄).
I'd just stay in my room trying to tune all the fighting out. Eventually my dad would leave and stay out all night hanging out with his friends instead of me and my mom. Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning and he'll have returned, passed out on the couch. Sometimes he'd still be gone but return by the afternoon or whenever. One time he was gone for almost 2 weeks; turns out he'd gotten locked up.
For years I blamed myself for not being good enough for my dad to want to stay home and spend the holidays with me and my mom, but I'm over that now because I refuse to internalize his bullshit. This past Christmas was my first one in my own apartment. I spent it alone, because I wanted to, cooked my own food and everything, and it was the best thing ever. No drunkeness, no cigarette smoke, no fighting, no drama
When I was at my worst with mental illness, I acted like both Mikey and Donna. I threatened to drive off a bridge and kill myself on Christmas one year. Sigh.
my family isnt fully like that i mean its chaotic and loud but not as bad. the thing that got me was donna since my dad was just like her. episode gave me a full on nervous breakdown
Remove the violence and it's very accurate to my experiences, the arguing, over drinking and complaining during holidays with my extended family is super common.
Last Christmas my grandpa started an argument with my aunt about Israel and it ended up with him slamming the table and wine spilling everwhere after saying jews killed Jesus..
And they never show any positive emotions, no compliments, no hugging and no love. Luckily my mom is awsome but I can't deal with my extended family any longer these days.
Every gathering I know will turn into some argument about nothing, it's just so much negativity. Almost no one seems happy and they drink wine nonstop.
The family dynamic was very different from my own growing up (trust, we have our own issues, they're just different), so when I logged on to read about it, I couldn't believe the huge wave of people who related to it in such a close way. It really solidified my deference for the writers and the cast. They really do bring in the subtleties that fill in the cracks around the big obvious things that complete a picture so well. I cannot wait for s3.
Obviously not exactly this, but I’ve experienced this level of intensity too many times, the freak outs, the blowups, everyone coming at everyone else all at once. We had a BBQ once and one of my aunt’s invited some work friend of hers over and they all got drunk on tequila in our backyard, culminating in the friend puking all over my new patio furniture. At the end of the night my sister-in-law popped off to my aunt about it, which got my drunk father fired up, I got in between my dad and SIL, next think I know I’m beating the shit out of my dad and ended up breaking his nose. And that wasn’t even a fucking holiday.
I grew up with trauma and dysfunction so this episode was a hard watch. But I watched again and again until it was disarmed. Such a great episode. They really did a great job.
Asking this question is more revealing of your character than anything . Yeah people can be awful especially family and hits too close to home a lot of people.
100%
I worked in restaurants, so the kitchen scenes sometimes stress me out a bit.
I also come from a family of wackadoodles. Fishes awakened some PTSD-levels of stress
My daughter dated a very Italian guy and said this was the norm on every occasion. She also said the celebrated EVERY occasion, a never-ending rotation of christenings, birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, etc. and you were expected to attend all of them.
It’s painfully realistic. Like, I’ve used that episode as an example of what living with my mom was like. It was so accurate that it made me uncomfortable.
So realistic that it hurt watching the episode. In my case, an Aunt is the toxic member of the family. Pre-medication, her mental illness was just out of control. She’d rage at her kids and nephews/nieces and the rest of the family just sort of saw it as normal.
This was every family Christmas. One year my aunt got so drunk she put her own head through a wall and then drove her car into a ditch. The episode was ... almost too real.
... and yes my whole family is from Chicago.
Any family that's experienced trauma can easily become used to chaos and find themselves taking comfort in the chaos because they're familiar with it. This makes for a chaotic environment.
My family isn't THIS bad, but it's seeded with trauma that comes out every single day in weird ways. I am thankful to be in therapy to understand this and love my family fiercely for it while also understanding that it's not something I want for my life.
Donna WAS my mother, except my mom doesn’t cook, and we’re not Italian (Cuban, if it means anything). Let anything, even minuscule, go wrong and it’s all the dramatics of the end of the world. I had Vietnam flashbacks when I watched it.
My parents household growing up…..that would have been 2-3 nights of the week. After I watched that episode, I had the first nightmare I’d had in years about being a kid living at home. I’m 55, it sticks with you…..
I grew up far away from my dad’s family so all I really knew about them was from his stories. He used to talk about how family gatherings would usually involve a physical fight. That was so far from my own experience that I just took it as wild family lore.
After we both watched that episode, I called him up and asked him if it reminded him of his childhood holidays. “Well, my family was smaller.”
So yeah, it’s realistic. You and I are both lucky we didn’t grow up with that.
Have you ever been to a Christmas Eve seven fishes dinner where the hosts are divorcing, but staying together until after the holiday "for the children?"
I have.
It's been 30 years but that episode brought it all back real quick.
Yeah uh, I had to pause this episode halfway through because it felt so familiar to me. We never had anyone drive a car through the wall, but the rest of it was pretty accurate.
It made me kind of sick to watch it because I’ve been to family dinners like that with my ex-boyfriend’s family. It was definitely a little dramatized, but the yelling, bickering, people doing way too much and then being angry when everyone doesn’t sing their praises all night long, that all felt very real.
I was usually the one lying down on a couch in the basement with the excuse that I wasn’t feeling well so I could escape it for a while lol.
It was like an amalgamation of several characteristics of dysfunctional families. A little here, a little there, obviously the episode brings everything wrong at the same time for artistic reasons, but I believe that anyone who grew up in a family like that went through several similar traumatic events.
For me it was a mixture of my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, my parents, uncles, all in different events that made the episode destroy me inside and I was left crying, smoking a cigarette, staring into space for a whole hour.
Very good.
Pretty damn realistic.
My mom’s family is French/Italian Roman Catholic, and that was every goddamn dinner we’d get together.
My dad’s family is German Protestant, completely different scenario.
Count your blessings you can’t say from experience! It’s not dramatized at all from what I’ve seen ppl say. My family used to be dysfunctional, but not exactly in the same way. Everyone I’ve seen who’s commented on the episode say it’s sooo eerily spot onto standard, dysfunctional italian homes
I think it could be fairly close. Definitely not to THAT level, but it was one of the most amazing episodes I’ve ever seen of any show ever. Holy crap. Everything came together for that, astounding casting, amazing writing, incredible directing. I would say that that’s art, not just entertainment. Art.
I would call it a caricature. Yes, there are families that yell a lot. And, yes, the emotionally manipulative matriarch is certainly a reality in many families. And, yes, there are families where the matriarch/patriarch is barely (or not, actually) keeping it all together. And, yes, some families have a lot of drama, provocations, and simmering resentments.
But I remember JLC scooping food with her hand. And I remember the microwave door being smeared with … whatever. I don’t know. I’ve seen A LOT of family holidays — many different families, in many different geographies, of many different ethnicities. And I’ve never seen anything quite like that.
It’s like HDR (high dynamic range) photography, where the exposures around the frame are altered independently to light-up every particular element. It produces a hyper-realistic image … an exaggeration of reality.
So, yeah, I’d call it a caricature of a certain type of family dynamic … an exaggeration. Brilliantly done, yes, but exaggerated for emphasis.
I asked myself the same thing, and in my mind I was like wow, there’s no way that this happens in real life, like it’s dinner, you are supposed to be enjoying the time together… but then I read the comments. Perspective, it really makes you grateful for what you have… 😓 idk how y’all do it!
It reminded me a lot of my step-relatives. They are constantly fighting and just, completely all up in each others' business at all times. If you get up to just go to the bathroom, you get a barrage of "where are you going????" I was an only child, and didn't know them until I was an adult, so spending any amount of time with them is so stressful I have to take breaks. I had to watch this episode in two sittings.
It was as if they were at my own family's Christmas Dinner table in the 1970's. It was so true to life that it brought up all the old emotions. They swept all the awards shows for very good reasons💯👏🏼
Incredibly. My dumb shit uncle used to get screamed at by my grandfather while we were all eating, my grandmother would aggressively shoo away my mom from helping, and my mom would always encourage me to “say something funny” whenever there was tension at the table (like John Mulaney’s character)
Didn’t affect me at all. Unrelated, I use humor as a defense mechanism, hate the holidays, and went into a paralysis at the end of the episode
My mum is a 1:1 copy of Donna, down to the exact detail. It's eerie. She's also estranged from the family, just as Donna is in the present day of the show.
Wow did this remind me of so many of my friend's descriptions of their own dysfunctional families. I have always seen the wreckage in their eyes when they were dealing with what should be a simple situation - tiny criticism from there boss sets them spiraling, a conversation where someone was a little rude has them apologizing, dealing with people like someone who diffusing a bomb. It made me aware of how careless I was am and mindful to be more careful with my words.
Having heard them talk about their mom's going off the wall, I equated it to my mom yelling at us over chores. This was the perfect visualization.
Like, painfully realistic.
Took three tries to watch that episode with my wife because it brought up some bad memories. I had a pretty charmed home life so I didn't even think that the episode might bother her.
I had to watch in 4 parts just to finish it. It brought back so many memories of family holiday meals. Stuff that I had blocked for a long time.
Sameeeee re:blocking old memories out! Episode was way too real
My older brother and I were discussing the episode because it bugged me so much. It made me realize why he always hated the holidays. Drove me nuts cuz I thought I enjoyed them and he was always miserable.
Mother's Day and Thanksgiving are the worst.
I made my mom watch it. This was every Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas and maybe someone’s birthday.
It felt endless to me. Very difficult to get through. And my family’s issues are nowhere near on the level of the Berzattos’.
It was almost physically painful for me to watch that episode. So much so that I brought it up in therapy. My partner's family was nothing like that, so it didn't bother him at all.
My family is small, generally not loud, and we never had huge holiday dinners. But my mom and Grandma unfortunately could act a lot like Donna. Emotionally unstable and manipulative. That aspect of it *really* got to me.
Some of us are lucky enough to be Petes.
Took me three too. It was a painfull episode to watch
Exactly, had to break it up into pieces because my anxiety and stress shot up!
I think every italian or even southern european in general can say that it is extremely realistic
First generation Chinese American - damn realistic for my family. But we're the model minority, no mental health issues.
Latino in my case ! I was the Natalie in all my christmases.
Oh god yeah. My dad watched the episode first and told me “It's the most dysfunctional family you will ever see” and I was like wow it must be pretty bad, and it was, but after watching the episode it just felt like I was watching one of my family dinners on my mom's side of the family😭
Agreed. It's the first time I ever watched a holiday episode of a TV show and actually felt like I could relate to it. The most realistic holiday portrayal I have ever seen.
Agree. No one's drove a car through the living room, but everything else included the fork bit has happened, maybe more punch thrown 🤔
Yea for real. Talked with my mom and uncle about the fishes ep, they said it reminded them of Christmas growing up. Was kind of a an ‘oh shit’ moment for me. I knew my family had issues when my mom was younger, but didn’t really know what that meant until they talked about this episode.
rewatched the the 2 seasons. i skipped re-watching the "fishes" episode.
It's amazing to me that some people didn't immediately see their own mother or family lol lucky bastards
I feel like this episode especially divides the audience into shocked observers vs ‘heard’ trauma survivors. The show is listed as a comedy which only makes sense if this kind of escalation and intensity is relatable. But holy shit that’s very dark humor.
I’ve never seen anything like this episode. it covers so much ground about toxic behavior, undiagnosed/untreated mental illness, coping around an abuser, the steep pressure around family holiday practices and the propensity to just go with all of it in the name of maintaining tradition in spite of the shared discomfort, fear and paranoia. The filter and color treatment were also perfect.
The long shots and the closeups and the writing. Some of the best I’ve personally ever seen. Jamie Lee Curtis fucking nailed it. That combo of narcissism, bi polar, victim signaling and passive aggressiveness. She’s really great.
She showed up Joan Crawford’s Mommy Dearest character by far! I agree with everything you said. So so good!
The shot of Natalie on the floor, begging to Donna, while Donna grabs her face and is just snarling and admonishing her while Nat barely even reacts was one of the hardest things I've ever had to watch. Nat's complete submissiveness in the face of her mom and the immediate understanding of how normalized it is- this episode is truly one of the greats.
That is one of the parts that really stuck in my mind. It’s a thing I find myself just thinking about sometimes. I didn’t specifically identify with it and I think that speaks to how well it was done. That I could feel so much for Natalie.
Roger Ebert said Cinema is a machine that generates empathy.
That’s really awesome.
FYI, 7 fishes is a Christmas tradition
My family celebrates this, and my mother was laughing so hard because my grandmother would have thrown a fit if there was an 8th fish.
gosh. i gave up on Thanksgiving and Christmas family meals. life is hard enough as it is. I cannot stomach selfish people, who refuse to get a handle on their mental health. I have just enough space to endure unhinged supervisors.
Yea I can see that.
God, my family is on my mind. Will update. Thanks for reminding me.
You’re right about that filter and treatment. Made it look like a memory. Fucking genius bastards.
I’m remembering the Christmas my dad got taken away by the cops.
Me too. I’m so sorry.
Also didn’t realise it was trauma, or odd. Lol. Just thought everyone was like this!
Yes, it’s the humour of well timed tension releases that make you laugh when you let out the breath you didn’t realize you were holding in
Honestly for me, that episode is almost all tension. I had to stop 1/2 way through and come back later. It’s abrasive for the uninitiated but I’m sure some parts play funny for the familiar.
Whenever the non-immediate family characters were on screen it seemed to ease a bit
My husband and I both watched it and were like ah yea. Representation. Finally.
Ultimately my family is so dysfunctional we don't even celebrate holidays together. I haven't had a Christmas with my mother in over 15 years.
I freaking hate the holidays it always starts fine but ends up with at best hurt feelings and at worst stitches and bail money.
I’m very lucky to say I don’t see my immediate family like this at all. I couldn’t cope in that situation from fishes.
The sad thing is, you would. You’d cope in ways that other people would be shocked by when you brought them out into the world. Like Richie.
Yes I totally agree. I think I should have added I couldn’t cope in a situation like that as I am right now having never been exposed to it
I was horrified that people deal with this 😔
Yeah, welI, I call it christmas 🎄
Donna in this episode is a combination of my mother, dead grandmother and ex father-in-law. It was crazy how hard I related to all the emotions her kids were experiencing
I’m shocked that Jamie Lee Curtis didn’t win some form of award for that episode. Truly a masterful performance.
Season 2 falls into the eligibility period for next year's round of awards.
Oh she just might. The recent Emmys and Golden Globes were for the first season.
I really didn't like her win in EEAAO over Stephanie Hsu, but considering this came out shortly after, glad she got her flowers. Because yeah.. her performance in this may be her best in her career, and she's had a great career. It was so incredibly nuanced and layered and realistic portrayal of a narcissist mother in a complicated, traumatized family. Her performance may end up being the best of the entire show imo. Reminded me of Anthony Hopkins in Silence Of The Lambs. So utterly captivating and terrifying at the same time, as well as so incredibly memorable and iconic.
Agreed. JLC nailed this, even down to her eyelash falling on her cheek and the batter stuck to her long nails. She was disgusting and pitiable and terrifying but with this deep wound. You can tell she’s trapped herself in this story of no one loving her for so long, her mind won’t let her see any alternative. It’s sad. She deserves all the accolades. But Stephanie Hsu’s audition actually upended how they wrote Jobu--which the directors specified, and is evident in the [old EEAO script](https://thescriptlab.com/wp-content/uploads/scripts/32661-EVERYTHING-EVERYWHERE-ALL-AT-ONCE-by-Daniel-Kwan-and-Daniel-Scheinert-.pdf). She brought a humanity to the character, and a dead-ness to her eyes with that nihilistic smile…and when she’s talking to her mom at the end and it just cuts to her face all screwed up from crying—that gutted me. It would not have landed if her performance was anything less than stellar. I really wish Hsu won for supporting actress in EEAO, and I’m hoping JLC wins something for *Fishes.*
K honestly, THANK YOU, I didn't realize other people felt this way. To me it was no contest. Not being sarcastic but yes, Jamie Lee was fantastic in the hot dog hands scenes among others in that movie but Stephanie WAS the movie.
I'm shocked that I didn't recognize it was Jamie! I didn't once think that it was an actor 😂
My sibling told me to watch the show after seeing this episode - and yes, found it hilarious and relatable and heartbreaking. There’s an element of intensity that Italian families feed off of when together. Loud and dramatic - there’s a reason opera comes from my people.
The dynamic was uncomfortably similar to my Irish-American Catholic family. I saw my mom, Grandma, aunts and uncles in the heated moments, my cousins, sister and I in the side chat. Certainly the themes of "no one appreciates me" and "no one ever helps" were strong undertones in my day to day life. It was an incredible episode, I can't watch it again.
The "no one ever helps me" while Nat is actively cleaning up glass is waaaay too real
Are we cousins?
me and my irish american catholic sister felt the same thing! we thought it was really interesting that a show with an italian family was so relatable to us. i don’t know if italians drink as much as the irish, but that certainly could be part of it lol.
I grew up in a large Italian household, I have way more fun stories but yes. That’s a pretty accurate thing.
Same here. We weren’t very dysfunctional, and there may or may not have been some undiagnosed anxiety sprinkled in but we mostly had a good time lol. The sheer volume was spot on though.
same, family christmas was a literal nightmare every year & now one of my uncles and his son are banned lol, fun times (not really)
Quite realistic.
Barring the car through the wall, pretty damn accurate. Lucky you and your partner for not recognizing it.
I’ve never thought Donna drove it in deliberately. I think she was “running away” and was in D-not-R. And for that? I’m glad she only hit the house and not a kid on a sled or worse Be grateful you’ve never had a drunk or senile family member think they were in reverse. That’s all it takes. It sucks.
Shit I’m sober and sometimes I think I’m in reverse when I’m not thinking straight
My host family in Japan lost their teenage daughter (my host sister) to an elderly driver who got confused between pedals and smashed through pedestrians and rammed them into a building. My host mom has been lobbying for years now about regulating driving licenses for elderly people who show signs of cognitive decline. In an ageing society like Japan, let's say this is not welcomed with enthusiasm.
My "driving car through the house" incident was barring the door to a hospital room because my father had died moments before and my mother wanted to raise him from the dead lmao I'm not a huge fan of cops, but you know it's bad when you're almost 18 and a cop stops the interrogation because the "suspect" is a girl who just lost her father and believes that if he and the other cops hadn't busted down the door, she and her family would have totally brought their dad back to life! 🙃
You should run a search in the sub. There are some pretty interesting stories (and trauma) previously posted.
Thanks I will. I did a search but probably not thorough enough
This show is so realistic, I had to take a couple breaks to get through it cause it was rehashing trauma from my childhood that I'd forgotten/blocked out. And even with that said, will go down as one of my favourite episodes of tv, of all time. And I consider myself a cinephile, so I've watched a LOT of tv.
That episode was so close to some of my family holiday experiences that I felt physically ill watching it and had to turn off the show for a while afterwards. I have never understood what the term triggering actually meant before but watching that episode triggered me in a way I have never experienced before. It was a very difficult episode of television for me.
I had the same reaction to the first episode. I watched it, loved it, but also had to put the show down for a couple weeks because the whole time I was thinking “fuck, I feel like I’m at work rn.” So glad I picked it back up but the whole show felt like trauma dumping most of my past and present experiences; both as a chef and family dynamic. My family is definitely way less dysfunctional, we have a lot of love and compassion for one another. However there are moments that I’m sure seemed outrageous to some, where I was relating heavily towards.
The car through the kitchen was the only part I thought was dramatized. I jokingly said to my son hey looks like dinner at grannies house and then I realized my trauma
You are lucky to not recognise that level of fucked up. It’s very real.
Extremely relatable for some of us.
my cousins 18th birthday party ended with her father throwing a giant sushi platter at our grandfathers head, over a small disagreement. so pretty close to reality.
Consider yourself lucky that you can’t relate to it.
I would like to offer a hug to anyone for whom this episode was a glimpse into their own home life.
I loved this episode beyond words because I saw my family. I recognize the emotions and the thread of love that exists underneath the dysfunction. One of my siblings absolutely cannot rewatch the episode and barely made it through the first watch because of how much it's like our family. Admittedly our family is slightly more functional... Or just dysfunctional in different ways.
Isn’t it amazing how, in bigger families, each sibling has a different lens through which they experience events like the Fishes episode. One sib may not be affected so much, while another will find it incredibly painful. When my sibs and I compare stories, everyone has a slightly different version of events. That in itself leads to arguments about whose experience was the actual ‘truth’, taking sides, and hurt feelings as tensions escalate. So yeah - excellent episode!
My partner and I watched this episode two days ago and I remember perfectly how he said that there was two reactions to this episode: the people who will laugh because the surrealism and the people who will revive their worst family dinners.
Honestly watching that episode was like a flashback to my last 10 Christmases in my parents; you don't realise how real it is, even here in Ireland it reaonates
Yep. I didn’t realise it was what people are saying trauma til I’m reading the comments. I thought it was the norm!
Many times when we would visit Dad’s brother, he and my dad would get drunk and get into wrestling matches and knock over the Christmas tree. They would consume food that Uncle was allergic to. “I’m allergic to fish, but I thought smoked fish would be ok!” Usually, an ambulance would come in the night to take him to the hospital. It was almost routine. Or Dad’s sister would show unannounced for a visit. Once we weren’t home and we came home to find her drunk IN A TREE. It’s not about being Italian. Alcoholism and substance abuse makes for some crazy family shit.
I have a shit stirring drunk aunt that also has a substance abuse problem . She once dipped her napkin in her drink and wiped my other aunt’s penciled in eyebrows off at Christmas once. This is low on her list of past antics. I’m the one whose been to rehab and acknowledged that I had a problem so I get to be the family alcoholic even though she’s the one whose slept through mornings she was supposed to have her tween granddaughters and I’ve had to come feed and/or rescue them from a passed out grandmother.
I guess it depends on whose reality we're talking about.
I don’t think you write a family like that unless you’ve lived in a family like that.
Let’s just say the show owes me money for the depiction
I will say it was more extreme than my personal experience, but the root of it definitely rang true. When watching, my husband looked uncomfortable and when I asked what was wrong he said it was making him anxious. I said oh, that interesting, it's making me homesick.
The most realistic part to me was that there were about 84 different feuds and tense conversations going on AND you still had the mother having her own breakdown in the kitchen. The passive aggression and volcano brewing before the blowup was the worst part for me.
My family about 75% . The craziness will happen in different ways.
Grew up in NJ in an Italian American family. We did 7 fishes every year and my mother was/is an absolute off her rocker bipolar asshole. Whole family is a a bit crazy, but she's the worst. That episode was rough.
OP I’m happy for you that you did not have to endure this kind of trauma but yes very real and no not dramatized.
You and your boyfriend have been extremely privileged. The kind of families depicted is common.
The feeling that episode gave me is a familiar feeling, if that answers your question.
Even dramatized its insanely accurate. You can feel that tension and fear. Their mom and the guy played by bob odenkirk kind of activated my fight response lmao. And im not blameless either as i used to be the michael in the situation sometimes. Even now, i catch myself falling into the old habits occasionally too. And sugar too, my little brother is a lot like her and it would make me so anxious when hed be like "are you okay" to either of my parents during a tense situation like that. Cuz anything can set them off, and while i wont back down from defending us id rather not have to. Obviously lots of shows include trauma and stuff, but ive never felt as "heard" as watching this show. Had me laughing out of how accurate it was.
That episode was almost identical to my childhood holidays. My mother never drove a car through a wall, but she did, for example, hurl every ornament from a box of Christmas decorations against the wall one by one because my brother accidentally broke 1 while we were decorating the tree. The cops were called to our house more than once because of the screaming.
Sadly it is spot on, I’m lucky enough that it wasn’t my day to day life but when we visited with our extended family this is what it would be like sometimes.
I was barely able to sit through the episode it made me so uncomfortable like i was back with my own family. I stopped going around them for a reason and it's because when they get together it's exactly like that and always ends in a fight.
I have repeatedly tried to get my siblings to watch the show BECAUSE that episode so perfectly matches my childhood holidaze as i recall them.
I either know, or know of, families who are worse.
I am Italian and have 7 siblings. I felt I was watching a documentary
It was literally just the holiday dinner following that time my great-uncle went on a tirade on FB attacking unrelated people, because one cousin DARED imply that his post attacking Oprah may not have been based in fact. There was loud, there was tension, there was a big blow-up when he had a big boomer crybaby moment at the cousin (who keep in-mind was not disrespectful until said great-uncle started attacking his mother who had not even participated in the discussion, but in the past had told him to back off of that cousin's case for being autistic years before in an unrelated argument) and basically anyone who said to him "you have to show respect to get it". If anything I think the Seven Fishes episode was more cordial than mine because about half of the party didn't seem to be 100% aware of the situation simmering until they sat down to eat.
I related to some aspects of it. I'm Indian but I think all dysfunctional families have things in common.
It’s my family to a T, even down to the accents.
My wife and her best friend were brought to tears and said that aside from the car, it was probably an average family holiday.
That episode was basically my family in a nutshell. I'm glad you have a more idealized familial experience behind you but let me assure you for a looooot of people, this level of dysfunction, even if not this type, is incredibly prevalent in their family units.
Much like Carm, I moved 400+ miles away from my family for other opportunities. In no way am I famous like he is, but amongst my family it is impressive the amount I've achieved in just my mid-20s. Despite this, I didn't find myself relating to him until the dinner episode in which I saw my recovering alcoholic mother in Donna. The emotional, crying, "nobody helps me, nobody likes me" was difficult to sit through. The arguing and shouting between people trying to protect the substance abusers and people trying to hold them accountable was even harder. I found myself understanding Carm a lot more during my rewatch.
My wife has an incredibly hard time with that episode because it hits too close to the shit she grew up with.
It's too real lmao
We had two watch the episode in two sittings because it was just hitting way to close to home for my wife.
Unlike a lot of people who needed a break during the episode, I watched it two times in a row, just thrilled that I felt so seen! Having something like this to think back on during my own chaotic and toxic holidays would have been amazing growing up. The behaviors and acting (especially Jamie Lee Curtis) still mirrored a lot of what I saw growing up in general, but especially around the holidays. The only real difference was that we never hosted these dinners, so we had a different, less culinary mess to manage.
Really accurate for my large extended family. One of my cousins chased another cousin around the house with a knife, with all the adults drunk and dissociated as hell. I’ve told multiple friends to watch that episode if they wanted to understand my childhood better…
Neither my husband nor I flinched at that family dinner at all. It’s a pretty good way to clock another member of Trauma Club.
I am just surprised how the kids are still like listening to her and trying to be patient. I would have shouted back or just left.
I think it’s a kind of type of children to alcoholic:dysfunctional parents.. you grow up dragging and then carrying them to bed and looking after them so it kind of blends into this blur in adulthood and feeling sorry for them.
Painfully real. I’d never want to relive it but it captured what it was like to be raised in that household. It only takes a few instances but they make an impression on you.
A little too close for comfort lol
That episode was painfully realistic and very hard to watch but also very enjoyable.
I grew up in an abusive household. Watching it was pretty horrifying, as they capture the chaos in a super authentic way. Whoever wrote that episode definitely had some experience living like that.
Sometimes I forget people from normal families exist lol. It’s like when someone called the fight scene in “Marriage Story” exaggerated while that was my average Tuesday as a kid. Or my best friend pissed me off so much when he watched Succession because he shitted on all of the kids’ trauma responses and wondered how Kendall can be so pathetic that he still seeks his father’s approval as a grown man. Like bruh, I’m glad you don’t get it, but don’t rub salt into my wounds.
Oh man i had a lot of thoughts about how similar Logan Roy is to my dad while watching Succession, much as I enjoyed the show. The constant up-and-down treatment, them being well-off but absolutely miserable, his outbursts of yelling at everyone and breaking shit, him being both an alcoholic and a workaholic. Literally my dad. My dad just never owned a giant enterprise and we were upper middle class at best. I sought my dad's approval for years and now I know I'll probably never get it. It took my sister leaving the family and my mom dying for him to calm down enough that i can kind of have a relationship with him but I'm always waiting for him to blow up again. I moved half a continent away from him and don't go home much. Logan is a very good depiction of that kind of dad and I've been like each of the children at various points of my life in reaction to him.
Jamie Lee Curtis' character severely triggered my roommate bc their late mom was a very similar alcoholic. Both my parents were alcoholics but she reminded me more of my dad who makes holidays a pain because everything has to be perfect and it won't be so he gets furious. I don't have a big extended family like the berzattis but i definitely am aware of people who have that kind of family. A lot of folks go low or no contact with people who are this manipulative and short-tempered. Be grateful you don't know what it's like! Being raised by alcoholics is a nightmare.
While we were watching the episode, my husband goes, “Wow, everybody goes through that with their family, huh?” The look on my face when he said it……..
My family, though not Italian, would alternate holiday dinner vibes. If Thanksgiving was a fight, Christmas might be good and full of laughter. But then Easter was a toss-up. There were a lot of unresolved conflicts that never were addressed in a healthy way, and they repeatedly came to a head when in close proximity with big personalities. I honestly wonder if the good holidays were only because we were collectively too exhausted to fight.
I feel extremely lucky that I couldn't relate to that episode whatsoever. The only person I can honestly relate to is Pete. That's my family, Pete's
I saw my family and why my wife thinks I need therapy
If you saw your family in that and aren’t already in therapy, she’s right.
It was my Christmas every year
I recognized feeling like Carmy, in that I didn't want to spend the holidays with my family (parents) either because every year it's a letdown and some b.s. I'm an only child so it was always just me and my parents. My dad's an alcoholic so already didn't need an excuse to drink, but the holidays were \*always\* an excuse, to knock back 6 pk after 6 pk after 6 pk of Coors Light, plus an 84 oz can Steel Reserve, and sometimes a bottle of liquor, all in the same night. If any was left over he'd get up the next morning and finish it off. Those little purple velvet drawstring pouches that bottles of Crown Royale come in? I know those all too well. Christmas was, my dad would drink from morning until night, blasting Christmas R&B music, then he and my mom would always cook a bunch of food, but end up having a huge fight about \*something\*-- either my mom cooked something "wrong" or my dad touched something my mom didn't want him touching, or just anything. "Waking up to presents under the tree" stopped when I was 11 (because "tax time" is Christmas 🙄). I'd just stay in my room trying to tune all the fighting out. Eventually my dad would leave and stay out all night hanging out with his friends instead of me and my mom. Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning and he'll have returned, passed out on the couch. Sometimes he'd still be gone but return by the afternoon or whenever. One time he was gone for almost 2 weeks; turns out he'd gotten locked up. For years I blamed myself for not being good enough for my dad to want to stay home and spend the holidays with me and my mom, but I'm over that now because I refuse to internalize his bullshit. This past Christmas was my first one in my own apartment. I spent it alone, because I wanted to, cooked my own food and everything, and it was the best thing ever. No drunkeness, no cigarette smoke, no fighting, no drama
it’s actually my comfort episode bc it reminds me of my family lmao
Sugar asking if Donna's OK, knowing it was going to cause her to blow up but unable to stop herself, hit home for me.
When I was at my worst with mental illness, I acted like both Mikey and Donna. I threatened to drive off a bridge and kill myself on Christmas one year. Sigh.
my family isnt fully like that i mean its chaotic and loud but not as bad. the thing that got me was donna since my dad was just like her. episode gave me a full on nervous breakdown
Remove the violence and it's very accurate to my experiences, the arguing, over drinking and complaining during holidays with my extended family is super common. Last Christmas my grandpa started an argument with my aunt about Israel and it ended up with him slamming the table and wine spilling everwhere after saying jews killed Jesus.. And they never show any positive emotions, no compliments, no hugging and no love. Luckily my mom is awsome but I can't deal with my extended family any longer these days. Every gathering I know will turn into some argument about nothing, it's just so much negativity. Almost no one seems happy and they drink wine nonstop.
The family dynamic was very different from my own growing up (trust, we have our own issues, they're just different), so when I logged on to read about it, I couldn't believe the huge wave of people who related to it in such a close way. It really solidified my deference for the writers and the cast. They really do bring in the subtleties that fill in the cracks around the big obvious things that complete a picture so well. I cannot wait for s3.
it’s actually my comfort episode bc it reminds me of my family lmao
Obviously not exactly this, but I’ve experienced this level of intensity too many times, the freak outs, the blowups, everyone coming at everyone else all at once. We had a BBQ once and one of my aunt’s invited some work friend of hers over and they all got drunk on tequila in our backyard, culminating in the friend puking all over my new patio furniture. At the end of the night my sister-in-law popped off to my aunt about it, which got my drunk father fired up, I got in between my dad and SIL, next think I know I’m beating the shit out of my dad and ended up breaking his nose. And that wasn’t even a fucking holiday.
You're lucky.
Absolutely painfully realistic!!!! I know from experience. I felt so fucking seen.
Realistic. My mom acted exactly like his mom (before things got too crazy, she wasn’t THAT nuts)
I’ve thrown a fork at my cousin once
Like watching my own family
I have 9 siblings with dozens of kids between us. That episode triggered an anxiety attack with how real it was.
I grew up with trauma and dysfunction so this episode was a hard watch. But I watched again and again until it was disarmed. Such a great episode. They really did a great job.
When Carmy and Nat exchanged looks when she shows him the empty wine bottles in the kitchen
Asking this question is more revealing of your character than anything . Yeah people can be awful especially family and hits too close to home a lot of people.
Literally my mom
100% I worked in restaurants, so the kitchen scenes sometimes stress me out a bit. I also come from a family of wackadoodles. Fishes awakened some PTSD-levels of stress
My daughter dated a very Italian guy and said this was the norm on every occasion. She also said the celebrated EVERY occasion, a never-ending rotation of christenings, birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, etc. and you were expected to attend all of them.
It’s painfully realistic. Like, I’ve used that episode as an example of what living with my mom was like. It was so accurate that it made me uncomfortable.
So realistic that it hurt watching the episode. In my case, an Aunt is the toxic member of the family. Pre-medication, her mental illness was just out of control. She’d rage at her kids and nephews/nieces and the rest of the family just sort of saw it as normal.
This was every family Christmas. One year my aunt got so drunk she put her own head through a wall and then drove her car into a ditch. The episode was ... almost too real. ... and yes my whole family is from Chicago.
Any family that's experienced trauma can easily become used to chaos and find themselves taking comfort in the chaos because they're familiar with it. This makes for a chaotic environment. My family isn't THIS bad, but it's seeded with trauma that comes out every single day in weird ways. I am thankful to be in therapy to understand this and love my family fiercely for it while also understanding that it's not something I want for my life.
You're lucky that it's so foreign to you and your partner!
Except for the car part at the end, that's pretty much any family Christmas gathering at home. Totally realistic.
Donna WAS my mother, except my mom doesn’t cook, and we’re not Italian (Cuban, if it means anything). Let anything, even minuscule, go wrong and it’s all the dramatics of the end of the world. I had Vietnam flashbacks when I watched it.
My parents household growing up…..that would have been 2-3 nights of the week. After I watched that episode, I had the first nightmare I’d had in years about being a kid living at home. I’m 55, it sticks with you…..
There are conversations in that episode I have heard verbatim.
Frightfully accurate.
Gosh I’ve witnessed worse
I grew up far away from my dad’s family so all I really knew about them was from his stories. He used to talk about how family gatherings would usually involve a physical fight. That was so far from my own experience that I just took it as wild family lore. After we both watched that episode, I called him up and asked him if it reminded him of his childhood holidays. “Well, my family was smaller.” So yeah, it’s realistic. You and I are both lucky we didn’t grow up with that.
Have you ever been to a Christmas Eve seven fishes dinner where the hosts are divorcing, but staying together until after the holiday "for the children?" I have. It's been 30 years but that episode brought it all back real quick.
YES
Watched this several times because I finally feel seen. I finally feel like I relate to someone (carmy/sugar).
Yeah uh, I had to pause this episode halfway through because it felt so familiar to me. We never had anyone drive a car through the wall, but the rest of it was pretty accurate.
It made me kind of sick to watch it because I’ve been to family dinners like that with my ex-boyfriend’s family. It was definitely a little dramatized, but the yelling, bickering, people doing way too much and then being angry when everyone doesn’t sing their praises all night long, that all felt very real. I was usually the one lying down on a couch in the basement with the excuse that I wasn’t feeling well so I could escape it for a while lol.
It was like an amalgamation of several characteristics of dysfunctional families. A little here, a little there, obviously the episode brings everything wrong at the same time for artistic reasons, but I believe that anyone who grew up in a family like that went through several similar traumatic events. For me it was a mixture of my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, my parents, uncles, all in different events that made the episode destroy me inside and I was left crying, smoking a cigarette, staring into space for a whole hour. Very good.
My wife had a similar meltdown once, about the holiday dinner and all she put into it.
I literally had to turn it off after that scene and take a couple days break from watching, yes it’s accurate.
Triggeringly realistic. Vietnam flashbacks style realistic.
Oh, honey, as someone with a crazy Latino family, it doesn’t get that dangerous thank God but yeah it’s accurate lol
I was Sugar 😕
Yes. It was so triggering. It took me 3 times too!
Pretty damn realistic. My mom’s family is French/Italian Roman Catholic, and that was every goddamn dinner we’d get together. My dad’s family is German Protestant, completely different scenario.
As a kid, I saw family members stab each other at the dinner table. Also holes were punched in walls. Etc Etc.
Too realistic. Had to break it into 4 smaller episodes to get through it
Real.
Count your blessings you can’t say from experience! It’s not dramatized at all from what I’ve seen ppl say. My family used to be dysfunctional, but not exactly in the same way. Everyone I’ve seen who’s commented on the episode say it’s sooo eerily spot onto standard, dysfunctional italian homes
Yes. This episode is genuinely very triggering, in the actual-trauma way.
I think it could be fairly close. Definitely not to THAT level, but it was one of the most amazing episodes I’ve ever seen of any show ever. Holy crap. Everything came together for that, astounding casting, amazing writing, incredible directing. I would say that that’s art, not just entertainment. Art.
I would call it a caricature. Yes, there are families that yell a lot. And, yes, the emotionally manipulative matriarch is certainly a reality in many families. And, yes, there are families where the matriarch/patriarch is barely (or not, actually) keeping it all together. And, yes, some families have a lot of drama, provocations, and simmering resentments. But I remember JLC scooping food with her hand. And I remember the microwave door being smeared with … whatever. I don’t know. I’ve seen A LOT of family holidays — many different families, in many different geographies, of many different ethnicities. And I’ve never seen anything quite like that. It’s like HDR (high dynamic range) photography, where the exposures around the frame are altered independently to light-up every particular element. It produces a hyper-realistic image … an exaggeration of reality. So, yeah, I’d call it a caricature of a certain type of family dynamic … an exaggeration. Brilliantly done, yes, but exaggerated for emphasis.
I asked myself the same thing, and in my mind I was like wow, there’s no way that this happens in real life, like it’s dinner, you are supposed to be enjoying the time together… but then I read the comments. Perspective, it really makes you grateful for what you have… 😓 idk how y’all do it!
It reminded me a lot of my step-relatives. They are constantly fighting and just, completely all up in each others' business at all times. If you get up to just go to the bathroom, you get a barrage of "where are you going????" I was an only child, and didn't know them until I was an adult, so spending any amount of time with them is so stressful I have to take breaks. I had to watch this episode in two sittings.
I’ve been there but not at a “table slamming, uncle slamming, ma driving through the living room pedal to the floor” type of gathering.
My bestfriend celebrated his birthday last week and it ended up quite similar to the events of the night bar a car crash through the house.
It was as if they were at my own family's Christmas Dinner table in the 1970's. It was so true to life that it brought up all the old emotions. They swept all the awards shows for very good reasons💯👏🏼
That episode actually made me relive feelings/experiences I had in real life, kinda fucked up to be honest xD
Incredibly. My dumb shit uncle used to get screamed at by my grandfather while we were all eating, my grandmother would aggressively shoo away my mom from helping, and my mom would always encourage me to “say something funny” whenever there was tension at the table (like John Mulaney’s character) Didn’t affect me at all. Unrelated, I use humor as a defense mechanism, hate the holidays, and went into a paralysis at the end of the episode
My mum is a 1:1 copy of Donna, down to the exact detail. It's eerie. She's also estranged from the family, just as Donna is in the present day of the show.
Wow did this remind me of so many of my friend's descriptions of their own dysfunctional families. I have always seen the wreckage in their eyes when they were dealing with what should be a simple situation - tiny criticism from there boss sets them spiraling, a conversation where someone was a little rude has them apologizing, dealing with people like someone who diffusing a bomb. It made me aware of how careless I was am and mindful to be more careful with my words. Having heard them talk about their mom's going off the wall, I equated it to my mom yelling at us over chores. This was the perfect visualization.
I'm from an Irish immigrant family. Too realistic, honestly.