Normal People on BBC3

[Bouledeneige]

Binge watched it yesterday and loved it. Emotional, passionate and two really great leads. Thoroughly recommend it (so long as you don't mind lots of love scenes). Cried lie and felt bereft when it finished.

@ourmutualfriend
That's what was so brilliant about it. They were all so wonderfully flawed and believable. The series did a really good job of showing thaw someone who seems inherently good and from a really loving background like Connell can do really shitty unkind things just because people are complicated and fallible. I loved Marianne's character, she was so feisty and witty but also so vulnerable. I found myself pondering that sex scene too but felt it was believable to have that jarring scene at that point. She'd been through a lot by that point and it was like she felt debased and it had become ingrained in her by then. Like she felt didn't know what to think or feel. It was really sad.

Haven't read the book.,.is there a back story with Marianne's mother? Couldn't believe she was so cold and detached

Thanks pinkpinecone, yes, I pretty much agree with everything you have said there. It felt very believable to me. Of course there were times I was exasperated, thinking 'nooooo, just tell her how you really feel' but of course that's people for you! I'm not excusing Connell's behaviour towards Marianne at times, but it rang true for me, especially when he was still caught in that stifling peer pressure at school.
That scene was really sad. I was rooting for them and wanted to believe there was hope.

Dorset I haven’t read the book either but I did hear that Sally Rooney doesn’t really do back stories in that either. I assume she was abused physically and probably mentally by her dead husband, maybe was jealous that Marianne wasn’t abused by her father and couldn’t show affection towards her for fear of infuriating her son.

No, SR simply refuses backstory that doesn’t interest her, as a pp said. Literally all we ever know about Marianne’s mother in the novel is that she’s a well to do widowed solicitor, prefers Marianne’s brother Alan, is cold and unpleasant to Marianne, and is ok with Alan being violent to her. The only time we hear anything about her from anyone other than Marianne’s point of view, it’s when Lorraine, Connell’s mother says that locally she’s ‘considered a bit odd’.

I absolutely loved it.

I oscillated between the characters I identified with most; at school I was Marianne and at uni I was Connell. I also had a very intense teen relationship that ultimately I allowed myself to be quite limited by.

Watching it I also felt quite sad that I’ll never again experience what DP refers to as “sex Disney” those early days of sexual experience where everything can blow your mind, in a great way with the right partner.

I really wouldn’t mind if dd14 watched it, I think that there is a lot to learn from it about love, friendship and life.

Yes, unfortunate side effect of watching; perfectly nice middle aged married sex, feels a bit underwhelming now when previously I was just pleased all equipment was still working. I have foolishly contemplated engineering an argument just to have make-up sex, but DH is too even tempered to fall for that! I'll just have to get by on my memories.

I loved it and thought it was perfect. Loved the scene with Connell's mum telling him off & getting out of the car & loved how it ended.

I absolutely loved it, sobbed my way through a lot of it and have been left feeling absolutely heartbroken What’s wring with me?!

I finally finished it last night. I don't know, I didn't really like the ending.

I always find this in tv programmes though, couple will be soul mates and then one of them has to go to a different city or away for a relatively short amount of time and it seems like they just decide to spilt up. I just dont think its realistic. Couples in this situation that I know all at least try to stay together and do long distance or something.

With M and C I get that she was sort of setting him free and that the subtext was that they might be together again in the future, but I just don't think that's what real people would do.

Apart from that I really enjoyed the series, great acting and great characters. Unfortunately Marianne's mum reminded me of mine (I haven't seen her or spoken to her in 7 years now) so she seemed a really believable character to me. The scene where she walks past M in the street reminded me very much of the last time I saw my mum so really stayed with me. Great acting all round.

mister I didn’t feel like that do much at the end as when he couldn’t stay in Dublin for the summer so they broke up. I know nothing about Ireland but it clearly wasn’t far to Sligo. But then again that scene is pivotal to the whole story that follows so had to happen.

I felt it was a fitting ending - they had come to end of that chapter or phase in their relationship. They had 'healed' each other. He felt brave enough to go to NYC and she finally felt content in her life.

What would people recommend to watch next?

I just adored Normal People and will be rewatching during the Monday night episodes. I'm just starting Unorthodox on Netflix, completely different but really good so far

@billybullshitterz1n unorthodox is brilliant and so interesting to get a bit of insight on the Satmar community. I had no prior knowledge.

Unorthodox and Normal People are by far the best things I've watched on TV recently. The acting in both is superb. Brilliant story telling that gets you totally absorbed and feeling for the characters.

Completely enthralled by Unorthodox!

I had the best sex of my life with my boyfriend aged 17-24.
We were so into each other and we split because we would have held each other back.
I imagine M will settle with someone in her own 'class' to get married and have children with.
I have read the book, but only just realised, and kept thinking 'I've seen this before' plus the fact it is very similar to the film version of One Fine Day.

I know so many people who in love around that age then broke up after university as they'd grown up, wanted to go experience the world or pursue careers etc. By age 24 pretty much all the first loves were over. I know very few people who stayed together. I'm glad I didn't end up still with mine, as lovely as he was we were so incompatible. It felt like a very realistic ending for Connell and Marianne.

Fell in love that should have said

Another for vote for Unorthodox @rubyjack.

Thank you

I was gripped by this but didn't find it as moving as I had hoped. I didn't cry at the end and I am a sobber!

I found parts quite irritating, the slow talking and silly misunderstandings, and the fact they never actually seemed to laugh and have fun (other than sexy fun). Also how "perfect and yet complicated" Marianne was, when she started speaking fluent Italian I was like OH fuck off , maybe I realised I'd be more like the boring but perfectly nice girlfriend he gets.

Thought the sex scenes were great but thought the "into bdsm = bad man" thing a bit reductive.

It was so beautiful to watch though.

@pinkpinecone thats interesting, my friend group has a significant proportion of couples who met when they were 17 or 18, some at school some first year uni, all still married at around the 25 year mark. I think the Scottish habit of going to uni close to home avoids some of the long distance romance issues. Somewhere down the line this became unacceptably old fashioned and, despite all being happy with how things worked out for us we are all more wary of our children doing this because it's against orthodoxy now. However, saying that, the happiest young couple I know met the summer before uni, it does still happen even in the middle class but its not cool and doesn't fit in with our idea of hook up culture so doesn't feature in newspaper editorials. I'm not saying saying it's better or worse to try different relationships, it's just different. I think as long as you have enough interesting experiences, new places, challenges, new friends, you don't miss out on that much by sticking with your first love...
I enjoyed Unorthodox, and also re - watched Before Sunrise and felt it still worked despite being a period piece now! DS2, 19, enjoyed it too.

Finished it last night. Reminded me a bit of DH and I, small town Scots first in family to go to uni, he saved me from abusive family me from his emotionally stunted one. We had that passion. He followed me to our “New York” but he did want to go himself.

25 years later we’re still together our values have changed our passion is now giving our children what we didn’t have growing up.