Marriage : SPOILER THREAD ONLY

[the80sweregreat]

This started on Sunday and has four parts.
I've watched all of them on bbc I player

Thought I'd start a spoiler thread as there are two threads already and spoilers not allowed over there. At all.

I wanted to like this, but it was disjointed at times and the last episode dragged.

It made some good points, but was just odd too. Not sure what to make of it really.
Jamie was just horrible

I felt bad for the shop assistant. His boss could be his kid / grandkid. I thought maybe he had had a career 30/40 years and also been made redundant. Maybe not.

It's probably the accent. I noticed his natural accent come through a lot in this series. He usually tries to speak proper lol.

It was just the way the manager spoke that made me laugh. Nothing made me laugh about this programme apart from that one thing.
I now feel bad because he was younger than the assistant, I didn't realize this. It was just his exasperated tone of voice which I don't think Ian was meant to hear and was directed at him rather than the poor assistant.

The boss seems weird thinking Nicola waters is beautiful, no offence nicola, but to me she looks like a grumpy potato

I really don't believe he did think that, it was just a sleazy line. He'd said earlier he thought she was a 'boring bitch' or similar. I think she should have been far more assertive with him at the hotel, he was vile to her, but maybe she was scared of losing her job.

We never did find out why she was so 'off' with her colleagues when she was first back from holiday.

The colleagues did leave an empty cup on her desk and seemed to be off with her too.
I thought at first that Jamie did like her so when he said to Emily that he didn't like her much and was taking the micky out of her etc I was surprised. He later admitted that he admired her brains and work ethic , but then he was another complex nasty character so who knows what he really did think.
He was shocked when she had a go at him over the drug taking : he isn't used to being told his in the wrong.
He seemed cool about the car too. That was all very odd as well!
I was intrigued by Emily's dad as well ; it was good that he told him how Emily was feeling. Not that he would care
The letter reading with Jess and her dad was also odd too. I found that very uncomfortable
Such a strange drama all round

I only watched ep 1. Did anyone else end up feeling really grateful for their busy often stressful life of chaos. I've been with dh nearly 20 yrs and thank god our lives aren't one bit like that. What a boring pair of bastards 😂

They didn't seem very like loving towards their daughter. It all seemed strained. Like they had just met her. Maybe it's because she's now older. Is that what happens when they move out 😬😬

I just admit that since my two children moved out last year ( both in their 20s) the relationship does change a bit. When they visit they are then visitors rather than people who once lived with you.
I'm used to it now and it's good they have moved on.
With Jess maybe they always had a bit of a strained relationship because what had happened before with Nicholas. She said this to her horrible ex on the train in episode one.
It might have overshadowed everything.
It was telling also that Ian wrote the letters to her not Emma.

Yes, unfortunately.

I love it but I know I’m really in the minority judging by threads on here and all the comments on Twitter!

i just think that because so very little is happening, it’s picking up the way real life works really cleverly. The gym locker bit was just to show how Ian makes the girl uncomfortable so she sends her male colleague in to deal with it - it’s such a small, truthful observation about life. That was the point of that little moment - all these little moments show how desperately lonely and lost Ian is, and how he’s clumsily, badly, trying to connect but each person he comes into contact with only sees a minute or two of his life; we get to see the whole picture of his dreary day where no one wants to talk to him.

The locker incident made me cringe because it's the kind of thing I would do to get my pound back and Dh would just say to leave it.
It's only a pound, for me it's the principle that they have my money sitting there!
( but then he found out he had used the broken one , again the kind of thing that would happen to me as well , not checking it was working properly before attempting to use it)
It is these awkward moments this drama is picking up on : the things that can go wrong and how people interact with you. He comes across as a bit odd , socially awkward and then people don't want to deal with him.
However, I would never smash up anyone's car ever like he did on purpose , so there is obviously a lot more to him than just being a bit strange too, lots of rage there.
I'd just ask politely to have my pound back please.!

I liked it but all a bit odd. Kept feeling I was missing something ! They all seemed so awkward with each other , not all like they have been together for years. All very odd. Jamie was horrible and complex. Not really sure what to make of it!

Ohhh I assumed he saw the black and yellow out of order tape and used the locker on purpose. There were other members of staff around and Maxine was busy mopping but he went straight to her.

Maybe he did use the broken locker on purpose !
Didn't think of this ( to say sorry for being awkward with her the day before )
He wanted to engage with her , but she got someone else to deal with it instead.

Maybe it's my suspicions personality 😂😂

No, having watched it all and the car incident , I think your right , he wanted to speak to Maxine and this was his way of getting her attention
It back fired and instead he got the male assistant who had the hump he had to force open the lock to get his money out for him when it was clearly faulty and had tape on it

I found it very strange but nevertheless binge-watched the whole thing. I think the writing was very weak and so the actors had nowhere to go. Even the emotional scenes carried very little impact as it was hard to care about the characters.

Well this was a smasher - the discomfort watching it and the lasting threads running round my head!

SB character caring for his loved ones so deeply and being disliked by FIL and BIL and appreciated by his wife but not sufficiently cared for and just never getting his emotional needs addressed at all, then starting to be a bit letchy at a young professional female in response to the tiny bit of customer service ‘care’.

The saddest part looking for revitalising shower gel to feel better 🥲

His terror of offending his adopted daughter yet wanting her to know the degree he cared for her.

His fear of suffering any further loss conflicting with trying to pretend everything was fine.

The letter scene was so well done.

The car I found shocking tbh. The rage he had. Probably remembering how Jamie had made him look around it when he didn't want to : how humiliated he must have felt because they have a normal older car. Not to mention his unfounded jealousy of his wife having to go to the conference overnight.
I expected her to say to him ' Jamie found his car smashed up this morning ' but she didn't. I did wonder if she had an inkling he may have done it , but she really didn't care because of his drug taking ? It didn't matter because there are always worse things in life ( such as losing a child ) who is bothered about an insured car?

Didn’t Emma and Ian have a telephone call while the car alarm was sirening away ? I thought that was going to be significant, and maybe it was.

Ian also said to Emma ( at one stage ) ' you picked me up from the floor more times than I care to remember' which made me also think he may have had a drink problem in the past too?
Or really bad mental health issues ?
I had the impression it wasn't just about the baby dying either ( which is bad enough ) and before his mum died and losing his job. All things that would affect you negatively of course.
A very complex character all round.

I've finished it all now and am mildly disappointed. For me the biggest problem was that I didn't buy Ian and Emma in any being credible as a couple, as well as not believing (as much as you can believe in fiction) in the three of them as a family. There was no chemistry at all between any of them.

NW's style of acting is beginning to grate as in her speech hesitations (seen in the last episode where she bollocks Jamie, which I found totally unrealistic).

Maybe the drug talk was more to do with her not saying what she really thought of him ?
She was insulting him, but not about work or how he treats her and the others , but just picking up on one flaw of his instead that he would find hard to defend ? He is breaking the law, he couldn't really argue back with her with any authority.
He also took the verbal pasting from Emily's dad as well because he knows he was in the wrong there too, taking advantage and not taking any responsibility for his actions. He Doesn't see it as wrong.
I Hated his character so much.
The men came out badly in this drama.

I’ve just finished the 4th episode …. nothing happened 🤷🏼‍♀️. So many loose ends.

Bizarre programme. The letter reading also made me uncomfortable … I was waiting for him to do something inappropriate 😳.

Very strange dysfunctional people, all of them.