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[anaron]

Created by Mike White and Laura Dern, season one of ENLIGHTENED told the story of self-destructive corporate executive Amy Jellicoe (Dern), who had a spiritual awakening after a career-destroying meltdown. Though determined to live a more enlightened existence, her new outlook only wreaked more havoc, both at home and at work.

In season two, Amy redoubles her efforts to gather evidence against Abaddonn with the support of Tyler (White), her meek IT ally, and enlists journalist Jeff Flender in her cause. Meanwhile, Amy's ex, Levi, continues to struggle with rehab, and it remains to be seen if he will embrace recovery and return as the man she always wanted him to be.

Mike White wrote all eight episodes of the second season of ENLIGHTENED and directed four, with Nicole Holofcener, Todd Haynes, James Bobin and David Michod each directing one episode. Music by Mark Mothersbaugh

http://www.hbo.com/enlightened/index.html
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news/...n-13-exclusively-on-hbo-701112/20121212hbo01/

30 minutes - Drama/Dark Comedy - Sundays at 9:30 PM on HBO

Season Two Trailer # 1, [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bd1NrADVqw"]2
[/URL]
The complete first season now available on DVD/Blu-ray.

Starring

Laura Dern as Amy Jellicoe
Diane Ladd as Helen Jellicoe
Luke Wilson as Levi
Mike White as Tyler
Sarah Burns as Krista
Timm Sharp as Dougie

Bayne Gibby as Connie
Jason Mantzouka as Omar
Jon Shere as Louis
Amy Hill as Judy Harvey
Michaela Watkins as Janice
Chip Esten as Damon Manning


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Initially opening to a lukewarm, hindering on mixed reception, (and through that a reprehensible lack of buzz and viewership) Enlightened debuted as if in secret, lost amongst the dozens of new fall shows. With its designed format more akin to a connected set of short stories, each episode touching on a specific theme with shifting perspectives and a variety of tonal disparity, it demonstrated a refusal to fit into any sort of strict mold, making for what some considered an incredibly challenging viewing experience and for others, an even richer one. For the critics who liked the pilot, -- and the little of us here on GAF and elsewhere that similarly stuck around, Enlightened rewarded that loyalty by revealing itself as one of most surprisingly unique, honest and emotionally affecting seasons of television created. As better captured through these quotes by Matt Zoller Seitz & James Poniewozik:


"The series manages to be corrosive and compassionate at the same time. Amy is our heroine and surrogate. She narrates parts of the series in voice-over, often accompanied by highly subjective camerawork with first-person point-of-view shots and expressionist slow-motion. The bits of the series that Amy narrates are first-person subjective. We’re seeing the world, and Amy, through her perceptions; they’re colored by her experience at the colony and by the supplemental reading she’s being doing since she returned to Los Angeles, went back to work with a demotion, and moved in with her aging mom (Diane Ladd, Dern’s real-life mom). The rest of the show could be described as third-person limited. We’re seeing Amy — and all the other characters, including her mother, her still-drug-addled ex, Levi (Luke Wilson), and her new boss, the socially inept, profane, hot-tempered Dougie (Timm Sharp) — from a detached point-of-view, one that conveys the fullness of the characters’ self-flattering delusions even as it looks through them and sees something like the truth about them. I dislike the self-help phrase “tough love,” but it fits here. Judging from what’s on-screen, there’s no doubt that White and Dern appreciate and empathize with all of these characters even though they don’t cut them so much as a millimeter of slack. What we’re seeing isn’t a cliched “edgy” indie film worldview — a variation of “I love humanity; it’s people I can’t stand.” “Enlightened” is richer than that. It’s merciless yet somehow not misanthropic. The tone is about as warm as can be without turning gooey." -- Matt Zoller Seitz, Salon


“Personal growth isn't easy, so maybe it's fitting that a series about it shouldn't be either. At first blush, Amy Jellicoe (Laura Dern) is easier to gawk at than to like. A corporate executive who suffers a nervous breakdown after an affair, she has an epiphany at a pricey therapy retreat, then returns to her old life, demoted at the office, living with her mom (Dern's actual mother, Diane Ladd) and trailing passive-aggressive spirituality. At first, Amy seems so deluded and self-righteous that you want to smack her into a shivasana pose. But Enlightened, written by Mike White (The Good Girl), isn't interested in mocking easy New Age targets or valorizing Amy. Instead, it takes her journey seriously, if sometimes seriously enough to laugh at it. Subtle and gorgeously directed (by guests including Jonathan Demme, Miguel Arteta and Nicole Holofcener), it's a darkly funny, empathetic story of a flawed woman learning that sometimes a journey of a thousand miles begins with a good sharp kick in the ass.” – James Poziewoznik, TIME http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101344_2101126_2101136,00.html


As evidenced through its distinct style and dangerously low viewership, the show has proven to be a polarizing one - but should it continue offering the same quality work going forward in its second season, I believe it leads the way in reinforcing for HBO and itself, that brilliant, truly unconventional cable programming still has a place to call home; where it can exist along side the more commonly explicit & extravagant efforts by being comparatively "small" and restrained, but equally if not more ambitious.


*it goes without saying that or a better indication of the series, actually watching will do more for it than anything else - so check out a collection of scenes I’ve gathered from the first season below and hopefully, they'll be enough to make you want to catch up and experience the show fully*

Videos

I Will Change
"I'm Trapped"
Picture Someone Else's Life
Broken Marriage
There she is
The Mother is a Child Too
Let it go
Consider Helen
"Burn it Down"


Critic Pieces (season 2 reviews to be added as they come in)

Washington Post: HBO’s ‘Enlightened’: A triumphant comeuppance in cubicle land

It’s just you and me and one other guy, who called to say he’s running late, so let’s go ahead and start the meeting of People Who Really Love “Enlightened,” and hope some others show up.

This HBO exercise in exquisite portraiture (I still won’t call it a comedy) returns Sunday night, and it is the most hauntingly nuanced and carefully written show currently on TV. Yes, I already know “Enlightened” is not your cup of green tea, because so many of you have already said so: It’s too slow. Nothing happens. It’s depressing.

It is depressing. It is a real downer, and too many viewers have a bias against that sort of thing. We’ll watch countless ­Prohibition-era thugs get shot in the head, or detectives examine rape-kit results, and of course we’ll watch a couple hundred people die violently in the “Homeland” finale, but somehow ­“Enlightened” is too ooky and dark. In its first season, something like 200,000 people tuned in from week to week; even for HBO, where patience is a virtue, that’s the ratings equivalent of a party no one came to.

For those of you who watch it anyhow (a.k.a. my real friends), a superior season awaits: “Enlightened” comes through with a triumphant eight-episode arc that broadens its characters, quickens the pace and finishes strong.

Vulture: Enlightened's Heroine Is Still Deranged, But Not Totally Wrong

Remarkably, Enlightened doesn’t adopt a morally superior tone to any of this. Things are never either-or. They’re always both-and. Amy is a deeply damaged and irritating woman. Her grandiose voice-over reveries are filled with rehab platitudes and portentous images that suggest a Los Angeles tourism ad directed by Terrence Malick. She’s so narcissistic that when she grins at the targets of her goodness, she seems to be admiring her reflection in their pupils. But despite her borderline derangement, she’s right about Abaddonn and right to be mad that no one cares. “I’m just tired of feeling small,” Amy says. Isn’t everyone?

The Nation: Everybody Should Be Watching HBO's Enlightened

...This can make the show something of an acquired taste. A couple of friends I’ve recommended it to come back confused. Are they supposed to “like” Amy? Sometimes she has tantrums; sometimes her social skills are off. She doesn’t really obey the conventions of melodrama, in seeming neither tragic nor heroic in her crusades. And in that she is actually more like a real human being, really trying to Do The Right Thing by her family, by her friends, and by the world, and finding that in fact the path to doing just that is not as clear as it seems.

Oddly, that suddenly makes the show much like Girls, doesn’t it? But Hannah Horvath and Amy are very different people. “The Right Thing” is not of any concern to Girls. The world outside Hannah and her friends barely exists for them, and while Girls does poke fun at that, it also doesn’t present any alternative viewpoint. Enlightened’s Amy was once, it seems, more like this, more wrapped up in her own life, and less prone to consider people outside her immediate vicinity. The show is about her process of opening herself up, one which runs in a less-than-ruler-straight line.

It’s a tiresome trope to hold a television character up as a “role model” – Amy’s fictional, after all. But watching White dramatize this process, which he has occasionally suggested is related to his own (he has told interviewers he had a similar breakdown in 2004), does inspire, at least a little. All those movies about the corporate whistleblowers and activists and their heroics, they seem so righteous, so convinced from the start that what they are doing is right and good. I mean, what they are doing is right and good. But the path to doing something that matters to a world wider than your own, well, it should involve a lot of self-questioning. Particularly if, like Amy, your day job ends up being more sinister than the banal, sunny corporate-speak that you’d been brought up your whole life to believe in.

The premiere is tonight, on HBO, following Girls, wherever you are.

Bloomberg: Fine ‘Enlightenment’

If the show’s under-watched debut followed Dern’s office drone Amy Jellicoe as she reassembled herself following an emotional collapse, the sophomore season suggests that the abrasive, aphorism-spouting do-gooder might have a firmer take on contemporary reality than anyone suspects.

Salon: Is “Enlightened” quietly the best show on TV? The HBO series brilliantly satirizes the New Age self-actualization movement and the hell of corporate America

San Francisco Chronicle- No sophomore slumps for the daring women on HBO

Self-delusion can grow fairly tiresome, in life and on TV, but what makes Amy sympathetic is that even though she almost convinces us at times that her personal fairy tale actually makes sense, we are always aware of her basic decency and, more important, her vulnerability.

Amy and Hannah are singular blends of driven focus and inner doubts. Hannah mines her doubts for strength and determination as she seeks the truths of her life, while Amy battles her doubts to re-enforce her resolve. For viewers, the results are the same: Two fascinating and complicated modern women, making their distinctive mark in the world, whether the world knows it or not.

Ken Tucker/Entertainment Weekly: 'Enlightened' season premiere review: Watch this Laura Dern show tonight, please

There’s a lot on TV tonight — the Golden Globes, new episodes of The Good Wife and Downton Abbey, the season premiere of Girls — but let me urge you to try and catch the second-season premiere of HBO’s Enlightened. This half-hour co-created by co-stars Laura Dern and Mike White is extraordinarily good: funny and moving and constantly surprising.

Huffington Post TV/Maureen Ryan: 'Enlightened' Review: A Brilliant, Must-See Return For The HBO Gem

"Enlightened" is a show that trusts itself to make small gestures and spend time on quiet observation, and it ultimately succeeds at one of the hardest but most important things any story should do: It brings you inside in the emotional state of the people at the heart of the tale. With its spare visual style and its meditative aesthetic, "Enlightened" evokes a feeling of not-quite-resigned aspiration, a lyrical, guarded sense of possibility. The show is suffused with the sense that what you want is just out of reach and that the dream could be yours if you just wanted it a little more intensely.

Enlightened: Salon: The Best New Show No One But You, If You Are Bothering to Read This Post, Is Watching

The beguiling tough love of “Enlightened”

TIME: “Consider Helen,” one of the best episodes of TV I’ve watched all year, is not likely to unpolarize anyone. But it was also the show’s finest expression yet of the philosophy that the best way to self-understanding is empathy for others.

Tim Goodman: "Watching a series like Enlightened makes you happy there's a home for shows that don't fit the mold -- places like HBO (in this case), Showtime, FX, AMC, etc. With its offbeat sense of humor and unwillingness to be just funny when there are so many other emotions to explore, Enlightened feels like it was pitched as a comedy then tapped into those little, personal and private moments people have when they don't fit in -- or even feel like they have a purpose -- then got shot and directed like an indie film."

The Awl: 'Homeland' And 'Enlightened': Women On The Verge Of Nervous Breakthroughs

ThinkProgress: Enlightened,’ And The Power And Danger Of Organizing


Promotional art

 

[RatskyWatsky]

YESS! Great OP. I'm so excited for season 2! Best show on HBO hype hype hype

 

[Robot Pants]

Pumped. The hidden adjective really nails it for this show.

 

[Dennis]

YYYYYYEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Such an under-appreciated gem.

 

[Messi]

Wait RAFI is in this?

 

[The Storyteller]

Awesome OP anaron!

Looking forward to the grander scope season 2 promises.

 

[ivysaur12]

Love it (is some of the art oddly stretched?)

Are we sure Bayed Gibby isn't a regular? She's in the season 2 poster. I know Jason Mantzouka probably is in second position to The League, but I would think she would be one.

I love this show. We are Enlightened GAF.

 

[dead souls]

Awesome show. I can't wait for it to be back.

 

[anaron]

Love it (is some of the art oddly stretched?)

I love this show. We are Enlightened GAF.

lol, yes the art is oddly stretched. (I suck) I'll try and fix it hopefully.

Are we sure Bayed Gibby isn't a regular? She's in the season 2 poster. I know Jason Mantzouka probably is in second position to The League, but I would think she would be one.

I was debating that too but I settled for the split because it looks simpler to keep the groups even.

 

[Macmanus]

Really excited to see this premiering shortly with Girls. The trailer seems to indicate Mike White getting some play. That should be comedy gold.

 

[hateradio]

Enlightened + Girls = ಥ‿ಥ

 

[ReturnOfTheRAT]

Can anyone who watches The League and Enlightened compare Jason Mantzoukas' characters?

 

[anaron]

Fixed the images to what I hope is a better result. And thanks for the kind words on the OP, folks.

 

[ecierif]

Can anyone who watches The League and Enlightened compare Jason Mantzoukas' characters?

LOL. His Enlightened character is pretty much a serious employee and a normal person, completely different from Rafi. He occasionally displays a sarcastic attitude, and doesn't really get much screentime. If I saw him on Enlightened before The League, I'd be pleasantly surprised at how insane the latter character is compared to the former.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Only a week left till the premiere! omgomg

 

[anaron]

Only a week left till the premiere! omgomg

 

[netguy503]

Can anyone tell me how much the guy from the TV show Nashville is on this? He would probably be my only reason for watching.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0261595/

 

[anaron]

Can anyone tell me how much the guy from the TV show Nashville is on this? He would probably be my only reason for watching.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0261595/

Though an incredibly important character, he only appeared minimally throughout season one. I have no idea if Nashville cut his chances for him to appear in season two so going forward, I couldn't really tell you.

 

[anaron]

*both articles contain spoilers of sorts so be cautious*

Laura Dern: “We shouldn’t be able to watch CNN and then go to sleep” - The "Enlightened" star's Amy Jellicoe has gone from "Lucille Ball to Norma Rae," and she wants to change the world

Vulture: Enlightened's Heroine Is Still Deranged, But Not Totally Wrong

 

[Messi]

LOL. His Enlightened character is pretty much a serious employee and a normal person, completely different from Rafi. He occasionally displays a sarcastic attitude, and doesn't really get much screentime. If I saw him on Enlightened before The League, I'd be pleasantly surprised at how insane the latter character is compared to the former.

Maybe Rafi is the sane one in a sea of insane people

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Can anyone tell me how much the guy from the TV show Nashville is on this? He would probably be my only reason for watching.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0261595/

You should watch the show because it's a good show, and not because a hot guy is on it.

*both articles contain spoilers of sorts so be cautious*

Laura Dern: “We shouldn’t be able to watch CNN and then go to sleep” - The "Enlightened" star's Amy Jellicoe has gone from "Lucille Ball to Norma Rae," and she wants to change the world

Vulture: Enlightened's Heroine Is Still Deranged, But Not Totally Wrong

Thanks for the links. I won't read them yet if they have spoilers though.

 

[netguy503]

You should watch the show because it's a good show, and not because a hot guy is on it.

Is he really that hot? REALLY?

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Is he really that hot? REALLY?

Er, what? You said "He would probably be my only reason for watching." which suggests that you think he's hot.

 

[netguy503]

Er, what? You said "He would probably be my only reason for watching." which suggests that you think he's hot.

Or that I like him as an actor?

 

[zeeaykay]

I've always meant to get around to this show but it kind of slipped through the cracks. I would bet that happened with a lot of people who would like this show.

Anyway, this thread reminded me of it and I've watched the first five episodes in the last few days. Holy shit, is it good. I love it, and Laura Dern totally kills it in her role. I really hope the show catches on. This show is the reason I love HBO, supporting good shows even when the viewership isn't there.

 

[anaron]

CBS video interview: Laura Dern, following in her parents' footsteps.

Indiewire: Now and Then: 'Enlightened,' HBO's Masterpiece of Heartbreak

These voiceovers, epigraphs to the story she hopes to write, can seem both a life raft and a sinking ship. I've fallen in love with them, their run-on affirmations and soft-spoken hopes — at times they seem a design for living that she can speak but not yet will into existence, always "almost" but never quite whole. The scene that first won me over follows one of these monologues, at the conclusion of the pilot. Amy sweeps into work on the strains of Regina Spektor's "Human of the Year" sporting a yellow dress, a beam of light amid the charcoal suits. The way the camera catches the sun on the glassy skyscrapers, the way she runs the last few steps to the elevator, imagining an ocean of joy before her: it's one of those small, perfect moments you're sometimes lucky enough to glimpse before the spell is broken.

And perhaps it is, or will be. Like the river Amy kayaks with Levi or the black-stained tears on her face, the central reason I am so excited to see where the series goes in Season 2, that makes "Enlightened" such compelling viewing, is its fierce current of regret. It's Amy's mother (Dern's own mother, Diane Ladd), staring wistfully at an old photograph in her cheap pink robe. It's the omnipresent feeling that Amy's words are tricks, empty even to her, gauzy dressing on a deep and unhealed wound. I suppose I mean to say that I started watching "Enlightened" as a comedy and ended up seeing it as an unfinished tragedy, tending away from the happy ending. The heart broke, she says, past tense.

also: http://instagram.com/p/UMuB0JkOi6/

 

[RatskyWatsky]

The newest Firewall and Iceberg podcast discusses Enlightened from 53:45 - 59:29. I haven't listened to it yet so I don't know if there are spoilers.

Or that I like him as an actor?

You think he's that good?

 

[anaron]

Season one is now out DVD/Blu-ray.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Season one is now out DVD/Blu-ray.

The Blu-ray shall be mine!

 

[anaron]

The New York Times: A Low-Rated Show Gets a Second Shot

Slant: Enlightened season two - 4 stars

Both kinda of veer into spoiler territory, ESPECIALLY the first link so beware.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Both kinda of veer into spoiler territory, ESPECIALLY the first link so beware.

I'm skimming the first link, and I haven't really come across anything spoilery. I'll be sure to stop reading it though; at least until after I've seen the premiere. One thing that stuck out to me though, is that they're apparently going for a more plot heavy season in order to try to draw in a larger audience. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I guess it depends on the execution.

 

[anaron]

I'm skimming the first link, and I haven't really come across anything spoilery. I'll be sure to stop reading it though; at least until after I've seen the premiere. One thing that stuck out to me though, is that they're apparently going for a more plot heavy season in order to try to draw in a larger audience. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I guess it depends on the execution.

Yeah, in HitFix podcast, they mentioned it seemed like the show has been through a sort of network noted adjustment which kinda worried the shit out of me. But then I saw another critic who said the first two episodes are weak but the next six offer a dark brilliance rare to TV. I guess we'll just have to see.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Yeah, in HitFix podcast, they mentioned it seemed like the show has been through a sort of network noted adjustment which kinda worried the shit out of me. But then I saw another critic who said the first two episodes are weak but the next six offer a dark brilliance rare to TV. I guess we'll just have to see.

Ugh, why would HBO try to mess with the show? I thought they pretty much just let the creators do their own thing? I mean, no amount of adjustments is going to make this show popular and creatively the show was in a really good place.

Who is the other critic? Their comment about the first two episodes being weak worries me. :/ Ughghghhg nooononono please don't be shit mike white wouldn't let it be shit would he? No. No, that's not possible. Weak...hmm...but then again they said the next six were dark and brilliant so that gives me hope...

 

[anaron]

Ugh, why would HBO try to mess with the show? I thought they pretty much just let the creators do their own thing? I mean, no amount of adjustments is going to make this show popular and creatively the show was in a really good place.

Who is the other critic? Their comment about the first two episodes being weak worries me. :/ Ughghghhg nooononono please don't be shit mike white wouldn't let it be shit would he? No. No, that's not possible. Weak...hmm...but then again they said the next six were dark and brilliant so that gives me hope...

I'm not too worried though because it would seem the same people who disliked it in season one are finding it similarly disengaging which can only mean: more of the same, right? (and just for the record, Sepinwall and Feinberg both still don't know what to make of the show so not much has changed)

oh and the critic is Andrew Wallenstein.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

I'm not too worried though because it would seem the same people who disliked it in season one are finding it similarly disengaging which can only mean: more of the same, right? (and just for the record, Sepinwall and Feinberg both still don't know what to make of the show so not much has changed)

oh and the critic is Andrew Wallenstein.

I suppose so, yeah. That's good to hear.

Thanks for the link. After reading the tweet a few times I feel a little better.

 

[anaron]

haha, YES Laura Dern gets on Today show by holding sign promoting Enlightened.

Staying true to Amy.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

haha, YES Laura Dern gets on Today show by holding sign promoting Enlightened.

Staying true to Amy.

Laura Dern marry me ;__;

 

[anaron]

TIME: Dead Tree Alert: Enlightened Returns; Plus, Mike White on Screenwriters’ Responsibility

When Enlightened debuted on HBO in 2011, I was excited about it, having been a fan of Mike White’s weird and weirdly poignant writing from movies like Chuck and Buck and TV shows like Pasadena. I felt a little lost watching the first few episodes, but by episode five, I was firmly on the show’s bandwagon.

It was not a large bandwagon. The series, starring Laura Dern as Amy Jellicoe, an executive who has a spiritual reawakening after a nervous breakdown, was getting a couple hundred thousand viewers for its first-run episodes, low numbers even for HBO. And I can see why: it’s a hard show to adjust to, even for someone like me who’s disposed toward it. It’s a half hour, but neither a traditional comedy or drama. But it’s also not a “comedy-drama” in ways that we’re used to: not a “dramedy” with a heart of sentiment like Parenthood, or a show that alternates between straight comedy and dark drama like Rescue Me. Instead, it has a tone of its own, combining uncomfortable cringe humor with an earnest, meditative treatment of Amy’s quest to fix herself and those around her.

Thanks maybe to critical praise, or the awards recognition (Dern wom a Golden Globe for it last year), or simply a sincere belief that the show was good enough to stay on the air, HBO gave Enlightened a second season anyway. I talked to White and Dern for the print edition of TIME about the second season and the reaction to Amy in the first season:

Chron - No sophomore slumps for the daring women on HBO

Amy Jellicoe is doing marginally better at controlling her leftover rages as the second season of "Enlightened" begins, but she's still out for revenge against Abaddon Industries and still not getting that her crusade doesn't quite jibe with her new-found enlightenment. In the first season, Amy's thirst for vengeance prompted her to ram her car into her former boss' (and former lover's) car, among other things. This season, apparently having learned to control her temper, she's determined to bring the company down in other ways, by enlisting a Los Angeles Times investigative reporter (Dermot Mulroney) to blow the lid off Abaddon's business practices.

Fans of "Enlightenment" know that one of the recurring images in the show is the elevated footbridge that Amy crosses every day to get to the Abaddon high-rise, a gleaming fortress not unlike Cinderella's Castle at Disneyland. The bridge could be said to represent Amy's belated belief in a kind of fairy tale of her own existence. She has no idea how much she's disliked by her co-workers, including women she thought of as friends when she was an Abaddon executive. She is determined to have an abiding belief in happy endings, not only for herself, but for others, but she's not quite there yet and may never be. Time after time, she faces disappointment, but her way of surviving is not to allow it to register.

Self-delusion can grow fairly tiresome, in life and on TV, but what makes Amy sympathetic is that even though she almost convinces us at times that her personal fairy tale actually makes sense, we are always aware of her basic decency and, more important, her vulnerability.

Amy and Hannah are singular blends of driven focus and inner doubts. Hannah mines her doubts for strength and determination as she seeks the truths of her life, while Amy battles her doubts to re-enforce her resolve. For viewers, the results are the same: Two fascinating and complicated modern women, making their distinctive mark in the world, whether the world knows it or not.

 

[lunch]

I've been catching up on the show in preparation for Sunday and it's so good. That hour block of seasons two of Girls and Enlightened will be the greatest hour of my week.

 

[anaron]

I've been catching up on the show in preparation for Sunday and it's so good. That hour block of seasons two of Girls and Enlightened will be the greatest hour of my week.

welcome to being Enlightened.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

I've been catching up on the show in preparation for Sunday and it's so good. That hour block of seasons two of Girls and Enlightened will be the greatest hour of my week.

Lunch has been Enlightened! Hooray! Be sure to help us spread the word - Tell everyone you know to watch this Sunday at 9:30!

 

[lunch]

Just finished season one. I laughed, I (legitimately) cried, and I have now reorganized my entire life in preparation of Sunday at 9:30. This show is so damn good, both in its plot and characters, and the lack of cynicism towards Laura Dern's character. I can't stop blubbing about it.

welcome to being Enlightened.

Lunch has been Enlightened! Hooray! Be sure to help us spread the word - Tell everyone you know to watch this Sunday at 9:30!

Gracias. I have already started telling people to watch it.

 

[anaron]

Washington Post: HBO’s ‘Enlightened’: A triumphant comeuppance in cubicle land

It’s just you and me and one other guy, who called to say he’s running late, so let’s go ahead and start the meeting of People Who Really Love “Enlightened,” and hope some others show up.

This HBO exercise in exquisite portraiture (I still won’t call it a comedy) returns Sunday night, and it is the most hauntingly nuanced and carefully written show currently on TV. Yes, I already know “Enlightened” is not your cup of green tea, because so many of you have already said so: It’s too slow. Nothing happens. It’s depressing.

It is depressing. It is a real downer, and too many viewers have a bias against that sort of thing. We’ll watch countless ­Prohibition-era thugs get shot in the head, or detectives examine rape-kit results, and of course we’ll watch a couple hundred people die violently in the “Homeland” finale, but somehow ­“Enlightened” is too ooky and dark. In its first season, something like 200,000 people tuned in from week to week; even for HBO, where patience is a virtue, that’s the ratings equivalent of a party no one came to.

For those of you who watch it anyhow (a.k.a. my real friends), a superior season awaits: “Enlightened” comes through with a triumphant eight-episode arc that broadens its characters, quickens the pace and finishes strong.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Good god stick it in my veins. I need it right now.

 

[Empty]

not long now!

 

[anaron]

I love what he says too about certain critics being unable to handle the show. Like, as a critic, aren't you supposed to appreciate the smart, challenging and actually different works that come around? It still grates me reading pieces in the first season listing stuff like Amy's likability and the depressing nature of the show as reasons serving against it.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Like, as a critic, aren't you supposed to appreciate the smart, challenging and actually different works that come around?

Not unless all the other critics are doing it too.

It still grates me reading pieces in the first season listing stuff like Amy's likability and the depressing nature of the show as reasons serving against it.

Exactly. It's so aggravating to read people knock Enlightened for having an unlikable character and then praise Girls for their unapologetically unlikable characters.

Did people knock the show for being too depressing? I didn't really find it very depressing. Sure, some episodes are a little more melanchoic than others, but overall I thought it was a very hopeful and uplifting series.

 

[anaron]

Exactly. It's so aggravating to read people knock Enlightened for having an unlikable character and then praise Girls for their unapologetically unlikable characters.

Did people knock the show for being too depressing? I didn't really find it very depressing. Sure, some episodes are a little more melanchoic than others, but overall I thought it was a very hopeful and uplifting series.

"Too depressing for a half hour, uncomfortable and awkward to watch, who is this show for?"

All were repeating sentences in the more negative responses to the show.

 

[lunch]

Exactly. It's so aggravating to read people knock Enlightened for having an unlikable character and then praise Girls for their unapologetically unlikable characters.

Did people knock the show for being too depressing? I didn't really find it very depressing. Sure, some episodes are a little more melanchoic than others, but overall I thought it was a very hopeful and uplifting series.

Do people find Amy unlikable? I thought she was portrayed rather sympathetically, which actually surprised me, as, going off the premise alone, I thought the show was going to mock her (depressingly) unrealistic sense of optimism, while it actually played it all rather straight.

 

[Empty]

she's very sympathetic - it's hard not to root for someone so earnestly trying to improve themselves in positive ways - but i think she's also annoying too in how she goes about it and i'd certainly find her very disagreeable if i worked with her.