Claudia
After the excellent previous episode that took a realistic perspective on toxic relationships, Love Life takes a slightly different tactic this time around. Focusing more on the bonds and estranged nature of some Mother/daughter relationships, Love Life’s latest episode combines realism with drama in a pretty decent way. Following the incident with Magnus last time, episode 7 of Love Life begins with Darby starting her post-marriage journey 6 months later with a trip to the hospital to have her appendix out. Post-recovery, Darby and her Mother Claudia are left alone when Sara leaves the house. Things are strained, to say the least, as Claudia questions all of Darby’s choices and takes subtle digs regarding her relationship with Magus. As they continue on, Claudia tells her about a book dealing with divorces and lets Darby fall asleep on her lap. Only, Darby is awoken by her Mother hoovering and she fusses over her again in the morning. When Claudia finally leaves, narration updates us on Claudia’s family life and upbringing, including the fact she had to fend for herself which explains her personality traits. Sara meanwhile shows up at Jim’s friend’s party and things immediately get awkward given she wasn’t really invited. She and Jim fight, leading to Sara storming out. Claudia and Darby fight too, as Darby’s mother calls herself a bad mother and starts weeping on the pillow. In the morning, Darby tries to make amends with Claudia and suggests they head out and do whatever she wants to do. She decides to go and buy a mattress for Darby’s brother, Hunter. This prompts the duo to fight in the bed store about their feelings and eventually the truth comes out about how they both feel. Eventually this fight sees them both open up and it’s the breakthrough they needed as this Mother/daughter relationship finally looks set to take a positive turn. With a narrative revolving around this Mother/daughter relationship, seeing Love Life take a slight backseat to the messy romances that have plagued much of this season is a welcome respite but also one that inevitably pales in comparison to what we’ve seen before. Still, the episode does well to keep things moving and as a proverbial stop-gap between romances, Love Life delivers an enjoyable slice of drama.
