Reader Review:  Enlightened

Reviewed by Leticia Flores, Ph.D.

This installment of my review focuses on the frustrating, uncomfortable, funny, sad, and brilliant series from Mike White called ‘Enlightened”, which is in its second (and final) season on HBO.  This show has come the closest to demonstrating the journey that one takes when you come from damaged emotional beginnings and strive, often awkwardly and painfully, to become a better person and to make the world a better place.

Laura Dern plays Amy Jellicoe, a woman with clear personality “issues” whose life has been turned upside down by personal tragedies and substance abuse.  The series starts with Amy literally melting down at work (black mascara running down her face) where she is being fired by her (married) boss, with whom she has had an affair. You are immediately torn between feeling sorry for her and wanting to get as far away from her as possible if you were in that same office space. 

Subsequent scenes show her returning home to Riverside, CA from a “mindfulness” retreat set in an exotic locale.  She returns to her mother’s home armed with self-help books, a clean and sober body, and a renewed, scared but optimistic outlook on life.   We slowly learn about how she got to that low point in her life, and realize that life wasn’t all peaches and cream to start with.  Her mother (Dianne Ladd) vacillates between being overly interested in Amy’s comings and goings and being distant and cold in response to Amy’s attempts at connection.  You meet her ex-husband Levi (Luke Wilson), who is perfectly happy with continuing to abuse substances (one of the reasons they split up), and resents Amy trying to “fix” him. Amy’s lack of insight and sensitivity to social cues constantly place her in uncomfortable interactions with people at her place of work and other connections, and I cringed when I watched her struggle to understand why people avoided her, lied to her, or rejected her. However, when I would see Amy’s occasional ability to empathize with the plight of others, and see just how big her heart could become, it was like a light shone on her, and I wanted her to “win”, just this once.

This show especially resonated with me because I have seen clients struggle with exactly these issues-  how can I “figure out” the puzzle of life and love, when the original pieces I was born with were mismatched, bent, or just plain missing? What the hell does “letting go” MEAN, exactly? Patients read the books, they say the mantras, and dammit all, women still don’t want to date them, men still treat them poorly, and they can’t manage to find a place where they feel they belong.

“Enlightened” allows the audience the chance to go on this journey with Amy, painful as it is.  Some critics complain that they don’t know what the show was “about”, or that “nothing ever happened”.  It was simply about life, and one person’s fumbling attempts at making meaning of it, day after day.  Some people like to watch shows that take them away from reality- that have happy endings, neat and sweet resolutions, where the good guys always win and get the girl.  If you are of the darker sort of mind, or if you occasionally like to see art imitating life and all of its struggles and failures and rare, tiny victories, then this show is for you.  Amy is one of the truest characters on screen today- she is a flawed creature in a flawed world. Despite the flaws, she continues to fight for a little bit of happiness, and once in a while she grabs it, sees it, feels it, tastes it.  When she does, it’s like you are seeing it, feeling it and tasting it too.   Goodbye, Amy- I’ll miss you, and wish you luck in “letting go” and finding some peace in your life.  And I’ll think of you as I continue bear witness to my own clients’ suffering and struggles to connect in this world.