HBO’s 'Mrs Fletcher' puts porn, dysfunctional mother-son bond into focus in first episode

It is rare that a TV series establishes characters quickly and succinctly. The first episode of ‘Mrs Fletcher’ is a master-class in it. We know exactly what is wrong with the mother-son relationship between Eve Fletcher (Kathryn Hahn) and Brendan Fletcher (Jackson White) from the initial few moments. Eve single-handedly packs up her son’s room, with zero-inputs from Brendan, who mutters about iPhone updates. While Eve says “I love you,”, Brendan says “Alright”, before skipping out on the celebratory cupcakes Eve has bought to spend the last night at home with his bro pals. He casually bullies Julian (Owen Teague) and tries to finagle a goodbye screw from his ex-girlfriend Becca, who he has spent the entire summer ignoring.

But here’s the thing. Despite making it clear that Brendan is a Grade A entitled frat boy with zero respect for women, the world he has lived in has given him no indication that he isn’t perfect just as he is. His ex-girlfriend, Becca, comes to give him a goodbye blow job despite being treated like garbage because he deigned to send her a dick pic late in the night. He is the center of attention in his single mother’s life, who is so protective of him and so desperately trying to make up for the lack of a father, she does everything for him. In fact, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that she has wrapped her life around him because it gives her life some purpose. 

Eve’s little lecture to him about “treating women right” in the car drive to his new college comes too late -- Brendan has already learned his vocabulary from porn. Eve is right to be worried. It is the post #MeToo world and Brendan has no idea that the bigger world outside high school and home is just waiting to slap him down, hard. 

The first episode also sets another thematic mainstay of the series in the first scene. An old man sits in the very public space of his nursing home’s recreation area and watches porn on full blast. It is a rude (and unexpected) encroachment in a place meant for seniors who have left lust and passions behind (or at least have supposedly left it behind). Eve goes as far as to equate the old man’s lack of inhibitions to a physical or mental malaise. She also explains to the old man’s son who protests that “everyone watches porn”, that they don’t do it in public. 

However, the private has a way of rudely encroaching into our public sphere as well. Porn might be private, but the behavior it engenders is not.

Eve snaps her laptop shut when she takes her first look at a middle-aged woman getting oral from a man half her age. She hunts down MILF porn when (ironically) she finds the smiles of the models featured in 'Empty Nester' articles to be too fake.

Her dive into porn (with the lights out) is a revelation. She suddenly realizes she isn’t a frumpy single mom, she’s a MILF! She isn’t the ignored wife and mother, but a desirable woman. 

So she walks into her new community college class on “Writing a Personal Essay” in a sleeveless plunging top. When she finds Julian (Brendan’s bullied ex-classmate) looking at her, she ups the ante, twirling her hair and giving him sidelong flirty glances. Since its Hahn doing her super funny and super cute flirty routine that we are familiar with, the inappropriateness of trying to seduce a teenage boy hits us only later. It is going to get messy and messy makes good TV.