'Little America' Episode 6: Ai's quest to embrace life highlights depth of trauma setting in from abandonment
This article contains spoilers for Season 1, Episode 6: 'The Grand Prize Expo Winners'/'AI'
There are commitment and job dedication, and then there is missing your lunch break trying to sell products to customers online while you are in a severe labor pain and contractions kick in. Such is the story Ai, a dedicated Chinese woman, who literally tells a customer, "I am pregnant," as her contractions kick in, adding, "But that doesn't mean you can't save a lot of money before I go to the hospital."
From a woman dedicated to her job to a mother obsessed with her children - Ai's journey twists and turns a lot, but also teaches us the true depth of trauma setting in from abandonment.
When not convincing customers online to save money, Ai spends time as a dedicated family woman, jumping into the hustle and bustle of household chores right after giving birth, with her newborn wrapped around her chest as she nurses her. Her impatient husband's frustrations grow as the bills add up and he decides he can't support the family anymore. Thus we arrive at Ai's life about three to four years later - stranded with two small children, all alone in a country far away from home.
It doesn't dampen Ai's spirits though as she picks up the gears and drives her kids forward doing everything she can to not let them feel the need for a father in their lives. She keeps her jobs, attends school events, arranges theme parties at home and even takes them to the movies and trick-or-treating.
All is well, seemingly, but as her kids grow into teens, Ai's obsession with giving them the perfect fancy vacation persists - as is clear from her insisting on buying the titular raffle tickets for all paid trips, despite losing each year, repeatedly. But this time it is different even though her kids refuse to budge into her enthusiasm for attending the event. Ai drives through heavy snow and reaches the venue to finally win her coveted Alaskan cruise ship vacation, which brings her family back to life once again as they indulge in the trip.
Montages of Ai and her children having fun are sprinkled with flashbacks from her own childhood as we come to know how her father and pregnant mother traveled to America on a ship much downtrodden than the one she was now on board with her kids.
Eventually, the two teens want to have their own type of fun, which largely involves not being coddled by their mother trying to insist on how they need to reapply their sunscreen. She misses them and pretty much wanders about, engaging in nothing particular, waiting for them to return for dinner. Her son, Bo, befriends a boy on the cruise whose aunt talks about how the best part of cruises is the kids just making friends and getting lost, giving the guardians a much-needed "me time." But, Ai can't relate to that. All her life, her kids are all she has known.
In a lot of ways, Ai's trip on the cruise is a lot of realizing that her kids don't necessarily need her helicoptering all the time. It could be a culture shock with Ai's upbringing that makes her think that children must be by their parents' side - a much-hyped overprotective Asian parent stereotype.
But this is a true story. So in all probability, Ai is going through mild separation anxiety as she realizes her kids don't need her as much anymore.
It is not until the next set of flashbacks from Ai's past that we really understand the full extent of panic and stress of being stranded without her kids. Looks like Ai's parents had just found her two years before the incidents of the flashback, and with a boy, and they were ready to give her up right after they landed in America - an abandonment she couldn't fully recover from. The flashbacks happen as Ai, a little wine drunk, takes the karaoke stage to belt out 'You Don't Have to Say You Love Me' by Dusty Springfield.
Teary-eyed, Ai comes to their suite to find her children already asleep. She kisses them good night and wakes up early the next morning to embrace the sunrise - all on her own - having finally conquered her fears of abandonment.
The feel-good story not only discusses the trauma of abandonment issues through a woman learning to overcome them but also involves Ai's real son in the production of her tale, with him directing the episode. In the end, Ai did well.
'Little America' premiers with all eight episodes on Friday, January 17, only on Apple TV+.