'Love Life' Episode 5: Darby's constant need for validation may have been too much for the sake of a script
Spoilers for 'Love Life' Episode 5 'Luke Ducharme'
Viewers are taken back in time to Darby Carter's (Anna Kendrick) highschool relationship with Luke Ducharme in Episode 5 'Luke Ducharme'. Darby has been having a hard time with Magnus Lund (Nick Thune) and the cliffhanger on whether Darby accepts Lund's proposal is answered in this episode through a story from Darby's dark past. Using Darby's therapist as a filler character, we were shown how as a teenager Darby went to extreme lengths to make sure she wasn't honest about her feelings.
As all heartbreaks go in Darby's life, it turns out that Ducharme was an ignorant high schooler who was with Darby for a fun time rather than a relationship. Completely ecstatic about the week of attention he showed her, Darby expected more out of it only to realize that Ducharme was a player. After catching Ducharme walk out of a rendezvous with Grace, her roommate, Darby has an emotional breakdown quickly prompting an apology and empathy from Grace. Instead of getting her feelings out and letting Grace know how hurt she was, Darby decided to let her roommate know that she was crying because she had cancer. She milked the attention, love and perks she received from her peers but most importantly, she gaslit Ducharme into being with her. When her lies were revealed, she was forced to withdraw from her boarding school.
While we understand that fiction on TV is meant to bring us characters armed with intense backstories, we think this narrative was a little too much for a monotonous character like Darby. The flashback was to show viewers how the present Darby still holds that traumatic experience within her, but still finds it hard to open up and express herself in her relationship with Lund. Cancer, is no joke, and Darby's repercussions in the show were a slap on the wrist by her parents and she withdrew from school - she wasn't even expelled. Maybe not the intention, but there was a slight disrespect to the illness that takes the lives of many in a matter of minutes.
The narrative pushed for a dramatic backstory for Darby and there could have been many ways that could showcase Darby's inability to speak her mind. Using illness as a crutch and not doing that storyline justice, left a bad taste. Her insecurity of being rejected stemmed from that experience in high school, and still, in her adult life, her existence is still tied to a relationship. This time, they added a life-threatening illness to make the cliches more prominent. It's hard to take an episode seriously when the characters are being forced to conjure up past misguided feelings to justify their present behavior. It was a horrific thing she did in high school, why was that not noticed? Instead, it was brushed off as a "stupid" thing a high-schooler would do.
To make matters worse, having brought the past to the present and recalling that bad time didn't prove to help Darby in any way. She, instead, quits therapy, so what was the point of the indirect disrespect in a childish backstory?
New episodes of 'Love Life' will be released every Thursday on HBO Max.