'Love Life' Episode 6: Impressive portrayal of mental and emotional abuse, gaslighting and cheating
Spoilers for 'Love Life' Episode 6
This episode titled 'Magnus Lund Part 2' took us deeper into Magnus Lund's (Nick Thune) character — he is quite a controlling alpha male that seems to want all things done his way. His relationship with Darby Carter (Anna Kendrick) started in Episode 4 when she chose to be with him after having multiple flings with other men. We saw a bit of trouble in that episode itself when Magnus loses his job and begins to withdraw into himself, ignoring his relationship. Since that episode, the duo got married as we found out at the end of Episode 5 when we were shown a flashback of Darby's highschool fling with Luke Ducharme (John Gallagher Jr). In Episode 5, Darby had gone to a therapist because she wanted to fix her inability to express herself with Lund. The therapist had encouraged her to speak of the first time she had experienced rejection and we were told the story of Ducharme.
Fast forward to Episode 6, Darby is put in the middle of a mentally exhausting marriage with Lund as Ducharme messages her to meet up. While in no way are we encouraging Darby's unfaithfulness as she chose to have a one night stand with Ducharme, tainting the sanctity of her marriage, we'd like to point out that her struggle as a woman hidden with anxiety was well portrayed. Kendrick's portrayal of Darby's emotions in the episode was excellent as she takes us into the mind of a woman who is being taken advantage of by a husband who's leeching off his wife's success. Lund's constant gaslighting showed us a worn down Darby who has a thriving career but she can't even celebrate at dinner with her man.
Lund's immaturity and stubborn nature have always been something Darby had known about, she had admitted this to Ducharme before they had hooked up. Darby's mind regressed to a fling of the past but that did not overshadow her growth as she broke up with Lund, whose nature was more aggressive than portrayed in previous episodes. Darby's reluctant behavior, when it came to speaking up or against Lund, finally made sense as we see him threatening to kill himself with obscene statements to initiate guilt in Darby.
Darby's character gained an interesting relatable aspect in this episode as the awareness of depression, marriage struggles, cheating, mental and emotional abuse were clearly highlighted in her scenes with Lund. We as viewers were presented with a dilemma as we didn't know if we should empathize with Darby. "She could have easily spoken out instead of cheating," would be the moral high ground statement, but the truth is women fear many things when thinking of leaving their abusive partner. They are unable to just "pack up and leave" and are filled with self-doubt and the fear of the unknown. It is usually a drastic event that pulls them out of their trance where they take a stand and rebel against their abuser.
It was great to see the series take a stand from a woman's perspective as they portrayed a young woman with a struggle that many women worldwide know all too well.
New episodes of 'Love Life' will be released every Thursday on HBO Max.