Three shows. Three different flavors of “a sober person definitely wrote this” or “definitely did not.”
A family basketball dynasty imploding over fake sobriety. Two women in very good coats who may or may not have killed their best friend. A suburban thief with a cocaine problem next door, and I kinda wish I lived in that neighborhood, I’m not gonna lie.
This is the messiest, most bingeable Mindful Binge we’ve done all season. It is also the only one we’ve done all season. Both things are true.
The panel
My TV ride or dies. Any time a new show drops on Netflix, Hulu, Apple, Paramount, HBO, it takes one text and these women are halfway into episode one before I’ve hit send.
Lane Kennedy, Senior contributor. Lane and I originated The Mindful Binge as a limited series podcast with the “And Just Like That” season one recaps. We dressed up. We looked fabulous. We loved us.
Patti Clark, contributor, author of Recovery Road Trip, coming in from Portugal, which lets me say we’re global. Patti watched “Imperfect Women” because I emailed her one sentence about it. So if there’s any question whether or not I’m an influencer, let the record show.
Tamar Routly, one of my ride or dies, co-host, producer, and this time the person who picked the show. Which, by her own count, is very, very, very, very, very, very, very rare.
Spoilers for everything. We spoiler. The Sober Spoiler is the next URL I’m buying.
“Running Point” season two: The Sobees Score 3.5
I am Team Kate Hudson. I am here for the outfits, the shoulder pads, and the very clever sober language tucked into the show as Easter eggs that you only catch if you’re in our community.
Lane did not love the fashion. Lane thinks Isla changed stylists. We fought about it for a full minute.
What we agreed on: the family. Patti’s read is the one that stuck. “It’s just such a wonderful encapsulation of a dysfunctional family.” Every role, played out and blatant. The codependent, the peacekeeper, the hero, the scapegoat. Sandy the accountant brother’s love life with a player, and his meltdown when his boyfriend does a reality show, as if this family hasn’t been in the public eye every second of its existence.
And Cam. Cam walks out of rehab, tells everyone “I’m sober now,” and we knew. We all knew. Then comes the urine swap.
I asked the panel if anyone had ever done a urine swap for a drug test. Silence. Ever thought about it? Ever bought fake urine? Just me, then.
Lane took it somewhere real. “That shows how desperate alcoholism is.” The way Cam works his stepbrother, the barbecue invitation, the pressure. “He was so conniving. That I think was a great display of addiction.” Patti: “a total manipulative addict.” Also Patti: “There’s not a trustworthy bone in that man’s body.” Also me: the stepbrother should maybe go to Al-Anon, just saying.
Here’s the line of the night, and it’s mine. You can’t buy sobriety. Doesn’t matter how much money you have. You could maybe buy a pee test, but you can’t buy sobriety. Lane: Hollywood is famous for the expensive rehabs where people come out two days later and get right back in the saddle. You gotta put in the time.
We suspect somebody in that writers’ room has intimate experience with addiction. Patti did a full dive on all three shows and found nothing public. Which proves nothing. Somebody in there gets it.
Chet Hanks, sober on screen and sober IRL, got less face time this season and I missed him. But his love-addicted couple is a spin-off waiting to happen. We have all seen that couple. Many times.
Scores: Lane 3, Patti 3.5, Tamar 3, me 4. I defended my four: they bring addiction, sobriety, alcoholism, all of it, to the surface through a lens of humor, and for those of us who get it, it doesn’t fly over our heads. I’d like to see more of that. Ergo (I just really wanted to use that word), a four. Nobody moved. Panel average: 3.5. I gave it a 5 in my review in April. The panel score is now reflected on that post, and I went and cried a little.
“Your Friends & Neighbors” season two: The Sobees score 4.5
I laughed, I cried, I could not get enough. The cocaine, the ultra wealth, the plots. I hated waiting a week between episodes and I normally like that old-school pace. Not here. I wanted more now.
Lane’s take: ridiculously good. She loved the new guy, James Marsden’s Owen Ashe, and she loved that they brought cocaine in, because she’s the one always asking “God, cocaine is still around?” The loud music, the way he used it and abused it: “I was there for it. That was me.” Lane is an addict. Lane says so.
Then the women. Mel’s rage this season is next level, and if that doesn’t scream perimenopause I don’t know what does. The porta potty scene. The sweat. The gardener fantasy. The neighbor’s dog that keeps coming into the yard, and the neighbor who shrugs: it’s a big dog, it’s gonna go where it’s gonna go. Tamar would be livid too, to be fair. Then Sam comes back into the fold, very manipulative, “I’m gonna help you guys now,” and the friendship dynamics get sharp.
And Ali, Coop’s sister, who I love. Very overtly dealing with mental health struggles, getting out on her own, standing on her own two feet, and still clearly functioning. Patti again on the dysfunctional family: Coop as the hero, Ali as the designated screw-up who can’t do anything right. “If you keep expecting someone to fail, they’re going to fail.”
The scene of all scenes at Ashe’s house. Patti audibly gasped. Lane: “Are you kidding me?” You could see it coming and it still landed. And then the shenanigans, the justifications, the disconnect. We won’t spoil it here. We spoil it entirely on mic.
Jon Hamm, per Patti, is “such a good, solid ballast of holding things just really centered and even.” He reportedly got sober after “Mad Men.” I don’t know if he identifies the way this group does, and I read it on the internet, which means it’s obviously true.
Scores: Lane 5, Patti 4, Tamar 5 (season two better than season one, unlike “Running Point”), me 4.5. Lane tried to file a 4.75. We do fulls and halves. Lane and Tamar went on strike for the rest of the episode. I reminded them I don’t pay any of them. Tamar said she’d get Claude to reach out to me. Panel average: 4.5. I am also now saving up for a fancy toilet.
Other curated articles involving Friends & Neighbors:
- Jon Hamm in “Your Friends & Neighbors” Explains Everything About Your Self-Destructive Patterns
- Chasing Dopamine, Finding Connection: A Sober Take on “Your Friends & Neighbors”
“Imperfect Women”: The Sobees score 3.5
This show is really, really, really, really, really about the performance of life hiding secrets. I have been very good at that in the past. I suspect some of you are equally qualified.
Lane resisted it because she is not a Kerry Washington person (she loved “Scandal,” she can’t explain it), then watched it for Elisabeth Moss and fell in love in the first episode. Tamar binged it in a weekend, everything on hold, and kept looking over at the couch going “Are you kidding me?” Every episode sends you down a different path. That’s why she made us watch it, and that’s why it’s hard to talk about. Which is why you should watch it.
Robert is where the addiction lives, and Lane would let him eat crackers in her bed. High functioning. Tamar’s term: a classy alcoholic. Mine: top shelf. Both Tamar and Patti called it as him from the start and then got swayed and then… well.
Then Mary. Patti liked her least. “She was just a noodle.” “Come on, honey. Grow a backbone.” Lane pushed back with “and,” not “but”: Mary had a wicked addiction running under the radar, and that Lane can identify with. Tamar named the thing: “It’s a prime example of codependency. Somebody trying to always keep the peace, and look how much damage it does to her.”
Patti’s closer, which Tamar flagged as a highlight reel before it was finished: “I can deal with addicts being assholes. I can deal with it. I can relate to it. But when you get a real codependent, I just wanna slap them. Ever so sweetly.”
Me: I binged it, I was annoyed by every character all the way through, and I have a hard time with Elisabeth Moss, which is sad because I loved her in “Mad Men.” She’s got range. She’s very talented. She annoys me. Lane, for the record, to Elisabeth: we love you.
Scores: Lane 3.5, then 3. Patti 4. Tamar 4. Me 3. Panel average: 3.5. And here’s the thing about a 3.5: a low score doesn’t mean don’t watch it. It’s our feelings about it, and a three feeling is a feeling. Lane scores on how the addiction reveals itself. Patti scores on whether she had to watch one more. Rotten Tomatoes gave it 43 percent, so Lane isn’t far off. I gave it a 4 in May, for what it’s worth, and that review is about shame, which is the real villain of the show.
We do have actual Sobees criteria and a form none of us ever use. We’re just not that professional here. You know what we are professional at? Watching TV.
Come watch with us
These are exactly the conversations we have at Backstage with The Sober Curator media nights. Sometimes media days, when we feel like getting together in daylight. Everything through the lens of sobriety. $19 a month, a deal if you pay the year up front, special content, every virtual event, perks.
And just dropped for the six-year anniversary: Sober Snail Mail. The Mixtape. It comes in a cassette tape case (Gen Z, if you made it this far, my hat is off to you) with seven tiny zines inside, all page-turning, all adorable, and a digital B side in a bigger font for those of us in our reader era. Backstage members get it free, you just pay shipping. If you don’t want to be a Backstage member, first of all, that’s weird, but you can subscribe to the Mixtape on its own. It costs more than the membership. Make it make sense.
To my TV Ladies, it is always, always, always my privilege to hang with any of you, and getting all of you in one room to talk about the thing we love most, TV, was the best 40 minutes of my week.
So: which score did we get wrong? Give me the show, the number, and one sentence of evidence. Fulls and halves only. Lane, put the 4.75 down.
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Running Point, Your Friends & Neighbors + Imperfect Women: Sober Scored | The Sober Curator S2 E12
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In the TSC Library, explore book reviews across three standout genres: #QUITLIT, Addiction Fiction, Self-Help, and even NA Recipe Book reviews.
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What is The Mindful Binge?
The Mindful Binge is The Sober Curator‘s TV and film recap format, where sober contributors watch a show and discuss it through the lens of addiction, recovery, and mental health, then score it on The Sobees. It started as a podcast with Alysse Bryson and Lane Kennedy recapping “And Just Like That” season one and now runs as panel episodes of The Sober Curator Podcast and as monthly media nights inside Backstage with The Sober Curator.
What are The Sobees?
The Sobees are The Sober Curator‘s 0-to-5 rating system for books, TV, film, documentaries, and non-alcoholic drinks. Scores are given in full and half points only. A low score is not a “don’t watch”; panelists score on different criteria, from how honestly a show portrays addiction to how compelling it is to binge.
Is Cam actually sober in “Running Point” season two?
No. Cam Gordon (Justin Theroux) leaves rehab early, tells his family he’s sober, and is not. The season includes a falsified drug test and the reveal that he forged his way out of treatment. The Sober Curator panel scored the season a 3.5, and Alysse Bryson’s standalone review gave it a 5, for the way it surfaces addiction through humor without letting the jokes fly past people who have lived it.
Is Jon Hamm sober?
Jon Hamm has publicly discussed treatment for alcohol use in 2015, around the end of “Mad Men.” He has not described his recovery in the terms The Sober Curator community typically uses, and the panel notes that on the episode. His “Your Friends & Neighbors” character, Coop, is not written as sober.
Who is Ashe in “Your Friends & Neighbors” season two?
Owen Ashe, played by James Marsden, is the new neighbor in season two: a charming widower with a sports car and a vague job whose drug use and money drive the season’s biggest turn. The panel gave the season a 4.5, the highest score of the episode, with two panelists calling it better than season one.
Is “Imperfect Women” worth watching?
The Sober Curator panel says yes, even though it scored a 3.5 on The Sobees. The Apple TV limited series (Kerry Washington, Elisabeth Moss, Kate Mara) is a murder mystery about three friends and the secrets they’ve performed around for decades. The panel’s interest is less the whodunit than the show’s portrait of a high-functioning alcoholic and a codependent peacekeeper. Rotten Tomatoes’ critic score is 43 percent.
