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Scribbles About (Ear) Movies: Terrible Parents

So I'm going to do this blog a little differently because I just listened to Part 1 of this movie... and its the best one so far. If this gets made into a movie, I can see this easily becoming one of my favorite movies. This is the best one yet! And I loved Balls Out but this... Might be because its centered around women and I can relate to that because I am a woman. It might be because its just so different... its a gem. And this movie really should be made!

Part 1 

So it starts off with these parents played by June Diane Raphael and Paul Scheer... who are an actual married couple and they are new parents, so I think that adds to the performance. They're also just really good actors in general, so that helps.

June is sort of the star of the movie, she plays Stephanie who is a sweet and loving mother... but she has a competitive side... which will be mentioned later. She and her husband Howie, played by Paul Scheer have this son thats a super genius and he gets into this very high class prestige daycare center called Trailblazers. Howie and Stephanie don't really have the money to send him there, but he gets a scholarship to go there.

Later at a dinner party, Stephanie sees her old high school rival, Lindsay Lipton. Lindsay has twins... one who made it to the school and one who did not... and she thinks Oliver (Stephanie and Howie's son) took the place of her daughter Courtney who did not get in (Kim is the girl that got in.)

Lindsay tries to put an end to their rivalry by inviting Howie and Stephanie over for dinner. Howie and Lindsay's husband Devon become quick friends and end up smoking weed... and then the next day of corse Stephanie suggests Trailblazers does a drug test for the parents. So Devon uses his daughters pee and Howie quickly has to steal pee from the boys room.

And thats how part 1 ends!

Favorite Line: A family called the Flarity's that no one in the school seems to really like, but Oliver starts playing with their son. The Gail Flarity, the mother offers Stephanie a dessert that she brought, which was a plate of pop tarts dipped in Milk, White and Dark Chocolate... this was funny to me. And it continues throughout the movie.

Interesting thing: Stephanie drives the car. Its kind of rare to see the woman driving the car in movies. It kind of shows that Stephanie drives the relationship. Its a good choice to have her in charge.

Part 2 

Part 2 was a little darker. We can kind of see how this is affecting Howie and Stephanie's marriage now and its even jeopardizing the safety of their son.

It starts with Howie successfully getting the pee for the drug test and them being safe in the school... but Lindsay doesn't stop there! She frames Oliver for stealing from the other kids even though Oliver didn't do it. The other parents get mad and they try to vote Oliver out of the school... but they need a unanimous vote and the Flarity's stick behind them.

Howie and Stephanie try to run errands for the other parents and help them out and suck up to them. They're exhausted. There is a cute moment where they fall asleep and Oliver puts the blanket over them.

This honestly wasn't my favorite part of the movie, and I don't really want to go over it the way I did with the first part. You get to know the characters really well here. The friendship between Stephanie and Gail Flarity. This isn't a bad part at all because you do see characters develop, you get to see more of Lindsay's insanity and Stephanie's resentment of her... there are good lines. Its a good part... but usually around the 2nd episode is the least exciting of all. Still as funny and as good, in an actual movie it wouldn't be bad at all... but its hard to explain this part and it isn't totally the best.

Part 3 
This part gets really really dark. This was... crazy. Like if you didn't think Lindsay was intense before... she gets even more intense and wicked in this part! Where to even begin...  You see that she favors Kim over Courtney, She tries to frame Stephanie for kidnapping... she has the kids on vegan diets and is giving them aderoll. She needs to have these kids taken away from her... its pretty terrible.

There is also a bit where Howie gets to meet Helen Mirren and she hits on him but then we find out Lindsay hired her for it and its really funny... theres a lot here and... it seems impossible for it to have a happy ending.

Part 4 

There is a happy ending! Oliver decides he wants to leave Trailblazers and Stephanie and Howie agree its probably best to pull him out... but Stephanie still keeps an eye on Lindsay... who is crazy. There's a great moment where Stephanie speaks Chinese and Ollie understands her because he's been learning Chinese for Trailblazers... which is a pre-school.

There are some great confessions of crazyness with Lindsay and really a great arc for her character and her daughters overall. In Part 3 Lindsay seemed like a monster that there was no way of defeating other than destroying her by burning her at the stake or something... but that didn't happen! I don't want to give away the end at all, but it was great. And no one had to die for it to be great. Lol.

Also in the last part they do an interview with the screenwriter,  Kevin Oeser and he was really funny. He has a weird obsession with Pyramid Schemes apparently... and I totally get that! They're one of those weird things that I find oddly funny and sad too.

So yeah! That was it hope everyone has a great 4th of July! Byeeee!
-Shannon

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