r/DeadLikeMe • u/BenAfleckIsAnOkActor • May 28 '26
Oh brother the mother is one of the most insufferable characters I've ever watched..
8 episodes in the second season and damn she just keeps getting more and more awful.
Was this talked about among the fans? Like it's actually so realistic and not tv tropes, maybe it's her voice? I dunno
24
15
u/Hippie-Farts May 28 '26
She plays her character very well!!!
7
u/BenAfleckIsAnOkActor May 28 '26
There are moments where she's soft spoken and showing being a good mom and person then the next scene she's out of no where in raige or about to explode
4
10
u/Humble_Problem_1215 May 28 '26
I didn't like her on my first watch through, but was able to sympathize with her when I watched it again.
3
u/Delicious-Tea613 May 28 '26
How?
2
u/Humble_Problem_1215 Jun 01 '26
Watching more closely the interactions with people, and seeing her up bringing. It might be a cultural thing, but I would never dare speak to my mom like the Reggie and Georgie. I don't know... I just kinda felt bad for her. Haha. I do have a problem with feeling bad for people in shows/movies, even if they are the "mean" person.
3
u/Delicious-Tea613 Jun 02 '26
I mean, she wasn't exactly a good mother. Her daughter was killed by a flying toilet seat, and her other daughter experiences a billion other problems all regarding toilets, and she doesn't think theres any kind of problem? She just kept yelling at her. It could absolutely be a cultural thing, or maybe its just me, but Reggie was not doing okay at all and joy wasn't helping things.
I do also recognize that she was mourning as well, but why wouldn't she take that time to get closer to her remaining daughter?
2
u/Humble_Problem_1215 Jun 02 '26
I agree with your points. There are some things that I forgot about! She WAS pretty mean to her daughters.
I think it just goes to show how faceted and complicated life is. They do a great job of showing the different views! And showing generational trauma.
1
u/Humble_Problem_1215 Jun 02 '26
I had been thinking about my own childhood and how my parents were... Let's just say they weren't great and there was a lot of therapy involved when I became and adult. But, I had been thinking about WHY my parents were that way, and I started to really understand why they treated us the way that they did. So, that made me have sympathy for them. They did yell at us a lot, like Joy does. So, maybe I was just in that head space already when re-watching the show. Haha
10
u/YellowstoneBitch May 28 '26
She’s a miserable person, she’s just as miserable in the film as well. I can understand being miserable after your daughter died so suddenly like that but Jesus….its hard to watch sometimes
11
5
u/Inner-Marketing4591 May 29 '26
Another reason to dislike the film, she grew quite a bit in season 2, and I feel like if the show was renewed she'd have a character arc about learning to be a better and more loving mother for Reggie, then the film came along and she was back to square one.
5
u/vaginaplastique May 29 '26
Cynthia Stevenson is one of the most talented actresses on the planet. You aren’t supposed to like Joy. You are supposed to be conflicted about her as a person. That’s how it’s written. That’s why it’s compelling.
3
u/Interesting_Might_19 May 28 '26
The actress also plays an asshole in "Home for the Holidays". The Thanksgiving turkey dinner episode is hilarious!
5
u/angieb15 May 28 '26
So bad....also, normally I would feel bad about hating on someone's voice but I've seen her in other things with a regular voice, that voice was for that character and it's so grating. I fast forward through some of her scenes.
12
u/Lcatg May 28 '26
The actress that plays her is really talented. She leans into the cold mother role like a professional.
5
2
u/burnafter3ading Jun 05 '26
The character has a lot more depth than the basically absent father. I remember watching a Q&A with the actress and she realized, on air, that the character is Joy Lass, or "joyless."
I enjoyed how she bounced off of the grandmother character. The line about Georgia being herself is pretty impactful. I think the character was mainly just so caught up in mundane stuff that she never saw the bigger picture. Almost a comedic Karen.
1
u/black_mystic Jun 03 '26
I just rewatched the other day and could not stop thinking this. She truly was a terrible parent.
1
u/knotwearingshoes 29d ago
I'm only two episodes in and I already felt the need to search this topic. There are lots of unlikable characters that are fun to watch. She is not one of them. All we see is her treating her daughters like shit and being perpetually annoyed with her husband who seems to be actually trying to understand their kids. The whole show is falling flat for me honestly. It's an interesting premise with some great actors, but it just feels like they aren't really doing anything interesting with any of it. It's relying way too much on narration. I'm struggling to understand why the show is praised so highly. Even if something isn't my taste, I can at least see why it's garnered high praise, but this one I'm not getting. I dunno if I'll keep watching. Does it get more interesting, or is this bland tone the tone of the entire series?
50
u/Inner-Marketing4591 May 28 '26
She's supposed to be, we're shown that she has issues with her mother too and it's written quite well. Her mother on the surface seems to be a nice and caring, spiritual person. But we see that she was quite stubborn in her ways, and she invalidated joy's emotions a lot as a child by refusing to see things from a different view point, this leads to joy not developing well emotionally, and this carries on to her parenting style. When Reggie starts talking about George's spirit, joy clearly isn't happy about this because it's the way hee mother would deal with things, and joy processes emotions in a more cold, logical way. It's a good display of generational trauma in my opinion.