‘Here and Now’ Season 1, Episode 2: Empathy and Fear

In a world where the third season of The Leftovers exists, Here and Now seems particularly redundant. So far this show is like Crash meets The Number 23.

Does anyone know what the closing music track was? That was terrific.

Yet another show on HBO about a self centered couple with self centered kids. Yawn. Pick Up Remote. Change to Netflix.

ms berman's review of the show is spot on. it's a shame such a talented cast is waisted in this effort.

Were it not for the nudity and four-letter words, "Here and Now" could easily pass for a Shonda Rhimes show, where the characters exist to fulfill social/political check points.

"Greg orders his young philosophy students to put away their laptops and smartphones so that he can deliver another deeply pessimistic monologue.". No professor would ever talk to their class the way Robbins does. Especially not in today's academia of student snowflakes. and how do such good actors (Robbins, Hunter pick such awful shows (could it be, as Walter Matheiu explained because "my wife and i have expensive taste")?

I recorded this show on my DVR like I do with most shows. I did not look at the clock once when viewing this show. I'm hooked and loving it.

Author writes "Ashley embraces her natural hair. Sure, why not?". Does this portend that Molly (the character in HBO Series "Insecure") might do the same thing? If affirmative, I too wil follow the 11-11 movement. Whatever that is. LOL

As I was watching Episode 2 I wondered, "is this brilliant? Or trite?" and I'm still not sure. It's weird, but not weird enough to stand on being bizarre. It's poignant, but in a tongue-in-cheek way that betrays its sentiment. I want to love this show, but it keeps leaving frayed edges in it's progressive tapestry. Like the reviewer, I will watch a while longer hoping that the characters gain more depth and lose their cliches.

It's too simplistic to conclude that "Greg’s crisis is about Donald Trump." The self-loathing narcissist in his example may refer to DJT but is also emblematic of a sweeping global trend toward fear, hatred and greed. Greg's admission last week that "We lost" was both specific and general, I believe. This is a philosopher in a state of utter despair and mounting cynicism about the state of the entire world, and of his own life. His long-held truths have let him down. The characters are stand-ins for ideas and types, though, and not fleshed out, as Berman writes. Henry and Ramon (and maybe Shokrani) are the only ones who even marginally hold my interest and sympathy. The others are too self-involved, entitled, cliche, or just irritating for me to care. And I'm not at all sure what Alan Ball is trying to do with them, with his weird mix of ham-fisted didacticism and spooky mysticism. Unless Audrey's mediated school meeting results later in some kind of violent eruption between those two factions, it was laughably facile. "I feel" that the audience is being played. Artists shouldn't necessarily repeat themselves, and there will never be another "Six Feet Under." But I miss that show's subtlety, black humor, and realistically messy relationships. Those characters showed us truths about the human condition without yakking endlessly about it.