"Murphy Brown" attacks the # MeToo movement and falls away – Variety

After more than 20 years of absence, "Murphy Brown" had to justify her relaunched existence in 2018. Murphy (Candice Bergen) has to face the wild world of cable news 24 hours a day, while her son (Jake McDorman) is trying to break through his conservative Fox News fax network with the power of reason (good luck, buddy). And as a creator and showrunner Diane English said, the goal of the restart is to stay as fast as the initial race was, being as close as possible to real world events.

It was only a matter of time before the new "Murphy Brown" came up against the new chaotic reality of the #MeToo movement, which proved to be one of the most enduring centers of cultural tension. the most consistent of this generation. "Murphy Brown" has always been known to tackle problems head-on, especially from the perspective of a resolutely feminist career woman. he should to be a perfect fit for this particular subject. But the resulting episode – literally called "#MurphyToo" – ends up giving the impression of working through a checklist rather than revealing much of any new idea.

Related

The episode again throws Murphy into her memories, where she has long had a traumatic experience with a teacher who stuck her at the age of 19. "I put it in a drawer at the back of my brain and moved on to something else," she tells her son. "That's what we did at that time; It was a different time. While Murphy struggled to reconcile this experience with the narrative that she always told herself to go beyond, he was a famous figure who had helped her in her career. It's a naive girl who unintentionally led her – her male colleagues find it hard to understand how to act with women in the workplace, now that they can be held responsible for moving away from the workplace. course of action.

If it seems like a lot for a sitcom of a broadcast network to run in 22 minutes or less, well, that's the case. "#MurphyToo" attempts to treat many different facets of #MeToo – the lasting effects of trauma, the survival instinct to bury it, the generational gap of opinion, and so on. – which only manifests itself sporadically.

The worst of the episode belongs to Murphy's colleagues, whose unenthusiastic stories B and C try to give lightness without too much light. Frank Gruff (Joe Regalbuto) becomes a willing guinea pig for their millennial resident (Nik Dodani), who thinks he has developed an app that will literally stop people when they cross an inappropriate line. But he quickly loses patience because the application starts to buzz, even if thinking about watching a woman with less pure intention. From there, the conclusion that Y-generation kids are just too sensitive to all this cumbersome stuff of sexual harassment is just a leap. Miles (Grant Shaud), nervous, fears that his romantic interest in a subordinate worker may be inappropriate (well!), Then sighs with relief once she leaves the company and he can invite her safely (uncomfortable!).

Neither scenario contributes much more than Miles and Grant to demonstrate that they do not understand this culture change. Neither of them learn anything at the end, even though their colleague Corky (Faith Ford) provides a constant stream of anecdotes about sexual harassment throughout her career (which is her only contribution to the episode). While sexual harassment is difficult to find, relegating it to such a far-fetched level ends up feeling too scattered and deaf to the point of never landing.

The episode is more successful with Murphy's screenplay, but he only has enough time and space to explore the consequences of his return from trauma – a dilemma that the scenario tries to solve by not taking there are discussion points that have become too familiar. Murphy thinks his teacher lands "somewhere between Harvey Weinstein and the guy in the subway with mirrors on his shoes" on the scale of the harassment. Tyne Daly, Murphy's bartender friend, tells her that "at the time, it was not sexual harassment, it was a bad date" – which, judging by some of the reactions elicited by the many cases of last year, t a point of view as outdated as that of "Murphy Brown".

A few minutes later, Murphy joins the house in which the teacher assaulted her to confront him. The power of this scene is already diminished by the assiduous attempts of the episode to review as many discussion topics as possible. The happy ending of Murphy, who stole the collegiate prize she won the night of the assault, ends up feeling more shocking than triumphant.

But this unsatisfactory end, intentional or not, is the strongest part of the episode per thousand. Murphy did not return to see her attacker because she wanted this trophy (though, as she admits in one of the best online readings of the Bergen episode, she "The loves Price! ") No: While she's telling him in the face with palpable frustration, all that Murphy wants is" the truth and excuses ".

This is what so many people who have spoken out against the attackers have come back to many times: the simple recognition that it happened and the willingness to admit that it was wrong. That Murphy never gets one of the two is the most realistic and revealing of the episode.