Now that the season’s over,
Enlightened reminds me of a ‘50s Rossellini picture, with Laura Dern in the Ingrid Bergman role being driven crazy by the ugly truth of modernity. That process cutaway in “Comrades Unite!” is as haunting as Rossellini’s overpowering factories, Dern and Bergman playing silent witness to a train they couldn’t stop if they tried. Maybe that’s why Damon’s condescending “Let’s not get crazy” in the season finale “Burn it Down” filled me with more rage than Lowe's Hardware. Mike White’s writing, as always, finds the precise expression of a character’s personality, here letting Damon seem to be reasonable, try to assert some scenario wherein he’s the calm good guy, and condescend to his target with the perfect little callback to that other time she “got crazy” in front of all those Abaddonn execs. But it’s not just that little dagger that provokes, but the history of men marginalizing women and then calling them crazy for responding the way any rational person would. It’s a quick semantic hop from Damon’s shit-eating smirk to Ingrid Bergman staring out the sanitarium window. As Amy points out early in the season, she got demoted and he got nothing. What’s the difference between Amy’s selfishness and Damon’s? Hers has a smaller blast radius. And at least she sees room for growth.
