Scenes from a Marriage
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Watching this show grows more taxing by the episode.
Jonathan and Miras marriage survived on curated conversation, with Mira keeping especially private.
The end of their marriage is verbose.
Scenes From a Marriageis also becoming its own recap.
Thepremiere episodecaptures Jonathan and Mira as they learn theyre expecting a second child.
Inepisode two, called Poli for her new lover, Mira decides to end their marriage.
The title is apt.
I cried as I watched them wrestle the facts of the years into narratives that help them cope.
Mira and Jonathan take separate exits.
She turns up in full makeup and beautiful clothes, with hair dyed more richly red than it grows.
It looks like a glow up, but shes self-conscious.
They dont know how to touch.
Thats not all thats changed.
Jonathan is updating the living room to suit his new life as a bachelor; Mira sees a downgrade.
Ava likes it, he says.
She likes seeing her grandparents and the sense of belonging.
Mira nearly rolls her eyes.
The shiksa isnt hungry for leftovers, but shell take a glass of wine.
The chasm between them widens even as their bodies keep finding each other.
Suddenly, Jonathan and Mira are hugging, mid-conversation, for no apparent reason.
They dont know how tonottouch.
Eventually, Mira comes clean with why shes called the sit-down.
Yes, thats right.
Shed like her soon-to-be ex-husband and their kid to move to Europe with her and her boyfriend.
Like out loud to another human being.
Jonathan laughs at the audacity.
The conversation bears the hallmarks of their breakup talk.
Jonathan is reluctant to say much at all.
When he brings up divorce, its almost accidental.
Mira, blindsided, wants to know if Jonathans getting remarried, but he just wants finality.
But the coolness shes affecting evaporates when she goes into Jonathans office and finds Ava asleep.
This isnt a one-off her entire bedroom has been relocated.
On the far side of a bookshelf-cum-divider, Mira finds Jonathans bed.
Jonathan and Ava share a room, nestled together in the same office Mira was always threatening to renovate.
The realization is a gut punch.
Mira asks permission to poke around upstairs; before peeking into the office, she didnt bother.
I basically hate Mira, but, man, oh man, is Jessica Chastain incredible at playing her.
Since entering the house, shes been variously uneasy, brazen, philosophical, and, now, timid.
What did Mira think was going to happen?
Instead, Jonathan and Avas world seems to have collapsed into the vacated space.
She has another glass of wine and another; she unzips her knee-high boots.
But Mira cant yield to the anguish of the moment.
She pivots to the script that helps her make sense of the end of her long marriage.
Now, she lives in a high-rise, impersonally furnished.
By her logic, its a sad metaphor, but Mira claims shes liberated.
Theres no place in the world that would make me feel secure, she says.
The liberation she feels is the freedom to stop searching for what doesnt exist.
Jonathan thinks shes diminishing what they had as a defense mechanism; shes upset hes pathologizing her insights.
But when he brings up his own healing seeing a therapist, writing morning pages Mira actually yawns.
Then she has the nerve to beg him to read the morning papers to her aloud.
Mira was his miracle, but looking back, he sees he was never fully present.
Hes not just the rubble.
He made the wreckage, too.
Mira comes over and kisses him.
But Jon pumps the brakes as they round first base.
Mira, fickle and demanding, needs to hear why.
One advantage of the seriess grazing plotlessness is that theres no important action to get to, no rushing.
The characters speak at length with excruciating exactitude.
When Mira left, Jonathan wanted her to die.
Progress has been glacial.
If he sleeps with Mira now, the clock resets.
Have I conveyed my dislike for Mira?
He stops her again and somehow ends up the one saying sorry.
LEAVE US ALONE, MIRA.
Jonathan technically says no with his mouth but invites her to stay the night.
Its genuinely distracting to me how cavalier they are about her sleep.
There are lights on and theyre talking.
Jonathan decides to conspicuously break up with her.
Mira listens, grimaces, gets out of bed, and goes into the kitchen.
Critically, she brings her pretty clothes with her.
Maybe theres even something unattractive to her about how easily he gives up Laura just to sleep beside her.
Mira worries aloud that theres something fucked up with her, and I believe that is a valid concern.
Jonathan has secrets, too.
He pulls out his phone and plays Mira a voicemail that Poli left for him earlier in the day.
Poli doesnt give Mira up, but hes clear that he wont fight to keep her.
Its humiliating for Mira, and its a power-play from Jonathan.
Avas presence shatters the nights boundaryless quality.
But their 5-year-old daughter isnt even sure who belongs in what house.
We dont know what happens next.
The episode ends with Mira eavesdropping again, this time on her husband singing their daughter to sleep.
It might be the last time shes ever in the house to hear it.
This series is so good at physical objects.
Avas sound machine bounces between bedrooms; they almost have sex on the ugly new carpet.
Jonathan needs a cigarette, which is more or less the opposite.
Once upon a time, Jon couldnt breathe.
We can choke on the things we love.
The things we love can be very dangerous.
