I know I’ve been slamming Oprah in these recaps and I’m realizing now that perhaps I should have mentioned why: 20 years ago, Oprah hit my mother with a Marshall Fields truck and drove away laughing.
Okay, that never happened. But I kind of wish it had because a) what a fabulous story that would be, provided my mother was all right and happily receiving big ol’ Harpo checks and b) this is actually to the point—whenever O broke got at all smug, I could lean over to her and say, “Marshall Fields, bitch. Marshall Fields.” The smuggery would cease and her input would perhaps contain a little more humility and a lot more honesty.
Oprah Not Keeping Dina Accountable
But I wasn’t there to whisper in O’s shell-like ear during her brief patty-cake of an interview with Dina Lohan during episode 4 of Lindsay.
Oprah: “What did you feel, as a mother?”
Dina pulled the old Mama Rose publicity move of claiming that she never wanted her child to be a star—she just wanted (sob) to hold her family together. Right. So sling some hash, sunshine. But Oprah just did her doe-eyed sighs and never mentioned Dina’s own issues or said a word about her recent DUI that had been splashed all over the tabloids.
Yet the episode went up from there. There were actual events external to the production team’s manipulations. And you could see the difference in Lindsay Lohan when she wasn’t with someone being paid to kowtow to her, ply their wares or suck a little self-gratification from any passing fame-teat. When with someone seemingly agenda-less, Lohan’s flustered, defensive and demanding arguments ceased and she actually seemed to relax into herself a little bit. Yep, surprised me, too.
Getting out of Her Head
As Lindsay’s soon-departing sober coach Michael Cormier noted, “Addiction is a very self-centered disease.” Addicts’ minds, he says, are always asking, “Am I comfortable? Am I comfortable? Am I comfortable now?” As he spoke, we saw Lindsay doing community service, working with marginalized and poor school children; she seemed relaxed and loving and utterly unselfconscious. “A really good way to combat negative feelings of self worth is to participate in esteemable acts. It is a staple of the program.” We see Lindsay and the children draw outlines of their bodies on big sheets of paper and then dress them; Lindsay’s outline was shaky and amorphous but the kids began to fill it in. It was kind of moving.
Then Lindsay appeared on the Jimmy Fallon show to do a rather silly sketch. JF seemed to have no agenda other than to help her out, give her a gig. In short, all was well until…oh Lord, can I even type it? Until…
Lindsay’s veneers fell out.
No One to Intervene
We’re told at first this is a “dental emergency” but then discover it’s veneers. And I wanted the sober coach there, in the dentist’s office, because things got weird fast. One minute Lindsay was saying that all the veneer needed was to be cemented on and then she said she’d need sedation. I was waiting for someone to call foul but that’s what she got: Valium. Fentanyl, Propofyl. What!? The dentist knew she was an addict but “most of these medications are gone in a day or a couple of days.” The filmmakers even asked Lindsay if she worried about sedatives and her addiction. “No, because it wears off.” So does vodka, people! That’s why drunks reapply as needed!
So the girl’s about to lose her sober coach, she’s trying to get work but still doesn’t seem able to acknowledge how her actions have made that kind of tough and oh boy, that AJ the Celebrity Coach has come crazy intense eyes. In next week’s previews, we see more stuff from storage arriving at Lindsay’s apartment in a big dirty truck. I wonder who’s driving?
By Rafael Amado Deras (Flickr: Actress Lindsay Lohan) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons (resized and cropped)
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