Spam's dad

that elderly man going to the ER because samira is a friend to him. the obese man who lives alone tearing up at genuine human kindness and acceptance. digby being someone who can mourn louie when he seemed so alone. the hospice patient being able to relax once her parents show up. the college student’s parents being able to accept help from someone that looks like them who’s gone through the same thing.

they keep reiterating how you can’t get through things alone. the jewish community needs muslims, the doctors need pharmacists, dana needs robby. there’s all these macro and micro interactions that enforce this thesis. there are cultural, structural, professional, communal, and interpersonal vectors of support that are so necessary.

i know people like to belittle robby’s importance to the show/other characters but like….what do you think that last shot was about? where it’s dana and robby wondering how they’ll get through this? they’re leaning on each other. robby needs dana too, they’re long time coworkers who have developed a friendship.

To be fair, a lot of the joking I see surrounding her character seems playful and in good fun, but I think it's important to look at the historical context surrounding her choice to have an affair with Sammie.

Women during this time period often did not marry for love. Marrying for love, in fact, was a privilege. This goes triple for Black women. In Hurston's book, the protagonist is first married off to an old man when she is still just a child. Her grandmother made the decision for her, which, of course, is awful, but her grandmother comes from a background of *slavery* and her own daughter was conceived from rape at the hands of the slave owner. Despite escaping slavery *with* said daughter, the daughter is not able to escape rape either, as it happens to her when she goes to school. The protagonist, herself, was conceived from from rape. Because the grandmother doesn't expect to live much longer, she gives her granddaughter away to someone who she thinks can take care of her and protect her.

The protagonist later runs away with another older man who is able to provide for her, but also wishes to control her. She doesn't have a good quality of life despite being more well off than others. When he dies, she marries a much younger man (she's near 40 and he's 25) who is flawed but who she actually likes and who actually excites her.

I can only assume that Pearline very well could likely be in a similar position. She's young and pretty, but likely was not motivated by love when she married. She was likely motivated by *necessity* and *security.* Perhaps her husband was also a much older man who failed to excite her.

so of course every snake that has the instinct to warn humans of its presence gets killed, and only the snakes that bite first and dont make themselves known get to survive. a human who's been bitten is too worried about his swelling ankle to decapitate a snake with a shovel.