Donna and change
I've seen a lot of pitchfork and torches concerning Donna's arc and I want to chat about it....
I think the show isn’t asking has donna earned forgiveness or redemption, it’s asking can a person who has caused profound harm become honest abou ti? Which are different questions. Donna’s arc in season 4 and especially in her conversation with her children doesn’t erase decades of emotional abuse. Her children still carry the consequences.
Carmy has panic attacks, Natalie lives in a constant state of hypervigilance, mikey’s dead, and Richie, even though he’s not her bio child was shaped by that chaotic family system as well. The trauma remains.
I think what does change Is Donna. I think for the first time, she stops defending herself. People with severe emotional dysregulation, whether related to a borderline personality disorder, substance use, trauma etc often spend years trapped in shame. Shame can paradoxically make accountability harder because admitting wrongdoing feels mentally traumatic and impossible. Instead, people rationalize, deny, blame, or make themselves the victim. Which, if you’ve watched since fishes…classic Donna.
As the show progresses, Donna starts to do something that is very difficult. She starts to tolerate the shame. She acknowledges that she hurt her children without demanding that they make her feel better, which is a significant shift in the stages of change. If we remember season 4 where she apologized for the harm she caused Carmen. The silence between them was proof of that change. If we compare it to the fishes episode where she was blaming and accusing Carmy of not loving her etc.
I’ve worked with a lot of people in recovery. I’ve worked with a lot of donnas and even adult children of someone like donna. Recovery is measured by whether the person has accepted responsibility with excuses. Allowed other people to be angry. Respected boundaries. Grieved the harm they had caused. Chose different behaviors moving forward.
Those are simply the markers of change, not proof that damage is undone.
We extend grace to Carmy because we’ve watched his internal suffering. We know why he shuts people out. We understand his anxiety. His perfectionism. His trauma. Yet Carmy also hurt people repeatedly.
So, the same question would apply: does Carmy deserve redemption? I mean the answer is obvious but it’s easier to say yes because carmy’s pain is witnessed from the inside while we’ve mostly experienced Donna through her children’s perspective. Empathy naturally follows pov. We get Carmy’s nervous system because the camera lives with him. We don’t spend nearly as much time inside Donna’s head.
That doesn’t mean Donna deserves automatic forgiveness. Forgiveness belongs entirely to her children, and they may never choose it. Reconciliation isn’t owed to someone simply because they’ve changed. But redemption, in the moral sense, isn’t something another person grants. It’s something a person pursues through sustained accountability.
That’s why I don’t see Donna as redeemed, so much as beginning redemption. She’s finlally walking the path rather than asking everyone else to pretend nothing happened.
I think the bear has resisted simplistic, moral categories. It doesn’t divide characters into good or bad people instead, it asks how trauma moves through families. Donna passed her pain to her children. Carmy, in turn, begins passing his pain to the people who love and work with him. The cycle only breaks when someone becomes willing to look honestly at themselves.
Donna starts doing that and Carmy is learning to do that. Neither one of them is finished. This seems more about accountability, which is where real healing begins.
Put what I was thinking perfectly - and as someone with some understanding of this and family dynamics personally. But found it difficult to talk about as I know this topic can hit people on a personal level, and there can be strong feelings about what to do in these circumstances. Being happy that Nat and Carmy have achieved a level of peace and can be around Donna briefly, does not mean absolving her of all she has done, or that everyone has magically healed (or ever fully will).But it’s also ok to acknowledge it as good, that there has been some progress, if not for Donna if you don’t care for her at all, then for Carmy and Nat.
If you’ve been hurt, you’ve most likely hurt someone in that past, to varying degrees-knowingly or not. If someone can have some accountability for causing that hurt and willingness to move forward, I think that’s worth something.
It’s very valid to enjoy this breakthrough in their relationship with their mother, for Nat and Carmy, if it helps their peace of mind and ability to move forward healthily. If having some connection with, or ability to be around Donna, without it being a mess, is a step forward for them mentally.
No that doesn’t mean everything is forgiven, or that Donna might not mess up again in future (like all human beings), they have every right to still be a little wary of her (as the show showed they still are, in Carmy and Nat’s sibling talk in the office) , but they also don’t need to be weighed down by the expectation to totally cut someone out, who does mean something to them. They can take her on the terms thy choose.
I think a lot of the, ‘it’s a betrayal against themselves if they left Donna in at all’ take , comes from ‘cut off culture’ that was popularized in the last decade or so. A friend offends you, an acquaintance, cut them off and never talk to them again. I totally get that is valid where it’s deserved, if there’s mistreatment, and from someone not changing or willing to see what they’ve done and the harm it’s caused.
That cut off approach on the extreme end however - the people touting that, didn’t talk about the downsides - how lonely it quickly can get, if a person cuts off everyone who upsets and disappoints them. I think it has something to do with the loneliness epidemic today.
If it someone that means something to you, maybe that disagreement might be resolved by bringing it up with them first, trying to talk about it? Remembering you ALSO mess up sometimes, and like you would want forgiveness (if earned), maybe sometimes you can extend it (if earned).
Again this is not to say Donna is perfect and redeemed and her children must forgive everything she did - and I don’t get that from the show’s ending. Just that she and the kids are in a slightly healthier space, where they can breathe around each other easier, and coexist briefly. And it’s actually better for them all mentally, than having this ‘no go’ black hole in their lives when they had no connection, that loomed in the background.
Having been there with family stuff, even when some has ‘wronged’ you (typical deadbeat-ery stuff lol, alongside related things) it can get to a point where where hanging onto anger about it, and determining to keep a person ‘cut out’ can be more stressful and impede your own personal growth, than accepting things as they are. - That yes they wronged you, but (often as you get older and hear other narratives you realize) they also had their own problems, are imperfect like everyone else, and do love you despite their flaws and issues.
Doesn’t mean you forgive all the wronging, but you don’t need it to let it take up so much of your mental space, It’s actually kind of freeing to let it go. This is not to say that person needs to be in your life, or there aren’t valid reasons sometimes to remove a person from your life - of course there are. But cutting people out is also not automatically the answer in every situation either.
Nat and Carmy now have a sense of control over things, now Donna is not a scary ever-present yet also background thing, but something they can navigate, on their terms. Where they take her for where she is, and can choose to engage as little or as much (or never again if needed) as they feel comfortable with.
