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Post by genna on Jan 10, 2008 5:41:22 GMT 10
I agree- as much as it was courageous the way they messed with Abby's character, the proof of the pudding will be the way they bring her back again. Abby has been my favourite character since she came in and I miss the way she was before. Plleeease don't let tptb ruin her like they ruined carter, romano, practically every other long-term character. I mean they redeemed Luka after his drinking/prostitute days so there's hope!
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Post by mrseyre on Jan 10, 2008 7:40:14 GMT 10
That promo is really cheesetastic. I'd like to send a big F.U. out to the promo monkeys for showing us the Moretti scene yet AGAIN. As much we would all like to, I highly doubt that anyone is going to forget Abby and Moretti had sex. Thanks for ruining my lunch. I really haven't liked Abby very much this season. It seems like every episode we get to see the absolute worst of her character and none of the good things. She's really pissed me off a lot and I really hate what she's done to Luka. Hopefully this episode will put an end to that crappy Abby and we can see her start to be strong again. I just want Abby and Luka to forgive each other and begin again. For me the worst thing " ... she's done to Luka" isn't the drinking or the sleeping with Moretti or even allowing herself to forget her obligations to Joe; it's forgetting her obligations to give Luka the support she's expected him to give to her, right from when she was pregnant (anyone else remember the look on his face when she said " ... it feels like 60/40"?) to now. It's pulling crap like "You being there didn't make any difference to the prognosis or the course of the illness" and "why do you do that?" out of her rear and it's trying to blame a man who doesn't need any help in the self blame stakes. What I hope for more than anything else is unequivocal clarity on that front from her.
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Post by andrejia on Jan 10, 2008 8:03:17 GMT 10
Well...I've sort of seen it coming...the "Do you still love me part". Sort of. So that's the part she needs to work on. Make him feel loved again, needed.
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jen
Luby Lover
the only thing better than hairspray
Posts: 65
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Post by jen on Jan 10, 2008 8:33:24 GMT 10
I totally agree with you, mrseyre.
She's made this all about her and she hasn't shown Luka any real support. This has been a tough time for him as well.
She's just got alot to make up for.
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Jill
Lady of Luby
Posts: 119
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Post by Jill on Jan 10, 2008 9:33:54 GMT 10
I completely agree that Abby has made this about her and has disregarded Luka in the mean time. I did find it pathetic that Luka even had to ask her if she still loves him. Sad.
Looking back over this season I haven't liked Abby one bit. And as far as redeeming Abby well I really don't have alot of faith in the writers at this point.
Oh and about the need to show us the Abby and Moretti scene again. They can stop now. Believe me it's not something that you can forget. Unfortunately.
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Post by hinkydoodle on Jan 10, 2008 10:21:16 GMT 10
I don't think Abby was totally in the wrong.
Luka was gone a long time, probably too long, obviously too long for Abby. She held things together for months before she broke down and started drinking again. It wasn't until Joe's accident that she sort of snapped.
Just like people think there are limits to what Luka should have to put up with Abby (and there are definitely limits), there are limits to what Abby should have to deal with from Luka as well. Six months is obviously out of her threshold for coping, and I think it would be for a lot of people in a stressful situation.
And Luka didn't help anything by brining his brother home with him when he did finally come home.
They were both wrong and they both messed up their relationship.
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Post by andrejia on Jan 10, 2008 17:09:51 GMT 10
They were both wrong and they both messed up their relationship. Yes, but in different ways, with completely different outcomes. I agree he was wrong staying away for this long, but in a way you're saying that she was entitled to drink because of the stress, and that's not so ok.
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Post by hinkydoodle on Jan 10, 2008 17:44:18 GMT 10
That's not what I am saying at all. Neither one was giving the other anything.
Abby wasn't being supportive of Luka and the hard time he was having with his dad being sick and Luka, based on everything we saw in the episodes, didn't seem to have any understanding that this was an awful lot at ask of Abby.
He started off being gone two weeks and it turned into months and then more months. He wasn't supporting her any more than she was supporting him.
It goes both ways.
The fact that Abby is an addict just makes the situation more difficult. She has, every single day of her life, to make the choice not to drink. Some days can be harder than others. That's a given. That's the life of an addict. She stopped thinking of herself that way and Luka never thought of her that way. So she drank again and made problems worse than they might have been if she was sober.
When you have an addiction and you are using, everything, absolutely everything, is less important than feeding your addiction. Abby showed us that clearly. She wasn't thinking of Luka, Joe, her patients, her career or anything else when she wanted a drink. She didn't think about the repercussions either. It was all about sneaking drinks at Neela's, hiding it in coke cans and in soap bottles and leaving work early to go get wasted.
Until 300 Patients, neither Luka or Abby seemed to buy a clue that they had both screwed up. Neither one was putting anything into their marriage. They were putting their energy elsewhere. Luka with his father and brother. Abby with her drinking.
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Post by larue on Jan 10, 2008 19:31:53 GMT 10
Until 300 Patients, neither Luka or Abby seemed to buy a clue that they had both screwed up. Neither one was putting anything into their marriage. They were putting their energy elsewhere. Luka with his father and brother. Abby with her drinking.
Oh so true....but I don't think the drinking would have been an issue if HE would have been there is some way. Luka was totally clueless. He wasn't thinking that his time away was having any affect. He trusted Abby to handle everything on her own and why wouldn't he? Abby wasn't exactly forthcoming with how his absence was affectig her. I wonder what he would have done if she had of said 'Come home because I am losing it....' after Joe's accident. She was clearly asking him - in an Abby way - for support. He didn't buy it. He doesn't know her as well as he thought. But I am not buying the need for her to have dragging through the mud remorse. Yes she is an alcoholic but how long has she been on the wagon?? She was drinking in season 8 (?) with Carter???That's YEARS of making the right choice....being a good doctor, wife and mother. She needs to see that as well as her relapse.
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Post by mrseyre on Jan 10, 2008 19:35:34 GMT 10
But that's the sticking point for me; Abby's addiction is Abby's responsibility. She knows her triggers and she is responsible for recognising when she is at risk and doing something about it. At no time did she appear to do this or to spell out to Luka the seriousness of the situation. Having taken that first drink she not only lied to him she then BS'd Coburn and later lied to her too.
No-one is saying that she wasn't perfectly entitled to feel hacked off at the situation but the choice to drink and then to carry on drinking was hers; and everything else followed from that - the poor performance at work, the insults to her friends, the sleeping with Moretti, the further endangerment of Joe.
Niko seems to me to be neither here nor there. Had I had the sense that Abby was just desperate to tell Luka what had been happening then maybe, but up to the point that Luka showed up she was saying it would all be OK once he got back. Obviously that was never going to be the case and is another example of how Abby's relationship with her addiction was fundamentally dishonest. And in fact, far from trying to talk to Luka she avoided him, lashed out at him, transferred blame - all of which are about the addiction, not about what Luka might or might not have done.
As for support being two way - up to this point I don't think Luka can be faulted for his support of her - in fact he's been criticised for letting her have the whip hand in many instances. He's bitten his tongue more than once and taken her often cutting comments - as in "Graduation Day" - without hitting back. But the fact remains that without getting her recovery in order there would always be something that would have triggered this, and always someone else to blame.
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Post by hinkydoodle on Jan 10, 2008 19:52:35 GMT 10
Luka married an addict. Abby should have made sure he understood that but he still willingly and knowing married someone with an addiction. If marriage is about sharing your life, then he shares her addiction to a degree. He shares it by being part of her support structure to stay sober. If he doesn't he becomes the enabler and his saying "You're better now" in regards to her drinking does just that. It feeds Abby's idea that she's "not that kind of alcoholic" and doesn't need to work the program.
And Luka does have blame this past season where support is concerned. Support isn't giving Abby her way, which he does a lot and has done that many times in the past. He wasn't phycially available to her for half a year. Or emotionally if he didn't think this separation affected her. And wasn't there financially either with not working all that time. That's three different types of support Abby had form him that were suddenly gone and for amounts of time that got longer and longer.
Abby didn't speak up about this. She internalized it like Abby always does. She didn't tell Luka she was drinking because that's what alcoholics do, they hide it. They live in denial about how serious it is. ANd she kept the rest of her anger about various things bottled up and lashed out once in a while. Like Niko...she waited until she couldn't stand it then blew up at work about it. Same with the finances. She waited to bring it up until Luka was hounding her about something else.
Abby doesn't communicate her feelings. Luka only sees what he wants to see. And neither one was there for the other all season.
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Post by andrejia on Jan 10, 2008 20:10:40 GMT 10
You give good arguments for both but I'm still not sure who it is that you blame more. The fact is, Abby pretty much destroyed everything they had. And it's not only about Luka's vision of Abby is about her own image of herself. The truth is, she didn't see herself as an addict anymore. Yes, she reminded him that she's a drunk in S13 but I think that was more because she was angry about the way he was managing that case. It was clear from her talk to Coburn that she thought it was just a little slip and she doesn't think she's an addict. Janet asked her whether she's an alcoholic or not and her answer was ambiguous. So how could she prepare Luka for something like this if she didn't think it was a problem any longer?
His "You used to have a problem, you're better now" is exactly how she saw herself, these past few (2 maybe) years. He was oblivious to her drinking but it's only because she allowed him to be. So what? Was he supposed to guess what was going on? Until the very end, he blamed himself for leaving, thinking that his absence made her forget about him and...stop loving him.
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Post by hinkydoodle on Jan 10, 2008 20:30:32 GMT 10
I blame them both equally.
Take away Abby's drinking and their marriage problems don't just go away.
All her being sober will do is let them work on the problems they have.
As for preparing Luka for what it means, read him the definition of addiction and addict. He should know them, being a doctor who treats junkies all the time. It's a cycle of sobriety, struggle for sobriety and losing sobriety. She was sober when she met him, wasn't in season 8/9 when they were friends, became sober again until season 14. She may stay sober for a few years. Maybe she'll find more times she has to struggle. Maybe she'll fall off the wagon again. She probably will. It happens. That's what it means to be an addict and as her husband, Luka needs to know that.
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Post by andrejia on Jan 10, 2008 20:49:51 GMT 10
Take away Abby's drinking and their marriage problems don't just go away. . I'm sorry...I have to disagree here. Without her drinking... that leaves what? An angry wife because her husband stayed away for too long. Maybe a big fight and that's pretty much it. His father died. It was expected but he is still dead. So...did we ever heard one word of empathy from Abby? A simple "I'm sorry about your dad?" Pratt said it, so did Neela. She was too lost in her world to care about this. He was lost in his own world too, but he did care. He only did what he always does: gave her time to come clean with everything herself. Not once until 300 patients did he confront her. He waited patiently and when his time was up, he finally said what was on his mind. Luka always had a problem with not feeling wanted, needed and loved (the talk with the hooker in S9...anyone? "They would only tolerate me"). She practically fed all his insecurities and made him feel responsible for everything. So...he lost everything again. His father and his wife just because, for the first time in the show, he actually was happy and trusted her too much. And isn't marriage or any other relationship about trust? Was he that wrong when he thought she's strong enough to take care of things? I honestly don't think so.
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Post by mrseyre on Jan 10, 2008 21:01:53 GMT 10
Absolutely. Luka can only share what she's willing to share with him. She has to be responsible for defining that, and in order to do that she has to have a clear grasp on her addiction. None of the above has happened.
I don't think it's true to say Luka sees what he wants to see; he saw pretty quickly that something was amiss, and I don't think it's fair to characterise his attempts to get her to spit out what's wrong as hounding her. Before she mentioned money to Luka in the street she'd never mentioned it before; I take it to be another smokescreen to deflect attention from the real issue which is her drinking.
Shit happens; being an addict is no excuse for not dealing with it. POd because your husband has allowed himself to get drawn into a situation at home? Tell him so. Problems with money? Tell him so. Afraid of what you'll do becaue of the pressure? Tell him so. Frightened because you've fallen off the wagon? Tell him so and don't blow your sponsor off. The addiction explains what she's done, but it doesn't excuse it.
Amen. Abby's abandonment issues attract a lot of sympathy but look how quickly Luka lost all confidence in his place in her affections and then she actually says "How can you even ask me that?" Duh.
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