TG E

Spoiler alert throughout and analysis: This show will have you immediately intrigued with the dynamic of the mother and daughter as they navigate this chaotic life on the run, like Bonnie and Clyde but between mother and daughter. The mysterious threat loomed over them for the entire season. As the show evolves, the threat does not seem to exist at all, and in brief moments, her daughter is fearful and confused by her mothers adamant decision to be on the run indefinitely without explaining who exactly is chasing them. The mother becomes erratic, hallucinating and rambling about conspiracies of her parents demise to justify her illogical decisions, which as the show develops, don’t make any sense. This is where it suddenly all clicked to me that this mother had shown signs from the very beginning of being a severely traumatized woman. This show explores the idea that childhood trauma victims may develop a few mental health issues and overlapping personality disorders. The mother shows signs of several personality disorders including schizophrenia and narcissism. With this in mind, her dynamic with her daughter is no longer cute or endearing, it’s concerning and triggering. There are signs of an inappropriate dynamic where she grooms her daughter in several ways to depend on her completely as she wraps her into her own cycle of fight or flight trauma. This show is about the subtle nuanced ways that generational trauma can affect a parent, even if they are well intentioned and want to break a generational curse. It’s about how a product of childhood trauma may be well intentioned but will develop disorders which, if untreated, can lead to an extremely volatile life, where a defenseless child will be the direct non consenting co-conspirator of the parent’s chaotic world. The deep unconditional love of a traumatized parent can become sinister, possessive, erratic, paranoid, manipulative where even crimes are justified as acts of love. This show is about a mother who is a victim of childhood abuse repeating a more nuanced form of abuse towards her daughter Bambi. This show explores the nuances of cyclical trauma and abuse. And again this is my theory but I think it adds a different perspective when appreciating this show for its more complex layers. I give it 4 stars because I really like Bambi but I don’t think her character has developed enough to sustain this show. She is clearly a very dependent child at the end of the season and it’s hard to imagine how she will navigate the show as the sole main character in the next season.